Sponsors (2)
Official title: Provide for Department of Energy and National Aeronautics and Space Administration research and development coordination, and for other purposes.
Introduced October 22, 2025 by Daniel Scott Sullivan · Last progress October 22, 2025
The bill advances Earth‑observation, grid resilience, STEM workforce development, and DOE–NASA research collaboration, at the cost of increased federal spending, potential nuclear‑safety and data‑security risks, and the need for strong oversight to prevent unfocused spending.
Rural and at‑risk communities gain better Earth‑observation data and wildfire mitigation research that can improve disaster response and public safety.
Utilities and grid operators get research into space weather and geomagnetic storm impacts that can strengthen resilience of power grids and pipelines.
Students in underserved or remote areas receive STEM workforce development and hands‑on training, improving local education and career pipelines.
Taxpayers could face higher federal R&D spending or reallocation of agency funds to support the new DOE–NASA collaborative programs and transfers to NASA.
Communities and operators may face increased safety concerns and regulatory costs from expanded collaboration on nuclear propulsion and advanced nuclear fuels.
Cross‑agency data sharing raises privacy, security, and intellectual‑property management challenges that will require resources and safeguards to mitigate.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes DOE and NASA to coordinate joint R&D, data-sharing, and competitive awards across propulsion, quantum, modeling, Earth and space sciences, and related priorities.
Authorizes the Department of Energy (DOE) and NASA to coordinate and carry out joint, cross-cutting R&D activities and to make competitive awards to support both agencies’ mission priorities. It directs formal interagency coordination (MOUs/agreements), lists illustrative technical focus areas (advanced propulsion, radioisotope power, modeling and machine learning, quantum information sciences, radiation health effects, and fundamental physics/earth science), and requires data-sharing, secure transfer capabilities, and methods to ingest large voluntary space/aeronautical datasets on high-performance computing systems. Sets collaborative priorities that include space-to-Earth power transmission, Arctic science and infrastructure resilience, wildfire mitigation, space weather forecasting, satellite data infrastructure, and STEM workforce development; it references existing statutory programs to indicate applicable subject areas and frames procedural requirements for DOE–NASA cooperation and competitive awards.