House Committee Votes to Increase Funding for Energy’s DARPA by $2.9B

House Committee Votes to Increase Funding for Energy’s DARPA by $2.9B

The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology advanced a bill to significantly increase funding for the Energy Department’s bleeding-edge research office despite several attempts from the administration to cut funding for the program.


All totaled, the legislation would add nearly $2.9 billion to the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy over the next five years and insert safeguards to ensure the program isn’t duplicating research in other areas of government or the private sector.


“Too many good ideas are falling by the wayside,” Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, said at a committee markup Thursday. “And that ends up stifling the enormous potential of this program. H.R. 4091 addresses this problem by authorizing substantial growth and support for this agency over the next five years.”


The original bill submitted to the committee in July would have added $550 million to the fund in fiscal 2021, increasing annually until the allocation hit $1 billion in 2024.


Under a compromise agreement between committee Democrats and Republicans, ARPA-E would receive $497 million in 2021, increasing more gradually to $750 million in 2024.


ARPA-E was initially funded at $400 million, which was later supplemented by $180 million in fiscal 2011 and $275 million in 2012, rising incrementally each year to a $366 million in 2019.


“With this amendment, we’ll double our investment in ARPA-E’s high-risk, high-reward research over five years—but we’ll also establish important guardrails to ensure we’re using our limited research dollars wisely and efficiently,” said Ranking Member Frank Lucas, R-Okla.


Lucas noted the amended bill requires grantees to prove they have sought funding from the private sector before coming to the government. The bill also provides mechanisms to ensure ARPA- ..

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