The U.S. bioeconomy—defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as “economic activity derived from the life sciences, particularly in the areas of biotechnology and biomanufacturing, including industries, products, services, and the workforce” and valued by some at ~$1 trillion—has been a major focus of policy development over the past few years. These policy advances include the White House Executive Order on “Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy” (Bioeconomy EO), the CHIPS & Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). In March 2024, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), announced the launch of the National Bioeconomy Board (NBB). The board will “partner across the public and private sectors to advance societal well-being, national security, sustainability, economic productivity, and competitiveness through biotechnology and biomanufacturing,” highlighting the Biden Administration’s commitment to future-proofing an economically sustainable U.S. bioeconomy. 

Despite these advances, the vast intersectionality inherent to the bioeconomy (e.g., with health, clean energy, national security, climate change, economic development) poses unique challenges for the U.S. government. This complexity makes it difficult for the various agencies to coordinate and even more difficult for the general public to understand the government’s approach to the bioeconomy. Nonetheless, to maintain the continued growth within the bioeconomy that has resulted from these policy advances, it will be imperative to clarify a strategic vision that coordinates and publicizes governmental efforts that support the burgeoning U.S. bioeconomy.

The NBB can play an important role in promoting this strategic vision. As directed by the Bioeconomy EO, the interagency through the Executive Office of the President set up the NBB to promote interagency coordination and collaboration on the bioeconomy. The NBB is co-chaired by OSTP, the Department of Commerce (DOC), and the Department of Defense (DOD), and nine other agencies make up the entirety of the board. Other agencies not represented on the NBB itself, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), work with the NBB through various working groups and play an integral role. 

To understand the range of governmental priorities for the bioeconomy, the overarching strategy, the work underway, the various programs within the agencies, and the role of environmental sustainability, our team at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) spoke with key agencies represented on the NBB to collect their perspectives.

The perspectives summarized below demonstrate that the agencies align bioeconomy-related initiatives to their varied mission areas and, through the NBB and other interagency activities, are working together to develop a shared vision. However, the summaries also show the diversity in focus that informs how agencies approach the bioeconomy. The agency views encompass the broader bioeconomy landscape, including biotechnologies from commodity fuels and agriculture to individualized therapeutics, and biomanufacturing solutions from biomass production to final product. This range highlights both the important role that each agency plays in supporting the U.S. bioeconomy as well as the challenge in coordinating their activities and programs across the federal government.

Approach

In order to collect perspectives from the agencies represented on the NBB around the U.S. bioeconomy, FAS conducted semi-structured interviews with key NBB officials from the OSTP, DOC, DOD, Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) from May 2024 through June 2024. With the exception of USDA, all agency interviews were conducted over Zoom and answers were documented by note-taking. All summaries have been reviewed by agency representatives to confirm consent and validity. The USDA perspective was summarized using publicly available reports and have also been confirmed for validity by an agency representative.

Perspectives from these agencies on the Bioeconomy EO deliverables, bioeconomy-related programs, coordination, goals, hurdles, and the role of environmental sustainability are summarized below. The full list of questions used in the semi-structured interviews can be found in Appendix A.

Agency Perspectives

Office of Science & Technology Policy

For OSTP’s perspective, FAS conducted a semi-structured interview with Dr. Sarah Glaven, principal assistant director for biotechnology and biomanufacturing.

The Office of Science & Technology Policy plays an important role in interagency coordination for topics, like the bioeconomy, that cut across many different agencies, and is one of the co-chairs for the NBB. In adherence with the Bioeconomy EO, OSTP has coordinated interagency efforts and published several reports on the bioeconomy: Bold Goals for U.S. Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing, Building the Bioworkforce of the Future, and Visions, Needs & Proposed Actions for Data for the Bioeconomy Initiative. They are currently working with interagency groups on several activities, including one that recently published a report, in conjunction with USDA and other agencies, that recommended revisions to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) and the North American Product Classification System (NAPCS) to better capture economic activity related to the bioeconomy. The creation of the NBB itself fulfills directives from both the Bioeconomy EO as well as the CHIPS & Science Act, which called on OSTP to establish a coordination office on these topics. Currently, due to a lack of funding, OSTP is not an official coordinating office but will function to coordinate activities through the NBB. 

According to OSTP, the Bioeconomy EO reflects the whole-of-government approach that will be needed to support the bioeconomy. For the near term, OSTP plans to show the value and utility of the NBB, execute policy from the Bioeconomy EO, prioritize specific actions from the resulting Bioeconomy EO reports, highlight significant investments, and produce a report on the NAICS and NAPCS codes. In the long term, OSTP hopes that the NBB will become a sustainable government entity that drives a clear national strategy to move the bioeconomy forward and enables the United States to work collaboratively with global partners. 

A key challenge is measuring the bioeconomy. It is difficult to prioritize, strategize, or advocate for additional resources in the absence of baseline economic metrics to track impact or estimate the potential return on investment. Ultimately, OSTP believes it is important to clarify the definition of the bioeconomy in order to create measurements and classifications.

A challenge for OSTP is continuity as it experiences staff turnover and administration changes. However, the NBB and coordination of the bioeconomy portfolio will be well positioned to persist, in part by relying on the NBB’s co-chairs. Also, the Bioeconomy EO allowed OSTP to create principal and assistant director positions for the bioeconomy portfolio, which can help ensure that it remains a high priority. At OSTP, this portfolio sits within the Industrial Innovation Group, which also houses coordination efforts for semiconductors and clean energy. OSTP leadership understands the importance of the bioeconomy and is keen to see the intersections of biomanufacturing with other initiatives, like the DOE’s Earth Shot programs and other clean energy initiatives. 

On the issue of environmental sustainability and the bioeconomy, OSTP highlights efforts by DOE to push for sustainable aviation fuels and USDA’s sustainable biomass supply chain framework as initiatives that are setting the pace for sustainability. There is also an opportunity to consider how biomanufacturing and biosynthesis fit into the broader sustainable chemistry landscape.

Department of Commerce

For DOC’s perspective, FAS conducted a semi-structured interview with Dr. Christopher Szakal, acting director, program coordination office at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The Department of Commerce is one of the NBB co-chairs. DOC is sector-agnostic and is interested in the bioeconomy as a way to support the broader economy, remain competitive, and solve broader challenges, such as those related to supply chain resilience. In response to the Bioeconomy EO, the DOC has released the bioeconomy lexicon from NIST and the Feasibility Study for measuring the bioeconomy from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. It has also participated in several interagency activities, including development of OSTP’s Bold Goals report and USDA’s Biomass Supply Chain report, as well as ongoing working groups focusing on updating systems for measuring economic activities (e.g., the NAICS and NAPCS codes) and on biological data and cybersecurity. Separate from the executive order, the Inflation Reduction Act provided significant investments for the Economic Development Administration in biotechnology-related regional technology hubs. Other ongoing activities at DOC in support of the bioeconomy include efforts to support biotechnology and biomanufacturing standards development at NIST, supply chain analyses at the International Trade Administration, work at the Bureau of Industry and Security and at the Patent and Trademark Office to ensure a safe and fair market, and the Workforce Development Strategy.

By nature, DOC keeps a broad perspective and tries to understand how the bioeconomy intersects with other parts of the economy and how technological developments may impact progress. There are important intersections of the bioeconomy with artificial intelligence (AI) and with data security, and policy development in these other areas will have implications for the bioeconomy. For example, the October 2023 Executive Order on AI called for significant new requirements for providers of synthetic nucleic acids to conduct biosecurity screening, which will have implications for biotechnology and biomanufacturing. NIST is tasked with developing standards for this new policy. The intersectional nature of the bioeconomy requires coordination both within the DOC and across the U.S. government. A key challenge is the need for sustained funding because coordination requires time and effort. 

On environmental sustainability, the DOC prioritizes the market and what U.S. companies will find profitable in both the near term and the long term. Elevating sustainability has been challenging because there is uncertainty in how sustainability is measured. Additionally, market drivers have been inconsistent relative to the level needed to address the uncertainty. DOC is looking to utilize the NBB to help provide clarity on how to achieve more consistent market forces in support of sustainability to drive growth of the bioeconomy. 

Department of Defense

For DOD’s perspective, FAS conducted a semi-structured interview with Dr. Peter Emanuel, senior research scientist, bioengineering at U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command.

The Department of Defense is one of the NBB co-chairs. In September 2022 (before the Bioeconomy EO was announced), DOD announced a $1.2 billion investment in biomanufacturing. In March 2023, DOD released a Biomanufacturing Strategy, which was informed by both the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 and the Bioeconomy EO. In support of this strategy and the investments made by DOD, the Department’s Defense Production Act Investments (DPAI) Office published an open Request for Information that sought input from industry on biomanufactured products and process capabilities that could help address defense needs. Significant additional investments in biomanufacturing are likely to be forthcoming.

The bioeconomy portfolio is a tiny portion of the overall programmatic budget for DOD. Previously, the DOD’s interest in biology and biotechnology was limited to military medicine and chemical and biological defense, but the department is increasingly focused on nonmedical biomanufacturing applications and believes that they will be key for ensuring national security. The department also acknowledges the importance of workforce development and the need for standardization and infrastructure for the bioeconomy and strongly supports these areas. This commitment can be seen with DOD’s large investments in 2020 in BioMADE, a Manufacturing Innovation Institute focused on creating a sustainable, domestic end-to-end bioindustrial manufacturing ecosystem. 

In the future, DOD hopes to take advantage of biomanufacturing’s potential to support defense objectives beyond just medical countermeasures and other human health-related advances, such as production of bio-based materials, chemicals, and foods. However, DOD faces challenges both internally and externally in communicating the full potential of the bioeconomy and biomanufacturing for DOD. 

On environmental sustainability, DOD believes that economic and environmental sustainability for the bioeconomy go hand-in-hand. For example, a company that could make chemicals without waste would have a significant economic advantage and would support environmental sustainability. Historically, DOD has seen significant costs due to polluted sites, and so understands the value of cleaner products and processes. In addition, DOD is investing in different technologies that would valorize waste streams.

Department of Energy

For DOE’s perspective, FAS conducted a semi-structured interview with Dr. Valerie Reed, director, Bioenergy Technologies Office.

The Department of Energy has many goals for advancing the bioeconomy, with the common denominator being to decarbonize America’s transportation and fuel sectors and to build resilient clean energy for generations to come. In response to the Bioeconomy EO, the DOE contributed to the OSTP Bold Goals report and was tasked to work with other agencies to write reports on National Security Recommendations for Federal Procurement (forthcoming) and best practices for cyber security documentation. Furthermore, DOE also played a large role in an upcoming biotechnology and biomanufacturing report mandated by the Bioeconomy EO. Outside of the direct requirements from the EO, the DOE plays a crucial role in supporting industrial biotechnology through additional reports and their involvement in ongoing interagency activities. For example, the Billion Ton Report provides a comprehensive assessment of biomass availability today and how to sustainably produce more than one billion tons of biomass per year to meet the demand for sustainable aviation fuel production. 

DOE’s bioeconomy efforts are concentrated within the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) and the Office of Science. BETO aims to utilize biomass for sustainable and renewable fuel and chemical production, while the Office of Science supports fundamental research that enables the bioeconomy, including synthetic biology and thermochemical conversion. Under the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS & Science Act, significant support was given to bioenergy solutions and clean energy demonstrations, including DOE tax incentives aimed at carbon reduction in fuel production.

In the short term, DOE is focused on prioritizing the use of biomass for Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) and marine fuel production, as well as supporting renewable diesel and ethanol for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. Long-term goals include transitioning to electrification using biomass, achieving substantial SAF production by 2035 through the SAF Grand Challenge, and scaling up the production of specific chemicals by 2035 as part of the industrial decarbonization strategy. Additionally, in coordination with the USDA, there are focused efforts to increase cultivation of purpose-grown energy crops.

One of the major hurdles the DOE currently faces, and may continue to face in the future, is ensuring sustained funding levels that support ongoing development. Currently, biomass is seen as an expensive feedstock. While the IRA provided an initial policy bridge, it is essential to establish a longer-term incentive to meet market demand, like the 40B (SAF production) and 45Z (clean fuel production) tax credits. 

On environmental sustainability, the DOE is very focused on goals for decarbonization of transportation and fuels, including replacing petroleum-based products with sustainable biomass solutions and conducting life cycle assessments (LCAs) to measure sustainability impacts throughout the supply chain. DOE created the GREET Model for LCAs, which was updated recently, to reduce ambiguity and to help standardize the process for measuring carbon emissions. Additionally, DOE’s Clean Fuels and Products Earthshot is an important cross-agency collaboration that supports accelerating bio-based fuels and chemicals production and decarbonizing both the fuel and chemical industry.

Department of Health & Human Services

For HHS’s perspective, FAS conducted a semi-structured interview with Dr. Lyric Jorgenson, associate director for science policy and the director of the Office of Science Policy at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Dr. Julia Limage, director, Office of Strategy, Policy, and Requirements in the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR).

The Department of Health & Human Services has two representatives on the NBB, one from NIH and one from ASPR. HHS has a broad mission in support of human health, and many of its programs could be considered part of the bioeconomy. However, the Bioeconomy EO outlined a set of priorities that called for additional focus at HHS on advances specific to biotechnology and biomanufacturing, many of which were included in the OSTP Bold Goals report. The EO also tasked HHS with leading the establishment of a Biosafety and Biosecurity Innovation Initiative; a strategic plan for this initiative will be available soon. Another area of intersection of HHS and the Bioeconomy EO is on the regulatory side: the Food and Drug Administration worked with USDA and EPA to provide updates on the regulatory system as deliverables for the EO. Many of the activities related to the EO draw on interagency working groups and other ongoing activities—for example, the work toward pandemic preparedness and biodefense, as well as collaborations between NIH and NSF on health-relevant research.

In the near future, HHS will focus on advancing biotechnologies such as multi-omic medicine, gene editing, and other therapeutics tailored to individual patients. Biomanufacturing and scale-up is another key focus to increase speed and availability of key medicines. In regards to public health, the COVID pandemic highlighted the need for fast and secure biomanufacturing for vaccine production. The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) in ASPR has made significant investments in biomanufacturing for this reason. ASPR also has an Office of Industrial Base Management and Supply Chain to support domestic biomanufacturing in case of public health emergencies.

For HHS, activities related to the bioeconomy directly and unambiguously support the department’s mission and will continue to be prioritized. A key challenge for HHS is the need for sustained funding, especially for coordination, which requires time and effort above and beyond programmatic work. To be effective, activities initiated by the Bioeconomy EO will need to be funded. Some HHS activities, including some related to biomanufacturing of medical countermeasures, were funded with COVID supplemental funding that will soon run out.

On environmental sustainability, HHS has not had any significant focus. However, there have been efforts to decrease the use of single-use plastics and equipment in research and public health activities.

United States Department of Agriculture

For USDA’s perspective, FAS gathered information from publicly available reports and documents, with guidance and direction from Herrick Fox, USDA’s bioeconomy coordinator in the Office of the Chief Economist, and Greg Jaffe, senior advisor in the Office of the Secretary.

The Bioeconomy EO tasked USDA with a wide range of deliverables, and USDA has released many related reports and products that reflect its bioeconomy-related priorities. One set of deliverables focuses on biomass and feedstocks, and supports the strategic vision outlined for agriculture in OSTP’s Bold Goals report. This includes the report on Building a Resilient Biomass Supply—A Plan to Enable the Bioeconomy in America, along with an Implementation Framework. USDA also has a long-standing focus on bio-based products, including support of the BioPreferred Program, a program created by the 2002 Farm Bill to increase the purchase of bio-based products and reauthorized in the 2018 Farm Bill. Their recent Economic Impact Analysis of the U.S. Biobased Products Industry report summarizes the status of bio-based products, an important component of the bioeconomy.

USDA also plays a central role in regulating biotechnology products, and the Bioeconomy EO called for updates to the regulatory system. In response, USDA (along with the FDA and the EPA) conducted stakeholder outreach, which is summarized in a report on Ambiguities, Gaps, and Uncertainties in Regulation of Biotechnology Under the Coordinated Framework. USDA also released a Plan for Regulatory Reform under the Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology and produced an updated Coordinated Framework website. Activities to improve coordination across the three major regulatory agencies are ongoing.

Unlike most federal departments and agencies, most programs and activities at USDA have a link with the life sciences, including those that support food and fiber, forests and grasslands, and other natural resources, as well as the manufacturing of numerous bio-based products and biofuels from these resources and the R&D and infrastructure that supports it. From USDA’s perspective, the department has served the bioeconomy since its founding in 1862. This broad focus provides many opportunities for strategic partnerships with other parts of the U.S. government working on the bioeconomy, and there are many different ways that USDA can contribute to the NBB.

On environmental sustainability, USDA has demonstrated its commitment to developing a circular bioeconomy, which is reflected in its Biomass Plan, and in its support for bio-based products and sustainable agriculture initiatives.

Conclusion

The agencies that make up the NBB highlight the complex nature of the U.S. bioeconomy and the various sectors that fall under it. Nevertheless, despite this complexity, the NBB is providing a whole-of-government approach to enable agencies to better support the burgeoning U.S. bioeconomy. The work underway is underpinned by the agencies’ priorities and programmatic expertise, but comes together to build the foundational base needed to support and grow the U.S. bioeconomy. Each agency also has a focus on environmental sustainability, with some, like DOE, DOD, and USDA, having a stronger focus due to their direct connections with the environment. Finally, agencies also agree on the need for more data on the bioeconomy’s impact as the different sectors evolve and the need for sustained funding to promote coordination, which takes time and effort beyond just programmatic work.

Appendix A. Interview Questions

1. In response to the September 2022 Bioeconomy EO, your agency has produced some reports and other deliverables on the bioeconomy.
   • Are we missing any deliverables? Are there any other reports or activities that are already completed or still to come in response to the EO?

2. Are there programs or other deliverables relevant to the bioeconomy that your agency has pursued under the Inflation Reduction Act or the CHIPS & Science Act?

3. Are there other activities within your agency that you believe support the bioeconomy? Is the bioeconomy broader than what was captured by the EO and these other efforts?

4. What does your agency hope to achieve in the foreseeable future and in the more distant future regarding the U.S. bioeconomy?
   • Are these goals related to the OSTP Bold Goals Report or other deliverables for the Bioeconomy EO?
   • To what extent will this progress be prioritized within your agency? How central to your agency is progress in the bioeconomy – now and into the future?

5. What are the major hurdles your agency currently faces or may face in the future in reaching these goals?

6. How does your agency tackle the issue of creating an environmentally sustainable bioeconomy and/or a circular bioeconomy?
   • Are there any initiatives in place currently or coming up in the near future that speak towards this?

The U.S. bioeconomy, the sector of the economy that is touched by biology, is valued at ~$1 trillion and predicted to grow to over $30 trillion in the next two decades. With such enormous potential, ensuring the U.S. bioeconomy’s continued economic growth and global leadership has become a matter of importance for national security. Despite this massive potential, the U.S. bioeconomy, and specifically the biomanufacturing industry, is currently limited by the lack of standards in place for the sector. 

The need for standards within the biomanufacturing sector has been discussed at length by experts, and the U.S. government has acknowledged and prioritized the establishment of standards by creating a National Standards Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technologies. Both the CHIPS & Science Act of 2022, and the Visions, Needs, and Proposed Actions for the Data for the Bioeconomy Initiative (2023), highlight the need for standardization as critical to the advancement of our domestic biomanufacturing sector. Furthermore, the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB), a commission tasked with reviewing advancements in biotechnology and its nexus with national security, stated in their interim report the importance of creating standards for this sector as a matter of national security.

Most recently, The Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Community Party (Select Committee on the CCP), held a hearing, “Growing Stakes: The Bioeconomy and American National Security”, that focused on the threats posed by adversaries in the industry. During the hearing, Congressman Jake Auchincloss (D-MA, 4th District), entered into the record a bipartisan letter that contained recommendations around developing and implementing standards for the bioeconomy that urged action from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). 

To get a better understanding of how Congress and the Select Committee on the CCP view the need for standards for the bioeconomy, FAS interviewed Congressman Jake Auchincloss.

FAS: In your opinion, why does creating standards for biotechnology and biomanufacturing boost economic competitiveness and national security? What benefits does this pose for different regions across the nation?

Congressman Auchincloss: Standards are important in every industry to solve coordination and collective action problems, and the government plays a critical role in establishing them so that markets can work more effectively. Standards provide concrete benchmarks for individuals and companies within American industry, all of whom need a stable environment to make long-term investments. This sentiment is echoed in the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology’s interim report which has noted that “biomanufacturing faces barriers to innovation because of…lack of standardization.” 

With standardization, more time can be spent innovating, researching, and building instead of compensating for uncertainty due to a lack of definitions that carry the weight of the federal government. Establishing standards will only increase productivity. As I stated in the letter I entered into the record during the Select Committee on the CCP’s hearing around the bioeconomy, “standardization will help advance industrial biomanufacturing, create a more resilient and dynamic supply chain, and establish a durable, competitive U.S. bioeconomy. In turn, strengthening the U.S. bioeconomy will improve Americans’ well-being, promote well-paying jobs, and create a competitive and advantageous U.S. science and technology enterprise to achieve our national and societal goals.”

What is the role of international collaboration in creating standards for biotechnology and biomanufacturing in light of increased tensions with China?

International collaboration is critical to the success of biotechnology, but we must ensure we are working with reliable and responsible partners. For the U.S. to remain a leader in the bioeconomy, the U.S. must ensure its domestic standards become the international benchmark. 

As we standardize the bioeconomy, we must also set standards for ethical intent and conduct. As such, there are some companies whose loyalty does not side with responsible science. We shouldn’t partner with companies like BGI, whose technologies have clear ties to the CCP’s repression and ongoing ethnic cleansing of its Uyghur communities. The increased tensions are a direct result of President Xi Jinping’s disregard for human rights, and excluding the CCP from projects that could be weaponized against their own people is the correct response.

Where does the U.S. bioeconomy stand in comparison with China or other countries?

China isn’t currently ahead but they are neck-and-neck with the U.S. because of the rate at which they are investing in their domestic bioeconomy. That’s already showing up in their patent and publication volume. The CCP’s R&D investment in biotechnology increased from $26 million USD in 1986 to $99 million USD in 2005. From 2008 to 2020, their investments increased to $3.8 billion USD. China’s spending on research and development overall climbed 10.3 percent to 2.44 trillion Chinese yuan ($378 billion USD) in 2020, according to the nation’s National Bureau of Statistics. Further, according to the health care information company IQVIA, China was the world’s second-largest national biopharmaceutical market in 2017, worth $122.6 billion USD. 

Via Rhodium Group

The 117th Congress and Biden Administration edged science and technology funding upwards, but Republicans have proposed slashing federal R&D funding. We are moving in the wrong direction with this self-defeating approach. Congress must prioritize basic science: the curiosity-driven, peer-reviewed research that the private sector won’t fund and the public sector under-funds. We can start by expanding NIH funding and fully appropriating the $170 billion Science portion of the Chips and Science law that was authorized throughout the next ten years.

NIST has been directed to create standards and metrology for the U.S. bioeconomy through the FY24 appropriation bills, the FY25 Presidential Budget, the Bioeconomy EO, and from the letter that you submitted into the record during the hearing “Growing Stakes: The Bioeconomy & American Security.” Given all these priorities, what needs to happen in order for NIST to fulfill their directives for the bioeconomy?

There needs to be continued pressure applied to ensure NIST is prioritizing this important work. Congress can further support NIST by appropriating more funding for them to achieve the work laid out in front of them, as I have advocated during the current appropriations process.

The recent AI EO also directs NIST with many different tasks. Is the AI EO overtasking NIST and making bioeconomy related efforts an afterthought for them?

The AI EO can be implemented simultaneously with standardization efforts, if NIST is appropriately resourced. But those who think that AI is more important than biotech are wrong, and should not point NIST in that direction. Care should be taken not to duplicate work unnecessarily, but all of these tasks assigned to NIST will take time and labor. Again, NIST needs to be adequately funded to do all the work it is being asked to do.

In the letter, you suggest NIST collaborate with Manufacturing USA institutes, NIIMBL & BioMADE. However, in the Department of Commerce’s FY25 budget request, they ask for $37M for the Manufacturing USA program, the same amount that they have received since FY23. Should Congress prioritize and raise funding levels for programs like Manufacturing USA and why would this be important for ensuring a competitive edge for the U.S. bioeconomy?

Absolutely. Many federal R&D programs are continuously underfunded, even as they are tasked with more responsibilities. The programs we fund reflect our priorities. We need to be prioritizing science, technology, and centers of excellence for manufacturing to gain that competitive edge. Increasing funding would give these agencies and programs the resources they need to set standards and increase R&D. That’s why I sent a letter to the House Committee on Appropriations asking for a 10 percent increase above FY24 enacted funding levels for NIST, Manufacturing USA, and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

Lastly, in your opinion, what potential does the U.S. bioeconomy have that we are not capitalizing on and what would you like to see occur for the U.S. bioeconomy in the next year.

I would like to see standardization, or at least the beginning of standardization, within the next year. With standardization for industrial biomanufacturing in place, the U.S. bioeconomy will be able to reach new heights and enable our talented citizens to delve deeper into their research without being hindered by the lack of baseline definitions. Fully appropriating the $170 billion that was authorized for the Science portion of CHIPS and Science would be the step in the right direction to maintain U.S. innovation and competitiveness in biotechnology and biomanufacturing. Furthermore, we need state capacity and funding for R&D; which includes the staffing and programming for regulation and standardization and also the funding for peer-reviewed basic research. Finally, we need to expand the productive capacity of the bioeconomy through workforce development compacts that bring together employers, educators, and trade associations together; through skilled immigration pathways; and through technology-agnostic tax credits that are transferable for R&D and biomanufacturing. In the next year, I am working towards legislation that advances all of these different components to strengthen and secure the U.S. bioeconomy.

The Federation of American Scientists values diversity of thought and believes that a range of perspectives — informed by evidence — is essential for discourse on scientific and societal issues. Contributors allow us to foster a broader and more inclusive conversation. We encourage constructive discussion around the topics we care about.

In the quest for sustainable energy and materials, biomass emerges as a key player, bridging the gap between the energy sector and the burgeoning U.S. and regional bioeconomies (microbioeconomies). Despite often being pigeonholed as fuel for energy production, biomass holds far-reaching potential that extends beyond combustion. Identifying sustainable biomass feedstocks that are easily accessible and consistent in their makeup could be a game-changer to help regions unlock their bioeconomy potential and support scientific innovations toward more environmentally sustainable materials and chemicals.

Biomass is defined as “any organic matter that is available on a renewable or recurring basis, including agricultural crops and trees, wood and wood residues, plants, algae, grasses, animal manure, municipal residues, and other residue materials” by the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR). Biomass has mainly been viewed by the public as a source of energy through burning or for chemical conversion into biofuels, encouraged by federal incentive programs, including those from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Energy (DOE). However, aside from burning or conversion for biofuel, biomass can undergo a complex process of chemical or biological breakdown and be transformed into various building block components that can be used for a wide range of biotechnology applications.

Once the biomass is broken down into its functional components it can be used as a feedstock, which is a “resource used as the basis for manufacturing another product. [Often], . . . a source of carbon to produce an array of chemicals.” For example, lignocellulosic biomass, plant or plant-based materials not used for food, can be hydrolyzed into sugars, which serve as precursors for bio-based chemicals and materials. This allows for new, environmentally sustainable chemicals for use in biotechnology and biomanufacturing applications, thus positioning biomass as a cornerstone resource of the U.S. bioeconomy. In addition to biochemical production, biomass, and feedstock are used in the bioeconomy in bioplastics and biomaterials. To push the U.S. bioeconomy toward environmental sustainability, it is critical to begin building programmatic and physical infrastructure to harness biomass, which is ultimately converted into feedstock using biotechnology applications and used in the biomanufacturing process to create everyday materials for the public.

Not All Biomass is Used for Energy, or Sustainably Produced

While biomass holds promise as a renewable energy source, not all biomass is used for energy, and not all of it is sustainable. Corn is a consistent poster child of the biomass and biofuel industry as a sustainable way to power combustion engines. Yet, the growth of corn relies heavily on the extensive use of fertilizers and pesticides, which can lead to soil erosion, water pollution, and habitat degradation. Depending on how a company conducts its Life Cycle Assessment and Carbon Intensity of its supplies, corn may not truly represent an environmentally sustainable biomass solution.

However, it is tough to beat the productivity of corn and its ability to be used for various biomass and atmospheric carbon capture applications. For example, corn stover, the byproduct stalks and leaves leftover from harvest, can be broken down into biochar for reuse in soil nutrient replenishment and is excellent for carbon sequestration from the atmosphere. Carbon sequestration is the “storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) after it is captured from industrial facilities and power plants or removed directly from the atmosphere”. One California-based company, Charm, is harvesting the leftover corn leaves, husks, and stalks and breaking them down into bio-oil which is stored deep underground in EPA-regulated wells. This bio-oil now contains sequestered carbon from corn crops and locks it away for thousands of years thus allowing a simple, and effective, way to use farm waste materials as carbon sequestration machines. This corn stover may otherwise have been burned or left to rot, releasing its carbon into the atmosphere.

While corn remains the leader of the biomass pack for usage in atmospheric carbon capture, it is necessary to begin broadening the biomass portfolio into other crops, both conventional and not, that can offer similar carbon capture and biomass benefits for industrial energy and feedstock use. The introduction of more sustainable biomass inputs, like waste hulls from almond crops, winter oilseed crops, or macro/microalgae, might be the key to introducing options for industries to use for their biomanufacturing processes. To make the U.S. bioeconomy more environmentally sustainable, it will be necessary to prioritize the use of biomass that is sustainable for the creation of bio-based products. To achieve this, policymakers and industry leaders can come together to understand the physical infrastructure needed to support the processing and utilization of sustainable biomass.

Biomass in Carbon Accounting

A contentious issue in biomass utilization revolves around carbon accounting, particularly concerning the differentiation between biogenic and fossil fuel carbon. Biogenic carbon originates from recently living organisms and is part of the natural carbon cycle, while fossil fuel carbon is derived from the remains of extinct carbon-rich plants and animals that decomposed as they were compressed and heated in the ground. When burned, this fossil fuel carbon is released into the atmosphere, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. The current carbon accounting frameworks often conflate these distinctions, leading to misconceptions and controversies surrounding biomass utilization’s carbon neutrality claims. Addressing this ambiguity is crucial for aligning policy frameworks with scientific realities and ensuring informed decision-making in biomass utilization. As microbioeconomies grow, any confusion about biogenic versus fossil fuel carbon could become another barrier to entry for burgeoning bioeconomy opportunities.

Environmental and Economic Impacts

All across rural America, local economic developers are seeing more biomass conversion projects come to their communities, which offers the chance to boost economic revenues from turning biomass into energy, fuel, or feedstock and creates a broad spectrum of jobs for the area. To capitalize on this, increased bioliteracy on how growing biomass could offer additional financial support for farmers, provide energy to heat communities, and become feedstock for the biotechnology and biomanufacturing industry is critical. The more we activate and connect parts of America that are not located in existing high-density technology hubs, the better prepared these communities will be when biomass projects look to settle in those places. For example, woody biomass was emphasized throughout the DOE 2023 Billion Ton report as an important biomass source for fuel and energy production, yet the process of getting the timber and woody biomass out of the forest and into processing facilities is slow to launch due to concerns over environmental impacts.

While environmental impacts are valid and of great concern in some ecosystems around the U.S., harvesting wood waste and timber in areas that are primed for increased forest fire risk might be a sustainable option for protecting forest ecosystems while also benefiting the community for energy and heat concerns. The USDA Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission discussed the need for further research into forest biomass to understand how it can generate profit for communities with otherwise waste materials while also mitigating fire risk. One recommendation stated the need for “Increase[d] resources for programs to help private landowners dispose of woody biomass”. Although several programs assist landowners in this effort, there are still significant expenses involved. These costs may discourage landowners from conducting fuel reduction activities, leading them to either burn the material, which can harm air quality, or leave it on the land, potentially worsening wildfire severity in case of an outbreak. There’s a necessity for initiatives supporting the disposal of biomass, including wood chipping, hauling, and its utilization. These initiatives could receive support from USDA Rural Development and should explore ways to encourage landowners to sustainably harvest their woody biomass for both financial incentives and for reducing wildfire risk.

Billion Ton Report Recommendations

According to the 2023 DOE Billion-Ton Report, the U.S. used 342 million tons of biomass for energy and bio-based chemicals in 2022. The top biomass source for biofuels is corn, with the U.S. producing nearly 150 tons per year of corn that is converted to ethanol. Whereas ~140 million tons of forestry/wood and wood waste (woody biomass) are used for heat and power purposes. However, many other types of biomass exist and are used for various purposes including transportation or industrial and electrical power. Below is an abbreviated list, based on the Billion-Ton Report, of common biomass examples and some of their uses.

The recent Billion Ton report makes it clear that the U.S. has plenty of available biomass for use in the production of biofuel, heat/energy, and bio-based products, and that further utilization of biomass in these applications and in biotechnology and biomanufacturing industries could be a way forward to mitigate climate change and improve sustainability of the U.S. bioeconomy. To change the mindset of biomass as more than corn grown for biofuel, it will take a concerted effort by the federal agencies involved in funding biomass use projects, like the DOE, USDA, National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense, to communicate to farmers that growing biomass can be profitable. It will also take a joint effort from the federal government and local governments to build pilot and commercial scale facilities to begin processing diverse biomass.

Overall, there is immense promise in connecting biomass growers, processors, and bio-powered industries. It allows the players in the U.S. bioeconomy to think critically about their waste outputs and how to harness biomass as the key to unlocking a future where all communities, be they rural or urban, benefit from our national bioeconomy. You can learn more about biomass use in biotechnology and biomanufacturing at our upcoming webinar May 1st at 10 AM ET.

Over the past year, there has been tremendous momentum in policy for the U.S. bioeconomy – the collection of advanced industry sectors, like pharmaceuticals, biomanufacturing, and others, with biology at their core. This momentum began in part with the Bioeconomy Executive Order (EO) and the programs authorized in CHIPS and Science, and continued with the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) release of the Bold Goals for U.S. Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing (Bold Goals) report. The report highlighted ambitious goals that the Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Commerce (DOC), Human Health Services (HHS), National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) have committed to in order to further the U.S. bioeconomical enterprise.

However, these ambitious goals set by various agencies in the Bold Goals report will also require directed and appropriate funding, and this is where we have been falling short. Multiple bioeconomy-related programs were authorized through the bipartisan CHIPS & Science legislation but have yet to receive anywhere near their funding targets. Underfunding and the resulting lack of capacity has also led to a delay in the tasks under the Bioeconomy EO. In order for the bold goals outlined in the report to be realized, it will be imperative for the U.S. to properly direct and fund the many different endeavors under the U.S. bioeconomy.

Despite this need for funding for the U.S. bioeconomy, the recently-completed FY2024 (FY24) appropriations were modest for some science agencies but abysmal for others, with decreases seen across many different scientific endeavors across agencies. The DOC, and specifically the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), saw massive cuts in funding base program funding, with earmarks swamping core activities in some accounts. 

There remains some hope that the FY2025 (FY25) budget will alleviate some of the cuts that have been seen to science endeavors, and in turn, to programs related to the bioeconomy. But the strictures of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which contributed to the difficult outcomes in FY24, remain in place for FY25 as well.

Bioeconomy in the FY25 Request

With this difficult context in mind, the Presidential FY25 Budget was released as well as the FY25 budgets for DOE, DOC, HHS, NSF, and USDA. 

The President’s Budget makes strides toward enabling a strong bioeconomy by prioritizing synthetic biology metrology and standards within NIST and by directing OSTP to establish the Initiative Coordination Office to support the National Engineering Biology Research and Development Initiative. However, beyond these two instances, the President’s budget only offers limited progress for the bioeconomy because of mediocre funding levels.

The U.S. bioeconomy has a lot going on, with different agencies prioritizing different areas and programs depending on their jurisdiction. This makes it difficult to properly grasp all the activity that is ongoing (but we’re working on it, stay tuned!). However, we do know that the FY25 budget requests from the agencies themselves have been a mix bag for bioeconomy activities related to the Bold Goals Report. Some agencies are asking for large appropriations, while some agencies are not investing enough to support these goals:

Department of Energy supports Bold Goals Report efforts in biotech & biomanufacturing R&D to further climate change solutions

The increase in funding levels requested for FY25 for BER and MESC will enable increased biotech and biomanufacturing R&D, supporting DOE efforts to meet its proposed objectives in the Bold Goals Report.

• INCREASE: $945M for Biological and Environmental Research (BER) in FY25, a substantial increase of 5% from FY24 appropriations of $900M
• INCREASE: $113M for Manufacturing & Energy Supply Chains (MESC) in FY25, a substantial expansion from FY24 appropriations of $18 million

Department of Commerce falls short in support of biotech & biomanufacturing R&D supply chain resilience

One budgetary increase request is offset by two flat funding levels.

• INCREASE: $645M for the International Trade Administration in FY25, a 6% increase from the FY24 enacted amount
  • Specifically they are asking for $103M for the Supply Chain Resiliency Program. This is important because, as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, our supply chain currently is not resilient. Ensuring that we have the proper inputs, outputs, and materials required to continue our day-to-day endeavors will be vital in maintaining and leading a strong bioeconomy.
• FLAT: $1.5B for NIST in FY25, a 3% increase from FY24 enacted of $1.46 billion
  • $37M for NIST’s Manufacturing USA program and $175M for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, both flat from the FY24 appropriations levels. Flat funding won’t keep pace with the amount of work that needs to be done to create a resilient supply chain and programs like BioMADE and NIIMBL need to guide their industries forward.

Department of Agriculture falls short in support of biotech & biomanufacturing R&D to further food & Ag innovation

• INCREASE: $1.74B for the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, a 3.5% increase from the FY24 enacted amount
• DECREASE: $1.78B for the Agricultural Research Service program, a 3% decrease from the FY24 appropriated $1.85B
• NO FUNDING: Once again the Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority (AgARDA) has not been funded at all in FY25, despite being authorized at $50M a year through FY23 through the 2018 Farm Bill – this is a missed opportunity to build much needed agriculture innovation

Human Health Services falls short in support of biotech & biomanufacturing R&D to further human health

• DECREASE: $47.9B for the National Institutes of Health, a 1.4% decrease from the FY24 appropriated $48.6B
  • Specifically, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) would receive $1.5B, maintaining funding levels seen in FY24
• DECREASE: $970M for the Biomedical Advanced Research & Development Authority (BARDA), a 4% decrease from the FY24 appropriated $1B

National Science Foundation supports Bold Goals Report efforts in biotech & biomanufacturing R&D to further cross-cutting advances

• INCREASE: $8B for Research and Related Activities within NSF, a 12% increase from the FY24 enacted amounts
  • $900M for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP), where in FY24 Congress supported the program without specifying funds for it
  • $258M for the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), a 3% increase from the FY24 enacted amount
• INCREASE: $387M for Advanced Manufacturing across NSF, a 9% increase from FY23 amounts*
• INCREASE: $421M for Biotechnology across NSF, a 9.4% increase from FY23 amounts*
• The NSF Engines will be vital in shaping regional microbioeconomies and furthering cross-cutting advances and information on their FY25 budgets can be found here.

* FY23 amounts are listed due to FY24 appropriations not being finalized at the time that this document was created.

Overall, the DOE and NSF have asked for FY25 budgets that could potentially achieve the goals stated in the Bold Goals Report, while the DOC, USDA and HHS have unfortunately limited their budgets and it remains questionable if they will be able to achieve the goals listed with the funding levels requested. The DOC, and specifically NIST, faces one of the biggest challenges this upcoming year. NIST has to juggle tasks assigned to it from the AI EO as well as the Bioeconomy EO and the Presidential Budget. The 8% decrease in funding for NIST does not paint a promising picture for either the Bioeconomy EO and should be something that Congress rectifies when they enact their appropriation bills. Furthermore, the USDA faces cuts in funding for vital programs related to their goals and AgARDA continues to be unfunded. In order for USDA to achieve the goals listed in the Bold Goals report, it will be imperative that Congress prioritize these areas for the benefit of the U.S. bioeconomy.

Innovations in agriculture will play an increasingly important role in America’s quest to ensure resilient and sustainable production of food, medicine, and bioenergy products. Biotechnology, spurred by advances such as cheap sequencing, offers a realm of possibilities for novel agricultural inputs, such as more targeted pesticides that are less toxic and less likely to cause tolerance, less carbon-intensive alternatives to fertilizers, and more climate-resilient crop varieties. 

However, research and development of new agricultural biotech products can be expensive and time-consuming, due to the large physical scale and long timelines of field trials. At the same time, federal funding for agriculture research has historically paled in comparison to funding for defense, energy, and human health. For example, in 2022, the NIH’s R&D budget was more than 16 times that of the USDA’s. 

The Biden administration has demonstrated its recognition of the need to accelerate research and development in agricultural biotechnology, featuring it prominently in 2022’s Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy. Additionally, a bill to expand authorization of funding for a moonshot USDA research grant program, AgARDA (Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority), has broad bipartisan support. At the same time, there has been a commensurate increase in private funding. 

While this multi-front surge in enthusiasm and investment is welcome, many challenges remain in translating money, ideas, and laboratory results to the field and the market, including communication between the various stakeholders in agricultural biotechnology R&D. To better understand industry priorities and potential barriers to progress, we spoke to members of the executive team of Fall Line Capital (FLC), a venture capital (VC) and private equity firm that invests in food/agriculture startups. Fall Line’s investments include new biopesticides (Greenlight, Micropep), functional microbes (Pluton, Wild Microbes), and new equipment (Guardian Agriculture, Rantizo, LUMO), in addition to managing a farmland portfolio. As lifelong farmers as well as agriculture technology (agtech) investors, Clay Mitchell and Scott Day offer a multifaceted perspective on the current landscape.

We then outline actions for government actors that can address the challenges identified in our interview, in three key areas: regulatory oversight, federal R&D funding, and bioliteracy.

Q: What can the U.S. government do to provide a supportive landscape for new agricultural biotechnology?

Fall Line Capital: I think the biggest hurdles are regulatory. If the government wants to be truly supportive and innovative, it should be working to revamp the convoluted regulatory environment. The current system wasn’t designed to handle all the new technology being developed with novel mechanisms of action, so hurdles to creating and commercializing stifle innovation even more than they did in the past. 

Looking at new technology like RNA– and micropeptide-based pesticides, it’s been a difficult process to get those products registered, even though they should be embraced: compared to conventional pesticides, they have the potential to be highly specific to the target organism and minimally toxic to non-target organisms. During GreenLight’s discussions with the EPA to register their RNAi biopesticide for tackling invasive potato beetles, the EPA seemed to understand that this sort of technology is the future, but movement through the registration approval process was slow nevertheless; the application sat there for five 5 years. There were dozens of other biological pesticide product applications, and the EPA had to give every application the same level of scrutiny, even if many were obviously ineffective. There’s pressure to register more biological products as a prominent alternative to traditional chemical products, despite generally low efficacy. This clutters up the process, and the EPA was already short-staffed after extensive attrition during COVID. 

A substantial amount of the innovation is coming from small companies like Greenlight that don’t have the resources (which many of the large incumbent ag companies have) to navigate the current registration programs and protocols, which are spread across multiple agencies involved in regulating biotechnology: the USDA, EPA, and FDA. There needs to be a new concierge resource beyond what the Unified Website for Biotechnology Regulation currently provides, that could direct you to the right office, the right registration process, as well as appropriate funding opportunities and legal resources.

Q: What do you think are currently the most pressing challenges in agriculture?

FLC: Pest resistance continues to be a very serious concern in agriculture, so new and effective control measures need to be continually developed for all pests: weeds, insects, disease. There are two major pests of concern for my own farm in Western Canada. First, herbicide-resistant kochia weed, which has become a huge problem in the last five years all across the world. No one’s sure how exactly it spread so quickly. Second, flea beetles are decimating cruciferous crops. RNAi-based insecticides could be very effective here, if we can achieve sufficient persistence of the insecticide and avoid impacting non-target species.

In terms of challenges to agriculture-based businesses, there’s a lack of funding right now for getting tech to market. Funding for agtech from VC firms fell last year, as it did for most forms of tech. This was  following a very strong period of agtech funding for the previous two years, during which we saw over-investment in several sectors, such as alternative meat and indoor farming. At the same time, agtech companies typically have long timelines to product launch and need more funding than just one VC can provide. Right now, many companies who come to Fall Line for money are just looking for short-term “bridge funding” so they can make payroll and buy time until they can demonstrate enough progress to raise a successful “series” round with good valuation and favorable investment terms. And no one is going public right now.

Q: What are common knowledge gaps for agtech startups regarding farmers’ needs?

FLC: Agtech startups are often centered around a great idea or technology that’s looking for a problem to solve — but it’s hard for a specific technology to meet the needs of a variable problem. Farmers’ needs and priorities (e.g. pests, nutrients, etc.) are incredibly diverse, varying dramatically by crop and location, even from one field to the next on the same farm, or even within the same field. Today, it is very hard to get an accurate understanding of what is needed or desired at the farm level because there is no easy way to connect with growers on a broad scale. Farm papers have diminished in popularity just like mainstream papers, radio has diminished as well. Unless you have the email address or cell phone number of a farmer, it is hard to connect directly with them now, and most farmers don’t like doing surveys of any type anyway — and those that do aren’t that representative of the industry. I think this is why most types of polls are becoming less accurate as it is increasingly more difficult to get a representative sample of opinions. 

Farmers can be hesitant to adopt new technologies, since the risk can be high. And once they’ve been burned once by a product that failed to work as advertised, they’re unlikely to be willing to trust that company, or even that type of product, in the future. For example, last year, North Dakota State University scientists coordinated a large-scale field trial where it showed in a large field trial that most new biological products aimed at improving nitrogen-fixation in non-legume crops were ineffective at increasing yield. In general, the efficacy of biologicals can vary greatly depending on the exact field conditions, making it hard to reliably achieve the advertised result. There’s a huge jump from greenhouse results to field trials, another huge jump from field trials to commercial fields. But when a product’s value is obvious, farmers actually embrace new technology very quickly: both GMO crops and GPS achieved widespread adoption in a very short period of time.

Finally, technology developers should keep in mind that problems can be solved by old or simple technology. When people think about controlled-environment farming, their minds jump to fancy things like vertical farming — but with irrigation and mulch films, you’re 90% of the way there. Simply by adding a mulch film to heat the soil, farmers can greatly extend the growing season in northern climates by a month. This approach allowed us us to substantially increase the yield from our corn fields in Wisconsin.

This conversation illustrates a clear need for change in three key areas:

Federal funding for agricultural R&D

Given the unreliability of private market funding for agricultural biotechnology R&D, which often entails long turnaround times and low margins relative to traditional tech companies, substantial federal funding through research programs such as AgARDA is vital for accelerating R&D. AgARDA, based on the ARPA Advanced Research Projects Agency model, would allow the USDA to support the development of transformative technologies for focus areas of its choosing. However, despite its popularity, AgARDA, which was first authorized in the 2018 Farm Bill for $50 million annually for FY2019-2023, only received $2m in that timeframe. The USDA requested $5m for AgARDA in FY2022 and again in FY2023; it only received $1m each year. By contrast, ARPA-H, the human health equivalent, was authorized in FY2022 and immediately received its full $1 billion authorization, followed by $1.5b in FY2023. 

The USDA has published an implementation framework for AgARDA. Unfortunately, misalignment between USDA and Congress appears to be preventing AgARDA from being fully funded to its authorized levels. Members of the Congressional agriculture committees want the USDA to show that it has made progress with the $2m it has received before they allocate additional funding, namely the appointment of a dedicated director and initiation of a pilot program with calls for grant proposals. However, the USDA has deemed the $2m insufficient to support long-term staff or a formal grant program, especially since the appropriations require annual renewal. The current impasse means that no AgARDA projects have been rolled out, despite the pressing nature of the research priorities identified by the USDA.  

The following steps should be taken for AgARDA to achieve its full potential:

• USDA should produce a formal report to Congress of how it utilized the $2m thus far allocated.
• Congress should ensure that the bill to expand AgARDA authorization from $50m to $100m is passed as part of the upcoming Farm Bill.
• USDA should request, and Congress should approve, funding up to its full authorization for AgARDA in its FY2026 budget. Additionally, the appropriations should be granted on a three-year basis, like ARPA-H’s appropriations, to permit greater runway.

Regulatory oversight

The U.S. regulatory system for biotechnology needs to be a) expanded, with funding for a larger agency staff to process applications quickly; b) updated, to be flexible such that it can accommodate new-to-market technologies; and c) coordinated, to streamline approval processes. 

The National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) addresses these unmet needs in its interim report. First, NSCEB is “considering options to facilitate higher staffing levels”; this should be made a priority. 

Second, concerning regulatory oversight, NSCEB identified three potential paths for improvement:

• discrete changes to individual statutes to reduce redundancies and gaps in biotechnology oversight; 
• a single, unified regulatory process to assess any novel risks associated with biotechnology products relative to their conventional counterparts; and 
• a hybrid approach that legislatively mandates coordination while facilitating individual agency review and risk assessment. 

Of these, the hybrid approach would likely provide the greatest flexibility. In contrast, discrete changes to individual statutes will likely involve slow, piecemeal changes that can easily become outdated again. While a unified regulatory process may be more streamlined, the report’s phrasing creates a sharp binary delineation between biotech and conventional that does not reflect reality. Such a delineation could engender a lot of wasted time debating biotech versus conventional classification for a given product. 

Finally, to address intra- and interagency coordination, the NSCEB presented two Farm Bill amendments that deserve Congressional support: the Biotechnology Oversight Coordination Act and the Agriculture Biotechnology Coordination Act.

Bioliteracy and agricultural education

Market demand and regulations are informed by consumer perceptions, which then impact R&D decisions. For example, fear of consumer and regulatory backlash can dissuade companies from investing in new genetic engineering technology for developing new plant varieties, despite their potential to improve agricultural sustainability. Increased bioliteracy across the American public would help consumers, businesses, and policymakers alike better understand new biotechnologies and engage with the burgeoning bioeconomy. This is a need that the NSCEB has also highlighted. At the K-12 level, improvements could comprise updating science curriculums to include contemporary topics like gene editing, as well as amending civics curriculums to better explain the modern functions of regulatory agencies. In addition, agricultural education can be embedded into biology and earth science curriculums to reconnect the public at large with the realities faced by producers. Similar to computer science literacy improvements through standard setting and funding, bioliteracy can be improved through state-level education initiatives.

The Federation of American Scientists values diversity of thought and believes that a range of perspectives — informed by evidence — is essential for discourse on scientific and societal issues. Contributors allow us to foster a broader and more inclusive conversation. We encourage constructive discussion around the topics we care about.

The U.S. Bioeconomy can be a slippery thing, but there’s no denying that leaders at the highest levels of industry and politics are paying attention to its potential to boost our economic growth and our technological edge.

Look no further than the White House’s Bioeconomy Executive Order – aimed at shaping a bioeconomy that is “safe, secure and sustainable.” While programs and reports have focused on the ‘safe’ and ‘secure’ aspects of the bioeconomy and economic indicators, environmental sustainability has not had as much momentum. But this isn’t necessarily due to a lack of interest in biobased products at the industrial level.

A novel collaboration between Ford Motor Company and Jose Cuervo® Tequila Company is one example of this growing interest. Agave by-products from tequila production will soon be used to create more sustainable bioplastics for next-generation Ford vehicles. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, 5 billion metric tons of agricultural biomass waste is produced annually. Agriculture by-products, like the waste products from tequila production, are abundant and often underutilized; therefore, finding new processes to incorporate available waste products to create something new and sustainable can help manufacturers embrace more biobased materials. 

But one catch for building an environmentally sustainable national bioeconomy strategy is that not all biobased products or processes in the bioeconomy are – despite the connotations of “biobased” – inherently sustainable. Biobased products do indeed hold enormous promise for promoting economic growth while mitigating environmental challenges. And yet a strategy to ensure that environmental benefits actually get to consumers remains elusive. As the U.S. government grapples with delineating what sectors the bioeconomy does or does not contain –  it must also ask:  What does environmental sustainability mean in a bioeconomy? How should it be measured? Answers to these questions would support efforts to evaluate technologies and projects, prioritize investments, and ultimately improve sustainability.

Circular bioeconomy is a term commonly used to describe sustainability in the bioeconomy and combines two fundamental sustainability principles. First, it embraces the increased use of renewable resources, such as energy, chemicals, and materials, particularly those derived from plants. Second, it focuses on extending the lifecycle of these sustainable materials and products instead of discarding them. 

While the U.S. grapples with defining its bioeconomy and landing on a cohesive approach to  making it sustainable, the European Union (EU) and other international organizations have committed to this circular bioeconomy model (see BOX).

International definitions of the bioeconomy that include sustainability

Sustainability within the context of the European bioeconomy has been defined in many ways, including:

• Achieving economic growth, social, and environmental objectives by creating and adopting innovative solutions for the sustainable management of renewable biological resources.
• A circular, green, and inclusive approach that aims to create sustainable value from biomass and waste resources and ensure that future generations can benefit from our natural capital.

In the definitions above, economic and environmental sustainability inform each other depending on where a bioeconomy is located and what sector of the bioeconomy is being considered, such as biopharmaceutical manufacturing vs. agriculture. For example, sustainability for agriculturally-related bioeconomic products from Spain’s Andalusia region may look very different from sustainability for biopharmaceuticals from Berlin. The regionality differences will inform decisions that drive sustainability in a bioeconomy. 

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO )is creating guidance for developing and implementing sustainable bioeconomy strategies, policies, and programs across the globe The FAO focuses on five key elements of a sustainable bioeconomy: 1) the reduction of carbon emissions, 2) restoring biodiversity, 3) eliminating toxic waste, 4) building rural economies, and 5) reducing food insecurity and malnutrition. The FAO further states that the “development of a sustainable and circular bioeconomy globally is and will be driven by three broad forces:

• Societal aspirations and good governance for sustainable development and improved health and wellbeing. 
• Needs and opportunities to valorize and protect biological resources in the traditional bioeconomy core sectors.
• Scientific breakthroughs in biological, digital, and other fields of technology to expand possibilities for innovation.”

The EU is currently working towards a sustainable bioeconomy that aligns with the European Green Deal objectives, to build more diverse supply chains that are less dependent on fossil fuels and non-renewable resources. Furthermore, the EU sees the shift towards biobased products and sustainable processes as a way to achieve economic, social, and environmental goals. Establishing an aligned strategy allows for the two independent plans to work in synergy together to promote and advance EU’s goals. Which is further promoted by financial incentives that help EU member countries and municipalities to partake in this overarching strategy. Significant amounts of funding have been invested into the European bioeconomy and more member states of the EU are using tax incentives, grants, loans, and subsidies for biobased products to “provide public financial support to circular bioeconomy projects.” These efforts push the private sector to create more biobased products, but also enable a shift in manufacturing and research development processes to become more sustainable in order to capture additional financial benefits. 

The EU’s intentional inclusion of sustainability as part of their bioeconomy strategy can be attributed to the general acceptance of nature as a societal and economical benefit. This sustainability-forward mindset  informs how the EU seeks to use biotechnology as a tool to fix societal challenges. Furthermore, the sustainability-forward mindset has informed  how natural resources are included as part of their economic evaluations. Preserving their natural resources becomes a priority for them and the EU sees the bioeconomy, and the biotechnology sitting within it, as a means to safeguarding their natural resources. 

The U.S., on the other hand, has a rich history in manufacturing, and takes a more industry-forward approach to promote biomanufacturing and biotechnology as a way to create new biobased products. Any societal challenges that may be alleviated along the way come as a positive byproduct but it is not the primary focus of the U.S. bioeconomy. Inclusion of sustainability in the U.S. bioeconomy gets further stress-tested by the vastness of the U.S. natural landscape and the increasing number of natural disasters that vary from one region to another. For example, the rampant wildfires continue to destroy thousands of acres of forested land on the West Coast and the coastal habitats are lost on the East Coast due to rising ocean levels. This all leads to immense challenges in conserving and protecting these natural resources at a national level, making it hard to establish a coherent environmental sustainability strategy for the U.S. bioeconomy.

To successfully achieve environmental sustainability, the U.S. bioeconomy needs a two-pronged approach. The first approach requires incorporating sustainability at the regional level. Due to historic, place-based federal investments throughout the U.S., like the Economic Development Administration (EDA) Tech Hubs or the National Science Foundation (NSF) Regional Innovation Engines, regional bioeconomies, or microbioeconomies, are beginning to form. 

Microbioeconomies utilize a region-specific biobased industries, academic strengths, and support sectors to apply and innovate on various biotechnologies that boost regional economies and mitigate region-specific environmental challenges. Microbioeconomies enable the integration of sustainability into the bioeconomy in a more approachable manner. Taking the lessons learned and major themes that arise from how these microbioeconomies are established and including sustainability in their planning, allows for a roadmap on how to integrate sustainability into the national bioeconomy strategy.

The second approach requires action at the federal level, in other words, a top-down approach to incorporating environmental sustainability into the U.S. bioeconomy.  This approach would require a dedicated effort to build the necessary infrastructure and common language of what sustainability is and how it can exist within the bioeconomy. One way that the federal government can start this process is by driving the convergence of bioeconomy and sustainability programs within federal agencies. By mandating that federally-funded bioeconomy programs and activities include a component of environmental sustainability, the government can spur a new wave of innovation and encourage regional efforts to incorporate sustainability in their microbioeconomies. The federal government can leverage and fortify existing programs to carry out this approach.  For example, the BioPreferred program, housed within the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is meant to increase the purchase of biobased products in the U.S. through mandatory purchasing requirements for federal agencies and their contractors; and a voluntary labeling initiative for biobased products. As the recent Bioeconomy Executive Order also highlighted the need to strengthen and expand the BioPreferred program, and implementation of this task can be another step forward in incorporating sustainability into the U.S. bioeconomy.

With historic levels of investments and the push to reduce emissions to tackle climate change, the time is ripe with opportunities for U.S. innovators to bring sustainability into the fold of their manufacturing and R&D processes, products, and services. The U.S can take steps in the right direction by creating financial incentive programs similar to ones implemented by EU member states, incorporating sustainability language into our federal codes, and mandating that federally funded biotechnology research have a sustainability component. These changes will be critically important to both grow a future circular bioeconomy in the U.S. that can simultaneously promote economic growth and help alleviate the impacts of climate change. 

The promise of the bioeconomy is massive and fast-growing—offering new jobs, enhanced supply chains, novel technologies, and sustainable bioproducts valued at a projected $4 trillion over the next 16 years. Although the United States has been a global leader, advancements in the bioeconomy—whether it’s investing in specialized infrastructural hardware or building a multidisciplinary STEM workforce—are subject to public trust. In fact, public trust is the key to unlocking the full potential of the bioeconomy, and without it, the United States may fall short of long-term economic goals and even fall behind peer nations as a bioeconomy leader. Recent failures of the federal regulatory system for biotechnology threaten public trust, and recent regulations have been criticized for their lack of transparency. As a result, cross-sector efforts aim not just to reimagine the bioeconomy but to create a coordinated regulatory system for it. Burdened by decreasing public trust in the federal government, even the most coordinated regulatory systems will fail to boost the bioeconomy if they cannot instill public trust.

In response, the Biden-Harris Administration should direct a Bioeconomy Initiative Coordination Office (BICO) to establish a public engagement mechanism parallel with the biotechnology regulatory system. Citizen engagement and transparency are key to building public trust, yet current public engagement mechanisms cannot convey trust to a public skeptical of a biotechnology’s rewards in light of perceived risks. Bioeconomy coordination efforts should therefore prioritize public trust by adopting a new public-facing biotechnology evaluation program that collects data from nontraditional audiences via participatory technology assessments (pTA) and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA/MCDM) and provides insight that addresses limitations. In accordance with the CHIPS and Science Act, the public engagement program will provide a mechanism for a BICO to build public trust while advancing the bioeconomy. 

The public engagement program will serve as a decision-making resource for the Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology (CFRB) and a data repository for evaluating public acceptance in the present and future bioeconomy. 

Challenge and Opportunity 

While policymakers have been addressing the challenge of sharing regulatory space among the three key agencies—Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and USDA—transparency and public trust remain challenges for federal agencies, small to midsize developers, and even the public at large. The government plays a vital role in the regulatory process by providing guidelines that govern the interactions between the developers and consumers of biotechnology. For over 30 years, product developers have depended on strategic alliances between product developers and the government to ensure the market success of biotechnology. The marketplace and regulatory oversight are tightly linked, and their impacts on public confidence in the bioeconomy cannot be separated. 

When it comes to a consumer’s purchase of a biotechnology product, the pivotal factor is often not price but trust. In 2016, the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released recommendations on aligning public values with gene drive research. The report revealed that public engagement that promotes a “bi-directional exchange of information and perspectives” can increase public trust. Moreover, a 2022 report on Gene Drives in Agriculture highlights the importance of considering public perception and acceptance in risk-based decision-making. 

The CHIPS and Science Act provides an opportunity to address transparency and public trust within the federal regulatory system for biotechnology by directing the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to establish a Coordination Office for the National Engineering Biology Research and Development Initiative. The coordination office (i.e., BICO) will serve as a point of contact for cross-sector engagement and create a junction for the exchange of technical and programmatic information. Additionally, the office will conduct public outreach and produce recommendations for strengthening the bioeconomy.

This policy window presents a novel opportunity to create a regulatory system for the bioeconomy that also encompasses the voice of the general public. History of requests for information, public hearings, and cross-sector partnerships demonstrates the public’s capacity—or at least specific subsets of experts therein—to fill gaps, oversights, and ambiguities within biotechnology regulations. 

While expert opinion is essential for developing regulation, so too are the opinions of the general public. Historically, discussions about values, sentiments, and opinions on biotechnology have been dominated by technical experts (for example, through debates on product vs. process, genetically engineered vs. genetically modified organisms, and perceived safety). Biotechnology discourse has primarily been restricted to these traditional, technical audiences, and as a result, public calls to address concerns about biotechnology are drowned out by expert opinions. We need a mechanism for public engagement that prioritizes collecting data from nontraditional audiences. This will ensure sustainable and responsible advancements in the bioeconomy.

If we want to establish a bioeconomy that increases national competitiveness, then we need to increase the participation of nontraditional audiences. Although some public concerns are unlikely to be allayed through policy change (e.g., addressing calls for a ban on genetically engineered or modified products), a public engagement program could identify the underlying issue(s) for these concerns. This would enable the adoption of comprehensive strategies that increase public trust, further sustaining the bioeconomy.

Research shows that public comment and notice periods are less likely to hear from nontraditional audiences—that is, members of underserved communities, workers, smaller market entities, and new firms. Despite the statutory and capacity-based obstacles federal agencies face in increasing public participation, the Executive Office of the President seeks to broaden public participation and community engagement in the federal regulatory process. Public engagement programs provide a platform to interact with interested parties that represent a wide range of perspectives. Thus, information gathered from public engagement could inform future proposed updates to the CFRB and the regulatory pathways for new products. In this way, the public opinions and sentiments can be incorporated into a translational governance framework to bring translational value to the bioeconomy. Since increasing public trust is complementary to advancing the bioeconomy, there is a translational value in strategically integrating a collective perception of risk and safety into future biotechnology regulation. In this case, translational governance allows for regulation that is informed by science and is responsive to the values of citizens, effectively introducing a policy lever that improves the adoption of, and investment in, the U.S. bioeconomy.

The future of biotechnology regulation is an emerging innovative ecosystem. The path to accomplishing economic goals within this ecosystem requires a new public-facing engagement mechanism framework that satisfies congressional directives and advances the bioeconomy. This framework provides a BICO with the scaffolding necessary to create an infrastructure that invites public input and community reflection and the potential to decrease the number of biotechnologies that fail to reach the market. The proposed public engagement mechanism will work alongside the current regulatory system for biotechnology to enhance public trust, improve interagency coordination, and strengthen the bioeconomy. 

Plan of Action

To reach our national bioeconomic policy goals, the BICO should use a public engagement program to solicit perspectives and develop an understanding of non-economic values, such as deeply held beliefs about the relationship between humans and the environment or personal or cultural perspectives related to specific biotechnologies. The BICO should devote $10 million over five years to public engagement programs and advisory board activities that (a) report to the BICO but are carried out through external partnerships; (b) provide meaningful social data for biotechnology regulation while running parallel to the CFRB regulatory system; and (c) produce a repository of public acceptance data for horizon scanning. These programs will inform regulatory decision-making, increase public trust, and achieve the congressional directives outlined in Sec. 10402 of the CHIPS & Science Act.

Recommendation 1. Establish a Bioeconomy Initiative Coordination Office (BICO) as a home office for interagency coordination.

The BICO should be housed within the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The creation of a BICO is in alignment with the mandates of Executive Order (EO) 14081, Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure Bioeconomy, and the statutory authority granted to the OSTP through the CHIPS and Science Act. 

Congress should allocate $2 million annually for five years to the BICO to carry out a public engagement program and advisory board activities in coordination with the EPA, FDA, and USDA. 

The public engagement program would be housed within the BICO as a public-facing data-generating mechanism that parallels the current federal regulatory system for biotechnology. 

The bioeconomy cuts across sectors (e.g., agriculture, health, materials, energy) and actively creates new connections and opportunities for national competitiveness. A thriving bioeconomy must ensure regulatory policy coherence and alignment among these sectors, and the BICO should be able to comprehensively integrate information from multiple sectors into a strategy that increases public awareness and acceptance of bioeconomy-related products and services. Public engagement should be used to build a data ecosystem of values related to biotechnologies that advance the bioeconomy.

Recommendation 2. Establish a process for public engagement and produce a large repository of public acceptance data. 

Public acceptance data will be collected alongside the “biological data ecosystem,” as referenced by the Biden Administration in EO 14081, that advances innovation in the bioeconomy. To provide an expert element to the public engagement process, an advisory board should be involved in translating public acceptance data (opinions on how biotechnologies align with values) into policy suggestions and recommendations for regulatory agencies. The advisory board should be a formal entity recognizable under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). It should be diverse but not so large that it becomes inefficient in fulfilling its mandate. Striking a balance between compositional diversity and operational efficiency is critical to ensuring the board provides valuable insights and recommendations to the BICO. The advisory board should consist of up to 25 members, reflect NSF data on diversity and STEM, and include a diverse range of citizens, from everyday consumers (such as parents, young adults, and patients from different ethnic backgrounds) to specialists in various disciplines (such as biologists, philosophers, hair stylists, sanitation workers, social workers, and dietitians). To promote transparency and increase public trust, data will be subject to FACA and the FOIA regulations, and advisory board meetings must be accessible to the public and their details must be published in the Federal Register. Additionally, management and applications of any data collected should employ CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, Ethics) Principles for Indigenous Data Governance, which complement FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) Principles. Adopting CARE brings a people and purpose orientation to data governance and is rooted in Indigenous Peoples’ sovereignty.

The BICO can look to the National Science and Technology Council’s published requests for information (RFI) and public meetings as a model for public engagement. BICO should work with an inclusive network of external partners to design workshops for collecting public acceptance data. Using participatory technology assessments (pTA) methods, the BICO will fund public engagement activities such as open-framing focus groups, workshops, and forums that prioritize input from nontraditional public audiences. The BICO office should use pre-submission data, past technologies, near-term biotechnologies, and, where helpful, imaginative scenarios to produce case studies to engage with these audiences. Public engagement should be hosted by external grantees who maintain a wide-ranging network of interdisciplinary specialists and interested citizens to facilitate activities. 

Qualitative and quantitative data will be used to reveal themes, public values, and rationales, which will aid product developers and others in the bioeconomy as they decide on new directions and potential products. This process will also serve as the primary data source for the public acceptance data repository. Evolving risk pathways are a considerable concern for any regulatory system, especially one tasked with regulating biotechnologies. How risks are managed is subject to many factors (history, knowledge, experience product) and has a lasting impact on public trust. Advancing the bioeconomy requires a transparent decision-making process that integrates public input and allows society to redefine risks and safety as a collective. Public acceptance data should inform an understanding of values, risks, and safety and improve horizon-scanning capabilities.

Conclusion

As the use of biotechnology continues to expand, policymakers must remain adaptive in their regulatory approach to ensure that public trust is acquired and maintained. Recent federal action to boost the bioeconomy provides an opportunity for policymakers to expand public engagement and improve public acceptance of biotechnology. By centralizing coordination and integrating public input, policymakers can create a responsive regulatory convention that advances the bioeconomy while also building public trust. To achieve this, the public engagement program will combine elements of community-based participatory research, value-based assessments, pTA, and CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance. This approach will create a translational mechanism that improves interagency coordination and builds public trust. As the government works to create a regulatory framework for the bioeconomy, the need for public participation will only increase. By leveraging the expertise and perspectives of a diverse range of interested parties, policymakers can ensure that the regulatory framework is aligned with public values and concerns while promoting innovation and progress in the U.S. bioeconomy.

With the U.S. bioeconomy valued at over $950 billion and predicted to steadily increase, the potential for significant economic impact is unmistakable. To leverage this economic opportunity, the 2022 Bioeconomy Executive Order (EO) took a significant step towards addressing the complexities of the bioeconomy and creating a whole-of-government approach. The scope of the EO was vast, assigning around 40 tasks to many different federal agencies, in order to create a national framework to leverage bio-based innovations for sustainable economic growth. 

To track the numerous tasks assigned by the EO, the Federation of American Scientists have put together a living Bioeconomy EO tracker to monitor the progress of these tasks, enhance accountability and to allow stakeholders to stay informed on the state of the U.S. bioeconomy as it evolves. This FAS tracker was inspired by the initial tracker created by Stanford University when the EO was first published.

View the full tracker at the bottom of this post

Preliminary Benefits Made Possible Through the Bioeconomy EO

The Bioeconomy EO was an ambitious attempt at a whole of government approach. One year after its publication and implementation, we now have the opportunity to conduct a preliminary assessment to understand the impact the EO has had on the U.S. bioeconomy to date and to identify areas where there is still room for improvement and growth. 

The Bioeconomy EO has generated a number of tools and reports to guide this emerging economic sector such as the:

• Bioeconomy Lexicon by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
• Bold Goals for U.S. Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)
• Building the Bioworkforce of the Future action plan by OSTP
• Vision, Needs, and Proposed Actions for Data for the Bioeconomy Initiative by the Interagency Working Group on Data for the Bioeconomy of the National Science and Technology Council
• Biomanufacturing the Advance the Bioeconomy Report by President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST)
• Developing a National Measure of the Economic Contributions of the Bioeconomy by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
• Report on Stakeholder Outreach Related to Ambiguities, Gaps, Uncertainties in Regulation of Biotechnology Under the Coordinated Framework by the USDA, FDA and EPA
• The Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology by the USDA, FDA, and EPA

The reports created thus far have served to highlight the gaps within the U.S. bioeconomy and have taken the first step in figuring out how to fill in these missing links, such as the Bold Goals report by OSTP that highlights a possible future for the U.S. bioeconomy and The Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology reports that is the first step in addressing challenging regulatory hurdles the biotechnology sector faces. Furthermore, many of these reports have highlighted the need for a “coordination of intergovernmental investments, efforts, and resources” – an ongoing challenge for the U.S. bioeconomy.

The EO assigned around 40 tasks to a few agencies and each of these tasks required a substantial amount of work to be conducted in a short amount of time. A challenge that has been identified as a result of the implementation of the EO is the need to better allocate proper resources needed (e.g., staff, funds, and time) in order to ensure effective implementation. Federal agencies are often under-resourced and staff are overstretched. The additional work that an EO adds to these agencies and their staff can further overwhelm offices and lead to implementation delays or failures. For example, reports such as the Vision, Needs, and Proposed Actions for Data for the Bioeconomy Initiative which involve monumental effort to produce, was not published until December 2023 due to the lack of resources needed to complete this complex task. To ensure successful implementation, future EOs should include realistic resources, guidelines, timetables, and a more specific implementation plan to help agencies deliver on these promising areas.

While the Bioeconomy EO recognized the need for a whole-of-government approach, the foundational pieces that underpin the bioeconomy strategy have yet to be established. Some of these foundational areas include: 

1. Consensus on the scope of the U.S. bioeconomy
2. Consensus on how to better measure different aspects of the bioeconomy (i.e. biological resources, biotech, biomanufacturing, and sustainability)
3. Development of an updated classification system needed to more accurately analyze the U.S. bioeconomy
4. Increased capacity within federal agencies to properly research and analyze the U.S. bioeconomy
5. A coordinating body within the federal government to oversee and guide the U.S. bioeconomy
6. Synergistic interoperability between federal agencies

The Bioeconomy EO was the first step in creating a national framework and strategy for the U.S. bioeconomy and the OSTP Bold Goals Report highlighted and outlined what the U.S. bioeconomy could achieve with such a strategy.To ensure success, prevent future lags in implementation, and to achieve the full potential of the U.S. bioeconomy, future EO’s should ensure that the foundations that are needed to achieve the work are already in place or incorporated as individual tasks that inform implementation. 

Coordinating Efforts of New Programs to Strengthen Future Capabilities 

The Bioeconomy EO and the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 has spurred many different regional programs to be established (e.g., Economic Development Administration’s Tech Hubs and National Science Foundation Engines and Biofoundries), which demonstrates the regional opportunities the U.S. bioeconomy can create. However, it remains to be seen whether these programs are working in synergy to advance the larger bioeconomy goals and how they are leveraging federal resources through coordination. It will be essential for the U.S. bioeconomy to have a whole-of-government approach, which includes making sure that federal agencies are discussing relevant programs with each other to make sure that there are no redundancies. Future EO’s should help shepherd the execution of these tasks by proposing a coordination framework.

The execution of the Bioeconomy EO this past year has provided valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities associated with such an ambitious executive order. As we reflect on the lessons learned, it is evident that future EOs in similar scale that propose a whole-of-government approach must carefully consider future and existing agency resources to ensure success. For the future success of the U.S. bioeconomy, it will be imperative to establish a body to coordinate efforts, ensure seamless communication, and foster interoperability between agencies. As the Biden-Harris administration continues to pursue actions from this EO in 2024 and beyond, it should focus on creating a national framework that has longevity and success. By incorporating these lessons, the administration could pave the way for sustainable and impactful initiatives that contribute to the continued economic growth and success of the U.S. bioeconomy.

Tracker

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Makes Five Policy Recommendations to Maximize Opportunity and Minimize Risk at the Intersection of Biology and Artificial Intelligence

Washington, DC – December 12, 2023 – Today the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) released federal policy recommendations to address potential threats AI poses to bioscience and the surging bioeconomy. The five recommendations presented by experts are detailed in these memos:

• Develop a Screening Framework Guidance for AI-Enabled Automated Labs by Tessa Alexanian

• An Evidence-Based Approach to Identifying and Mitigating Biological Risks From AI-Enabled Biological Tools by Richard Moulange and Sophie Rose

• A Path to Self-governance of AI-Enabled Biology by Oliver Crook

• A Global Compute Cloud to Advance Safe Science and Innovation by Samuel Curtis

• Establish Collaboration Between Developers of Gene Synthesis Screening Tools and AI Tools Trained on Biological Data by Shrestha Rath

Read each of these recommendations, plus an introduction from Nazish Jeffery at this link.

ABOUT FAS

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) works to advance progress on a broad suite of contemporary issues where science, technology, and innovation policy can deliver dramatic progress, and seeks to ensure that scientific and technical expertise have a seat at the policymaking table. Established in 1945 by scientists in response to the atomic bomb, FAS continues to work on behalf of a safer, more equitable, and more peaceful world. More information at fas.org.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to yield tremendous advances in our basic understanding of biological systems, as well as significant benefits for health, agriculture, and the broader bioeconomy. However, AI tools, if misused or developed irresponsibly, can also pose risks to biosecurity. The landscape of biosecurity risks related to AI is complex and rapidly changing, and understanding the range of issues requires diverse perspectives and expertise. To better understand and address these challenges, FAS initiated the Bio x AI Policy Development Sprint to solicit creative recommendations from subject matter experts in the life sciences, biosecurity, and governance of emerging technologies. Through a competitive selection process, FAS identified six promising ideas and, over the course of seven weeks, worked closely with the authors to develop them into the recommendations included here. These recommendations cover a diverse range of topics to match the diversity of challenges that AI poses in the life sciences. We believe that these will help inform policy development on these topics, including the work of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnologies.

AI tool developers and others have put significant effort into establishing frameworks to evaluate and reduce risks, including biological risks, that might arise from “foundation” models (i.e., large models designed to be used for many different purposes). These include voluntary commitments from major industry stakeholders, and several efforts to develop methods for evaluations of these models. The Biden Administration’s recent Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence (Bioeconomy EO) furthers this work and establishes a framework for evaluating and reducing risks related to AI. 

However, the U.S. government will need creative solutions to establish oversight for biodesign tools (i.e., more specialized AI models that are trained on biological data and provide insight into biological systems). Although there are differing perspectives among experts, including those who participated in this Policy Sprint, about the magnitude of risks that these tools pose, they undoubtedly are an important part of the landscape of biosecurity risks that may arise from AI. Three of the submissions to this Policy Sprint address the need for oversight of these tools. Oliver Crook, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford and a machine learning expert, calls on the U.S. government to ensure responsible development of biodesign tools by instituting a framework for checklist-based, institutional oversight for these tools while Richard Moulange, AI-Biosecurity Fellow at the Centre for Long-Term Resilience, and Sophie Rose, Senior Biosecurity Policy Advisor at the Centre for Long-Term Resilience, expand on the Executive Order on AI with recommendations for establishing standards for evaluating their risks. In his submission, Samuel Curtis, an AI Governance Associate at The Future Society, takes a more open-science approach, with a recommendation to expand infrastructure for cloud-based computational resources internationally to promote critical advances in biodesign tools while establishing norms for responsible development.

Two of the submissions to this Policy Sprint work to improve biosecurity at the interface where digital designs might become biological reality. Shrestha Rath, a scientist and biosecurity researcher, focuses on biosecurity screening of synthetic DNA, which the Executive Order on AI highlights as a key safeguard, and contains recommendations for how to improve screening methods to better prepare for designs produced using AI. Tessa Alexanian, a biosecurity and bioweapons expert, calls for the U.S. government to issue guidance on biosecurity practices for automated laboratories, sometimes called “cloud labs,” that can generate organisms and other biological agents.

This Policy Sprint highlights the diversity of perspectives and expertise that will be needed to fully explore the intersections of AI with the life sciences, and the wide range of approaches that will be required to address their biosecurity risks. Each of these recommendations represents an opportunity for the U.S. government to reduce risks related to AI, solidify the U.S. as a global leader in AI governance, and ensure a safer and more secure future.

Recommendations

• Develop a Screening Framework Guidance for AI-Enabled Automated Labs by Tessa Alexanian
• An Evidence-Based Approach to Identifying and Mitigating Biological Risks From AI-Enabled Biological Tools by Richard Moulange & Sophie Rose
• A Path to Self-governance of AI-Enabled Biology by Oliver Crook
• A Global Compute Cloud to Advance Safe Science and Innovation by Samuel Curtis
• Establish Collaboration Between Developers of Gene Synthesis Screening Tools and AI Tools Trained on Biological Data by Shrestha Rath
• Responsible and Secure AI in Production Agriculture by Jennifer Clarke

An evidence-based approach to identifying and mitigating biological risks from AI-enabled biological tools

Richard Moulange & Sophie Rose

Both AI-enabled biological tools and large language models (LLMs) have advanced rapidly in a short time. While these tools have immense potential to drive innovation, they could also threaten the United States’ national security.

AI-enabled biological tools refer to AI tools trained on biological data using machine learning techniques, such as deep neural networks. They can already design novel proteins, viral vectors and other biological agents, and may in the future be able to fully automate parts of the biomedical research and development process.

Sophisticated state and non-state actors could potentially use AI-enabled tools to more easily develop biological weapons (BW) or design them to evade existing countermeasures . As accessibility and ease of use of these tools improves, a broader pool of actors is enabled.

This threat was recognized by the recent Executive Order on Safe AI, which calls for evaluation of all AI models (not just LLMs) for capabilities enabling chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats, and recommendations for how to mitigate identified risks.

Developing novel AI-enabled biological tool -evaluation systems within 270 days, as directed by the Executive Order §4.1(b), will be incredibly challenging, because:

• There appears to have been little progress on developing benchmarks or evaluations for AI-enabled biological tools in academia or industry, and government capacity (in the U.S. and the UK) has so far focused on model evaluations for LLMs, not AI-enabled biological tools.
• Capabilities are entirely dual-use: for example, tools that can predict which viral mutations improve vaccine targeting can very likely identify mutations that increase vaccine evasion.

To achieve this, it will be important to identify and prioritize those AI-enabled biological tools that pose the most urgent risks, and balance these against the potential benefits. However, government agencies and tool developers currently seem to struggle to:

• Specify which AI–bio capabilities are the most concerning;
• Determine the scope of AI–enabled tools that pose significant biosecurity risks; and
• Anticipate how these risks might evolve as more tools are developed and integrated

Some frontier AI labs have assessed the biological risks associated with LLMs , but there is no public evidence of AI-enabled biological tool  evaluation or red-teaming, nor are there currently standards for developing—or requirements to implement—them. The White House Executive Order will build upon industry evaluation efforts for frontier models, addressing the risk posed by LLMs, but analogous efforts are needed for AI-enabled biological tools.

Given the lack of research on AI-enabled biological tool evaluation, the U.S. Government must urgently stand up a specific program to address this gap and meet the Executive Order directives. Without evaluation capabilities, the United States will be unable to scope regulations around the deployment of these tools, and will be vulnerable to strategic surprise. Doing so now is essential to capitalize on the momentum generated by the Executive Order, and comprehensively address the relevant directives within 270 days.

Recommendations

The U.S. Government should urgently acquire the ability to evaluate biological capabilities of AI-enabled biological tools via a specific joint program at the Departments of Energy (DOE) and Homeland Security (DHS), in collaboration with other relevant agencies.

Strengthening the U.S. Government’s ability to evaluate models prior to their deployment is analogous to responsible drug or medical device development: we must ensure novel products do not cause significant harm, before making them available for widespread public use.

The objective(s) of this program would be:

1. Develop state-of-the-art evaluations for dangerous biological capabilities 
2. Establish Department of Energy (DOE) sandbox for testing evaluations on a variety of AI-enabled biological tools
3. Produce standards for performance, structure and securitisation of capability evaluations
4. Use evaluations of the maturity and capabilities of AI-enabled biological tools to inform U.S. Intelligence Community assessments of potential adversaries’ current bio-weapon capabilities

Implementation 

• Standing up and sustaining DOE and DHS’s ‘Bio Capability Evaluations’ program will require an initial investment of $2 million USD and $2 million/year until 2030 to sustain. Funding should draw on existing National Intelligence Program appropriations.
• Supporting DOE to establish a sandbox for conducting ongoing evaluations of AI-enabled biological tools will require investment of $10 million annually. This could be appropriated to DOE under the National Defense Authorization Act (Title II: Research, Development, Test and Evaluation), which establishes funding for AI defense programs. 

Lead agencies and organizations

• U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) can draw on expertise from National Labs, which often evaluate—and develop risk mitigation measures for—technologies with CBRN implications. 
• U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can inform threat assessments and inform biological risk mitigation strategy and policy. 
• National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) can develop the standards for the performance, structure and securitization of dangerous capability evaluations.
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can leverage their AI Community of Practice (CoP) as an avenue for communicating with BT developers and researchers. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funds relevant research and will therefore need to be involved in evaluations.

They should coordinate with other relevant agencies, including but not limited to the Department of Defense, and the National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center.

The benefits of implementing this program include: 

Leveraging public-private expertise. Public-private partnerships (involving both academia and industry) will produce comprehensive evaluations that incorporate technical nuances and national security considerations. This allows the U.S. Government to retain access to diverse expertise whilst safeguarding the sensitive nature of dangerous capability evaluations contents and output—which is harder to guarantee with third-party evaluators.

Enabling evidence-based regulatory decision-making. Evaluating AI tools allows the U.S. Government to identify the models and capabilities that pose the greatest biosecurity risks, enabling effective and appropriately-scoped regulations. Avoiding blanket regulations results in a better balance of the considerations of innovation and economic growth with those of risk mitigation and security.

Broad scope of evaluation application. AI-enabled biological tools vary widely in their application and current state of maturity. Subsequently, what constitutes a concerning, or dangerous, capability may vary widely across tools, necessitating the development of tailored evaluations.

A Global Compute Cloud to Advance Safe Science and Innovation

Samuel Curtis

Advancements in deep learning have ushered in significant progress in the predictive accuracy and design capabilities of biological design tools (BDTs), opening new frontiers in science and medicine through the design of novel functional molecules. However, these same technologies may be misused to create dangerous biological materials. Mitigating the risks of misuse of BDTs is complicated by the need to maintain openness and accessibility among globally-distributed research and development communities. One approach toward balancing both risks of misuse and the accessibility requirements of development communities would be to establish a federally-funded and globally-accessible compute cloud through which developers could provide secure access to their BDTs.

The term “biological design tools” (or “BDTs”) is a neologism referring to “systems trained on biological data that can help design new proteins or other biological agents.” Computational biological design is, in essence, a data-driven optimization problem. Consequently, over the past decade, breakthroughs in deep learning have propelled progress in computational biology. Today, many of the most advanced BDTs incorporate deep learning techniques and are used and developed by networks of academic researchers distributed across the globe. For example, the Rosetta Software Suite, one of the most popular BDT software packages, is used and developed by Rosetta Commons—an academic consortium of over 100 principal investigators spanning five continents. 

Contributions of BDTs to science and medicine are difficult to overstate. There are already several AI-designed molecules in early-stage clinical trials. BDTs are now used to identify new drug targets, design new therapeutics, and construct faster and less expensive drug synthesis techniques. There are already several AI-designed molecules in early-stage clinical trials.

Unfortunately, these same BDTs can be used for harm. They may be used to create pathogens that are more transmissible or virulent than known agents, target specific sub-populations, or evade existing DNA synthesis screening mechanisms. Moreover, developments in other classes of AI systems portend reduced barriers to BDT misuse. One group at RAND Corporation found that language models could provide guidance that could assist in planning and executing a biological attack, and another group from MIT demonstrated how language models could be used to elicit instructions for synthesizing a potentially pandemic pathogen. Similarly, language models could accelerate the acquisition or interpretation of information required to misuse BDTs. Technologies on the horizon, such as multimodal “action transformers,” could help individuals navigate BDT software, further lowering barriers to misuse.

Research points to several measures BDT developers could employ to reduce risks of misuse, such as securing machine learning model weights (the numerical values representing the learned patterns and information that the model has acquired during training), implementing structured access controls, and adopting Know Your Customer (KYC) processes. However, precaution would have to be taken to not unduly limit access to these tools, which could, in aggregate, impede scientific and medical advancement. For any given tool, access limitations risk diminishing its competitiveness (its available features and performance relative to other tools). These tradeoffs extend to their developers’ interests, whereby stifling the development of tools may jeopardize research, funding, and even career stability. The difficulties of striking a balance in managing risk are compounded by the decentralized, globally-distributed nature of BDT development communities. To suit their needs, risk-mitigation measures should involve minimal, if any, geographic or political restrictions placed on access while simultaneously expanding the ability to monitor for and respond to indicators of risk or patterns of misuse.

One approach that would balance the simultaneous needs for accessibility and security would be for the federal government to establish a global compute cloud for academic research, bearing the costs of running servers and maintaining the security of the cloud infrastructure in the shared interests of advancing public safety and medicine. A compute cloud would enable developers to provide access to their tools through computing infrastructure managed—and held to specific security standards—by U.S. public servants. Such infrastructure could even expand access for researchers, including underserved communities, through fast-tracked grants in the form of computational resources.

However, if computing infrastructure is not designed to reflect the needs of the development community—namely, its global research community—it is unlikely to be adopted in practice. Thus, to fully realize the potential of a compute cloud among BDT development communities, access to the infrastructure should extend beyond U.S. borders. At the same time, the efforts should ensure the cloud has requisite monitoring capabilities to identify risk indicators or patterns of misuse and impose access restrictions flexibly. By balancing oversight with accessibility, a thoughtfully-designed compute cloud could enable transparency and collaboration while mitigating the risks of these emerging technologies.

Recommendations

The U.S. government should establish a federally-funded, globally-accessible compute cloud through which developers could securely provide access to BDTs. In fact, the Biden Administration’s October 2023 “Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence” (the “AI EO”) lays groundwork by establishing a pilot program of a National AI Research Resource (NAIRR)—a shared research infrastructure providing AI researchers and students with expanded access to computational resources, high-quality data, educational tools, and user support. Moving forward, to increase the pilot program’s potential for adoption by BDT developers and users, relevant federal departments and agencies should take concerted action in the timelines circumscribed by the AI EO to address the practical requirements of BDT development communities: the simultaneous need to expand access outside U.S. borders while bolstering the capacity to monitor for misuse.

It is important to note that a federally-funded compute cloud has been years in the making. The National AI Initiative Act of 2020 directed the National Science Foundation (NSF), in consultation with the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), to establish a task force to create a roadmap for the NAIRR. In January 2023, the NAIRR Task Force released its final report, “Strengthening and Democratizing the U.S. Artificial Intelligence Innovation Ecosystem,” which presented a detailed implementation plan for establishing the NAIRR. The Biden Administration’s AI EO then directed the Director of NSF, in coordination with the heads of agencies deemed appropriate by the Director, to launch a pilot program “consistent with past recommendations of the NAIRR Task Force.”

However, the Task Force’s past recommendations are likely to fall short of the needs of BDT development communities (not to mention other AI development communities). In its report, the Task Force described NAIRR’s primary user groups as “U.S.-based AI researchers and students at U.S. academic institutions, non-profit organizations, Federal agencies or FFRDCs, or startups and small businesses awarded [Small Business Innovation Research] or [Small Business Technology Transfer] funding,” and its resource allocation process is oriented toward this user base. Separately, Stanford University’s Institute for Human-centered AI (HAI) and the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) have proposed institutions, building upon or complementing NAIRR, that would support international research consortiums (a Multilateral AI Research Institute and an International Digital Democracy Initiative, respectively), but the NAIRR Task Force’s report—upon which the AI EO’s pilot program is based—does not substantively address this user base.

In launching the NAIRR pilot program under Sec. 5.2(a)(i), the NSF should put the access and security needs of international research consortiums front and center, conferring with heads of departments and agencies with relevant scope and expertise, such as the Department of State, US Agency for International Development (USAID), Department of Education, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Energy. The NAIRR Operating Entity (as defined in the Task Force’s report) should investigate how funding, resource allocation, and cybersecurity could be adapted to accommodate researchers outside of U.S. borders. In implementing the NAIRR pilot program, the NSF should incorporate BDTs in their development of guidelines, standards, and best practices for AI safety and security, per Sec. 4.1, which could serve as standards with which NAIRR users should be required to comply. Furthermore, the NSF Regional Innovation Engine launched through Sec. 5(a)(ii) should consider focusing on international research collaborations, such as those in the realm of biological design.

Besides the NSF, which is charged with piloting NAIRR, relevant departments and agencies should take concerted action in implementing the AI EO to address issues of accessibility and security that are intertwined with international research collaborations. This includes but is not limited to:

• In accordance with Sec. 5.2(a)(i), the departments and agencies listed above should be tasked with investigating the access and security needs of international research collaborations and include these in the reports they are required to submit to the NSF. This should be done in concert with the development of guidelines, standards, and best practices for AI safety and security required by Sec. 4.1.
• In fulfilling the requirements of Sec. 5.2(c-d), the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and the Secretary of Homeland Security should, in the reports and guidance on matters related to intellectual property that they are required to develop, clarify ambiguities and preemptively address challenges that might arise in the cross-border data use agreements.
• Under the terms of Sec. 5.2(h), the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology should, in its development of “a report on the potential role of AI […] in research aimed at tackling major societal and global challenges,” focus on the nature of decentralized, international collaboration on AI systems used for biological design.
• Pursuant to Sec. 11(a-d), the Secretary of State, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, and the Director of OSTP should focus on AI used for biological design as a use case for expanding engagements with international allies and partners, and establish a robust international framework for managing the risks and harnessing the benefits of AI. Furthermore, the Secretary of Commerce should make this use case a key feature of its plan for global engagement in promoting and developing AI standards.

The AI EO provides a window of opportunity for the U.S. to take steps toward mitigating the risks posed by BDT misuse. In doing so, it will be necessary for regulatory agencies to proactively seek to understand and attend to the needs of BDT development communities, which will increase the likelihood that government-supported solutions, such as the NAIRR pilot program—and potentially future fully-fledged iterations enacted via Congress—are adopted by these communities. By making progress toward reducing BDT misuse risk while promoting safe, secure access to cutting-edge tools, the U.S. could affirm its role as a vanguard of responsible innovation in 21st-century science and medicine.

Responsible and Secure AI in Production Agriculture

Jennifer Clarke

Agriculture, food, and related industries represent over 5% of domestic GDP. The health of these industries has a direct impact on domestic food security, which equates to a direct impact on national security. In other words, food security is biosecurity is national security. As the world population continues to increase and climate change brings challenges to agricultural production, we need an efficiency and productivity revolution in agriculture. This means using less land and natural resources to produce more food and feed. For decision-makers in agriculture, the lack of human resources and narrow economic margins are driving interest in automation and properly utilizing AI to help increase productivity while decreasing waste amid increasing costs.

Congress should provide funding to support the establishment of a new office within the USDA to coordinate, enable, and oversee the use of AI in production agriculture and agricultural research. 

The agriculture, food, and related industries are turning to AI technologies to enable automation and drive the adoption of precision agriculture technologies. The use of AI in agriculture often depends on proprietary approaches that have not been validated by an independent, open process. In addition, it is unclear whether AI tools aimed at the agricultural sector will address critical needs as identified by the producer community. This leads to the potential for detrimental recommendations and loss of trust across producer communities. These will impede adoption of precision agriculture technologies, which is necessary to domestic and sustainable food security.

The industry is promoting AI technologies to help yield healthier crops, control pests, monitor soil and growing conditions, organize data for farmers, help with workload, and improve a wide range of agriculture-related tasks in the entire food supply chain. 

However, the use of networked technologies  approaches in agriculture poses risks. AI use could add to this problem if not implemented carefully. For example, the use of biased or irrelevant data in AI development can result in poor performance, which erodes producer trust in both extension services and expert systems, hindering adoption. As adoption increases, it is likely that farmers will use a small number of available platforms; this creates centralized points of failure where a limited attack can cause disproportionate harm. The 2021 cyberattack on JBS, the world’s largest meat processor, and a 2021 ransomware attack on NEW Cooperative, which provides feed grains for 11 million farm animals in the United States, demonstrate the potential risks from agricultural cybersystems. Without established cybersecurity standards for AI systems, those systems with broad adoption across agricultural sectors will represent targets of opportunity.

As evidenced by the recent Executive Order on the Safe Secure and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence and AI Safety Summit held at Bletchley Park, there is considerable interest and attention being given to AI governance and policy by both national and international regulatory bodies. There is a recognition that the risks of AI require more attention and investments in both technical and policy research. 

This recognition dovetails with an increase in emphasis on the use of automation and AI in agriculture to enable adoption of new agricultural practices. Increased adoption in the short term is required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ensure sustainability of domestic food production. Unfortunately, trust in commercial and governmental entities among agricultural producers is low and has been eroded by corporate data policies. Fortunately, this erosion can be reversed by prompt action on regulation and policy that respects the role of the producer in food and national security. Now is the time to promote the adoption of best practices and responsible development to establish security as a habit among agricultural stakeholders. 

Recommendations

To ensure that the future of domestic agriculture and food production leverages the benefits of AI while mitigating the risks of AI, the U.S. government should invest in institutional cooperation; AI research and education; and development and enforcement of best practices.

Recommendation: An Office should be established within USDA focused on AI in Production Agriculture, and Congress should appropriate $5 million over the next 5 years for a total of $25 million for this office. Cooperation among multiple institutions (public, private, nonprofit) will be needed to provide oversight on the behavior of AI in production agriculture including the impact of non-human algorithms and data sharing agreements (“the algorithmic economy”). This level of funding will encourage both federal and non-federal partners to engage with the Office and support its mission. This Office should establish and take direction from an Advisory body led by USDA with inclusive representation across stakeholder organizations including industry (e.g., AgGateway, Microsoft, John Deere), nonprofit organizations (e.g., AgDataTransparent, American Farmland Trust, Farm Bureaus, Ag Data Coalition, Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST), ASABE, ISO), government (e.g., NIST, OSTP), and academia (e.g., APLU, Ag Extension). This advisory body will operate under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) to identify challenges and recommend solutions, e.g., develop regulations or other oversight specific to agricultural use of AI, including data use agreements and third-party validation, that reduces the uncertainty about risk scenarios and the effect of countermeasures. The office and its advisory body can solicit broad input on regulation, necessary legislation, incentives and reforms, and enforcement measures through Requests for Information and Dear Colleague letters. It should promote best practices as described below, i.e., incentivize responsible use and adoption, through equitable data governance, access, and private-public partnerships. An example of an incentive is providing rebates to producers who purchase equipment that utilizes validated AI technology. 

To support development of best practices for the use of AI in production agriculture, in partnership with NIH, NSF, and DOD/DOE, the proposed Office should coordinate funding for research and education on the sociotechnical context of AI in agriculture across foundational disciplines including computer science, mathematics, statistics, psychology, and sociology. This new discipline of applied AI (built on theoretical advances in AI since the 1950s) should provide a foundation for developing best practices for responsible AI development starting with general, accepted standards (e.g., NIST’s framework). For example, best practices may include transparency through the open source community and independent validation processes for models and software. AI model training requires an immense amount of data and AI models for agriculture will require many types of data sets specific to production systems (e.g., weather, soil, management practices, etc.). There is an urgent need for standards around data access and use that balance advances and adoption of precision agriculture with privacy and cybersecurity concerns.   

In support of the work of the proposed Office, Congress should appropriate funding at $20M/year to USDA to support the development of programs at land-grant universities that provide multidisciplinary training in AI and production agriculture. The national agricultural production cyberinfrastructure (CI) has become critical to food security and carbon capture in the 21st century. A robust talent pipeline is necessary to support, develop, and implement this CI in preparation for the growth in automation and AI. There is also a critical need for individuals trained in both AI and production agriculture who can lead user-centered design and digital services on behalf of producers. Training must include foundation knowledge of statistics, computer science, engineering, and agricultural sciences coupled with experiential learning that provide trainees with opportunities to translate their knowledge to address current CI challenges. These opportunities may arise from interagency cooperation at the federal, state, and local  levels, in partnership with grower cooperatives, farm bureaus, and land-grant universities, to ensure that training meets pressing and future needs in agricultural systems.

Summary

The future of United States industrial growth resides in the establishment of biotechnology as a new pillar of industrial domestic manufacturing, thus enabling delivery of robust supply chains and revolutionary products such as materials, pharmaceuticals, food, energy. Traditional centralized manufacturing of the past is brittle, prone to disruption, and unable to deliver new products that leverage unique attributes of biology. Today, there exists the opportunity to develop the science, infrastructure, and workforce to establish the BioNETWORK to advance domestic distributed biomanufacturing, strengthen U.S.-based supply chain intermediaries, provide workforce development for underserved communities, and achieve our own global independence and viability in biomanufacturing. Implementing the BioNETWORK to create an end-to-end distributed biomanufacturing platform will fulfill the Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Bold Goals for U.S. Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing.

Challenge and Opportunity

Biotechnology harnesses the power of biology to create new services and products, and the economic activity derived from biotechnology and biomanufacturing is referred to as the bioeconomy. Today, biomanufacturing and most other traditional non-biomanufacturing is centralized. Traditional manufacturing is brittle, does not enhance national economic impact or best use national raw materials/resources, and does not maximize innovation enabled by the unique workforce distributed across the United States. Moreover, in this era of supply chain disruptions due to international competition, climate change, and pandemic-sized threats (both known and unknown), centralized approaches that constitute a single point of attack/failure and necessarily restricted, localized economic impact are themselves a huge risk. While federal government support for biotechnology has increased with recent executive orders and policy papers, the overarching concepts are broad, do not provide actionable steps for the private sector to respond to, and do not provide the proper organization and goals that would drive outcomes of real manufacturing, resulting in processes or products that directly impact consumers. A new program must be developed with clear milestones and deliverables to address the main challenges of biomanufacturing. Centralized biomanufacturing is less secure and does not deliver on the full potential of biotechnology because it is: 

• Reliant on a narrow set of feedstocks and reagents that are not local, introducing supply chain vulnerabilities that can halt bioproduction in its earliest steps of manufacturing.
• Inflexible for determining the most effective, stable, scalable, and safe methods of biomanufacturing needed for multiple products in large facilities.
• Serial in scheduling, which introduces large delays in production and limits capacity and product diversity. 
• Bespoke and not easily replicated when it comes to selection and design of microbial strains, cell free systems, and sequences of known function outside of the facility that made them. Scale-up and reproducibility of biomanufacturing products are limited.
• Creating waste streams because circular economies are not leveraged.
• Vulnerable to personnel shortages due to shifting economic, health, or other circumstances related to undertraining of a biotechnology specialized workforce.

Single point failures in centralized manufacturing are a root cause of product disruptions and are highlighted by current events. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed that point failures in the workforce or raw materials created disruptions in the centralized manufacturing, and availability of hand sanitizers, rubber gloves, masks, basic medicines, and active pharmaceutical ingredients impacted every American. International conflict with China and other adversarial countries has also created vulnerabilities in the sole source access to rare earth metals used in electronics, batteries, and displays, driving the need for alternate options for manufacturing that do not rely on single points of supply. To offset this situation, the United States has access to workforce, raw materials, and waste streams geographically distributed across the country that can be harnessed by biomanufacturing to produce both health and industrial products needed by U.S. consumers. However, currently there are only limited distributed manufacturing infrastructure development efforts to locally process those raw materials, leaving societal, economic, and unrealized national security risks on the table. Nation-scale parallel production in multiple facilities is needed to robustly create products to meet consumer demand in health, industrial, energy, and food markets. 

The BioNETWORK inverts the problem of a traditional centralized biomanufacturing facility and expertise paradigm by delivering a decentralized, resilient network enabling members to rapidly access manufacturing facilities, expertise, and data repositories, as needed and wherever they reside within the system, by integrating the substantial existing U.S. bioindustrial capabilities and resources to maximize nationwide outcomes. The BioNETWORK should be constructed as an aggregate of industrial, academic, financial, and nonprofit entities, organized in six regionally-aligned nodes (see figure below for notional regional distribution) of biomanufacturing infrastructure that together form a hub network that cultivates collaboration, rapid technology advances, and workforce development in underserved communities. The BioNETWORK’s fundamental design and construction aligns with the need for new regional technology development initiatives that expand the geographical distribution of innovative activity in the U.S., as stated in the CHIPS and Science Act. The BioNETWORK acts as the physical and information layer of manufacturing innovation, generating market forces, and leveraging ubiquitous data capture and feedback loops to accelerate innovation and scale-up necessary for full-scale production of novel biomaterials, polymers, small molecules, or microbes themselves. As a secure network, BioNETWORK serves as the physical and virtual backbone of the constituent biomanufacturing entities and their customers, providing unified, distributed manufacturing facilities, digital infrastructure to securely and efficiently exchange information/datasets, and enabling automated process development. Together the nodes function in an integrated way to adaptively solve biotechnology infrastructure challenges as well as load balancing supply chain constraints in real-time depending on the need. This includes automated infrastructure provisioning of small, medium, or large biomanufacturing facilities, supply of regional raw materials, customization of process flow across the network, allocation of labor, and optimization of the economic effectiveness. The BioNETWORK also supports the implementation of a national, multi-tenant cloud lab and enables a systematic assessment of supply chain capabilities/vulnerabilities for biomanufacturing.

As a secure network, BioNETWORK serves as the physical and virtual backbone of the constituent biomanufacturing entities and their customers, providing unified, distributed manufacturing facilities, digital infrastructure to securely and efficiently exchange information/datasets, and enabling automated process development.

Plan of Action

Congress should appropriate funding for an interagency coordination office co-chaired by the OSTP and the Department of Commerce (DOC) and provide $500 million to the DOC, Department of Energy (DOE), and Department of Defense (DOD) to initiate the BioNETWORK and use its structure to fulfill economic goals and create industrial growth opportunities within its three themes: 

1. Provide alternative supply chain pathways via biotechnologies and biomanufacturing to promote economic security. Leverage BioNETWORK R&D opportunities to develop innovative biomanufacturing pathways that could address supply chain bottlenecks for critical drugs, chemicals, and other materials. 
2. Explore distributed biomanufacturing innovation to enhance supply chain resilience. Leverage BioNETWORK R&D efforts to advance flexible and adaptive biomanufacturing platforms to mitigate the effects of supply chain disruptions. 
3. Address standards and data infrastructure to support biotechnology and biomanufacturing commercialization and trade. Leverage BioNETWORK R&D needed to enable data interoperability across the network to enable scale-up and increase global competitiveness. 

To achieve these goals, the policy Plan of Action includes the following steps: 

1. Congress should appropriate $10 million to establish an interagency coordination office within OSTP that is co-chaired by the DOC. This fulfills the White House Executive Order and CHIPs and Science mandates for better interagency coordination among the DOE, DOC, DOD, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the National Science Foundation (NSF). 

2. Congress should then appropriate $500 million to DOC and DOE to fund a biomanufacturing moonshot that includes creating the pilot network of three nodes to form the BioNETWORK in regions of the U.S. within six months of receiving funding. This funding should be managed by the interagency coordination office in collaboration with a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to build, deploy, and manage the BioNETWORK together with the federal entities. The role of the not-for-profit is to ensure that a trusted, unbiased partner (not influenced by outside entities) is involved, such that the interests of the taxpayer, U.S. government, and commercial sectors are all represented in the most beneficial way possible. The mission should include education, workforce development, safety/security, and sustainment as core principles, such that the BioNETWORK can stand alone once established. The new work to build the network should also synergize with the foundational science of the NSF and the national security focus of DOD biotechnology programs.

3. Continued investment of an additional $500 million should be appropriated by Congress to create economic incentives to sustain and transition the BioNETWORK from public funding to full commercial operation. This step requires evaluation of concrete go/no-go milestones and deliverables to ensure on-time, on-budget operations have been met. The interagency coordination office should work with DOC, DOE, DOD, and other agencies to leverage these incentives and create other opportunities to promote the BioNETWORK so that it does not require public funding to keep itself sustainable and can obtain private funding.   

Create a Pilot Network of Three Nodes

To accelerate beyond current biomanufacturing programs and efforts, the first three nodes of the BioNETWORK should be constructed in three new disparate geographic regions (i.e., East, Midwest, West, or other locations with relevant feedstocks, workforce, or component infrastructure) to show the networking capabilities for distributed manufacturing. The scale of funding required to design, construct, and deploy the first three nodes is $500 million. The initiation and construction of the BioNETWORK should commence within six months. The DOE should lead the initiation and deployment of the technical construction of the BioNETWORK through Theme 2 of their Biomanufacturing goals, which “seeks alternative processes to produce chemicals and materials from renewable biomass and intermediate feedstocks by developing low-carbon-intensity product pathways and promoting a circular economy for materials.” Each node should create regional partnerships that have four entities (a physical manufacturing facility, a cell programming entity, an academic research and development entity, and a workforce/resource entity). All four entities will contain both physical facilities such as industrial fermentation and wet lab space, as well as the workforce needed to run them. On top of the pilot nodes, a science and technology/engineering integrator of the system should be identified to coordinate the effort and lead security/safety efforts for the physical network. Construction of the initial BioNETWORK should be completed within two years. 

Achievement of the BioNETWORK goals requires the design plan to:

• Leverage and use regional feedstocks and reagents across the U.S. as inputs to bioproduction to create robustness in the earliest steps of manufacturing.
• Automate the integrated use of small, intermediate, and large-scale biomanufacturing facilities so that they are effective, stable, scalable, and safe for biomanufacturing demand.
• Parallelize scheduling of infrastructure and resources to minimize delays in production and maximize capacity and product diversity. 
• Incorporate methods for replication when it comes to selection and design of microbial strains, cell free systems, and sequences of known function.
• Reuse waste streams to create circular economies.
• Include infrastructure biomanufacturing standards from NIST.

The BioNETWORK construction milestones should fulfill the White House OSTP bold goals through new capabilities delivered via distributed manufacturing infrastructure: 

• Networked data for distributed biomanufacturing—“establishing a Data Initiative to ensure that high-quality, wide-ranging, easily accessible, and secure biological data sets can drive breakthroughs for the U.S. bioeconomy.”
• Domestic distributed biomanufacturing infrastructure—“expanding domestic capacity to manufacture all the biotechnology products we invent in the United States and support a resilient supply chain.”
• Local hubs for workforce development—“growing training and education opportunities for the biotechnology and biomanufacturing workforce of the future.”

Full Network: Plan for Sustainability 

Congress and executive branch agencies establish economic incentives for commercial entities, state/local governments, and consumers of bioindustrial manufacturing products to create commercialization pathways that enhance local economies while also supporting the national network. These include tax credits, tax breaks, low interest loans, and underwritten loans as a starting point. To facilitate tech transition, unique lab-to-market mechanisms and proven tools to address market failure and applied technologies gaps should be used in conjunction with those in the Inflation Reduction Act. This includes prize and challenge competitions, market shaping procurement or loan programs, and streamlined funding of open, cross-disciplinary research, and funding at the state and local levels. 

A new public-private partnership could coordinate across multiple efforts to ensure they drive toward rapid technology deployment and integration. This includes implementing a convertible debt plan that rewards BioNETWORK members with equity after reaching key milestones, providing an opportunity for discounted buyout by other investors during rounds of funding, and working with the federal government to design market-shaping mechanisms such as advance market commitments to guarantee purchase of a bioproduction company’s spec-meeting product. 

Additionally, the BioNETWORK should be required to expand the repertoire of domestic renewable raw materials into a suite of high-demand, industry-ready products as prescribed in the DOC’s goals in biomanufacturing. This will ensure all regions have support for commercial goods and can automatically assess domestic supply chain capabilities and vulnerabilities, and are provided compensatory remediation on demand. The full BioNETWORK consists of six nodes—aligned to each of the major geographic regions and/or EDA regions in the United States—which have unique raw materials, workforce, infrastructure, and consumption of products that contribute to supporting the overall network functionality. The full BioNETWORK should be active within five years of project initiation and be evaluated against phased milestones throughout. 

Conclusion

Networked solutions are resilient and enduring. A single factory is at risk of transfer to foreign ownership, closure, or obsolescence. The BioNETWORK creates connectivity among distributed biomanufacturing physical infrastructure to form a network with a robust domestic value chain. Today’s biomanufacturing investments suffer from the need to vertically integrate due to lack of flexible capacity across the value chain, which raises capital requirements and overall risk. The BioNETWORK drives horizontal integration through the network nodes via new infrastructure, connecting physical infrastructure of the nodes within the system. The result is a multi-sided marketplace for biotechnology innovation, products, and commercialization. 

The federal government should initiate a new program and select performers within the next six months to begin the research, development, and construction of the first three nodes of the BioNETWORK. Taking action to establish the BioNETWORK ensures that the United States has the necessary physical and virtual infrastructure to grow the bioeconomy and its international leadership in biotechnology. The BioNETWORK creates new job opportunities for people across the country where training in biotechnology expands the skill sets of people with broad-spectrum applicability from trades to advanced degrees. The BioNETWORK drives circular economies where raw materials from rural and urban centers enter the network and are transformed into high-value products such as advanced materials, pharmaceuticals, food, and energy. The BioNETWORK protects U.S. supply chain resiliency through distributed manufacturing and links regional development into a national capability to establish biomanufacturing as a pillar of economic and technological growth for today and into the 22nd century.

September should be considered National Bioeconomy Month. This past September marked the one year anniversary of the 2022 Presidential Executive order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy (affectionately known as the Bioeconomy EO). SynBioBeta celebrated the occasion by organizing a Bioeconomy Product Showcase on Capitol Hill that highlighted many different companies within the bioeconomy and proudly boasted bipartisan support in attendance. FAS wrapped up the month by hosting a Bioeconomy & Biomanufacturing Hill Day and Dinner on September 28th, 2023. We brought in some of our subject matter experts to talk in-depth about their Day One Memos and other contributions with key members of Congress.

Highlights Hill Day & Dinner

• Workforce development for the bioeconomy was a hot topic. Our subject matter experts pointed to the need for workers that have interdisciplinary skill sets that include both bio and engineering or bio and computer science. Support for interdisciplinary fellowships (like the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship) could help fill this need. Robust training is needed at all levels of biomanufacturing processes, and could include internships, apprenticeships, and associates and bachelors degree programs.

• To create supply chain resiliency and be competitive with other nations in the global bioeconomy, it is imperative to reduce costs of producing inputs needed for biomanufacturing (e.g., amino acids for biopharma), and to produce these inputs within the U.S. Our current reliance on other countries, like China, for these materials makes our bioeconomy fragile and susceptible to disruptions.

• A successful U.S. bioeconomy needs a strategic framework that unites the different agencies working on different aspects of the bioeconomy, including investments (e.g., EDA Tech Hubs, DoD Biomanufacturing Strategy, and NSF BioFoundries) and regulatory oversight. Both the Bioeconomy EO and the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 called for the creation of a coordinating office housed in the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), but there has been no movement to create this coordinating office.

• The bioeconomy also needs appropriate financing. Many startups face the challenge that funding from venture capital firms requires a fast turnaround time for a return on investment (typically 3-5 years). Due to the nature of the products that are produced, many biotech companies are unable to demonstrate their value so quickly. In addition, scaling from a laboratory benchtop to industrial-scale biomanufacturing is expensive and is seen as too risky for typical bank loans. For the bioeconomy to be economically viable, it will need financial measures (potentially, tax incentives, credits, or other financial programs) to support biomanufacturing so that companies can have a chance to show they are viable and valuable.

• To capture the economic value of the bioeconomy and the impact of investments in this sector, appropriate metrics and measurements are needed. In March of 2023, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) published a feasibility report that indicated that it would be difficult to measure all aspects of the bioeconomy due to a lack of consensus definition, but a satellite account could be created to track aspects of the bioeconomy. However, in order for the BEA to create this type of account, Congress would need to appropriate the funds and direct the BEA to do so.

• Executive branch agencies are working towards a prosperous and resilient bioeconomy that is competitive at the global level, but these agencies can only do so much without Congressional champions on the Hill to keep fighting and funding the programs needed to achieve this.

Team FAS on the Hill

Dr. Nazish Jeffery, Dr. Sarah Carter, Dr. Allison Berke, Dr. Chris Stowers, and Dr. Sarah Richardson representing the Federation of American Scientists at the Bioeconomy & Biomanufacturing Hill Day and Dinner

Next Year is Critical for the Bioeconomy

In a short timespan, several federal agencies have pushed the needle forward in terms of the U.S. bioeconomy, however there is no shortage of work left in order to achieve a “Sustainable, Safe, and Secure” bioeconomy. For the next year, we would like to see an updated definition of the U.S. bioeconomy that accounts and specifies sectors that are and are not part of the bioeconomy and takes sustainability as its main priority. In addition, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) should update the Bioeconomy Lexicon and prioritize setting standards for biomanufacturing that utilizes a sector to sector approach instead of an overarching standards approach to ensure that innovation is not stifled by standards that do not allow for the flexibility needed in the biotech space. 

Additionally, it will be vital for the federal government to enact a true framework for the U.S. bioeconomy by creating a coordinating office housed in OSTP that works with the various federal agencies focused on the bioeconomy and provide support to publish the reports directed by the Bioeconomy EO on time. Furthermore, in order to achieve products, goods, and services that are sustainable, secure, and safe, it will be essential for the coordinating office to gather public opinions in order to help shape and influence our bioeconomy.

Increased congressional involvement is also necessary to address key challenges the bioeconomy currently faces, such as the inability to measure the bioeconomy and the challenge that companies within the bioeconomy face (such as incomplete knowledge on processes relating to creating a startup, scaling goods and serves, and navigating the regulatory system). The BEA should be directed by Congress to create a satellite account to measure the U.S. bioeconomy and Congress should mandate a public-private driven landscape analysis on the current financial situation of the U.S. bioeconomy in order to be able to identify the gaps in financing the sector currently faces. 

There is no doubt that the bioeconomy has potential to grow, but it needs a solid framework to stand upon. Implementing some or all of these ideas will not only lead to a prosperous bioeconomy, but it will also create one that is resilient, sustainable, and secure.