Science and Technology Issues in the 117Th Congress
Science and Technology Issues in the 117th Congress May 5, 2021 Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov R46787 SUMMARY R46787 Science and Technology Issues in the 117th May 5, 2021 Congress Frank Gottron, The federal government supports scientific and technological advancement directly by funding Coordinator and performing research and development, and indirectly by creating and maintaining policies Specialist in Science and that encourage private sector efforts. Additionally, the federal government regulates many Technology Policy aspects of S&T activities. This report briefly outlines a key set of science and technology policy th issues that may come before the 117 Congress. Brian E. Humphreys, Coordinator Many of these issues carry over from previous Congresses, and represent areas of continuing Analyst in Science and Member interest. Examples include policies on taxation, trade, intellectual property, Technology Policy commercialization of basic scientific research and other overarching issues that affect scientific and technological progress. Other issues may represent new or rapidly evolving areas affected by the threats of pandemic diseases, climate change, and malicious cyber activities, among others. Examples covered in this report include infectious disease modeling and forecasting, digital contact tracing and digital exposure notification, hydrogen pipelines, and expansion of emerging information and communications technologies such as 5G. These and other S&T-related issues that may come before the 117th Congress are grouped into 10 categories. Overarching S&T Policy Issues, Agriculture, Biotechnology and Biomedical Research and Development, Climate Change and Water, Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, Information Technology, Physical and Material Sciences, and Space. Each of these categories includes concise analysis of multiple policy issues.
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