Congressional negotiators approved a bill on Tuesday night to raise federal spending on academic research and on science education in colleges in order to improve America’s global economic competitiveness. The bill now goes back to both chambers of Congress, which could pass the measure this week. But President Bush voiced objections earlier this year to the Senate’s version of the bill.

The compromise version, HR 2272, largely splits the difference in spending levels between those in bills approved in April by the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The compromise generally includes major provisions of both bills. It adopts partly or wholly many of the recommendations from an influential National Academies report in 2005, “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future.” However, the compromise version only authorizes increased spending but provides no actual funds, which Congress would have to appropriate through separate bills.

Among other provisions, the bill would increase spending during the next three years for the National Science Foundation and the Energy Department’s Office of Science at a pace that, if continued, would double their budgets over seven years. —Jeffrey Brainard