1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Augmenting Research and Educational Sites to Ensure Agriculture Remains Cutting-Edge and Helpful Act or the AG RESEARCH Act . 2. Agricultural research facilities (a) Findings Congress finds that— (1) in 2015, agriculture and related industries— (A) contributed $992,000,000,000 to the gross domestic product of the United States (5.5 percent of the total gross domestic product of the United States); and (B) provided 21,000,000 jobs domestically (11 percent of total employment in the United States); (2) the Department of Agriculture funds more than $1,500,000,000 in research funding each year to schools of agriculture; (3) a study published in 2015 found that deferred maintenance at 91 schools of agriculture across the United States totaled $8,200,000,000, with a total replacement cost of $29,000,000,000; and (4) infrastructure investments must be made at schools of agriculture to ensure that United States agricultural research remains globally competitive. (b) Grants for agricultural research facilities Title IV of the Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Reform Act of 1998 is amended by inserting before section 404 ( 7 U.S.C. 7624 ) the following: 401. Grants for agricultural research facilities (a) Purpose The purpose of this section is to assist agricultural research facilities in efforts to alter or repair those facilities or equipment of the facilities necessary for conducting agricultural research. (b) Definition of agricultural research facility In this section, the term agricultural research facility has the meaning given the term in section 2 of the Research Facilities Act ( 7 U.S.C. 390 ). (c) Grant program (1) In general The Secretary shall establish in the National Institute of Food and Agriculture a competitive grant program to provide to agricultural research facilities the Federal share of the cost of the alteration, modernization, renovation, or remodeling of— (A) the agricultural research facilities