John Moolenaar

A key GOP congressman is pushing to pause a $17 million federal contract with Texas A&M, alleging the flagship has “documented and ongoing failures” in protecting federally funded research from entities linked to the Chinese military.

John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican who chairs the House of Representatives' select committee on China, asked the National Science Foundation on Tuesday to temporarily halt funding for the effort — the Safeguarding the Entire Community of the U.S. Research Ecosystem, known as SECURE. Moolenaar also asked the NSF to review the participating institutions, including Texas A&M University and the University of Washington, which together received $67 million for the project.

“It is troubling that U.S. institutions that collaborate with China’s defense research and industrial base, its nuclear weapons programs, its mass surveillance infrastructure, and institutions on U.S. government national security lists are being entrusted to co-lead the development of national research security frameworks,” Moolenaar wrote in a letter to the foundation.

Moolenaar's letter did not accuse Texas A&M of breaking the law as it works with SECURE, which was mandated by the CHIPS and Science Act under the Biden administration.

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National security in view

The scrutiny at A&M reflects a push in Washington to tighten oversight of U.S. research ties with Chinese entities, even though such collaborations are generally legal. Some national security leaders say the People’s Republic of China has previously stolen the U.S. and other countries' secrets and intellectual property as the People’s Liberation Army works to build the world's most technologically advanced military.

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In 2024, Gov. Greg Abbott echoed those concerns when he ordered Texas public universities to cut existing ties with the Chinese government and other "foreign adversaries." At the time, it wasn't clear how the GOP governor's ban would affect faculty research, travel, contracts or resident status.

A&M officials reaffirmed their research security practices in a statement this week.

"Ultimately, this is a policy decision between Congress and the NSF," the university said. "Texas A&M has strong systems in place to protect sensitive research and support national security."

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The Texas A&M System's research security office is highly regarded in some national security circles. It has won a prestigious award a record four times — the Jack Donnelly Excellence in Counterintelligence Award, given by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency and the Office of Counterintelligence.

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However, this isn't the first time A&M has faced concerns about its partnerships with China. In 2022, then-Sen. Marco Rubio — now Secretary of State in Trump's second term — asked A&M to cut ties with Chinese institutions that he said had "ensnared" scholars in schemes under the guise of academic collaboration.

A&M, which was already working with the FBI, said it had already “mitigated” or eliminated 200 “instances of activity.” One involved a climate lab working on more accurate modeling amid environmental changes in partnership with a lab at Ocean University — an institution Rubio named in his list of concerns to A&M.

Officials at the University of Washington, which received $50 million of the SECURE contract, also said they take research security and integrity very seriously and direct "significant effort and resources toward being leaders in research security and integrity" — beyond SECURE’s guidance and recommendations.

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"SECURE is a dynamic program that is not prescriptive but can assist universities of all sizes and other research entities to address research security concerns," UW said in a statement. "Given the evolving landscape, we are regularly reviewing our guidelines and protocols."

Research risks

A&M received the five-year SECURE contract in 2024 and is analyzing data to identify and mitigate research risks with foreign organizations. It's also working with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and Parallax Advanced Research on the deal.

However, the U.S. congressman listed five other contracts that he said indicated A&M faculty had “sustained research relationships with China’s defense research and industrial base, many of which appear on U.S. government national security and entity lists.” Those include the Chinese military's National University of Defense Technology, other universities known as its "Seven Sons of National Defense," and one entity subordinate to China's nuclear weapons R&D arm.

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The contracts are dual-use, meaning they could have applications in civilian and military contexts, Moolenaar said. Between 2023 and 2025, they spanned topics like GPS and quantum chemistry. Moolenaar pointed to one on nonlinear dynamics research, which he said posed a potential violation of the Wolf Amendment that bans NASA from bilateral collaborations with the Chinese government without prior approval.

Jeffrey Stoff, founder and president at the Center for Research Security & Integrity, has pushed for more regulations in the research security space. He pointed to the mission lawmakers first gave the National Science Foundation: to promote scientific progress and to support fundamental research that promotes the U.S. economy and national defense.

"If you're basically contracting research from the Chinese military, how does that benefit the United States, especially if you're at the same time taking U.S. government funding?" Stoff said. "I disagree with the notion that every academic institution in the U.S. is a global enterprise and should not be concerned whatsoever about domestic issues."

Many universities, including A&M, have policies restricting certain collaborations with foreign entities, including some in China. However, some have appeared hesitant to adopt broader restrictions under the principle of academic freedom, plus the idea that some social advancements are worth the security risk.

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Hard to disentangle

Moolenaar said that he wants the NSF to pause the grant while it makes sure it's following national security and higher education statutes that require disclosures. He also asked the agency to review the SECURE contract more broadly, and check for any potential violations involving dual-use technologies in U.S. export control laws.

But he said he has another vision to remake SECURE into a national research security center — and the Center for Research Security & Integrity has meanwhile pushed to form a new government entity consolidating all efforts across federal agencies on research security.

Stoff and John Sava, listed as a senior investigator for the Congressional Select Committee on China, co-authored a February report that recommended the NSF should repurpose SECURE into that kind of center. Another co-author was LJ Eads, director of research intelligence at Parallax, a company partnering with A&M on SECURE.

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Glenn Tiffert, a distinguished research fellow who leads Stanford's participation with A&M's part of SECURE, declined to comment on the select committee's letter. But he acknowledged the risks and rewards that can come with some international research partnerships. The U.S. and China are each other's top research partners because they are so well-resourced, he said.

"These are the two research superpowers in the world, just as these are the two largest economies in the world," he said. "And disentangling that is extremely challenging, because there are benefits that come from those relationships, but then there are real risks that come with those relationships too. And figuring out where to draw the balance and what the filter should look like has been the challenge."