§3718 President’s Council on Innovation and Competitiveness

Summary

The President must create a President’s Council on Innovation and Competitiveness. The Council will watch how laws and policies affect innovation, including research funding, taxes, immigration, trade, and education. It will advise the President about global trends and how to spend federal money on education, job training, and technology research. Working with the Office of Management and Budget, the Council will make measures to check how policies affect U.S. innovation. It will find chances to improve innovation, give recommendations to agency heads, track how those recommendations are carried out, make metrics to measure federal progress, and send an annual report to the President and Congress. The Council must meet twice a year when the Chair calls the meeting. The Secretary of Commerce will be the Chair. Members are the heads of Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Labor, Treasury, NASA, the SEC, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Trade Representative, OMB, OSTP, EPA, the Small Business Administration, and any other agency the President names. The first meeting must happen within 6 months after August 9, 2007. The Council must write a comprehensive agenda to make the U.S. stronger at innovation. The agenda must assess U.S. research and development investments, give recommendations to fix problems and keep the U.S. a world leader, include plans to increase participation of the people named in section 1885a or 1885b of title 42 in STEM fields, and offer ways for government, schools, and business to improve. The National Academy of Sciences must give the President a list of 50 recommended advisors within 30 days after August 9, 2007. The President then must pick 50 advisors within 30 days after getting that list. The Council will work with those advisors. The finished agenda must be sent to Congress and the President within 1 year after August 9, 2007, and must be updated at least every 2 years. Instead of starting a new group, the President may assign an existing council to do this work.