Reauthorization of ARPA-E

The Advanced Projects Research Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) was established within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in 2007 under the America COMPETES Act. ARPA-E is modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the agency responsible for technological innovations such as the Internet and the stealth technology used in modern fighter aircrafts. ARPA-E’s mission is to identify and to fund transformational technologies that reduce the U.S.’s dependence on foreign energy imports, reduce U.S. energy related emissions (including greenhouse gases) and improve energy efficiency. Though ARPA-E was authorized without an initial budget, ARPA-E received $400 million in funding in April 2009 through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). 

On March 25, 2010, the House Committee on Science and Technology’s Energy and Environment Subcommittee, met to reauthorize the America COMPETES Act that was set to expire at the end of 2010. This was the first of three markup sessions the Committee will hold to reauthorize the America COMPETES Act. At this first markup the committee passed a bill that would reauthorize ARPA-E. The bill would authorize $3.4 billion in funding for ARPA-E, with incremental increases each year to $1 billion in 2015 with no funding limits during the final years of the bill. The legislation would also authorize $35.8 billion in funding for DOE’s Office of Science through 2015 and $860 million for energy innovation hubs through 2015. Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (Democrat - Tennessee) hopes that the committee will have a complete markup by early May and pass it through the House of Representatives by Memorial Day.

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