Senate Commerce Pulls Endless Frontier Markup Wednesday

The Senate Commerce Committee pulled the Endless Frontier Act (S-1260) from its planned Wednesday executive session (see 2104230076), a committee spokesperson confirmed Tuesday. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., viewed the recently refiled, $112 billion measure as a linchpin for a coming legislative package aimed at countering Chinese competition in tech R&D (see 2104210070). Commerce decided to pull S-1260 from its markup session after committee members filed more than 230 proposed amendments, aides said. The delay was needed to allow more time “for some consensus” to develop, Senate Commerce ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., told reporters. A “pause was needed,” but that doesn’t reflect any real hesitations among senators, lead S-1260 GOP sponsor Sen. Todd Young of Indiana said during a Washington Post webcast Tuesday. “There are additional things they would like to add to this legislation or amend.” Reaching a bipartisan consensus often requires lawmakers to “crowd in as many good ideas as you can” to ensure “the best possible work product,” he said. “All of this will be aired” via the committee process. A Young spokesperson said it’s likely Commerce brings S-1260 back up for a vote after a one-week chamber recess, expected to end May 10. House Science Committee Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, opposed S-1260 in an Issues in Science and Technology opinion piece Tuesday, suggesting her National Science Foundation for the Future Act (HR-2225) as an alternative. She singled out S-1260’s proposal to create a Technology Directorate within NSF as a concern, saying “the goal should not be to wall the directorate off from the rest of NSF, but to make it a productive partner with rest of” NSF. “There is also a big risk in creating a ‘shiny new object’ that gets the attention of policymakers to the detriment of NSF’s fundamental research mission,” Johnson said. “I am particularly concerned by” S-1260’s “authorization of $100 billion over five years just for this new directorate, at an agency currently funded below $9 billion per year, without an overall authorization for NSF and its mission to advance fundamental research across all areas of science and engineering.” House Commerce Committee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., also criticized S-1260 Tuesday. The bill, “which tries to beat the Chinese Communist Party at their own game of expansive government subsidies,” is “not how we will win the future,” she said. “I share the goal of increasing America’s global competitive edge, but creating new, duplicative multi-billion dollar programs is not the answer.”