WASHINGTON – (July 22, 2014) Washington, DC – The Center for Clean Energy Innovation (CCEI) praised the passage today of H.R. 5120, the Department of Energy Laboratory Modernization and Technology Transfer Act of 2014.
The bill seeks to bring the United States’ national lab system into the 21st century by improving the transfer of federal research into the private sector. It is based in part on Turning the Page: Reimaging the National Labs in the 21st Century Innovation Economy, a policy report produced by CCEI, the Heritage Foundation and the Center for American Progress. It is the companion bill to the America INNOVATES Act (S. 1973) sponsored by Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), which was introduced earlier this year.
“This legislation is a model for bipartisan, innovation-based institutional reforms that are desperately needed to re-shape America’s innovation enterprise and national lab system, while enhancing economic and job growth,” notes Matthew Stepp, Executive Director of CCEI, an affiliated research center of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF).
“This bill will ensure that discoveries made in our national labs do not get stuck there. Instead, public-private partnerships can speed scientific research and innovation into the marketplace and help drive our economy forward and create jobs,” says Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-IL), cosponsor of the bill.
“Our national laboratories have been and continue to be the birthplace of some of our most revolutionary technologies,” adds Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-WA), an additional cosponsor. “This legislation makes it easier for entrepreneurs and business leaders to harness that research so start-ups with one or two employees can grow into companies that create hundreds of quality jobs.”
H.R. 5120 is also cosponsored by Reps. Chaka Fattah (D-PA), Alan Nunnelee (R-MS), and the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee and the Subcommittee on Energy.
