Congress Tees up Tech Directorate to Compete with China (ChinaTalk Column)
Categories Project, Publication
I wrote a guest column for the ChinaTalk newsletter about the NSF “Tech Directorate” provisions in the recently signed “CHIPS and Science Act.”
The final iteration of the Tech Directorate reflects a compromise between the House and Senate tech competition bills that has been over a year in the making. Differences in approach between the House and Senate reflected different diagnoses of the problem. The Senate, worried that U.S. leadership in key technology areas “is under pressure from China and is eroding,” sought to strengthen U.S. competitiveness. The House, concerned that the NSF’s research was too theoretical, sought to increase the NSF’s contributions to societal challenges such as climate change and public health. Both chambers wanted to create a Tech Directorate that would bolster U.S. applied research and workforce development for key technologies, but due in part to different diagnoses of the problem, the House and Senate disagreed about legislative specificity and “authorization” levels for the Tech Directorate. Since the Tech Directorate is a substantial policy change, Congress would use this first bill to “authorize” spending, which would then still have to be appropriated in the next budget cycle.