To close out the week, here’s a few more things you might have missed in Congress.
The Senate Commerce Committee approved the nomination of Eric Lander, President Biden’s pick to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
He’s the last Cabinet pick awaiting confirmation—“and would be the first biomedical scientist to take this job,” says POLITICO.
You might know him. A geneticist who was part of the Human Genome Project, Lander is the director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Previously, he was co-chair of President Obama’s Presidential Council of Advisers on Science and Technology.
“Lander’s nomination will now head to the Senate floor, where it will need 51 votes to pass. The bipartisan nod from the Senate Commerce Committee suggests that Lander will likely be confirmed without much difficulty,” reports POLITICO.
In other news, the Senate adopted the Inventor Diversity for Economic Advancement (IDEA) Act,a bill introduced by Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) that would seek to close the gap that women and minorities face when procuring patent rights in the United States. The bill was adopted as an amendment to the Endless Frontier Act with a strong bipartisan vote. BIO has endorsed this legislation.
ICYMI: CDC Director Rochelle Walensky testified on the agency’s FY22 budget request on Wednesday—read what she said about funding public health infrastructure and a BARDA purchase agreement for 400 million COVID booster shots.
