Last night, President Biden used his first speech to a joint session of Congress to lay out an ambitious agenda intended to speed the nation's emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic crisis as well as to bolster global competitiveness. The need for significant increases in U.S. investments in research and development was given significant attention in the speech. 

"[The] American Jobs Plan will be the biggest increase in non-defense research and development on record. We’ll see more technological change — and some of you know more about this than I do — we’ll see more technological change this the next 10 years than we saw in the last 50. That’s how rapidly artificial intelligence, and so much more, is changing. And we’re falling behind the competition with the rest of the world.

Decades ago, we used to invest 2 percent of our gross domestic product in America, 2 percent of our gross domestic product in research and development. Today, Mr. Secretary, that’s less than 1 percent. China and other countries are closing in fast. We have to develop and dominate the products and technologies of the future. Advanced batteries, biotechnology, computer chips, clean energy.

The National Institutes of Health, the N.I.H, I believe, should create a similar advanced research projects agency for health. And that would — here’s what it would do: It would have a singular purpose, to develop breakthroughs to prevent, detect and treat diseases like Alzheimer’s, diabetes and cancer. I’ll still never forget when we passed the cancer proposal in the last year as vice president, almost $9 million going to N.I.H. You’ll excuse the point of personal privilege. I’ll never forget you standing, Mitch, and saying, name it after my deceased son. It meant a lot.

But so many of us have deceased sons, daughters and relatives who died of cancer. I can think of no more worthy investment. I know of nothing that is more bipartisan. So let’s end cancer as we know it. It’s within our power. It’s within our power to do it."

Since his election, Biden has made no secret of intention to propose significant increases for federal research agencies. The American Job Plan proposes an unprecedented increase of $180 billion for R&D. Additionally, an outline of the president's Fiscal Year 2022 budget request includes double-digit increases for the NSF, NIH, NASA, and NIST. 

The R&D components of the president's agenda largely have bipartisan support. However, it remains to be seen if the total price-tag of the president's plans yield enough congressional opposition to halt the efforts.