Preventing Research Ownership Transfer to External Competitive Threats (PROTECT) Act of 2026
Analysis under review: This bill has generated analysis that may be too generic or incomplete. Clause-level evidence remains available below.
Summary
What This Bill Does
This bill, Preventing Research Ownership Transfer to External Competitive Threats (PROTECT) Act of 2026, changes federal law or congressional policy affecting schools, students, and education providers. The main policy domain is Education, Foreign Policy, Defense.
Who Benefits and How
schools, students, and education providers may benefit from new authority, funding, eligibility, regulatory clarity, or reduced risk created by the bill.
Who Bears the Burden and How
federal implementing agencies, schools, students, and education providers may take on implementation duties, reporting obligations, compliance costs, or oversight responsibilities.
Key Provisions
- Section H37A8B037EF5544F695B7D1E3D9FFAA93: 1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Preventing Research Ownership Transfer to External Competitive Threats (PROTECT) Act of 2026.
- Section HB70ECBB0B28D46039E59D08FF11D5B62: 2. Definitions In this Act: The term covered foreign government means the government of any prohibited nation, including any agency, instrumentality, or entity...
- Section H156D95FDCE7D4C3FBE48F47618199F39: 3. Prohibition on acquisition of intellectual property rights No United States university, or any faculty member, staff member, or student affiliated with such...
- Section H3605A6368E25433BA16E3D3226E9AEB6: 4. Prohibited nations The term prohibited nation means— the Russian Federation; the People’s Republic of China; the Islamic Republic of Iran; any nation that...
- Section H103EDF4956164E50B3EE466AF7926F50: 5. Penalties Any United States university that violates section 3 shall be subject to a civil penalty of not more than $500,000 for each such violation, if the...
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
This bill, Preventing Research Ownership Transfer to External Competitive Threats (PROTECT) Act of 2026, changes federal law or congressional policy affecting schools, students, and education providers.
Key Policy Areas
Education, Foreign Policy, Defense
Primary Purpose
This bill, Preventing Research Ownership Transfer to External Competitive Threats (PROTECT) Act of 2026, changes federal law or congressional policy affecting schools, students, and education providers.
Policy Domains
Whole bill
Identified Gains
- schools, students, and education providers
Identified Costs
- federal implementing agencies
- schools, students, and education providers
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeReferred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce.
Introduced in House
Mr. Nehls (for himself and Mr. Gill of Texas) introduced …
Impact analysis is available but no clear stakeholder effects identified. View clause-level analysis →
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "the_secretary"
- → The Secretary identified in the operative section
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology