Van Hollen Legislation to Reauthorize ARPA-E, Increase Funding for Advanced Energy Research and Development Passes Key Senate Committee

Today, U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) announced the passage of his bipartisan legislation to reauthorize funding for the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) out of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. ARPA-E works to advance high-potential, high-impact energy technologies in the early stages of development. The bill, co-authored by Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), would increase funding levels from $428 million in Fiscal Year 2020 to $750 million in Fiscal Year 2024 to fund more ARPA-E projects. To date, the program has only been able to support one percent of the proposals submitted for its Open Funding Opportunity Announcements and 12 percent of the proposals submitted for its Focused Funding Opportunity Announcements. Maryland is home to 20 programs that have received support from ARPA-E.

“ARPA-E funds crucial projects to address environmental and national security challenges in new and creative ways. This increase in funding is absolutely necessary to keep America at the forefront of innovation – especially in clean energy technologies – and will help generate thousands of good-paying, home-grown jobs. As the impacts of climate change increasingly cause harm in communities across our country, our current rate of investment in solutions to these problems simply isn’t adequate. I’m glad to see this pass out of Committee on a bipartisan basis, and I urge the full Senate to take up this legislation immediately,” said Senator Van Hollen. 

A copy of The ARPA-E Reauthorization Act of 2019 can found here, and a one-pager on the bill is available here. The legislation passed Committee by a unanimous bipartisan vote.

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