Sponsors (5)
The bill provides substantial, targeted funding and planning to modernize national laboratory infrastructure and research capabilities, improving safety and long-term alignment, but does so at a significant federal cost and with new administrative and managerial constraints that could limit flexibility and divert research resources.
National laboratories, their staff, and research users will receive $5 billion annually (FY2026–2030) — $25 billion total — to address deferred maintenance and modernize facilities, improving lab safety, uptime, and research capacity.
Researchers and university users of DOE user facilities will get upgraded computing and research infrastructure, boosting ability to run advanced simulations, analyze data, and support emerging science missions.
Congress, DOE, and stakeholders will gain clearer oversight and long-term alignment through required annual project lists/funding profiles, a 10-year infrastructure plan, and disclosed prioritization criteria that tie investments to mission needs.
Taxpayers and the federal budget face a $25 billion new spending commitment over five years (FY2026–2030), increasing federal outlays and potentially requiring offsets or adding to deficits.
A statutory management funding floor for the Office of Science could constrain DOE leadership's flexibility to reallocate funds across other programmatic priorities, reducing responsiveness to changing needs.
Detailed reporting, planning, and disclosure requirements add administrative burden for DOE and national laboratories and could divert staff time and resources away from hands-on research and operations.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes $5 billion per year (FY2026–2030) for DOE national labs maintenance and modernization and requires expanded lab-level planning and reporting to Congress.
Official title: Direct the Secretary of Energy to fund projects to restore and modernize National Laboratories, and for other purposes.
Introduced July 17, 2025 by Ben Ray Luján · Last progress July 17, 2025
Provides $5 billion per year for FY2026–2030 to fix deferred maintenance, upgrade critical infrastructure, and modernize facilities at Department of Energy National Laboratories, and requires annual project lists and funding profiles to Congress. It also revises the statutory facilities-and-infrastructure planning and reporting requirements to focus strategy on enabling infrastructure for current and future science and energy missions and to require detailed, lab-by-lab plans, funding sources, metrics, and stakeholder engagement.