The United States House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology has authority over all matters related to energy research, development, and demonstration projects, including commercial applications of energy technology, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) RD&D programs, DOE national laboratories, and so forth. As such, the Committee has taken a keen interest in nuclear energy R&D; in particular, it has sought ways to maintain U.S. cutting-edge capabilities in civil nuclear technologies and augment U.S. competitiveness in nuclear power. Momentum in the Committee’s activities related to nuclear R&D began in December 2014 with a hearing on the future of nuclear power in the U.S., which was followed up with hearings that addressed issues such as supercomputing applications for nuclear R&D, nuclear energy innovation in U.S. national laboratories, regulatory frameworks for advanced nuclear designs, and so forth. The Committee’s work in nuclear energy R&D culminated in the recent approval of H.R. 4084, or the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act, which seeks to “enable civilian research and development of advanced nuclear energy technologies by private and public institutions and to expand theoretical and practical knowledge of nuclear physics, chemistry, and materials science.”
