AAU joined 82 other businesses and organizations, including several member institutions, in sending a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young urging them to include $31.5 million in the Department of Energy’s FY24 budget to “launch and properly fund” the DOE Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation. The letter notes that “this level of funding is consistent with the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act,” which authorized FESI’s creation. FESI would be set up as a nonprofit foundation modeled after other congressionally mandated agency-affiliated foundations, such as the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.
The letter argues that FESI would “channel private-sector investments to help support the creation, development and commercialization of next generation energy technologies.” Further, the letter adds, FESI would help “unlock and guide the untapped intellectual property held at DOE-funded national laboratories and research universities beyond just clean energy technologies.” FESI’s establishment was one of AAU’s top priorities for the innovation legislation.