The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published a request for information (RFI) on April 27, 2023, seeking public input on existing or potential bioeconomy-related industries and products that are established, emerging, or currently embedded in existing industry/manufacturing processes.
88 Fed. Reg. 25711. As reported in our September 13, 2022,
blog item, on September 12, 2022, President Joseph Biden signed an
Executive Order (EO) creating a National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative “that will ensure we can make in the United States all that we invent in the United States.” Under the EO, the Chief Statistician of the United States (CSOTUS) in OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) was charged with improving and enhancing federal statistical data collection designed to characterize and measure the economic value of the U.S. bioeconomy. The CSOTUS was also charged with establishing an Interagency Technical Working Group (Working Group) to recommend bioeconomy-related revisions for the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) and the North American Product Classification System (NAPCS). OMB states that the bioeconomy refers to a segment of the total economy utilizing or derived from biological resources and includes manufacturing processes, technologies, products, and services. These may encompass, wholly or in part, industries and products including fuel, food, medicine, chemicals, and technology. To ensure consideration of comments on potential bioeconomy-related industries and products solicited in the RFI, OMB asked that all comments be submitted “as soon as possible,” but no later than
June 12, 2023.
The Working Group, through OMB, seeks input on how to identify, classify, and measure best bioeconomy manufacturing, technology, and products, including those that are primarily or exclusively: (a) biobased, (b) components of traditional manufacturing processes, and (c) nascent biobased processes and products. Importantly, according to OMB, input should include information on how particular industries or products are linked to the bioeconomy and, where appropriate and available, evidence should be provided. OMB states that this will afford the Working Group the opportunity to use existing evidence to inform its recommendations. The RFI includes the following questions: