Zoe Lofgren, in line to chair House Science, sets out an agenda of oversight and bills on AI, quantum and fusion

In written answers to The Inquirer, the San Jose Democrat said a new majority would let the committee compel information from the administration, which says its science budget steers money to the technologies that will decide American leadership.

By Ingrid Lindqvist

When Democrats take control of the House in January, the committee that oversees nearly all federal civilian research is expected to pass to Rep. Zoe Lofgren of San Jose, whose district covers part of Silicon Valley and who has led the panel’s Democrats since 2023.

In a statement on Nov. 4, the morning after the midterm elections, Ms. Lofgren said she would seek the chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Committee chairs are chosen when the new Congress organizes, and results of the Nov. 3 election remain unofficial until certified.

In written answers to The Inquirer, sent Wednesday evening through the committee’s Democratic staff, Ms. Lofgren described two jobs: investigating the Trump administration’s handling of federal science, and moving bipartisan bills on artificial intelligence, quantum computing and fusion energy that have stalled in the current Congress.

“If I am elected as Chair of the Science Committee, my primary oversight objective will be to hold this administration accountable for the damage it has done to the American scientific enterprise and end Trump’s politicization of science,” she wrote.

What the majority changes

The difference a majority makes, she said, is the power to compel. “While in the minority, our options were limited for compelling information,” Ms. Lofgren wrote. “That will change come January with Democrats taking the majority of the House. We intend to use all the tools at our disposal to carry out our investigations and oversight responsibilities.”

She has been more specific elsewhere. In interviews and emailed answers reported by FedScoop on Tuesday, she listed Department of Energy grant cancellations that fell heavily on states that voted Democratic, what she and advocacy groups describe as the withholding of National Science Foundation funds, the reorganization of the Environmental Protection Agency’s research office and the role of political appointees in grant decisions. She also told FedScoop she had “deep concerns” about the government’s growing equity stakes in private companies, including in quantum computing.

Ms. Lofgren told Science magazine that the committee already has subpoena power but that “there’s a process where you negotiate and try and get voluntary compliance, and if you fail at that, then you compel.” Democrats on the authorizing and spending committees, she said, have discussed being “more prescriptive in both authorizations and appropriations” so that agencies have less discretion over how money Congress approved is spent.

The administration’s case

Those characterizations are Ms. Lofgren’s. The White House describes its science policy as a shift from measuring dollars to measuring results.

At a committee hearing on July 22, Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the president’s 2027 budget “directs taxpayer dollars towards technologies that will decide the next century, artificial intelligence, quantum, advanced manufacturing, nuclear, and biotechnology,” according to a transcript of the hearing. He said that funding levels alone were not the measure of success and that the question was whether taxpayer money was producing results. He cited President Trump’s executive order on “gold standard science,” which he said requires federally funded research to be “reproducible, transparent, and honest about uncertainties.”

Mr. Kratsios said that after years in which Washington measured success by dollars obligated, the administration “has begun to refocus the federal research enterprise on excellence, accountability, and on outcomes.” The administration has ended grants tied to diversity programs and some climate research as part of that shift. Mr. Kratsios has testified that the White House was not involved in grant decisions at the National Science Foundation; records later obtained by the group Democracy Forward led some to question that testimony, FedScoop reported.

The Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science Foundation did not respond to requests for comment sent Wednesday. A spokesperson for the current chairman, Rep. Brian Babin, Republican of Texas, did not respond to FedScoop’s questions about the committee under Democratic control.

The bills she wants to move

The legislative half of the agenda has more bipartisan history. “There are a number of bills on AI, quantum, and fusion that we have been working on in the previous two Congresses,” Ms. Lofgren wrote. “This summer we passed 10 AI bills through Committee. All are bipartisan, and I hope we can move them all next Congress—if they don’t pass this Congress.”

Among those, FedScoop reported, are the CREATE AI Act (H.R. 2385), which would establish a national AI research resource at the National Science Foundation, and the AI Security and Innovation Act (H.R. 9363), which would put into law the AI standards center at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. “This past April we passed the National Quantum Initiative Reauthorization Act through Committee,” Ms. Lofgren wrote. “I plan to move forward with this bill in the next Congress.”

The bill she called the one she is “incredibly proud of” is the American Leadership in Fusion Act (H.R. 10574), introduced in late September with Rep. Jay Obernolte, a California Republican, which would authorize research spending at the Energy Department and the National Science Foundation. Fusion is one point where the parties overlap: at the July hearing, Mr. Kratsios called fusion a priority and cited a goal of demonstrating commercial fusion power by the mid-2030s, though Mr. Obernolte noted the 2027 budget request did not fund it, FedScoop reported.

“There are always opportunities for bipartisanship on the Science Committee, and we will welcome any Republican who would like to help us in our efforts,” she wrote.

AI may be harder. Ms. Lofgren told FedScoop that the committee “can regulate and innovate at the same time,” while acknowledging that Republicans tend to see regulation as a drag on innovation. House Democratic leaders have also weighed a select committee on AI, an effort reported to be led by Rep. Ted Lieu of Torrance and Rep. Bill Foster of Illinois, which could take some AI jurisdiction away from her panel.

What it means for Bay Area labs

The committee’s reach runs through the Bay Area’s research economy: NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, the Energy Department’s Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, and university researchers at Stanford, Berkeley and San Jose State who depend on federal grants.

“Our federal research labs and universities have suffered greatly from the Trump administration’s haphazard funding cuts,” Ms. Lofgren wrote. “Unfortunately, Bay Area research labs, like NASA Ames, and universities, like San Jose State University, have been victims of these cuts.” She said the committee would use “the necessary legislative and investigative tools available to us to ensure that funding is getting out the door to hardworking researchers and scientists in the Bay Area, and around the country.”

Ms. Lofgren did not detail specific cuts at Ames or San Jose State in her answers. The administration has said its budgets put more money into artificial intelligence and quantum research, two fields with deep roots in Silicon Valley, while asking agencies to cut elsewhere.

How far a House majority can go is limited. Democrats will also control the Senate, but Mr. Trump keeps the veto, and the agencies the committee oversees will still be run by his appointees. Ms. Lofgren’s answer is to write narrower instructions into law and to ask questions the agencies are obliged to answer. The first test will come when the committee organizes in January.