H.R. 1368 — DOE and NASA Interagency Research Coordination Act

This section establishes the short title of the Act as the “DOE and NASA Interagency Research Coordination Act.”

This section establishes a Department of Energy and National Aeronautics and Space Administration research and development coordination program to support agency mission requirements and priorities. It authorizes the Secretary of Energy and the NASA Administrator to carry out cross-cutting collaborative research and development activities, including competitive awards, through memoranda of understanding or other interagency agreements. As background, the provision identifies several focus areas for collaboration, including (1) propulsion systems and components, such as nuclear thermal and nuclear electric propulsion, radioisotope power systems, thermoelectric generators, advanced nuclear fuels, and heater units; (2) modeling and simulation, machine learning, data assimilation, large-scale data analytics, and predictive analysis; (3) fundamental high energy physics, astrophysics, and cosmology; (4) fundamental earth and environmental sciences; (5) quantum information sciences, including quantum computing and quantum network infrastructure under 15 U.S.C. §§ 8853 and 8854; (6) radiation health effects; and (7) ground- and space-based technology for transmitting space-collected solar energy to Earth. It also permits collaboration in other areas the agencies determine are important to their missions, and directs the agencies to develop methods for handling large voluntary data sets on space and aeronautical information, promote data sharing and secure information transfer, and support NASA’s access to Department of Energy research infrastructure and capabilities, as practicable. The section further authorizes the agencies to enter into reimbursable and non-reimbursable agreements with each other and to collaborate with other federal agencies, as appropriate. It requires any competitive awards to use merit-review-based selection processes and to consider applications from federal agencies, national laboratories, institutions of higher education, nonprofit institutions, and other appropriate entities. Finally, this section requires the Secretary and the NASA Administrator to submit a report to specified House and Senate committees not later than 2 years after enactment detailing coordination activities, technical capability gains, collaborative achievements, future mutually beneficial activities, including potential clean energy applications such as marine energy, and the continuation of coordination activities. It also requires the activities to be carried out consistently with federal research security requirements under subtitle D of title VI of the Research and Development, Competition, and Innovation Act (42 U.S.C. 19231 et seq.).