Science, Technology & Space

Congress must establish by statute a mandatory federal civilian R&D investment floor of no less than 1.5% of GDP, with NIH protected at 0.5% of GDP and all civilian science budgets insulated from executive impoundment

Federal civilian research and development investment as a share of GDP has declined from a peak of approximately 1.9% in the mid-1960s to roughly 0.7% in recent years — a structural erosion that has persisted across administrations and reflects the ratchet dynamic of repeated discretionary cuts that are each individually small but cumulatively catastrophic.^[1] The CHIPS and Science Act (Pub. L. 117-167, 2022) authorized substantial NSF and NIST funding expansions but established no mandatory investment floor — authorizations are discretionary, and actual appropriations have consistently fallen below authorized levels since enactment.^[2] The United States invests approximately 3.5% of GDP in total R&D when private sector spending is included, but private sector research is overwhelmingly applied and near-term, not basic. The early-stage basic and applied research that produces the foundational breakthroughs private industry later commercializes — the internet, GPS, mRNA vaccine technology platforms, the Human Genome Project — requires patient, long-horizon public investment that market incentives do not sustain because the payoff horizon is too long and the benefits too broadly distributed to capture in a product. Congress must: (a) establish by statute that federal civilian R&D investment — through NSF, NIH, DOE Office of Science, NIST science programs, NASA science programs, and equivalent civilian research agencies — must constitute no less than 1.5% of GDP annually, with the floor reviewed upward every five years against international benchmarks and competing-nation investment levels; (b) establish NIH funding as a protected mandatory appropriation constituting no less than 0.5% of GDP annually, not subject to across-the-board discretionary cuts, sequestration, or continuing resolution freezes; (c) create a multi-year forward appropriation mechanism — analogous to the Federal Aviation Administration's reauthorization structure — that insulates federal science agency budgets from year-to-year executive impoundment, continuing resolution freezes, and budget sequestration, requiring affirmative Congressional action to reduce below-floor levels; (d) prohibit any political appointee in any executive branch office, including the Office of Management and Budget, from impounding or deferrring below-floor allocations to federal science agencies without affirmative Congressional authorization within 30 days. Scientific capacity, once eroded, is not rebuilt in a single appropriations cycle: researchers trained at federal expense leave for the private sector or other countries; programs cancelled mid-stream lose years of sunk investment; the graduate student pipeline in fields dependent on federal funding contracts. A statutory investment floor is a structural safeguard against the political economy of discretionary cuts.

1. National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. (2023). Federal funds for research and development: Fiscal years 2021–23 (NCSES 23-314). https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf23314/ ↩
2. CHIPS and Science Act, Pub. L. 117-167, 136 Stat. 1366 (2022). https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4346 ↩

Political interference with federal scientific findings must be criminalized and federal scientists must have a private right of action against officials who materially alter or suppress their published research

Documented instances of political interference with federal scientific publications include: the 2020 direction by HHS political appointees to CDC to revise or delay Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) articles on COVID-19 transmission, documented in contemporaneous communications and subsequent Inspector General reporting; the alteration of National Hurricane Center forecast graphics in 2019 to indicate Alabama as within a storm's projected path in contradiction to the agency's official forecast, followed by direction to NOAA to validate the politically altered graphic rather than its own meteorologists' findings; and the systematic removal of climate data, scientific assessments, and public health information from EPA, CDC, and other federal agency websites.^[1] These incidents represent a documented pattern of political officials treating federal scientific findings as public communications to be managed rather than records to be preserved and disseminated. Congress must: (a) amend the False Statements Act (18 U.S.C. § 1001) to explicitly criminalize the knowing alteration or directed suppression of a federal scientific report, dataset, public health finding, or regulatory assessment by any federal official or employee acting under political direction, with a penalty of up to five years' imprisonment per count; (b) create a Federal Scientific Integrity Commission, structurally independent of the executive branch and staffed by career scientists with fixed terms, with subpoena authority and the power to refer criminal violations to the Department of Justice and to publish public findings of scientific misconduct by federal officials regardless of their rank; (c) grant federal scientists employed by any federal research or regulatory agency a private right of action — including reinstatement, back pay, compensatory damages, and attorney's fees — against any official who materially alters, suppresses, or retaliates against them for publishing scientific findings consistent with agency protocols and scientific standards; (d) require automatic simultaneous transmission of all federal scientific findings, datasets, and data releases to a permanent digital archive at the Library of Congress at the moment of any executive branch release, making post-publication suppression or website removal legally ineffective — the record is preserved regardless of what the agency later does with its website. Scientific integrity in government is not merely an academic concern: public health guidance, environmental regulations, food safety standards, and emergency response decisions are all downstream of federal scientific findings. When those findings are manipulated for political purposes, the downstream decisions are corrupted and lives are put at risk.

1. Union of Concerned Scientists. (2020). The state of science in the Trump era: Damage done, lessons learned, and how to move forward. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/state-science-trump-era ↩

Federal agencies must base major regulatory decisions on peer-reviewed science; agencies that reject peer-reviewed consensus must publish contrary evidence and submit to independent scientific panel review

Federal agencies issuing major rules, public health guidance, environmental standards, or risk assessments must ground those actions in peer-reviewed scientific evidence. Where established peer-reviewed consensus exists, an agency may not issue a rule materially inconsistent with that consensus unless it: (a) publishes the full body of contrary evidence on which it relies; (b) submits that evidence within 90 days to an independent scientific panel with no financial or professional relationship to the regulated industry; and (c) demonstrates that the contrary evidence meets the minimum methodological quality standards established under STS-FND-003. Any person harmed by a final agency action that a court finds was based on materially non-peer-reviewed, suppressed, or falsified science has a private right of action for injunctive relief and compensatory damages against the agency and, where political direction is demonstrated, against the responsible official in their individual capacity.

Peer review is the minimum quality filter for evidence-based governance. The OMB Peer Review Bulletin (2004) provides the existing executive-branch framework; this rule makes compliance mandatory and adds a private right of action that the bulletin lacks.

All federal climate policy must be consistent with current IPCC findings unless the agency produces superior peer-reviewed evidence; the precautionary standard governs where genuine scientific uncertainty exists

All federal agency regulatory actions, scientific assessments, and policy decisions bearing on climate change must be consistent with the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) synthesis report unless the agency produces superior, independently peer-reviewed evidence supporting a different scientific conclusion. Where an agency proposes departing from IPCC findings, it must: (a) publish the full basis for that departure; (b) submit its contrary scientific conclusions to independent expert review within 90 days; and (c) certify in the administrative record that the departure is not attributable to political direction, industry input, or budgetary considerations. Where genuine scientific uncertainty exists — as distinct from established consensus — federal agencies must apply the precautionary standard: they must act to protect public health and the environment from the more severe projected outcome rather than defer action pending resolution of uncertainty. IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), Synthesis Report (March 2023) is the current controlling document; this standard auto-updates on issuance of each subsequent IPCC synthesis report.

The precautionary standard is a tie-breaker under genuine uncertainty — not a license for unlimited regulatory action — consistent with Rio Declaration Principle 15 (1992) and the standard applied in EU environmental and health regulation.

Authors of federally funded research must retain copyright in their published work; exclusive copyright assignment to commercial publishers must be prohibited as a condition of federal grants

The standard academic publishing contract requires researchers — including those whose work was entirely funded by federal taxpayers through NSF, NIH, DOE, and other agencies — to assign exclusive copyright in the resulting article to the commercial publisher as a condition of publication.^[1] The effect is that publicly funded research becomes legally encumbered property of a private corporation. That corporation then charges libraries — including university libraries and public libraries that also depend on public funding — subscription fees of hundreds or thousands of dollars per journal per year to access research whose creation they had no role in financing. The OSTP's 2022 memo directing federal agencies to require zero-embargo open access for federally funded research (the Nelson Memo) addresses the access side of the problem: it requires that the research be publicly accessible without charge.^[2] It does not address the copyright side: publishers may comply with open access mandates while still holding the copyright, which prevents reuse, adaptation, and redistribution even by the authors who created the work. Congress must: (a) prohibit as a condition of any federal research grant the assignment of exclusive copyright in any publication arising from that grant to any publisher, whether commercial or nonprofit — authors may license publishers for specific publication purposes but may not transfer exclusive rights; (b) require that all publications arising from federally funded research be published under a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY) or equivalent open license that allows any person to reproduce, adapt, and redistribute the work with attribution and without additional payment; (c) require all federal grant-receiving institutions (universities, research hospitals, national laboratories) to adopt author-rights language in their institutional publication policies that takes precedence over publisher contract clauses, and to provide legal resources to assist researchers in asserting their retained rights; (d) amend the Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 105) to extend its federal-works provision to works created with majority federal funding, making such works automatically public domain upon publication in the same manner that works created by federal government employees are public domain. The research pipeline runs from public funding to private enclosure. Copyright reform closes the loop: publicly funded research becomes a public good.

1. Larivière, V., Haustein, S., & Mongeon, P. (2015). The oligopoly of academic publishers in the digital era. PLOS ONE, 10(6), e0127502. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127502 ↩
2. Office of Science and Technology Policy. (2022, August 25). Memorandum on ensuring free, immediate, and equitable access to federally funded research [Nelson Memo]. Executive Office of the President. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/08-2022-OSTP-Public-Access-Memo.pdf ↩

NASA must maintain at minimum two independently certified commercial crew providers for any crewed space transportation service; single-vendor lock-in for crewed launch capability is a national security and safety disqualification

The Commercial Crew Program was designed to create competitive market discipline in crewed launch services by certifying multiple providers. That competition produces both price discipline and redundancy: if one provider's vehicle is grounded following an anomaly, the program continues. The termination of Boeing CST-100 Starliner as a viable commercial crew alternative following the 2024 design issues that stranded crew members on ISS — combined with the earlier grounding-related gaps — left the United States with no crewed launch redundancy for a critical period.^[1] A NASA OIG report (IG-21-018) had already documented the cost and schedule risks arising from sole-source commercial crew dependence: when there is only one certified provider, all negotiating leverage shifts to the provider, per-seat costs increase dramatically, and mission timelines are entirely dependent on a single commercial entity's production schedule.^[2] Congress must: (a) require by statute that NASA maintain no fewer than two independently certified commercial crew providers capable of crewing and decrewing the International Space Station and any successor crewed national laboratory in orbit at all times; (b) prohibit NASA from allowing commercial crew certification to lapse for any certified provider without immediately initiating an emergency procurement to certify a replacement, with bridge funding provided through a mandatory reserve appropriation; (c) require that crewed launch services be competitively procured across all certified providers for all task order awards, with no single provider receiving more than 75% of task order volume in any 24-month period absent a documented emergency; (d) require that commercial crew certification standards, test requirements, and anomaly investigation protocols be established by career NASA safety engineers, not negotiated with providers as part of contract terms, and that no political appointee have authority to waive or modify certification standards without the affirmative concurrence of the NASA Chief Safety Officer. Crewed space transportation is not a consumer product. The United States government has an obligation to the crew, to the taxpayer, and to the continuity of the national space program to maintain genuine redundancy — not the nominal possibility of future competition, but certified, operational, ready alternatives.

1. NASA Office of Inspector General. (2021). NASA's management of the commercial crew program (IG-21-018). https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-21-018.pdf ↩
2. NASA Office of Inspector General. (2021). NASA's management of the commercial crew program (IG-21-018). https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-21-018.pdf ↩

The United States must lead negotiations for a binding international space debris treaty establishing strict liability for debris-generating events, mandatory active deorbit requirements, and a multilateral orbital commons governance body

In 1978, NASA scientists Donald Kessler and Burton Cour-Palais published the foundational analysis of what is now known as Kessler syndrome: the threshold density of orbital debris above which collision cascades become self-sustaining, destroying operational satellites and rendering entire orbital shells unusable for decades to centuries.^[1] That threshold is not theoretical future risk; NASA's Orbital Debris Quarterly News has documented for decades the steady accumulation of tracked debris objects — currently exceeding 27,000 objects larger than 10 cm and an estimated 1 million objects 1–10 cm that cannot be individually tracked but are sufficient to disable spacecraft on impact.^[2] The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 establishes national responsibility for space activities including by non-governmental entities (Article VI) and absolute liability for damage caused by space objects (Article VII, amplified by the Liability Convention of 1972), but the Liability Convention's practical application requires a diplomatic claims process between states that is slow, contested, and entirely unequal to the pace of commercial constellation deployment. SpaceX alone has received FCC authorization for constellations potentially exceeding 40,000 satellites. The existing governance framework was designed for an era of a few dozen state-operated satellites; it cannot govern an era of privately operated megaconstellations. The United States must: (a) lead the negotiation of a binding multilateral treaty that establishes strict financial liability — not diplomatic claims, but direct, enforceable financial liability — for any operator whose satellite generates a debris field through failure to comply with deorbit requirements or through an anomaly attributable to design, manufacturing, or operational negligence; (b) require by domestic law that any satellite licensed by the FCC or launched with U.S. government assistance carry sufficient propellant and active deorbit capability to bring the satellite out of orbit within 5 years of end-of-life, with financial bonds posted in advance sufficient to cover the cost of emergency deorbit by a third party if the operator fails; (c) require all commercial megaconstellation operators to participate in a multilateral space traffic management system administered under UN COPUOS, contribute funding proportional to their constellation size, and comply with conjunction assessment and avoidance protocols established by the system; (d) prohibit the FCC from authorizing any satellite constellation of more than 100 operational satellites unless the operator has submitted a binding, bonded deorbit plan covering the full constellation lifecycle. The orbital commons are a finite shared resource. The United States has both the greatest space presence and the greatest interest in preserving orbital access for future generations. Leadership requires binding international obligations, not aspirational guidelines.

1. Kessler, D. J., & Cour-Palais, B. G. (1978). Collision frequency of artificial satellites: The creation of a debris belt. Journal of Geophysical Research, 83(A6), 2637–2646. https://doi.org/10.1029/JA083iA06p02637 ↩
2. NASA Orbital Debris Program Office. (2024). Orbital debris quarterly news, 28(1). https://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/quarterly-news/ ↩

The United States must codify Outer Space Treaty Article IV in domestic law, oppose first-strike anti-satellite weapons development, and lead negotiation of an international space militarization verification regime

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 (Article IV) prohibits placing weapons of mass destruction in Earth orbit or on celestial bodies and bans military installations, weapons testing, and military maneuvers on the Moon and other celestial bodies. Congress must: (a) codify these prohibitions in domestic federal law with criminal penalties for violations; (b) prohibit U.S. development, testing, or deployment of first-strike anti-satellite weapons systems designed to deny adversary nations access to space during peacetime, recognizing that offensive space weapons development by any power creates escalation dynamics that threaten the orbital commons shared by all nations; (c) lead the negotiation of a multilateral verification regime — including telemetry data-sharing, on-site inspection provisions, and independent international monitoring — to provide credible treaty compliance assurance; and (d) require that any Space Force capability with anti-satellite or space-denial application be disclosed to Congress and subjected to formal strategic stability review before deployment authorization. Any executive branch attempt to deploy space-based weapons of mass destruction without Congressional authorization must be subject to immediate judicial review at the petition of any member of Congress. Outer Space Treaty, opened for signature Jan. 27, 1967, 18 U.S.T. 2410, 610 U.N.T.S. 205.

A conflict that disables satellite constellations would simultaneously degrade GPS, financial communications, weather prediction, and military command-and-control worldwide. The existential stakes of space militarization require structural prohibition, not reliance on executive restraint or voluntary norms.

The NASA Administrator must serve a fixed six-year term removable only for cause; NASA’s science mission and major programs may not be redirected without affirmative Congressional authorization

NASA’s effectiveness as a scientific and exploration agency depends on mission continuity across administration changes — a condition that at-will executive appointment structurally prevents. Congress must: (a) establish by statute that the NASA Administrator serves a fixed, non-renewable six-year term, confirmed by the Senate, removable only for cause — inability to perform duties, felony conviction, or documented gross mismanagement — with removal requiring affirmative Senate confirmation of the finding; (b) prohibit the executive branch from redirecting NASA’s science mission, canceling or restructuring major exploration programs, or reallocating NASA appropriations from science to non-science functions without affirmative Congressional authorization; (c) require that NASA’s Decadal Survey recommendations — produced by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine through extensive scientific community input — serve as binding science priority guidance, with any administration departures requiring published justification and Congressional notification within 60 days; and (d) protect career NASA scientists and engineers from reorganization efforts that convert career civil service positions to at-will appointments. The 2023–2032 planetary science Decadal Survey is Origins, Worlds, and Life (National Academies, 2023).

NASA’s multi-generational scientific record — the Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope, Voyager, Mars Science Laboratory — justifies the institutional insulation from political short-termism that the Federal Reserve has for monetary policy. Scientific infrastructure destroyed in a single administration takes decades to rebuild.

NOAA, USGS, EPA’s Office of Research and Development, and NASA’s Earth Science Division must have their independent scientific missions protected by statute; political suppression or modification of their climate and environmental findings is a federal crime

Congress must: (a) codify by statute that NOAA, USGS, EPA’s Office of Research and Development, and NASA’s Earth Science Division each have independent scientific missions — that their climate, environmental, and geological hazard publications must reflect the professional judgment of career scientific staff without political review, clearance, or modification; (b) extend the criminal penalties established in STS-FND-008 explicitly to political interference with NOAA weather and climate findings, USGS geological hazard assessments, EPA environmental health assessments, and NASA Earth science data releases; (c) require automatic, simultaneous archival of all data releases and scientific publications from these agencies to a permanent Library of Congress repository at the moment of release, making any subsequent website removal or data suppression legally ineffective; and (d) create a private right of action for any researcher, journalist, or member of the public denied access to a federal climate or environmental dataset that is required by statute to be publicly available. The 2019 NOAA “Sharpiegate” incident and systematic removal of climate and public health data from federal agency websites document the pattern this rule addresses.

Climate and environmental science agencies are disproportionate targets for political interference because their findings carry direct regulatory and economic consequences. STS-FND-008 establishes the general prohibition on political interference with federal science; this card creates specific statutory protections and automatic archival for the agencies most consistently targeted.

The United States must ratify or negotiate a replacement to the Moon Agreement establishing a binding international framework for space resource extraction; no private or national ownership of celestial bodies may be recognized

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 (Article II) prohibits national appropriation of outer space or celestial bodies. The United States has not ratified the 1979 Moon Agreement (Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies), which extends these principles to resource extraction and establishes a common heritage framework. The Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015 (Pub. L. 114-90) purported to grant U.S. citizens rights to own resources extracted from celestial bodies — a provision whose consistency with Outer Space Treaty obligations is contested. Congress must: (a) ratify the Moon Agreement or negotiate a replacement treaty establishing a binding international framework governing commercial resource extraction from the Moon, asteroids, and other celestial bodies, including an international revenue-sharing mechanism with particular benefit to developing nations; (b) affirm in domestic law that no person or corporation may claim ownership of any celestial body, territory, or sovereign jurisdiction in outer space, consistent with Outer Space Treaty Article II; (c) require any U.S.-licensed space resource extraction operation to participate in the international treaty framework and contribute to an international commons fund proportional to the value of resources extracted; and (d) prohibit executive agreements purporting to recognize property rights in celestial bodies without Senate advice and consent as required by Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. Moon Agreement, opened for signature Dec. 18, 1979, 1363 U.N.T.S. 3. The Artemis Accords (2020) represent a separate U.S.-led bilateral framework that acknowledges resource extraction; reconciliation with this proposal requires further analysis.

Unilateral commercial appropriation of off-world resources without an international framework will generate geopolitical conflict between space-capable nations and foreclose the collaborative deep space future that the long-term exploration program requires. Bilateral accords are insufficient; only a binding multilateral treaty provides the legal certainty and legitimacy that sustainable space resource governance demands.

Federal law must establish a universal right to repair for all categories of manufactured goods; manufacturers must provide documentation, diagnostic tools, and parts at fair cost; DMCA anti-circumvention provisions may not block repair

Congress must enact federal right-to-repair legislation establishing that any person who owns a manufactured good has the right to repair, modify, or have repaired by any third party of their choosing that good, and that the manufacturer must: (a) provide all repair documentation, diagnostic software, and calibration tools to independent repair providers on the same terms as authorized repair networks; (b) make spare parts available at fair and reasonable prices for a minimum of 10 years following the last date of manufacture; (c) not use software locks, digital rights management, serialization, or void-warranty provisions to prevent independent repair; and (d) provide schematics, diagnostic codes, and firmware access required for safe repair. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s Section 1201 anti-circumvention provisions must not be applied to defeat legitimate repair activity; Congress must codify a permanent repair exemption by statute. These requirements apply to consumer electronics, motor vehicles, farm equipment, medical devices, and appliances. Manufacturers that refuse repair access are subject to a private right of action by affected consumers and independent repair providers for injunctive relief and treble damages. FTC, “Nixing the Fix: An FTC Report to Congress on Repair Restrictions” (May 2021) documents the scope of manufacturer restrictions.

Repair restrictions impose hidden costs on consumers, generate preventable e-waste by forcing early replacement of repairable goods, and concentrate monopoly rents in manufacturer-controlled service networks. A federal right enforceable in court is the structural remedy; voluntary manufacturer commitments and piecemeal state laws are insufficient.

Software manufacturers at end-of-life must choose one of three obligations: continue security patches, release source code under an open license, or provide a viable migration path — software abandonment without one of these options is prohibited

Any manufacturer that publicly distributes a software product — including operating systems, applications, firmware, and embedded software in connected devices — must, upon reaching end-of-life or discontinuation, fulfill one of three mandatory obligations: (a) continue to issue security patches and critical vulnerability fixes for no less than five years following the end-of-support announcement, at no additional cost to licensed users; (b) release the source code of the discontinued software under an OSI-approved open-source license within 90 days of the end-of-support date, enabling the user community to maintain the software; or (c) provide a documented, technically viable, zero-cost migration path to a supported alternative that preserves user data and functional equivalency. Manufacturers that abandon software without meeting one of these three obligations are liable to affected users for remediation costs, security breach damages caused by unpatched vulnerabilities, and statutory damages of not less than $1,000 per affected user. The FTC must promulgate rules implementing these standards within 18 months of enactment. This obligation applies with particular force to firmware in connected devices (IoT) where the firmware is the sole security mechanism. Widely exploited vulnerabilities in abandoned embedded software — including in medical devices and industrial control systems — illustrate the public security cost of software abandonment.

Software abandonment creates systemic cybersecurity risk when unpatched vulnerabilities in discontinued products are exploited at scale. The three-option structure gives manufacturers flexibility while guaranteeing that users are not stranded on insecure, undefended systems.

Universal broadband access must be achieved by 2030; federal right-of-way must be guaranteed for municipal and cooperative fiber networks; receipt of federal broadband subsidy must prohibit ISP lobbying against public broadband

Congress must: (a) establish universal broadband access — defined as symmetrical service at a minimum of 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload at affordable rates — as a federal infrastructure obligation to be achieved nationwide by 2030, with enforceable accountability milestones; (b) guarantee federal right-of-way access for municipal broadband providers, rural electric cooperatives, and Tribal entities on the same terms as private internet service providers, including access to utility poles, conduit, and federal property; (c) prohibit any ISP receiving federal broadband subsidy — including BEAD Program, E-Rate, or successor program funding — from lobbying against, litigating against, or financing opposition to municipal or cooperative broadband deployment in any market; (d) preempt any state law that restricts municipalities or cooperatives from building, operating, or expanding broadband networks; and (e) designate broadband internet access service as a telecommunications service subject to common carrier obligations under Title II of the Communications Act. Any person denied broadband service at the universal service standard by a subsidized provider has a private right of action for injunctive relief. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (2021), Pub. L. 117-58, appropriated $65 billion for broadband including $42.45 billion for the BEAD Program.

Broadband is as essential to 21st-century economic participation as the telephone was to the 20th. The same logic that justified universal telephone service — markets do not profitably serve rural and low-income areas — justifies universal broadband as a federal obligation enforced through right-of-way guarantees and subsidy conditions.

Technology sector antitrust break-up orders must include open-sourcing of foundational intellectual property; patent pools in semiconductors, biotechnology, and AI must be established for national security purposes

Congress must require that any federal court or agency antitrust break-up order in the technology sector include: (a) provisions for open-source licensing of foundational intellectual property — including patents, algorithms, and source code — that the dominant entity used to establish or maintain the anticompetitive position, under terms enabling competitive entry by new market participants; (b) a transition period of no less than two years during which the dominant entity must provide API access and data portability to competitors on non-discriminatory terms. Congress must also: (c) authorize NSF and DOE to establish mandatory patent pools in semiconductors, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence — sectors in which patents essential to national security or broadly deployed infrastructure may be licensed compulsorily at reasonable and non-discriminatory rates for domestic manufacturers; and (d) grant the FTC authority to challenge patent assertion entity (PAE) activity as an unfair method of competition where the PAE holds patents in sectors designated as critical infrastructure. The AT&T consent decree (1982) and 2001 Microsoft remedies are the relevant antitrust precedents; neither required IP open-sourcing.

Monopoly power in technology is often most durably maintained through IP portfolios, not market share alone. Break-up orders that do not address the foundational IP that enabled monopolization merely create smaller monopolists rather than competitive markets.

Internet service must be classified by statute as a telecommunications common carrier service; paid prioritization, throttling, and blocking of lawful content must be prohibited with a private right of action

Congress must: (a) classify broadband internet access service as a telecommunications service subject to common carrier obligations under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, resolving by statute the regulatory uncertainty produced by repeated FCC reclassification and subsequent judicial vacatur; (b) prohibit internet service providers from blocking access to any lawful content, application, or service; throttling the speed of any lawful internet traffic; and charging content providers for prioritized delivery to end users (“paid prioritization” or “fast lanes”); (c) require ISPs to disclose network management practices, performance data, and commercial terms to the FCC and the public on a quarterly basis; and (d) grant the FCC civil penalty authority of up to $1 million per violation per day and create a private right of action for any person or entity whose lawful internet traffic is blocked, throttled, or deprioritized in violation of these requirements. The 2015 Open Internet Order established these rules; the 2017 FCC order eliminated them; the 2024 FCC order re-established them and was subsequently vacated by the Sixth Circuit — statutory codification is necessary to end this regulatory cycle.

Without net neutrality, ISPs — which frequently operate as local duopolies or monopolies — can commercially exploit their control of the last-mile connection to extract fees from content providers, degrade competing services, and determine which applications and information are practically accessible to users.

The NIST AI Risk Management Framework must be binding for federal agencies and federal contractors; mandatory binding standards and algorithmic impact assessments must apply to high-risk AI systems in healthcare, criminal justice, employment, and credit

Congress must: (a) make the NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0, January 2023) binding — not advisory — for all federal agencies and federal contractors deploying AI systems, with OMB responsible for compliance monitoring and annual public reporting; (b) direct NIST to develop mandatory technical standards for high-risk AI systems deployed by private sector entities in healthcare, criminal justice, employment screening, housing, and credit decisions, with FTC and sector-specific regulators (OCC, HHS, EEOC) responsible for enforcement; (c) require mandatory algorithmic impact assessments — including bias testing across protected classes, accuracy documentation, and disparate impact analysis — before any high-risk AI system is deployed in those domains, with results published publicly before deployment; (d) establish a private right of action for any person adversely affected by a high-risk AI deployment that fails to meet required standards, including reinstatement, back pay, loan reinstatement, and compensatory damages; and (e) require that all AI systems used in federal criminal justice applications — including risk assessment, pretrial detention, parole, and sentencing recommendations — be fully auditable, have their training data disclosed to affected parties, and be subject to independent accuracy and bias auditing at least annually. NIST AI Risk Management Framework 1.0 (Jan. 26, 2023). The EU AI Act (2024) provides the comparative regulatory architecture for high-risk AI classification.

AI systems making consequential decisions about employment, housing, healthcare, and liberty must be held to enforceable standards. Voluntary frameworks do not produce compliance at scale; structural enforcement through mandatory impact assessments, binding technical standards, and private rights of action does.

BSL-4 laboratory oversight must be enhanced with independent inspection authority; no gain-of-function research on potential pandemic pathogens may proceed without NSABB review and Congressional notification; mandatory incident reporting with public disclosure is required

Congress must: (a) establish an independent federal biosafety oversight body with authority over all BSL-3 and BSL-4 laboratory operations receiving federal funding — with unannounced inspection authority, power to suspend operations, and ability to report to Congress without prior executive review; (b) prohibit any federally funded gain-of-function research — defined as research reasonably anticipated to create, transfer, or use enhanced pathogens with pandemic potential — without: prior review and approval by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB); submission of a risk-benefit analysis to Congress at least 90 days before funding is released; and the written concurrence of the HHS Secretary and NIH Director; (c) require mandatory, real-time incident reporting for all biosafety incidents at federally funded BSL-3 and BSL-4 facilities, with public disclosure within 72 hours of any incident involving potential pathogen escape, and a private right of action for persons harmed by lab incidents attributable to negligent safety practices; and (d) lead the negotiation of an international verification framework for mutual inspection of high-containment laboratories, analogous to nuclear facility inspection under the IAEA, to complement the Biological Weapons Convention. The NIH gain-of-function research pause (2014–2017) and subsequent P3CO review framework provide the regulatory history. The Biological Weapons Convention (1972) lacks a verification protocol; this proposal would negotiate one.

The potential for a laboratory-origin pathogen release — whether through accident, negligence, or deliberate misuse — represents a civilizational-scale risk. The asymmetry between the cost of prevention and the cost of a pandemic demands structural oversight with independent enforcement authority, not voluntary compliance.

A federal quantum computing investment strategy must be enacted; NIST post-quantum cryptography standards must be mandatory for all federal systems by 2027; export controls on quantum hardware must be coordinated with allies

Congress must: (a) enact a National Quantum Initiative reauthorization establishing a federal quantum computing investment strategy with defined milestones, dedicated funding through NSF, NIST, DOE, and DARPA, and a workforce development program for quantum engineers and physicists; (b) require by statute that all federal information systems — including civilian agency systems, military systems, and contractor systems processing classified or sensitive unclassified information — migrate to NIST-approved post-quantum cryptographic algorithms (NIST FIPS 203, 204, and 205, finalized August 2024) by no later than January 1, 2027, with annual progress reporting to Congress; (c) direct CISA and NSA to publish a public-facing post-quantum migration roadmap for federal agencies and critical infrastructure operators, with sector-specific compliance deadlines; and (d) establish export controls on quantum computing hardware, quantum networking components, and quantum algorithms designated as critical to national security, coordinated with Five Eyes and Wassenaar Arrangement partners. Any federal agency that fails to meet the 2027 migration deadline must submit a corrective action plan to OMB and Congress within 90 days. NIST finalized post-quantum standards as FIPS 203 (ML-KEM), FIPS 204 (ML-DSA), and FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA) in August 2024.

Cryptographically relevant quantum computers — capable of breaking current RSA and elliptic curve encryption — may be operational within a decade. Adversaries may be harvesting encrypted communications now for future decryption (“harvest now, decrypt later”). The migration mandate must precede quantum capability, not respond to it after the fact.

Federal Research and Development Funding Must Be Doubled Over 10 Years, With NSF and NIH Budgets Restored and Grown, and a Permanent $100 Billion National Research Endowment Established to Insulate Science From Political Budget Cycles

The federal government must double its investment in scientific research over the next decade, with NIH and NSF growing significantly. A $100 billion permanent endowment would shield science funding from year-to-year political budget fights.

Congress must: (1) double the National Science Foundation (NSF) budget over 10 years — reaching at least $20 billion annually by fiscal year 2034, with guaranteed annual increases of no less than 7% per year indexed to GDP growth; (2) restore and grow NIH funding to at least $60 billion annually by fiscal year 2030 — reversing inflation-adjusted declines and ensuring the United States maintains global leadership in biomedical research; (3) establish a $100 billion National Research Endowment — a permanent, congressionally chartered fund whose principal cannot be appropriated and whose annual investment returns (estimated at $4–5 billion per year) are distributed to NSF, NIH, DOE Office of Science, NOAA research programs, and NASA science missions, insulating core research programs from annual appropriations politics; (4) require that at least 30% of all federal research funding flow to universities and research institutions in states and territories that are historically underrepresented in federal R&D funding — expanding the geographic reach of the U.S. research enterprise; (5) direct all federal agencies with research missions to publish 10-year research roadmaps — identifying priority research areas, expected funding levels, and measurable scientific milestones — with annual progress reports to Congress; and (6) establish a Science Funding Transparency Act — requiring all federal research grants to be publicly searchable in a standardized database, with abstracts, funding amounts, principal investigators, and outcome reports.

U.S. federal R&D spending as a share of GDP has declined significantly since the 1960s, while peer nations including China, South Korea, and Germany have increased public research investment. NIH funding has lost approximately 25% of its purchasing power to inflation since 2003.

Political Interference in Federal Scientific Work Must Be Prohibited by Statute, All Federal Scientists Must Have Whistleblower Protections, and an Independent Scientific Integrity Board Must Be Established With Subpoena Authority

It must be illegal for politicians or officials to interfere with federal scientists' research. Every federal scientist gets whistleblower protection, and an independent oversight board — with the power to subpoena records — must investigate any violations.

Congress must: (1) enact a Federal Scientific Integrity Act — prohibiting any executive branch official, political appointee, or White House office from: (a) altering, suppressing, or delaying the publication of any federal scientific report, assessment, or dataset for political or policy reasons; (b) instructing federal scientists to change scientific findings, conclusions, or recommendations to align with administration policy; (c) removing or reassigning federal scientists in retaliation for their scientific findings; (2) establish an Independent Scientific Integrity Board — a 9-member body appointed by the National Academies of Sciences for staggered 6-year terms, with no more than 3 members from the same political party — empowered to: (a) investigate complaints of political interference in federal science; (b) issue public findings; (c) subpoena documents and testimony from federal agencies; (d) refer cases to DOJ for criminal prosecution; (3) extend full whistleblower protection to all federal scientists and contractors — prohibiting retaliation for reporting scientific misconduct, data manipulation, or suppression of findings, with a private right of action and damages of no less than $500,000 for proven retaliation; (4) require all federal agencies to publish a Scientific Integrity Policy that meets minimum standards established by the Board; (5) mandate that all federal scientific assessments — including climate assessments, health risk reports, and environmental impact statements — be peer reviewed by independent scientists before finalization; and (6) establish criminal liability — fines up to $500,000 and imprisonment up to 5 years — for any federal official who willfully alters or suppresses a federal scientific report.

Multiple administrations have been documented altering, suppressing, or delaying federal scientific reports on climate change, environmental health, and public health. The Union of Concerned Scientists and Government Accountability Project have documented numerous instances of political interference in federal science across administrations.

NOAA and NASA Climate Science Programs Must Be Permanently Protected From Executive Defunding, Mission Changes, or Data Suppression — and Climate Data Must Be Publicly Accessible Forever

Congress must permanently protect climate science programs at NOAA and NASA from being cut, restructured, or suppressed by any president. All climate data collected with public money must be freely available to everyone, forever.

Congress must: (1) codify in statute the core climate science missions of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and NASA — including the National Weather Service, the National Hurricane Center, climate monitoring satellites, ocean temperature monitoring, and the Global Monitoring Laboratory — prohibiting any executive order, OMB directive, or agency reorganization from eliminating, consolidating, or defunding these missions without a supermajority congressional vote; (2) permanently fund NOAA's base climate science programs at no less than $7 billion annually — indexed to inflation — with any proposed reduction below this floor requiring a 60-vote Senate threshold; (3) establish a Federal Climate Data Preservation Act — requiring: (a) all federal climate datasets to be permanently archived in a publicly accessible, open-access repository; (b) no federal climate dataset to be removed, altered, or made inaccessible without a public comment period of no less than 180 days and a congressional notification; (c) a mirror copy of all federal climate data to be maintained by the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution, independent of executive branch control; (4) authorize and fund the next generation of NOAA and NASA climate satellites — including continuity for GOES weather satellites, JPSS polar-orbiting satellites, and dedicated greenhouse gas monitoring satellites; (5) direct NOAA and NASA to publish annual State of the Climate reports — peer-reviewed by the National Academies — that must be transmitted to Congress and cannot be altered or suppressed by any executive branch official.

NOAA and NASA climate programs have faced proposed budget cuts and mission alterations across multiple administrations. Climate data collected by NOAA and NASA satellites is used by hundreds of countries for weather forecasting, agricultural planning, and disaster preparedness.

All Research Funded by Federal Grants Must Be Published in Open-Access Journals at No Cost to Readers, All Underlying Research Data Must Be Publicly Archived, and Academic Publishing Monopolies Must Be Subject to Antitrust Scrutiny

Research paid for by taxpayers must be freely available to the public — not locked behind expensive journal paywalls. The raw data must also be publicly archived, and the small number of companies that dominate academic publishing must face antitrust review.

Congress must: (1) enact an Open Science Act — requiring that all peer-reviewed publications resulting from federal grant funding be made freely available to the public within 6 months of publication, with no embargo period for research on public health emergencies, climate, or national security; (2) require all federal research grant recipients to deposit underlying research data — including raw datasets, analysis code, and methodological documentation — in a federally maintained public repository within 12 months of publication, with data formatted to open, non-proprietary standards; (3) direct the FTC to conduct an antitrust investigation of the academic publishing industry — examining the market concentration of Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, and other major publishers, their pricing practices, and the impact of journal paywalls on scientific progress and public access to federally funded knowledge; (4) authorize federal agencies to negotiate government-wide open-access publishing agreements with academic publishers — using the federal government's collective bargaining power as the largest funder of U.S. research to secure universal open access for all federally funded work; (5) require all federally funded clinical trials to publish results within 12 months of completion — ending the practice of selectively publishing positive results while suppressing negative or null findings; and (6) fund the development of a National Open Science Repository — a permanent, government-operated platform for hosting open-access publications and research data, as an alternative to commercial publishing infrastructure.

U.S. taxpayers fund approximately $70 billion in federal research annually, yet most resulting publications are locked behind paywalls accessible only to those who can afford expensive journal subscriptions. The NIH Public Access Policy (2008) was a landmark but partial step toward open access; the 2022 OSTP memo updated this to immediate open access — but statutory codification is still needed.