§3718 President’s Council on Innovation and Competitiveness

Summary

The President must create a President’s Council on Innovation and Competitiveness. The Council must watch how laws and programs affect innovation, advise the President about global trends and how to use federal money for education, job training, and tech research, and work with the Office of Management and Budget to make rules that use metrics to measure policy effects. It must find chances to improve innovation, make recommendations to agency heads, track how those recommendations are carried out, develop measures of progress (like talent, investment, and infrastructure), and send an annual report to the President and Congress. The Council is made up of the heads of 16 named departments and agencies (including Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, HHS, Homeland Security, Labor, Treasury, NASA, SEC, NSF, USTR, OMB, OSTP, EPA, and SBA) plus any other department or agency the President chooses. The Secretary of Commerce will chair the Council, must coordinate with the National Economic Council, the National Security Council, and the National Science and Technology Council, and will call meetings at least twice a year. The Council’s first meeting must happen no later than 6 months after August 9, 2007. The Council must make a detailed plan to strengthen innovation and competitiveness across the federal government, state governments, universities, and private industry. That plan must assess current research and development strengths and weaknesses, give recommendations to stay a world leader in R&D and technology (including ways to increase participation in STEM from groups named in sections 1885a and 1885b of title 42), and suggest ways to strengthen capabilities across sectors. The National Academy of Sciences must, within 30 days after August 9, 2007, give the President a list of 50 people recommended as advisors. The President must pick 50 advisors within 30 days after that list is sent. The Council must work with these advisors. The Council must send the first comprehensive plan to Congress and the President within 1 year after August 9, 2007, update it at least once every 2 years, and the President may instead ask an existing council to do this work.