The congressional
fiscal year (FY) 2009 appropriations process is now underway. Both the House and
Senate Appropriations Committees have begun drafting their versions of the 12
appropriations bills providing 2009 funding for the federal government's discretionary
programs. In actions so far, congressional appropriators have endorsed large increases
for the three physical sciences agencies in the American Competitiveness Initiative
(ACI), increases for human spacecraft development, increases for biomedical research
in the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and increases in other parts of the
federal research and development (R&D) portfolio. Details of federal R&D
funding in the 2009 appropriations bills are available in a series of AAAS R&D
Funding Updates on the AAAS R&D web site. Armed with a budget resolution
adding $21 billion to the President's request for 2009 appropriations for a total
of $1.01 trillion, congressional appropriators have begun drafting program-by-program
funding levels in 12 2009 appropriations bills. Congress also recently approved
the final version of the 2008 supplemental appropriations bill, which President
Bush signed on June 30 (Public Law 110-252). As outlined in an
analysis of the 2008 supplemental, the bill adds billions of dollars in defense
development for 2008. The bill also provides $338 million in 2008 domestic science
funding ($150 million for NIH, $62.5 million each for NSF, DOE Science, and NASA).
Congress would endorse large increases for the three physical sciences
agencies in the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI). In recent appropriations
bills, the Senate would match the Bush Administration's request for a
12.5 percent increase in the National Science Foundation (NSF) budget for
2009 to $6.9 billion, increase funding for intramural research at the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and boost R&D in DOE's
Office of Science by 15 percent. In addition, a Senate bill would give
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
$17.8 billion next year in order to accelerate development of the next generation
of human spacecraft. Both the House and the Senate are poised
to add $1 billion to a flat funding request to give NIH a total budget exceeding
$30 billion. And the Senate would give the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) an R&D portfolio of $1.1 billion, a 9.2 percent
increase over 2008, and a large increase for Department of
Transportation R&D. The complete series of AAAS R&D Funding
Updates on FY 2009 congressional appropriations is available on the AAAS R&D
web site on the "FY 2009 R&D" page. These
updates supplement AAAS Report XXXIII: Research and
Development FY 2009, a comprehensive analysis of R&D in the proposed
federal budget for FY 2009 that was published in April. Also available is a
continually updated table on the status of FY 2009 appropriations.
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revised July 16, 2008
 Since
1976, the R&D Budget and Policy Program has been providing timely, comprehensive,
and independent analyses of R&D funding trends in the federal budget as a
service to the science, engineering and policymaking communities.
Through its
Web site and email list, the Program makes available continually updated coverage
of R&D funding trends, ongoing budget debates in Congress and the Executive
Branch, and potential impacts of budget legislation. The Web site also offers
a guide to R&D funding data as well as downloadable copies of its printed
reports. Every spring, the Program hosts the annual AAAS
Forum on Science and Technology Policy (formerly the AAAS Colloquium), the
nation’s premier conference devoted to S&T policy. The next Forum will
be held May 8-9, 2008, in Washington, DC.
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