U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, will convene a full committee Executive Session on Wednesday, March 12, 2025, at 10:00 a.m. ET to consider the following nominations and legislation:
Nominees:
Michael Kratsios, of South Carolina, to be Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy
Mark Meador, of Virginia, to be a Federal Trade Commissioner
Kratsios vote 24-4: Cantwell, Klobuchar, Peters, Baldwin, Duckworth, Rosen, Lujan, Hickenlooper, Fetterman join Republicans in support. Markey, Kim, Schatz, and Blunt Rochester oppose.
S. 433, National Manufacturing Advisory Council Act (Peters)
S. 582, Astronaut Ground Travel Support Act (Cruz)
S. 613, Improving Flood and Agricultural Forecasts Act of 2025 (Schatz), to require the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere to maintain the National Mesonet Program
S. 759, Modernizing Access to Our Public Oceans Act (Cruz)
The hearing will assess the current threat to the U.S. research enterprise posed by malign foreign
actors. This includes the risk to federal, state, non-governmental institutions, and academia. The
hearing will explore trends and tactics used to steal, exploit, and undermine U.S. science,
research, development, and deployment.
Witnesses:
• John F. Sargent Jr., Retired, Specialist in Science and Technology Policy,
Congressional Research Service
• Jeffrey Stoff, Founder and President, Center for Research Security & Integrity
• Dr. Maria Zuber, E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and Presidential Advisor for
Science and Technology Policy, MIT
The billionaire class is waging a war on workers, putting our nation’s healthcare, research, education, and jobs at risk. These attacks target workers at colleges and universities in many ways: through imposing a cap on indirect costs on grants across the NIH, freezing funding for crucial research, and threatening academic workers across the country.
On Tuesday, February 25, we’re taking this massive energy directly to D.C. Register to join us in-person or online for a viewing party and national phone bank.
Labor leaders and organizers representing hundreds of thousands of higher education and allied workers will rally in D.C. to expose how Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s attacks on research and higher education funding are decimating public health while siphoning off public resources for private gain.
At the same time, higher ed workers and allies will join together online to get energized by each other and the events in Washington, D.C. We will use our power to tell our legislators and elected officials: Hands off our healthcare, research, jobs, and education!
Organized by the Labor for Higher Ed Coalition.
In-person: U.S. Health and Human Services Headquarters, 200 Independence Avenue SW
Subcommittee hearing on the Department of Energy national laboratories.
Witnesses:
Dr. John Wagner, Director, Idaho National Laboratory
Dr. Thom Mason, Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Dr. Paul Kearns, Director, Argonne National Laboratory
Dr. Kimberly Budil, Director, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren has sent letters to the heads of the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation requesting answers about the administration’s unconstitutional assault on federal science.
On Wednesday, February 5, 2025, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee will hold a
hearing to assess the current condition of the United States’s science and technology enterprise and its
vital role in the global innovation race. By examining the United States’ public and private investments,
the Committee will also have the opportunity to discuss key objectives and strategies for maintaining
U.S. leadership in driving future advancements.
Heather Wilson, President, The University of Texas at El Paso and Former Secretary of the U.S. Air Force
Walter Copan, Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer, Colorado School of Mines and Former Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology
Dr. Sudip Parikh, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Publisher, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Samuel Hammond, Chief Economist, Foundation for American Innovation
$408 million for the Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy
$20 million for the Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy and
Carbon Management
$1.08 billion in general funds for Department of Energy National
Laboratories, including
$377 million for Office of Science
$210 million for Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
$40 million for Office of Nuclear Energy
$190 million for Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management
$102 million for the Office of Environmental Management
$2 billion for fusion research and development
$1.1 billion for Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
demonstration projects, including wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower,
vehicles, bioenergy, and building technologies
$70 million for a new Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute
$52.5 million for university nuclear reactor research
$10 million for demonstration projects on reducing the environmental
impacts of fracking
wastewater
$20 million for the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity
$50 million for the Office of the Inspector General
Environmental Protection Agency
$264 million to conduct environmental research and development
activities related to climate change, including environmental justice
FEMA
$798 million for Assistance to Firefighters Grants
NASA ($4.4 billion)
$4 billion for infrastructure and maintenance
$388 million for climate change research and development
NIST ($4.2 billion)
$1.2 billion for scientific and technical research, including
resilience to natural hazards including wildfires, and greenhouse gas
and other climate-related measurement
$2 billion for American manufacturing support
$1 billion for infrastructure and maintenance
NOAA ($4.2 billion)
$1.2 billion for weather, ocean, and climate research and forecasting
$265 million to develop and distribute actionable climate information
for communities in an equitable manner
$500 million to recruit, educate, and train a “climate-ready”
workforce
$70 million for high-performance computing
$224 million for phased-array radar research and development
