America COMPETES Act of 2022 passed House and Senate

Basically, it allocates a bunch of money for supply chain and production improvements.

* The America COMPETES Act authorizes the establishment of the Rebuilding Economies and Creating Opportunities for More People to Excel (RECOMPETE) pilot grant program at the Economic Development Administration to form and implement economic development strategies in distressed labor markets and communities to boost long-term economic growth and create lasting, quality jobs.

* The America COMPETES Act includes a substantial investment in funding for the National Science Foundation, directing investments to critical research-enabling infrastructure, including the Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure program.

* The America COMPETES Act directs funding to create a strategic transformer reserve, facilitate domestic manufacturing, and test critical electric grid equipment to reduce vulnerability and increase resiliency in the event of severe damage to the electrical grid.

* The America COMPETES Act includes funding to support research to advance the next generation of energy storage, solar, fusion energy, carbon capture, and bioenergy technologies, among many other areas, to promote clean energy technologies across America and help improve resiliency and modernization of our electrical grid.

* The legislation establishes a new grant program to improve our global competitiveness by increasing equitable access to computer-science education and computational-thinking skills for students enrolled in K-12 public schools.

* The America COMPETES Act also supports early-career scientists conducting research at the institutions of their choice, makes investments in clean energy technology research, and supports technology development at small businesses.

* The bill additionally authorizes $250 million over five years for a new grant program operated by the Department of Education to increase students’ access to postsecondary STEM “pathways” by exposing them to STEM coursework, reducing college costs, and improving postsecondary credit transfers – all Make It In America proposals

* The America COMPETES Act reauthorizes the National Apprenticeship Act and incentivizes new initiatives such as promoting diversity in apprenticeships and increasing women’s participation; encourages building new partnerships among labor unions, educational institutions, and industry to launch new apprenticeship tracks from classrooms and training centers into full-time jobs, all policies championed by Leader Hoyer as part of the Make It In America plan.

* The America COMPETES Act authorizes a telecommunications-sector workforce-training grant program, Improving Minority Participation and Careers in Telecommunications Act (IMPACT), for minority-serving institutions to develop job-training programs in partnership with industry, Registered Apprenticeships, or labor organizations.

* The bill also accelerates efforts to increase diversity and inclusion in STEM by providing research on participation and trajectories of historically underrepresented groups, raising awareness within federal science agencies and higher-education institutions about barriers faced by these groups, and identifies and implements best practices to lower these barriers while creating grants for higher-education institutions to implement reforms to increase diversity.

* The bill would establish a regional technology and innovation hub program at the Department of Commerce, to incentivize collaborative partnerships among local governments, colleges and universities, private industry, non-profits, and community organizations to promote and support regional technology and innovation hubs.

* The America COMPETES Act would establish a Mentor-Protégé Program within the Department of Homeland Security that would create opportunities for small businesses to compete in the Federal marketplace.

[0] https://www.majorityleader.gov/sites/democraticwhip.house.go...

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