§188 Conduct of Research, Development, Demonstration, Testing and Evaluation

Summary

The Secretary, through the Under Secretary for Science and Technology, must run research, testing, and evaluation programs both outside and inside the government. For outside work, the Secretary must fund projects that include colleges, universities, private research institutes, and companies from as many parts of the country as possible. The Secretary must make sure the work is high quality using merit reviews and must give money by grants, cooperative agreements, or contracts. The Secretary must also pick one or more university-based homeland security centers to build a coordinated university system. Schools chosen should show expertise in things like first responder training; responding to weapons of mass destruction and biological threats; emergency and medical services; chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear detection and countermeasures; animal and plant health; food and water safety; port, transportation, and border security; information security and engineering; and public outreach and policy. The Secretary can drop or add selection criteria if needed for security, but must publish any changes and the reasons in the Federal Register on the day of designation. The Secretary must report to Congress every year about which centers were chosen and how those choices help homeland security. Funding is authorized as needed. For inside-the-government work, the Secretary may use any federal laboratory and may set up a headquarters laboratory and other lab units. If a headquarters lab is created, the Secretary must make selection rules with help from the National Academy of Sciences and other experts, publish those rules, compare candidate sites to the rules, pick a site, and tell Congress which site was chosen, why it meets the rules, and what it will do. The chosen headquarters lab cannot start operating until 30 days after that report goes to Congress. The law prefers U.S. industry: a “country of concern” means a country listed under 10 U.S.C. 4872(d) or one the Secretary finds harmful to U.S. security. Waivers of certain U.S.-manufacture rules (under 35 U.S.C. 204) can be granted case-by-case if a small business or nonprofit shows it tried but could not find U.S. licensees or U.S. manufacture is not feasible, but the Secretary must follow the procedures in section 70923(b)(2) of the Build America, Buy America Act before granting a waiver. No waiver may be given if it would let the product be made mainly in a country of concern.