On July 20, the US House of Representatives passed a consolidated appropriations bill advancing FY23 budgets related to Interior, Energy & Water and other agencies. They did not act on some of the U.S. House Appropriations committee mark ups completed during the last week of June, including funding for student aid and certain research agencies. A number of bills include funding important to the University of Oregon, including for financial aid support and federal scientific research.

The House Interior-Environment and Energy-Water discretionary funding bills would fund the Office of Science and Technology at the Environmental Protection Agency at $872.7 million, a 16 percent increase over FY22 enacted levels, and the National Endowment for the Humanities at $207 million, a 15 percent increase over FY22 enacted levels. These provisions have passed the US House.

The bill also includes funding for the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, operated by the US Geological Survey (USGS), the University of Washington, and the University of Oregon, including $26.8 million for ShakeAlert West Coast earthquake early warning (EEW) system and for capital costs associated with its buildout. The House-passed bill included language encouraging USGS to continue its collaboration with California, Oregon and Washington. UO partners with USGS, UW, CalTech and Berkeley to manage the west coast earthquake early warning system.

The Energy and Water Development bill would provide $8 billion for the Department of Energy Office of Science, a seven percent increase over FY22 enacted levels, and $550 million for ARPA-E, a 22 percent increase over FY22 enacted levels.

The House State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs (SFOPs), Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS), and the Labor-HHS-Education bills would provide $9.63 billion for the National Science Foundation, a nine percent increase over FY22 enacted levels The bills would also provide $212 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnerships program at NIST, a $54 million increase over FY22.

The Labor-HHS-Education bill would provide a total of $47.5 billion for National Institutes of Health, an increase of $2.5 billion above the FY22 enacted level. The bill provides $2.75 billion for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), a $1.75 billion increase over FY22. It would also provide $86.7 billion for education, an overall increase of 15 percent from FY22.

The bill would increase the maximum Pell Grant to $7,395, a $500 increase over FY22. The bill would increase Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG) funding to $920 million, a $25 million increase. It would also increase Federal Work Study funding by $34 million, to $1.2 billion. According to the committee press release, the bill would also significantly boost funding for Federal TRIO Programs to $1.3 billion, a $161 million increase over FY22 levels. GEAR UP would see a $30 million boost over FY22, to $408 million.

 The bill would also increase funding for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) to $844 million, $107 million above the FY 2022 enacted level. The bill includes funding for a new ARPA-style research center. University of Oregon faculty are among the top grant getters in the nation for Institute of Education Sciences funding.