WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Alex Padilla (D-CA) today introduced legislation to shield U.S. research from malign foreign influence by updating language in the CHIPS and Science Act:

“In a world where competition turns into hostility all too often, we must do everything in our power to safeguard American ingenuity against bad actor nations,” said Sen. Cornyn. “By clarifying language in existing law, our legislation would ensure no American scientific research ends up in the wrong hands.”

“The bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act included important provisions to bolster our research security,” said Sen. Padilla. “This legislation will provide much needed clarity for federal agencies and academic institutions to better safeguard national security, while preserving research collaboration and international partnerships crucial to the strength of America’s innovation economy.”

Background:

Malign Foreign Talent Programs are sponsored by countries of concern like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea to obtain American scientific research and technology by incentivizing or coercing American researchers to act on their behalf. The CHIPS and Science Act included provisions to prohibit the U.S. government and academic institutions from partnering with such programs.

However, the law’s current definition of a Malign Foreign Talent Program only includes programs that “directly provide” incentives and benefits to researchers to participate, leaving out other methods to provide indirect benefits to researchers to induce their cooperation. This legislation would broaden the definition to include “indirect benefits,” ensuring foreign adversarial nations cannot exploit this loophole to evade U.S. research restrictions.