H.R. 144 would authorize the annual appropriation of $250 million for 2021 and 2022 for the National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish a pilot program to award two-year grants to early-career researchers. The bill also would direct the NSF to report to the Congress on the results of the pilot program.
For this estimate, CBO assumes that the legislation will be enacted in fiscal year 2021 and that the authorized amounts will be appropriated each year. Using information from the NSF, and based on historical spending patterns for similar programs, CBO estimates implementing H.R. 144 would cost $500 million over the 2021-2026 period. The costs of the legislation, detailed in Table 1, fall within budget function 250 (general science, space, and technology).
