Track bills, resolutions, and amendments moving through Congress
Accelerating Access to Critical Therapies for ALS Reauthorization Act of 2026
The bill extends and strengthens oversight, transparency, and data requirements for ALS and related programs—potentially improving patient access and aligning R&D—at the cost of increased reporting burdens, slower processing risks, legal ambiguity in one amendment, and additional federal spending.
Modernizing Access to Our Public Oceans Act
The bill improves public and agency access to standardized, interoperable marine geospatial data—boosting safety, planning, and tribal protections—while creating risks from expanded regulatory discretion, data-privacy exposures, and added costs and administrative burdens for governments and private partners.
ACES Act of 2025
The bill sponsors an independent study to identify cancer risks and occupational exposures among fixed‑wing aircrew to improve veteran care and inform policy, but it requires federal resources and its impact could be limited or delayed by data gaps and agreement negotiations.
HALT Fentanyl Act
The bill strengthens and speeds federal authority to target fentanyl-related substances—likely reducing availability and aiding enforcement—while imposing broader Schedule I coverage and accelerated rulemaking that may hinder legitimate research, raise compliance and enforcement costs, and increase risks of overbroad prosecutions.
DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern Act
The bill strengthens national security by pressuring colleges to cut risky ties with listed Chinese entities and provides DHS support and a waiver path, but it risks disrupting research, funding, and academic exchanges—especially at smaller institutions—while imposing administrative and reputational costs.
United States Research Protection Act
The bill tightens and clarifies which foreign-affiliated programs, positions, and indirect support are covered—strengthening enforcement and closing loopholes—while increasing compliance complexity, legal review costs, and some uncertainty for researchers and institutions.
Research Security and Accountability in DHS Act
The bill increases DHS research-security protections, oversight, and interagency coordination to better safeguard sensitive R&D, while imposing additional compliance requirements and costs that could slow collaboration and raise expenses for researchers and taxpayers.
Recognizing and supporting the goals and ideals of National Forensic Science Week.
The resolution promotes awareness and Senate support for forensic science and exoneration efforts, but it is ceremonial and provides no funding or binding reforms, limiting its concrete impact.
Expressing the sense of the Senate that Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. does not have the confidence of the Senate or of the American people to faithfully carry out the duties of his office and should be removed from his position.
The resolution trades potential short-term budgetary savings and administrative consolidation at HHS for deep cuts and workforce disruptions that risk public-health capacity, ongoing research, and services for vulnerable populations.
Commemorating the 69th anniversary of the continuous operations of the Mauna Loa Observatory.
The bill secures continued, credible long-term CO2 and greenhouse-gas monitoring that strengthens climate science and policymaking, while opening the door to greater regulatory pressure and potential costs for taxpayers, industries, and consumers.
Protecting Life and Integrity in Research Act of 2025
The bill aligns federal research funding and institutional practice with ethical concerns about tissue from induced abortions and clarifies rules, but does so at the risk of reducing access to fetal tissue for research, imposing compliance costs, and potentially slowing or shifting important biomedical research away from U.S. institutions.
GATE Act of 2025
The bill strengthens DOE-related national security by restricting access for nationals of certain countries while allowing limited waivers and oversight, but it risks disrupting research, losing talent and expertise, raising discrimination and diplomatic concerns, and adding administrative burden.
Risky Research Review Act
The bill creates a new board to strengthen oversight and transparency of sensitive life-sciences research—boosting biosecurity and reducing conflicts of interest—at the cost of added administrative expense, reporting/privacy burdens for researchers, and potential slowdowns in collaboration and technology transfer.
Precision Brain Health Research Act of 2025
The bill strengthens and funds veteran-focused brain‑injury and dementia research and improves diagnosis through VA–DoD data sharing and independent oversight, but it raises meaningful privacy/consent and interoperability risks and requires new federal spending that could strain VA capacity and other priorities.
United States Research Protection Act of 2025
The bill tightens national-security coverage by explicitly including indirect compensation and clarifies statutory language for agencies, but it may increase compliance burdens for researchers and create some legal ambiguity by removing an enumerated factor.
Dangerous Viral Gain of Function Research Moratorium Act
The bill reduces the risk of accidental creation or release of dangerous pathogens by banning federally funded gain‑of‑function work, at the cost of slowing some pathogen research, potentially shifting risky work outside federal oversight, and reducing funding and increasing compliance burdens for affected researchers and institutions.
Innovation in Pediatric Drugs Act of 2025
The bill increases transparency, procedural predictability for sponsors, and targeted flexibility (especially for rare-disease drugs) and modestly funds pediatric research, but does so at the cost of weakening or delaying some enforcement levers and reducing incentives to generate pediatric evidence — shifting risks and decision burdens onto clinicians, families, and some children.
Advancing Research for Chronic Pain Act of 2026
The bill centralizes and standardizes federal chronic-pain data and increases transparency—improving research, care, and policymaking—but raises privacy risks, potential costs to taxpayers, and the possibility of reduced industry participation or loss of clinical nuance.
Homestake AI Act of 2026
The bill centralizes and protects U.S. extremophile samples and data to accelerate domestic research and potential medical advances, but does so with nationality‑based access and export limits and open-ended federal spending that could hinder international collaboration and raise ethical and budgetary concerns.
Scientific Integrity Act
The bill strengthens protections, transparency, and standardized procedures for scientific integrity—helping scientists and improving trust in policy science—but creates new administrative costs and central oversight points and may still leave room for politicized decisions or limited enforceability.
Securing Innovation and Research from Adversaries Act
The bill tightens controls on foreign research collaborations to reduce national-security risks and standardize compliance, but it also raises substantial compliance costs, funding risks, and uncertainty for researchers and institutions.
Puppy Protection Act of 2026
The bill raises minimum care standards for dogs to improve animal welfare and reduce disease risk, but increases compliance costs for regulated dealers and facilities.
Sound Science Act of 2026
The bill strengthens scientific review, interagency coordination, and EPA's authority to act—potentially improving protection and transparency—but also raises evidentiary deference, procedural hurdles, and cost burdens that could delay action and weaken protections for vulnerable communities.
Defending Defense Research from Chinese Communist Party Espionage Act of 2025
The bill strengthens national security and public oversight of DoD-funded research by imposing restrictions, transparency, and conditional funding, but does so at the cost of economic disruption to universities and researchers, increased administrative burdens, and risks to commercial confidentiality and researcher mobility.
AFTER Act of 2026
The bill increases protections and placement opportunities for medically fit federal research animals (especially primates) and preserves stronger local animal laws, but does so at the cost of new administrative requirements, added operational expenses, constraints on research flexibility, and continued exclusion of the most commonly used lab species (rats and mice).
AI-Ready Bio-Data Standards Act
The bill centralizes and standardizes AI-ready biological data to speed research, improve interoperability, and bolster data protections, but it raises serious privacy/dual‑use risks and compliance burdens that may advantage well-resourced actors.
Future of Artificial Intelligence Innovation Act of 2026
The bill accelerates U.S. AI development by funding testbeds, datasets, transparency, agency tools, and workforce programs—improving innovation, government capacity, and research access—while relying on voluntary standards and new federal spending that could leave safety, privacy, job-displacement, and international-collaboration risks insufficiently addressed.
Bycatch Reduction and Research Act of 2025
The bill channels federal funding, testing infrastructure, grants, and streamlined permitting to accelerate technologies and programs that reduce bycatch and support sustainable fisheries, but it increases federal costs and raises governance, fairness, data‑privacy, and implementation‑risk concerns that could disadvantage small operators and weaken independent oversight.
NIH Clinical Trial Integrity Act
The bill aims to increase diversity, clarity, and protections in clinical trials—improving access and oversight for underrepresented participants—while imposing new reporting, compliance, and funding burdens that could raise costs, slow some research, and create privacy or incentive risks.
Smoke and Heat Ready Communities Act of 2025
The bill directs federal research, monitoring, and recurring grant funding to reduce harms from wildfire smoke and extreme heat—improving science-based protections and local planning—while creating ongoing federal costs and risks that benefits will concentrate among better-resourced institutions and jurisdictions unless implementation explicitly protects rural, tribal, and underserved communities.
