{"id":198747,"date":"2026-03-10T20:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T20:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/198747\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T20:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T20:10:11","slug":"chair-of-house-committee-on-china-requests-pause-of-17m-in-funding-to-texas-am-for-alleged-security-failures-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/198747\/","title":{"rendered":"Chair of House committee on China requests pause of $17M in funding to Texas A&M for alleged security failures \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"The<\/a>Pictured is the Academic Building at Texas A&M University.<\/p>\n

The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives\u2019 Select Committee on China sent a letter to the National Science Foundation (NSF) on Tuesday, requesting the federal agency pause its funding to Texas A&M University for alleged security failures regarding its research with China.<\/p>\n

In the letter written by Rep. John Moolenaar, the Michigan Republican outlined several accusations against Texas A&M and the University of Washington. Moolenaar listed five publications by Texas A&M faculty and Chinese researchers, claiming the joint research efforts were being exploited by the Chinese government. <\/p>\n

“These research partnerships span critical fields such as quantum chemistry, AI explainability, hyperspectral imaging and tensegrity robotics, technologies with dual-use implications that are routinely targeted and exploited by the Chinese military and outlined in the PRC government’s industrial policies,” Moolenaar wrote in the letter. <\/p>\n

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Moolenaar is specifically asking the NSF to pause its $17 million in funding to Texas A&M. The university northwest of Houston was awarded the funds in 2024 as part of the NFS’s five-year, $67 million investment<\/a> to support research security through an initiative called Safeguarding the Entire Community of the U.S. Research Ecosystem (SECURE). The University of Washington was also included in the initiative and received $50 million.<\/p>\n

In a statement to Houston Public Media on Tuesday, an NSF spokesperson said the agency “will respond directly to the committee’s letter,” and did not provide any further comment. <\/p>\n

Moolenaar said NSF should pause its SECURE funding and conduct a comprehensive review of Texas A&M and other universities participating in the initiative.<\/p>\n

Texas A&M did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the letter. <\/p>\n

Moolenaar gave NSF a deadline of March 31 to respond to the letter. <\/p>\n

“Institutions entrusted with U.S. taxpayer dollars to safeguard the nation’s research enterprise should not simultaneously enable foreign adversaries to access and exploit sensitive research and taxpayer-funded scientific advances,” Moolenaar wrote in the letter. “When universities fail to enforce their own meaningful research security standards, they risk diverting U.S. innovation, talent, research, and federally funded discoveries.”<\/p>\n

In September 2022, former NASA researcher and Texas A&M University professor Zhengdong Cheng pleaded guilty to two counts of violating NASA regulations and falsifying official documents, according to The Associated Press<\/a>. <\/p>\n

After Cheng’s initial arrest in August 2020, prosecutors accused him of not disclosing his work in China, despite receiving over $700,000 in grant money for space research at Texas A&M. Cheng had allegedly served as the director of a soft matter institute at a Chinese university. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pictured is the Academic Building at Texas A&M University. The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives\u2019 Select…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[163,1182,66,1911,7180,223,3621,27,297,29,28,78498,78499],"class_list":["post-198747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-education","tag-education-news","tag-local","tag-nasa","tag-national-science-foundation","tag-news","tag-technology","tag-texas","tag-texas-am-university","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-u-s-house-select-committee-on-china","tag-university-of-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}