On January 15, 2009, Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN) and other members of the House Science and Technology Committee introduced H.R. 554, the National Nanotechnology Initiative Amendments Act of 2009.  The 2009 bill is identical to the NNI reauthorization bill that passed the House in June 2008 but languished in the Senate after the Committee’s ranking republican, Senator Ted Stevens, resigned from the Committee shortly before the scheduled markup.  The Committee’s timely reintroduction of the NNI reauthorization bill should be an encouraging sign for cleantech advocates that see nanotechnologies as critical to narrowing the cost and efficiency gaps between green and fossil fuels.

The NNI reauthorization bill is not in itself a funding mechanism - indeed, most NNI-participating Agencies would still receive most of their nanotech funding through Agency-specific appropriations.  The NNI-reauthorization bill complements the funding decisions Congress will make, however, by improving the federal approach to nanotechnology research, coordination, and oversight.  Key provisions would:

• Update the centralized coordination and oversight framework for the President’s National Science and Technology Council, the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO), the federal agencies that comprise the Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology (NSET) Subcommittee, and other government and third party organizations tasked with directing and assessing the performance of federal nanotechnology efforts.
• Use the NNI’s strategic planning processes to target federal research priorities including health and safety research as well as “areas of national importance” starting with energy efficiency, nano-electronics, health care, and water remediation as “areas of national importance;”
• Increase the transparency of federal nanotechnology efforts by establishing publicly accessible databases of federal projects and supporting nanotechnology education and outreach; and
• Expedite commercialization of promising nanotechnologies by coordinating with industry and states on the results of core data sets and by sharing access to federal laboratory resources and infrastructure.

By reintroducing a well-vetted bill only 9 days into the new Congress, Chairman Gordon may be laying the groundwork for bundling the NNI reauthorization bill with whatever green stimulus package emerges from the House. This strategy would marry an injection of funds to the cleantech industry with improvements to the federal program promoting the use of nanotechnology in such cleantech applications.  At a time when Americans are paying particularly close scrutiny to the way federal funds are allocated and administered, this appears to be a sensible approach.

For further information about this topic, please contact Akin Gump.