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Home Passes Payments to Bolster Scientific Analysis, Breaking With Senate

House Passes Bills to Bolster Scientific Research, Breaking With Senate

WASHINGTON — The House on Monday passed two bipartisan bills aimed at bolstering research and development programs in the United States, setting up a battle with the Senate over how best to invest in scientific innovation to strengthen American competitiveness.

The bills are the House’s answer to the sprawling Endless Frontier Act that the Senate overwhelmingly passed this month, which would sink unprecedented federal investments into a slew of emerging technologies in a bid to compete with China. But lawmakers who drafted the House measures took a different approach, calling for a doubling of funding over the next five years for traditional research initiatives at the National Science Foundation and a 7 percent increase for the Energy Department’s Office of Science.

The contrast reflected concerns among House lawmakers that the Senate bill placed an outsize and overly prescriptive focus on developing nascent technologies and on replicating Beijing’s aggressive moves to gain industrial dominance. Instead, the lawmakers argued, the United States should pour more resources into its own proven research and development abilities.

“If we are to remain the world leader in science and technology, we need to act now,” said Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Democrat of Texas and the chairwoman of the Science Committee. “But we shouldn’t act rashly. Instead of trying to copy the efforts of our emerging competitors, we should be doubling down on the proven innovation engines we have at the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.”

Lawmakers and their aides must try to reconcile the Senate-passed legislation with the two bills passed on Monday, prompting a major debate on Capitol Hill about industrial policy and how to strengthen American competitiveness, a goal with broad bipartisan support.

The two bills passed 345-67 and 351-68.

“One of the core disagreements or tensions between the House and the Senate version is that the Senate version is really focused on China,” said Robert D. Atkinson, the president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Ms. Johnson’s bills, he added, prioritize “more social policy issues,” including science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and climate change.

The House bills omit a number of provisions that are centerpieces of the Senate legislation, including $52 billion in emergency subsidies for semiconductor makers and a slew of trade provisions. Instead of creating regional technology hubs across the country, as the Senate measure would do, one of the House bills would establish a designated directorate for “science and engineering solutions” in the National Science Foundation.

While singling out several emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence and advanced computing, lawmakers on the House Science Committee have mostly focused on research and funding a holistic approach to scientific innovation.

“History teaches that problem-solving can itself drive the innovation that in turn spawns new industries and achieves competitive advantage,” Ms. Johnson wrote.

William A. Reinsch, the Scholl chair in international business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said with sections on public health challenges and the STEM work force, the House had taken “a broader definition of how to get our innovation capabilities up and running.”

The Senate legislation, passed by a vote of 68-32, was steered through the chamber by Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, a longtime China hawk who has been eager to enact what would be the most significant government intervention in industrial policy in decades. It was powered in large part by bipartisan concern about China’s chokehold on global supply chains, which has grown particularly acute amid shortages brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. President Biden applauded its passage and said that he hoped to sign it into law “as soon as possible.”

It would allocate hundreds of billions more into scientific research and development pipelines in the United States, create grants, and foster agreements between private companies and research universities to encourage breakthroughs in new technology.

As the legislation moved through the chamber, echoing similar concerns from lawmakers on the House Science Committee, senators shifted much of the $100 billion that had been slated for a research and development hub for emerging technologies at the National Science Foundation to basic research, as well as laboratories run by the Energy Department. The amount for cutting-edge research was reduced to $29 billion, with the rest of the original funds funneled toward research and labs.

Those changes may assuage House lawmakers as they seek to reconcile the two bills in the coming months.

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Biden Goals to Bolster U.S. Alliances in Europe, however Challenges Loom

Biden Aims to Bolster U.S. Alliances in Europe, but Challenges Loom

WASHINGTON – It shouldn’t be that difficult being an American leader visiting Europe for the first time since President Donald J. Trump.

But President Biden will face his own challenges as he leaves on Wednesday, especially as the United States faces a disruptive Russia and an emerging China as it seeks to reassemble and rally the shaken Western alliance after the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr. Biden, who will be coming to a series of summits backed by a successful vaccination program and a recovering economy, will spend the next week making sure America is back and ready to face the West again in a, as he calls it, leading an existential collision between democracies and autocracies.

The agenda includes meetings in the UK with leaders from the Group of 7 Nations, followed by visits to NATO and the European Union. On the last day of Mr Biden, he will hold his first meeting as President with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in Geneva.

Mr Biden’s overarching role is to convey the diplomatic serenity that eluded such gatherings during four years as Mr Trump destroyed longstanding relationships with close allies, threatened to withdraw from NATO, and hugged Mr Putin and other autocrats and admired her strength.

But the goodwill that Mr. Biden brings, simply by being not Mr. Trump papers, over persistent doubts about his durability, American reliability and the cost Europe is likely to pay. At 78, is Mr. Biden the last breath of an old-style internationalist foreign policy? Will Europe pay for a new Cold War with Russia? Will it be asked to sign up for a China Containment Policy? And will Mr. Biden deliver on the climate?

These questions will arise when he deals with disagreements over trade, new restrictions on investments and purchases in China, and his ever-evolving stance on a natural gas pipeline that will run directly from Russia to Europe, bypassing Ukraine.

Throughout this time, Mr. Biden will face European leaders who face the United States in a way it has not been since 1945, wondering where we are headed.

“You saw the state of the Republican Party,” said Barry Pavel, director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at Atlantic Council. “You saw January 6th. You know you could have another president in 2024.”

White House officials say that stable American diplomacy has finally returned, but of course they can no longer offer guarantees after January 2025. European officials are following the angry political clashes in the United States and finding that Mr Trump has his party firmly under control, he is barely faltering.

Days before Mr Biden’s departure, Republicans in Congress opposed the establishment of a bipartisan commission to investigate the Capitol Rebellion. Republican lawmakers applauds Mr Trump’s false claims that the 2020 elections were stolen. The Democrats are stalling in their efforts to pass sweeping laws to counter the Republican attacks on state suffrage.

Despite everything, Trump repeatedly points to a political comeback in four years.

“There is a concern about American politics,” said Ian Lesser, vice president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “Simple, what will happen in the midterm elections? Whether Trumpism will prove to be more permanent than Mr. Trump. What’s next in American politics? “

If the future of the United States is the long-term concern, dealing with a disruptive Russia is the immediate agenda. No part of the trip will be more expensive than a full-day meeting with Mr Putin.

Mr Biden called for the meeting – the first since Mr Trump accepted Putin’s denial of electoral interference at a summit in Helsinki, Finland three years ago – despite warnings from human rights activists that it would empower and encourage the Russian leader. Jake Sullivan, Mr Biden’s national security advisor, noted that American presidents met with their Soviet counterparts during the Cold War and then with their Russian successors. But on Monday he said Mr Biden would warn Mr Putin directly that without a change in behavior, there will be “answers”.

However, veterans of the Washington-Moscow battle say disrupting Putin is a true superpower.

“Putin doesn’t necessarily want a more stable or predictable relationship,” said Alexander Vershbow, who was ambassador to Russia under President George W. Bush. “The best case one can hope for is that the two leaders argue about many things but continue the dialogue.”

White House officials say the president has no intention of reshaping relations with Russia. After Mr Biden called Putin a “killer” earlier this year, he is clear about his adversary. They said: He regards Mr Putin as a die-hard mafia boss ordering beatings with the country’s nerve gas supplies than a national leader.

But Mr Biden is determined to guardrail the relationship and ensure some level of collaboration, starting with the future of their nuclear arsenals.

But there is a dawning awareness in Europe that while Putin values ​​his growing arsenal, Russia’s nuclear capabilities are a strategic holdover from an era of superpower conflict. In what Putin recently dubbed a new Cold War with the United States, the weapons of choice are cyber weapons, ransomware used by gangs operating out of Russian territory, and the ability to target neighbors like Ukraine by mass troops To shake the limit.

Mr Biden will adopt NATO and Article V of its charter, the section requiring every member of the alliance to view an armed attack on one as an armed attack on all. But it’s less clear what an armed attack is in the modern age: a cyberattack like the SolarWinds hacking that infiltrates corporate and government networks? The transfer of medium-range missiles and Russian troops to the border of Ukraine, which is not a NATO member?

Mr Biden’s staff say the key for him is to make it clear that he has seen Putin’s courage before and that it does not concern him.

“Joe Biden is not Donald Trump,” said Thomas E. Donilon, who was a national security adviser to President Barack Obama and whose wife and brother are important helpers to Mr. Biden. “You will not have this inexplicable reluctance of a US president to criticize a Russian president who runs a country that is actively hostile to the United States in so many areas. You won’t have that. “

However, when Mr Biden defines the current struggle as “a struggle between the benefits of 21st century democracies and autocracies,” he appears to be more concerned about China’s attractiveness as a trading partner and source of technology than Russia’s disruption. And while Europeans largely do not see China as the kind of growing technological, ideological, and military threat Washington is doing, that is an argument that Biden is starting to win.

The British have been using the largest fleet of their warships in the Pacific since the Falklands War almost 40 years ago. The idea is to restore at least one visitor presence in a region that was once part of his empire with stations in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand. At the same time, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has agreed to efforts by Washington – started by Mr Trump and accelerated by Mr Biden – to ensure Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications company, does not win new contracts to install 5G cellular networks in the UK.

Some in Europe are following suit, but Mr Biden’s advisors said they felt taken aback last year when the European Union announced an investment deal with China days before Mr Biden’s inauguration. It reflected fears that European companies would bear the brunt of the brunt if the continent were drawn into the US-China rivalry, starting with the luxury auto industry in Germany.

The future of the deal is unclear, but Biden is going the other way: last week he signed an executive order banning Americans from investing in Chinese companies affiliated with the country’s military or selling surveillance technology that is used to To suppress dissenting opinions or religious minorities inside and outside of China. But to be effective, the allies would have to join; So far, few have expressed enthusiasm for the effort.

Perhaps Biden’s commitment to tackling climate change can win over skeptics, even if he will wonder if he’s doing enough.

Four years ago, at Mr Trump’s first G7 meeting, six leaders reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris Agreement while the United States declared it was “unable to join the consensus”.

Reversing that stance, Mr Biden promises to cut US emissions 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade, and writes in a pre-summit comment in the Washington Post that the United States will be back on Sitting at the table, countries “have the opportunity to make ambitious progress”.

However, world leaders said they continued to be suspicious of the United States’ willingness to pass serious laws to tackle its emissions and deliver on financial promises to poorer countries.

“They showed the right approach, not necessarily as much as they could,” said Graça Machel, Mozambique’s former Minister of Education and Culture.

The key to achieving ambitious climate targets is China, which emits more than the US, Europe and Japan combined. Peter Betts, the former UK and European Union lead climate negotiator, said the test for Mr Biden is whether he can lead the G7 in a successful print campaign.

China, he said, “cares what developing countries think”.

Lisa Friedman contributed the reporting.

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Senate Poised to Cross $195 Billion Invoice to Bolster Competitiveness With China

Senate Poised to Pass $195 Billion Bill to Bolster Competitiveness With China

WASHINGTON – The Senate was on the verge of passing an expansive bill on Thursday to lead research and development into scientific innovation and fuel the first major government foray into industrial policy in decades to strengthen competitiveness with China.

Driven by growing fears from members of both parties that the United States will lose its lead over China and other authoritarian governments that have invested heavily in developing cutting-edge technologies, the measure would put around $ 195 billion in research in a wide variety of areas Flow sectors, including manufacturing and semiconductor industries.

The widespread support for the move reflected the bipartisan urgency to act amid a pandemic that has exposed Beijing’s bottleneck in critical supply chains, including a global semiconductor shortage that has shut down American auto factories and slowed consumer electronics shipments.

“If we don’t improve our game now, we will fall behind the rest of the world,” said New York Senator Chuck Schumer, majority leader and author of the bill. “That is what this legislation is ultimately about. Raise the ship. We invest in science and technology so that we can over-innovate, over-produce, and compete in the industries of the future, some of which we know and some of which we don’t know. “

The move, the result of a collaboration between Mr. Schumer and Indiana Republican Senator Todd Young, came together when a series of political changes produced a rare moment of consensus on the issue.

Mr Schumer, one of the Democratic Party’s fiercest China hawks in decades, was personally determined to use his new status as majority leader to enforce laws against Beijing. And a growing number of Republicans, led by former President Donald J. Trump, have put aside their party’s ancient orthodoxy against government interference in the economy and embraced the idea of ​​aggressive measures to help American companies compete with an emerging rival.

The legislation would prop up the struggling semiconductor industry by providing emergency funding for a $ 52 billion subsidy program while pouring hundreds of billions more into American scientific research and development pipelines, creating new grants, and agreements between private companies and research universities promotes to promote these breakthroughs in new technology.

However, it was unclear whether the bill – the popularity of which made it a magnet for industry lobbyists and legislators’ priorities for pets – could achieve its ambitious goals. A frenzied round of haggling watered down the legislation and reduced the amount of money for a concentrated center for research and development on new technologies from $ 100 billion to $ 29 billion. Instead, lawmakers have shifted much of that funding to the National Science Foundation’s traditional mission of basic research and laboratories in the Energy Department, rather than the new technology initiative.

The move was also weighed down by parish projects launched to gain broader support, including a new round of funding for NASA with terms likely to benefit Jeff Bezos’ space venture, a ban on the sale of shark fins, and a mandate for Identification of the country of origin for king crabs. At around 11:00 p.m. on Wednesday evening, the Senate added, with almost no debate, a section that would double the budget of the Agency for Advanced Defense Research Projects, a Pentagon research agency.

Hours before the legislation was due to be passed, the Senators were still drafting key components, such as a major trade measure that would re-approve an obsolete provision allowing the temporary suspension of tariffs on certain products imported into the United States. It would also direct the United States sales agent to negotiate forced labor and critical minerals agreements.

Mr Young, who made no secret of his disappointment over some changes to the measure at a recent hearing, said in an interview Thursday that the legislation is still “a significant increase in the funds we will see for applied research. ”

“We will be able to serve as a force multiplier in our efforts to counter China’s evil influence and activities,” he said.

Even so, partisan clashes plagued the legislation at the last minute after the Republicans. Fearing they would not have another chance to pass laws related to China, they urged Democrats to include more of their proposals.

At a closed lunch on Wednesday, Republicans tried to convince their colleagues to delay the passage of the bill. Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana argued that the process should be slowed down and nudged Mr. Schumer: The majority leader was moving as fast as if “walking around like a five-year-old in a Batman costume on Halloween,” Mr. Kennedy said by two people familiar with his remarks.

The Democrats had voted on more than a dozen Republican amendments, but a filibuster’s threat to block the legislation sparked one final round of closed-door haggling when leaders put out a 15-minute procedural vote for four hours.

Strong Republican support for the bill – particularly related to the decision to send $ 52 billion to chipmakers and fund a program created by Congress last year – was a paradigm shift in the party as Chinese hawks soar in Congress increasingly federal interventions in support of American manufacturing supported.

Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio went to the Senate hours before the vote, praising the results “the government and business partnership to resolve an urgent crisis of national concern” had produced during the pandemic, citing the rapid development of vaccines.

“When it comes to research and development technology, this is perhaps the greatest requirement that lies ahead of us,” he said. “The 21st century is determined by this contest between China and the United States, and it is a contest that we simply cannot win if we do not step forward and achieve it.”

Mr Rubio tried on Thursday to add stricter counter-espionage measures to the law, warning that it would be pointless to spend billions of dollars on research “if we allowed the Chinese to steal it”. However, this move did not earn the 60 votes required to be added to the bill.

To connect manufacturing centers and research universities in the United States, the legislation would allocate $ 10 billion to create regional technology centers to strengthen public-private partnerships and support emerging researchers and other workers.

“America’s technology-based economy needs all kinds of skilled workers, and the EFA will make sure we have them,” said the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, a group that campaigned for the law, in a statement using the acronym for the Endless Frontier Act.

The bill also contains a foreign policy roadmap for future engagement in China. She called on the Biden government to sanction those responsible for forced labor practices in and around Xinjiang and the Chinese government’s campaign against systematic rape and forced sterilization against the Uighur minorities in the region.

Approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, this piece of legislation includes measures to combat intellectual property violations and calls for a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

Emily Cochrane and Nicholas Fandos report.

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Biden Indicators Government Order to Bolster Federal Authorities’s Cybersecurity

Biden Signs Executive Order to Bolster Federal Government’s Cybersecurity

WASHINGTON – As the east coast suffered the effects of a ransomware attack on a major oil pipeline, President Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday that set tough new standards for the cybersecurity of software sold to the federal government.

The move is part of an overall effort to strengthen the defense of the United States by encouraging private companies to practice better cybersecurity or at risk of being banned from federal treaties. However, the bigger effect may come from what, over time, might look like a government safety rating for software products, similar to how cars get a safety rating or restaurants in New York get a health safety rating.

The contract comes amid a wave of new cyberattacks that are more sophisticated and far-reaching than ever before. Last year, around 2,400 ransomware attacks hit corporate, local and federal agencies in blackmail schemes that block or publish victims’ data unless they pay a ransom.

The most pressing fear is an attack on critical infrastructure, a point that Americans who panicked to buy gasoline became clear this week. A ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline’s information systems forced the company to shut down a critical pipeline that has been supplying 45 percent of the east coast’s gasoline, diesel and jet fuel for several days.

While every president since George W. Bush has issued new guidelines to strengthen the country’s digital defenses, Biden’s command is designed to dig deep into the private sector. And it’s far more detailed than any previous effort.

For the first time, the US will require all software purchased by the federal government to meet a set of new cybersecurity standards within six months. Although companies would have to self-certify, violations would be removed from federal procurement lists, which could affect their chances of selling their products in the commercial market.

The contract also sets up an incident review board, much like the teams that investigate aircraft accidents to learn lessons from major hacking episodes. The White House dictates that the first incident investigated will be the SolarWinds hack, in which Russia’s leading intelligence agency changed the computer code of an American company’s network management software. It gave Russia broad access to 18,000 agencies, organizations, and companies, mostly in the United States.

The new regulation also stipulates that all federal agencies must encrypt data, regardless of whether it is stored or transmitted – two very different challenges. When China stole 21.5 million files via federal employees and contractors who had security clearance in place, none of the files were encrypted so they could be easily read. (Chinese hackers, investigators later concluded, encrypted the files themselves – so as not to be discovered when they sent the sensitive records back to Beijing.)

Previous efforts to set minimum standards for software failed at Congress, particularly at a major showdown nine years ago. Small businesses have said the changes are not affordable and larger businesses have resisted an intrusive role the federal government plays in their systems.

But Mr Biden decided it was more important to act quickly than try to fight for broader mandates on Capitol Hill. Its staff said it was a first step, and industry officials said it was bolder than expected.

Updated

May 12, 2021, 7:36 p.m. ET

Amit Yoran, the executive director of Tenable and a former cybersecurity officer in the Department of Homeland Security, said the question everyone was wondering was whether Mr. Biden’s orders would stop the next Colonial or SolarWinds attacks.

“No politics, government initiative or technology can do that,” said Yoran. “But that’s a good start.”

Government officials have complained that Colonial had poor defenses, and although it built a hard shell around its computer networks, it had no way of monitoring an adversary who got inside. The Biden administration hopes that the standards set out in the Executive Ordinance, which require multifactor authentication and other protective measures, will become widespread and improve security worldwide.

Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, praised the order but said it should be followed by Congressional action.

Mr Warner said the recent attacks “have shown what has become increasingly apparent in recent years: that the United States is simply unwilling to fend off government sponsored or even criminal hackers who intend to compromise our systems for profit or espionage.” “

The new order is the first major public part of a multi-faceted review of defense, offensive, and legal strategies against opponents around the world. However, this arrangement focuses solely on deepening the defense in hopes of deterring attackers because they fear they will fail – or are at greater risk of being detected.

The Justice Department is setting up a new task force to take over ransomware. Now that it has been discovered in recent months that such attacks are more than just blackmail, they can topple economic sectors.

Mr Biden announced sanctions against Russia for the SolarWinds hack, and his national security adviser Jake Sullivan said there would be “invisible” consequences as well. So far, the United States has not taken similar action against the Chinese government because it was believed to have been involved in another attack and exploited loopholes in a Microsoft system used by large corporations around the world.

The Executive Order was first drafted in February in response to the SolarWinds intrusion. This attack was particularly nifty because hackers working for the Russian government managed to modify the company’s under development code that unsuspectingly distributed the malware in an update to its software packages. It was discovered during Mr Biden’s transition and led him to state that he could not trust the integrity of the federal computer systems.

Established under the Executive Ordinance, the review body is jointly chaired by the Minister of Homeland Security and a private sector official, based on the specific episode currently being investigated, in order to attract industry executives who fear the investigation could be fodder for lawsuits .

Since it was created by executive order rather than an act of Congress, the new body will not have the same extensive powers as a security body. However, officials remain confident that this will be helpful in identifying vulnerabilities, improving security practices, and pushing companies to invest more in improving their networks.

Much of the executive order focuses on information sharing and transparency. The aim is to reduce the time it takes for organizations that have been hacked or discover vulnerabilities to share this information with the Cyber ​​Security and Infrastructure Security Agency.

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NBC Sports activities Community Will Shut Right down to Bolster Peacock Streaming Service

NBC Sports Network Will Shut Down to Bolster Peacock Streaming Service

But the future of television is streaming, and Comcast is determined not to be left behind.

Comcast has shifted its strategy in the past few years to focus on its growing broadband internet business and launched Peacock as part of that effort. The ad-supported service, which is free but includes a paid tier, has attracted at least 22 million subscribers and now surpasses Comcast’s more traditional cable video business of 19 million subscribers.

NBCUniversal has already moved most of its Premier League broadcasts to Peacock, and adding more sports could give the company more leverage in negotiating bundling contracts with other broadband services.

The decision will have a significant impact on a number of upcoming legal negotiations.

For the past decade, NBCUniversal has paid an average of $ 200 million a year to be the only national NHL broadcaster in the US, with most of these games appearing on NBCSN. However, that deal expires after this season, and NBC’s agreement with the English Premier League expires a year later, in 2022.

A question that is likely to surface in future negotiations is whether NBCUniversal can find enough airtime on the NBC and USA networks to provide enough games for these leagues and others on traditional television – which retains the greatest reach – or whether the leagues The virtues of Peacock, which is still a relatively niche streaming service, can be resold.

Peacock is available to Comcast customers free of charge, but the company makes it available to other broadband providers as well. Most cable operators like Charter and Cox are now relying on the broadband business to grow and have bundled streaming services like Netflix into their internet packages. In this arrangement, the cable operators collect a fee from the streaming platforms.

For the past two decades, television broadcasters have required cable sports channels to act as a repository for the overflow of game broadcasts to which they have the rights. ESPN broadcasts so many games that there are now nine cable channels to show them all. However, a streaming service can display an infinite number of games at the same time, eliminating the primary uses of cable sports channels.

While entertainment programs shifted to streaming services in droves, the sport lagged, with the biggest leagues and events still being seen on traditional network television, but most of the games being played over cable. Only the smallest leagues have most of their programming available on streaming platforms – which makes them perhaps the most forward-looking.

Edmund Lee contributed to the coverage.