ITIF Welcomes Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation in “CHIPS-Plus” Package
WASHINGTON—Following Senate Majority Leader Schumer’s substitute amendment to the bipartisan innovation bill now known as “CHIPS-Plus,” which includes a section creating a new private foundation to work with the U.S. Department of Energy on energy security and innovation, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading think tank for science and technology policy, released the following statement from the director of ITIF’s Center for Clean Energy Innovation, David Hart:
Among the amendments that have made it into the “CHIPS-plus” bill, creating a new Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation stands out as a particularly important accomplishment. Transitioning to a clean-energy economy will require commercializing a wide array of new technologies, and this new foundation will play a vital role in shepherding them across the infamous “valley of death” from the research and development phase into the commercial marketplace. The foundation will be a welcome partner for the U.S. Department of Energy, advancing its mission across a wide range of energy and climate challenges—not just accelerating technology commercialization, but also supporting regional economic development in a burgeoning new growth sector.
ITIF research partner Kerry Duggan, CEO of SustainabiliD, added:
The Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation (FESI) has the potential to make major contributions to U.S. clean energy innovation and deployment by serving as a trusted philanthropic partner to the Department of Energy. The president’s signature will mark a major milestone, but now the real work begins for DOE and its cross-sector partners in business, academia, philanthropy, and communities to turn the foundation’s potential into a reality that advances the nation’s energy, security and climate goals. The next steps will be for stakeholders to come together to create FESI, for DOE to embrace and for the secretary to direct the agency to work closely with it. This work should start immediately—there’s no time to waste.
For more on this issue, see:
- Jetta L. Wong and David M. Hart, “Mind the Gap: A Design for a New Energy Technology Commercialization Foundation” (ITIF, 2020).
- David Hart and Jetta Wong, “A Foundation for DOE: An Idea Whose Time Has Come (ITIF, 2021).
- David M. Hart, “How a Government-Linked Foundation Could Speed the Spread of New Clean-Energy Technologies,” The Conversation, October 7, 2020.
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The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational institute focusing on the intersection of technological innovation and public policy. Recognized by its peers in the think tank community as the global center of excellence for science and technology policy, ITIF’s mission is to formulate and promote policy solutions that accelerate innovation and boost productivity to spur growth, opportunity, and progress.
