Quick Hits

*** The Alliance for Digital Innovation named Ross Nodurft, a onetime senior Office of Management and Budget technology and IT leader, as its executive director. Nodurft replaces Matthew Cornelius who departed the trade group to take a staff post on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

*** The Senate Commerce Committee approved the nomination of Laurie Locascio to serve as director of the National Institute for Standards and Technology. The nomination now head to the full Senate for a vote.

*** Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) agreed to conference the United States Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), a bill that looks to jumpstart domestic semiconductor production and technology research with $50 billion in subsidies designed to spur domestic semiconductor manufacturing and $200 billion in technological research funding to help the U.S. outpace China and the world in robotics, artificial intelligence, advanced communications and more. Schumer had wanted to move the bill as an amendment to the must-pass FY2022 National Defense Authorization Act, but scuttled that idea on Tuesday one day ahead of a key vote because of Republican opposition.