This bill establishes a Federal Clearinghouse on Grant Opportunities for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to serve as the primary government resource identifying and providing information about federal grant opportunities available to HBCUs for research and development and building research capacity. The clearinghouse will be created within the Department of Education in coordination with multiple federal agencies including the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Defense, and Agriculture, plus the National Science Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency, and NASA. HBCUs currently receive less than one percent of the roughly 60 billion dollars in annual federal research and development funding at colleges and universities despite producing nearly 18 percent of Black STEM bachelor's degree recipients, and the bill aims to address this disparity by consolidating grant information and best practices in one accessible location. The Secretary of Education must notify all HBCUs and Congress when the clearinghouse is published and provide annual reports to Congress, with HBCUs having the option to receive quarterly updates on available opportunities. Each participating federal agency must annually review its grant programs to identify ways to implement the clearinghouse's recommendations and report to Congress on gaps where federal grant programs do not exist to support the best practices promoted by the clearinghouse.
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