§13503 Supporting research and technical analysis

Summary

The Secretary must keep a strong basic energy sciences program that pays for research, builds and runs user facilities, and helps develop energy technologies. The program must focus on making energy use more efficient and on learning more about materials, chemistry, geology, and related science. The Secretary must build and operate user facilities for universities, industry, and labs, allow foreign researchers when there is reciprocity or a national interest, and may not change user fee rules that were in place on October 1, 1991 without giving Congress 90 days’ notice. The law authorizes building the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne and requires the Secretary to speed the design of the Advanced Neutron Source at Oak Ridge and send Congress a design plan and construction schedule within 90 days after October 24, 1992. Cost sharing is not required for research under this part except for existing cooperative agreements, user facility fees, or projects that mainly benefit a particular industry. The Secretary must also fund upgrades for university research reactors and report within 1 year after October 24, 1992 with a 5-year upgrade plan, evaluate DOE science and math education programs, support technology transfer at National Laboratories with a funding report due within 1 year after October 24, 1992, and create a least-cost plan for fixing, closing, changing, or building lab facilities with a facilities plan due within 1 year after October 24, 1992 that puts safety first, then repair, then program-driven changes. The law authorizes $966,804,000 for fiscal year 1993 and whatever is needed for fiscal year 1994 for these activities. The Secretary must run EPSCoR (the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) to help States that get little Federal R&D money build research capacity. EPSCoR’s goals are to grow the number of competitive researchers, strengthen university research and education, and increase chances of getting long-term funding. The law defines a few terms: eligible jurisdiction means a State eligible for EPSCoR grants; EPSCoR means the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research; National Laboratory is as defined in section 15801; and State includes States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. EPSCoR grants may fund applied energy work, environmental management, and basic science, and can support partnerships with National Laboratories, scholarships and fellowships, early-career researcher grants, annual research implementation grants, research clusters, and workforce diversity efforts. Undergraduate scholarships are for 1 year (renewable), graduate fellowships may last up to 5 years, early-career and institutional grants may run up to 5 years and can be renewed once, and equipment grants may buy instruments costing from $500,000 to $20,000,000 that should be maintainable without extra funding. EPSCoR grants do not require cost sharing, but may ask for letters of commitment from National Laboratories. The Secretary must send an EPSCoR implementation plan within 270 days after January 1, 2021, update it by 270 days after August 9, 2022, arrange an independent assessment within 5 years, and report results and yearly program data to Congress. EPSCoR funding is authorized at $50,000,000 for FY2023, $50,000,000 for FY2024, $75,000,000 for FY2025, $100,000,000 for FY2026, and $100,000,000 for FY2027, plus $25,000,000 each year for FY2023–2027 for certain equipment grants, and the Office of Science should aim to award at least 10 percent of its annual higher-education R&D funds to institutions in eligible jurisdictions.