← Videos · Economy, Tariffs & Trade

Kratsios Unveils 'Science: A New Golden Age' at a House Science Hearing on FY2027 Priorities, Jul. 22, 2026

July 22, 2026 · House Science, Space, and Technology Committee · 3:03:48

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Michael Kratsios testified on July 22, 2026 before the full House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology at its hearing titled “Unleashing the Golden Age of Science: Examining the Priorities of the FY2027 Research and Technology Enterprise,” chaired by Representative Brian Babin, according to the committee’s hearing charter. Kratsios was the hearing’s sole witness.

In his testimony, Kratsios unveiled a report to President Trump, “Science: A New Golden Age,” published the day before, which he framed as a renewal of Vannevar Bush’s 1945 “Science: The Endless Frontier” for a changed technological moment — articulating the obstacles American researchers face and the reforms the administration proposes so that, in his words, taxpayer-supported science produces the largest returns possible. Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren pressed him on reporting that the National Science Foundation was holding back roughly $1 billion appropriated by Congress; Kratsios said he was not familiar with the details and referred her to NSF, according to the Standing Record account of the hearing. Committee Democrats afterward demanded a briefing on OSTP’s “Grand Research Challenges” initiative and charged that OSTP intended to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on its own priorities with money not appropriated to it, in their August 7, 2026 letter — criticism carried here as the members stated it.

Why it matters

This hearing put OSTP’s second-phase doctrine — the “New Golden Age” report — and its sharpest congressional dispute in the same record: Kratsios’s case for restructuring how federal science is funded and measured, and the committee minority’s charge that the restructuring is being financed out of NSF’s appropriation without Congress. Both threads run through his profile from here.

Scoreboard watch

This is a candidate item for the weekly scoreboard, contested: the “Science: A New Golden Age” report delivered to the President on July 21, 2026 as stated in testimony, set against the House Science Democrats’ August 7, 2026 demand for a briefing on the Grand Research Challenges initiative and OSTP’s role in NSF funding decisions — a genuinely contested record, to be scored as the briefing and any findings land.

Sources: House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, hearing “Unleashing the Golden Age of Science: Examining the Priorities of the FY2027 Research and Technology Enterprise,” July 22, 2026 (full hearing as carried by the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee channel, embedded above); committee hearing charter, July 2026; Kratsios’s written testimony, July 22, 2026 (docs.house.gov); Standing Record account of the NSF withholding dispute; Ranking Member Lofgren and Representative Whitesides letter to Director Kratsios, August 7, 2026, for the minority’s characterization. All figures and characterizations as stated by Mr. Kratsios and committee members at the hearing.