(This report is a summary of AAAS estimates and analyses
of federal R&D appropriations in the FY 2008 appropriations process as
of the October start of FY 2008. This report updates the August R&D Funding
Update; most of the data and text are identical to the August update, except for
new data on Senate appropriations for DOD.)
The federal government’s fiscal
year (FY) 2008 began on October 1, but the FY 2008 budget is far from finished.
None of the 12 FY 2008 appropriations bills providing funding to the government’s
discretionary programs have been signed into law because of a slow-moving appropriations
process in Congress and sharp disagreements between President Bush and the Congress
over domestic spending levels. Congress would like to spend $23 billion more on
domestic programs than the President’s request, but President Bush has threatened
to veto any appropriations bills that exceed his request. In federal R&D,
Congress agrees with the President on some areas, such as the President’s proposal
to boost funding for select physical sciences agencies in the American Competitiveness
Initiative (ACI) and for development investments for new human spacecraft. But
instead of cutting funding for other R&D programs as requested, Congress is
poised to add billions of dollars to the President’s overall request for federal
R&D. The House and the Senate would provide increases to every major nondefense
R&D funding agency, and would turn proposed cuts into significant increases
for the congressional priorities of biomedical research, environmental research
(particularly climate change research), and energy R&D. The added billions
in the unfinished FY 2008 appropriations bills could turn a requested cut in federal
support of basic and applied research into a real increase, after three years
of decline. But these R&D increases could disappear or diminish this fall
in negotiations between the President and Congress over final funding levels;
in the meantime, federal agencies are operating at FY 2007 funding levels for
the next several weeks.
Figure 1. (click on image for PDF)
Highlights So Far of Federal R&D in FY
2008 Appropriations
Before the traditional month-long August congressional
recess, the 110th Congress made progress on FY 2008 appropriations,
but progress ground to a halt in the month of September. In a repeat of previous
years, when the new fiscal year arrived on October 1 no federal agency had a final
2008 appropriation. The House of Representatives approved all 12 of its FY 2008
appropriations bills by August, but the Senate lagged further behind: the Senate
Appropriations Committee finally drafted its 12th bill (for Defense)
in September, but the full Senate bill has only this week approved its fifth bill.
None of the bills has emerged from House-Senate conference. In order to give themselves
more time, lawmakers approved a continuing resolution (CR) providing temporary
funding at 2007 funding levels for all discretionary programs through November
16; more CRs will almost certainly be needed.
In related news, the President and Congress enacted
comprehensive innovation legislation, the 21st Century Competitiveness
Act of 2007 or America COMPETES Act (HR 2272), in August. As with the ACI for
R&D funding, this authorization bill responds to the recent National Academies
Rising Above the Gathering Storm report and other
reports calling on the U.S. to make a renewed commitment to encouraging science
and engineering-based innovation for future U.S. prosperity. The bill addresses most of the non-R&D
funding recommendations of the report. It would: create or reauthorize numerous
science and math education programs at federal agencies; create a Technology Innovation
Program (TIP) to replace the Advanced Technology Program (ATP); create an Advanced
Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) to fund high-risk, high-reward energy
research; and authorize programs to encourage more U.S. students to pursue science and engineering careers. The bill would also
authorize but not appropriate continued funding increases for the three ACI agencies.
(This analysis features AAAS estimates of R&D
in FY 2008 House and Senate appropriations bills; most figures are identical to
the August Funding Update. Since August, the Senate has approved its DOD appropriations
bill; FY 2008 Senate figures have been revised to reflect Senate DOD R&D appropriations.
All FY 2008 figures (Request, House, and Senate) exclude $2.9 billion in DOD development
funds requested as part of the war supplemental; Congress will consider these
appropriations later this year, after which they will be added to the FY 2008
figures. All FY 2007 figures include $1 billion in supplemental appropriations
(mostly in DOD) enacted in May as part of the 2007 war supplemental.)
- Congress is poised to add billions of dollars
to the federal R&D portfolio in its FY 2008 appropriations bills. The
House has approved appropriations bills that would allocate $144.3 billion in
2008 for federal R&D, $4.0 billion more than the President’s budget and $3.2
billion or 2.3 percent more than this year (see Table
1). Senate appropriations bills so far would give federal R&D agencies
$3.3 billion more than the request, for a potential $2.5 billion or 1.8 percent
increase in total R&D (see Table 4). These
proposed increases, however, may be reduced in the final versions of the appropriations
bills, especially if President Bush vetoes appropriations bills for exceeding
his spending targets.
- Congress fully endorses requested increases
for the three agencies in the Bush Administration’s American Competitiveness Initiative
(ACI). Both the House and the Senate would match or exceed the R&D requests
for the National Science Foundation (NSF; up 8.7 percent to $4.9 billion in the
House, up 9.1 percent in the Senate), the Department of Energy’s Office of Science
(DOE OS; up 16.8 percent to $4.1 billion, up 18 percent in the Senate), and Commerce’s
National Institute of Standards and Technology laboratories (NIST; up 13 percent
to $420 million; see Tables 1 and 4
and Figure 1).
- Congressional appropriators would reverse proposed
cuts in many R&D programs by adding billions of dollars to the budget request,
especially for R&D programs in the key congressional priority areas of biomedical
research, environmental research (particularly climate change), and energy R&D.
The House would add $1 billion to a requested cut in biomedical research at the
National Institutes of Health (NIH); although the resulting increase would be
a modest 2.4 percent in percentage terms, it would be $668 million above current-year
funding for a total of $29.1 billion for NIH R&D (see Table 1 and Figure 1).
The Senate would add $1.2 billion, enough for a 3.2 percent
increase for NIH R&D over 2007 (see Table 4). Congress would turn steep requested
cuts into increases for environmental research programs, including R&D in
the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS; up 6.6 percent in the House and 3.0 percent
in the Senate), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA; up
9.9 percent in the House and 18.1 percent in the Senate), and the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA; up 10.6 percent in the House and 0.9 percent in the Senate).
Total environmental R&D, encompassing R&D in the above agencies, would
rise 9.2 percent in House plans to $2.3 billion instead
of falling 3 percent as requested (see Table 3).
In addition, appropriators would boost climate change research in other agency
budgets, including targeted boosts for earth observing satellites and supporting
research at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). And instead
of requested cuts to energy R&D in 2008 after a banner year in 2007, Congress
would keep increasing DOE energy R&D spending dramatically, by 18.5 percent
in the House to $1.8 billion and a staggering 29 percent to $2.0 billion in the
Senate for the renewable energy, fossil fuels, and energy conservation programs
(see Figure 1).
- The House and the Senate would provide increases
for every major R&D funding agency except DOD (see Figure 1), and would
add R&D funding to the request for every agency. Armed with a congressional
budget resolution allocating $23 billion more for domestic appropriations than
the President’s request, congressional appropriators would spread the additional
dollars throughout the federal R&D portfolio and turn requested cuts into
increases for several agencies. On the nondefense side, R&D earmarks (congressionally
designated, performer-specific projects) would make up one-fifth of the additional
dollars, leaving four-fifths of the additional R&D appropriations for core
programs.
Figure 2. (click on image for PDF)
- Federal support of basic and applied research
would stay ahead of inflation in 2008 after three years of decline if congressional
appropriations prevail (see Tables 2 and 5
and Figures 2 and 3). Although the request for 2008 would have continued the recent
downward trend in federal research support after peaking in 2004, additional dollars
for research programs in both House and Senate appropriations would allow federal
research support to increase in real terms. Federal support of research (excluding
development and R&D facilities) would increase 3.0 percent to $58.6 billion
in House appropriations instead of a requested cut; every major research agency
except DOD would increase its support of basic and applied research (see Table
2). In real terms, the House would stay just ahead of the expected 2.4 percent
inflation rate (see Figure 2). The Senate would go slightly higher with a 3.1
percent or $1.8 billion boost for federal research support to $58.7 billion (see
Table 5 and Figure 3).
Figure 3. (click on image for PDF)
- Congress would fully support the Administration’s
other R&D priorities in the development of new spacecraft and expanded R&D
facilities support. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s R&D
funding would climb $1.2 million or 9.8 percent to $13.0 billion in the House
and 8.4 percent to $12.8 billion in the Senate; appropriators would support a
10 percent requested increase to $3.1 billion for development funding of the next
generation of human space vehicles. Total development funding would fall behind
inflation with a 0.8 percent increase to $80.8 billion (see Figure 2), but will
show a large increase this fall when Congress adds in war-related supplemental
development funding. In construction of large R&D facilities, Congress would
endorse NASA’s proposed 28 percent boost in construction of the International
Space Station. Other proposed boosts in R&D facilities funding at DOD, NSF,
NIST, and DOE also win congressional support to bring total R&D facilities
and large equipment funding to $4.9 billion in both the House and Senate (up 22
percent and 21 percent, respectively; see Tables 1
and 4).
- In a change from past appropriations seasons,
defense R&D would fall but nondefense R&D would see big gains. The
House would add $2.5 billion on top of a requested increase for nondefense R&D
programs for a total of $62.7 billion, a substantial 6.5 percent increase (see
Table 3). The Senate would add even more money
for a total of $63.2 billion, up 7.3 percent. Defense R&D, however, would
fall slightly by 0.7 percent to $81.6 billion in House appropriations and even
more steeply by 2.2 percent to $80.4 billion in the Senate (see Table 3), but
only because Congress has not yet considered $2.9 billion in requested 2008 war
supplemental funds for development programs; later this year, when Congress approves
a war supplemental, the cut will turn into an increase.
- Congress has resumed
earmarking R&D projects in FY 2008 appropriations, after a one-year moratorium
on most nondefense earmarks in 2007. The AAAS analysis of R&D earmarks
in FY 2008 appropriations shows that the House would designate $529 million for
congressionally designated performer-specific R&D projects in its FY 2008
bills and the Senate $624 million in its bills (excluding DOD). Roughly one-fifth
of the dollars added to the request for nondefense R&D would be in the form
of earmarks. Both the House and Senate totals are in line with 2005 and 2006 earmark
levels at the same stages of the appropriations process. Although earmarks appear
to be down in nondefense R&D agencies, DOD R&D earmarks are reaching new
highs in 2008, partly because improved disclosure of earmarks this year has made
previously hidden earmarks more visible. The Senate would earmark $2.1 billion
in R&D projects in its DOD appropriations, while the House would earmark $2.3
billion; these earmarks make up nearly all of the funds that Congress would add
to the request, especially for “S&T” programs. (For full details see the AAAS
R&D Funding Update on R&D Earmarks in FY 2008 Appropriations, available
on the AAAS R&D web site. Also available is a comprehensive database of R&D
earmarks in 2008 bills.)
R&D Appropriations for Key Agencies
Detailed
analyses of FY 2008 House and Senate appropriations for individual agencies are
available in AAAS R&D Funding Updates on the AAAS
R&D Web site.
Figure 4. (click on image for PDF)
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The Department of Defense (DOD)
would be the only major R&D funding agency to receive a cut in its R&D
portfolio in both the House and Senate appropriations bills, but this winter Congress
will add billions in supplemental funds for an eventual increase. DOD R&D
would total $76.3 billion in the recently approved Senate plan for 2008, a cut
of 2.4 percent or $1.9 billion (see Table 4).
The House would provide more, but would still cut DOD R&D by 0.8 percent.
While Senate appropriators would add $1.2 billion to the Pentagon’s request for
DOD’s “Science & Technology” (S&T) programs of basic and applied research
and early technology development, almost entirely for earmarked projects, total
DOD “S&T” would still fall 14 percent down to $12.1 billion instead of a 22
percent requested cut (see Table 4 and Figure 1). The House would provide more
than the Senate for “S&T” but would still fall well short of current year
funding. The research-oriented Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
would see its budget fall under both the House and Senate plans because of congressional
frustration over DARPA’s inability to spend past budgets. The House, but not the
Senate, would cap indirect costs on DOD basic research grants at 20 percent.
Highlights
for the remaining R&D funding agencies remain almost identical to the August
update:
-
Both the House and Senate would add more than a billion dollars to the budget
request for the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
to turn a cut into an increase. The House would give
NIH a total budget of $29.9 billion in 2008, an increase of $701 million or 2.4
percent over the current year that would be $1.0 billion more than the request.
The Senate would provide $249 million more than the House
to allow NIH a 3.3 percent increase. Because part of the increase would go to
a larger transfer to the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS and increased funding for the
NIH Common Fund, most NIH institutes and centers (IC’s) would see their budgets
increase between 1.5 and 1.7 percent in the House, well short of the 2.4 percent
expected economy-wide inflation rate. In the Senate plan, most IC’s would just
match inflation with increases between 2.3 and 2.5 percent. But both plans would
fall well short of expected biomedical research inflation of 3.7 percent in 2008.
NIH R&D spending, 97 percent of the total NIH budget, would grow 2.4 percent
in the House and 3.2 percent in the Senate (see Figure 1). Both the House and
Senate would require NIH grantees to make their published research papers freely
accessible within a year of publication; only the Senate would expand the number
of embryonic stem cell lines eligible for NIH funding from the current policy
of lines created before August 2001 to those created before June 2007.
-
Congressional appropriators would endorse the Bush Administration’s requested
increase for the National Science Foundation (NSF)
as part of the ACI but would also add significantly to the request for its education
programs. The House would give NSF $6.5 billion for its total budget for a 10.0
percent increase, while the Senate would allocate even
more. NSF’s R&D investments would total $4.9 billion in both the House and
the Senate, up 9 percent (see Figure 1 and Tables 1 and 4), bringing NSF R&D
funding to an all-time high in real terms (see Figure 4) after cuts in 2005 and
2006. Most research directorates would receive increase between 4 and 9 percent
for the second year in a row. NSF’s Education and Human Resources (E.H.R) budget,
after years of steep budget cuts, would soar 18 percent in the House appropriation
to $823 million and 22 percent to $851 million in the Senate. Much of the additional
funding would go to new programs in science and math education that were authorized
in the America COMPETES Act; the act also authorizes future increases in the NSF
budget along the ten-year doubling trajectory envisioned by the ACI.
- The National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is on track to receive more
funding for its earth observing satellite and other climate change related programs.
Although NASA requested a large increase for its R&D programs in 2008, the
increase would have gone entirely to human spacecraft, especially the project
to develop the Space Shuttle’s replacement. Responding to NASA’s proposed cuts
in its research-oriented programs, both the House and Senate
would add funds, especially for earth science programs. Both the House and the
Senate would shore up NASA support of the earth sciences with $1.6 billion for
the Earth Science portfolio, in the House 9.3 percent more than the current year
and 13 percent more in the Senate. Some of the additional funding would go specifically
to implement recommendations of a recent National Research Council report expressing
concerns that the number of earth-observing sensors on NASA spacecraft could decrease
by 40 percent this decade if current NASA budget trends continue. NASA’s satellite
capabilities for earth observation are vital for environmental research, especially
on climate change. The House and the Senate would also add funding for specific
earth observing satellite missions and for research utilizing the satellite data.
The broader Science portfolio incorporating other NASA research programs would
climb 5.7 percent to $5.7 billion in the House, and 4.3 percent to $5.6 billion
in the Senate. Combined with some congressional adds for aeronautics and other
research outside Science, Congress now offers the possibility of the first inflation-adjusted
increase for NASA research funding since 2003. Both chambers would endorse large
requested increases for the International Space Station facilities project, and
the $3.1 billion Constellation Systems development project to replace the Space
Shuttle and carry humans toward the moon; as a result, total NASA R&D would
gain 9.8 percent in the House to $13.0 billion and 8.4 percent in the Senate to
bring NASA R&D out of a decade-long flat funding trend (see Figure 4).
- The Senate would provide $10.0 billion for
the Department of Energy’s R&D portfolio in
FY 2008, an increase of 14.5 percent or $1.3 billion (see Table 4). The House
increase would be 11.7 percent. Both the House and the Senate would add to a 15
percent requested increase for R&D in the DOE Office of Science, bringing
the House increase to 17 percent and the Senate to 18 percent (see Figure 1).
The additional funds would go to earmarked projects, climate change research,
and energy-related biological research, on top of requested increases to boost
funding for physical sciences research. DOE’s energy-related R&D would total
$2.0 billion in the Senate, an enormous 29 percent increase; the House would almost
keep pace with a large 18.5 percent increase, both in contrast to DOE’s requested
cuts for 2008 after large increases in 2007. Congress would boost R&D investments
in renewable energy technologies such as hydrogen, solar, and biomass but would
also revive geothermal, hydropower, and oil and gas technology R&D programs
proposed for elimination, reverse proposed cuts in energy conservation R&D
and many fossil fuels R&D programs, add substantially to coal-related R&D
in areas such as carbon sequestration, and bring back energy earmarks after a
one-year moratorium. In DOE’s defense programs, the House would eliminate requested
funding for early development work on a new nuclear warhead, the Reliable Replacement
Warhead, while the Senate would keep the project alive but would trim the request.
The America COMPETES Act authorizes new DOE programs to boost math and science
education, and creates a new semi-independent Advanced Research Projects Agency
for Energy (ARPA-E) authorized at $300 million in 2008 to fund breakthrough alternative
energy R&D technologies. Neither the House nor the Senate, however, has drafted appropriations yet to actually give money to ARPA-E.
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The Senate would give the Department of Homeland Security’s
(DHS) R&D portfolio a large $104 million or 11 percent increase to
$1.1 billion in FY 2008, after a steep cut in 2007 (see Table 4 and Figure 1).
The Senate would far exceed smaller increases in the DHS request and the House
appropriation (up 3.3 percent), with much of the increase going to Senate earmarks.
Within the DHS portfolio, research on radiological and nuclear countermeasures
within the new Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) would continue to show
growth, by 9 percent to $336 million in the Senate plan. Congress would mostly
go along with the newly restructured S&T Directorate’s plan to cut funding
for most R&D areas, including cuts to chemical and biological countermeasures
R&D.
-
Instead of a steep requested cut, both the House and the Senate would add hundreds
of millions of dollars to R&D programs in the U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA)
for a slight increase in 2008. The Senate would give slightly more than the House
for a total of $2.3 billion for USDA R&D (see Table 4), 3.9 percent more than
this year; the House increase would be 1.5 percent (see Figure 4). The National
Research Initiative (NRI) of competitively awarded research grants would increase
$54 million to a record $244 million in the Senate, slightly short of the request.
The House would provide $190 million. After a one-year moratorium in 2007, congressionally
designated projects (earmarks) would return in both the House ($250 million) and
Senate ($141 million) bills. Congress is considering structural changes in the
R&D portfolio as part of a new farm bill, but the proposed changes will not
become clear until the fall.
- The Department
of Commerce’s R&D portfolio is a high priority for both the House
and the Senate, with large increases in store for both
of Commerce’s main R&D units, the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NIST R&D
would surge a surprising 26 percent in the House and 21 percent in the Senate
(see Figure 1); not only would Congress agree to large proposed increases in NIST
intramural research as part of the ACI but both the House and the Senate would
save the extramural Advanced Technology Program (ATP) from proposed elimination
and instead provide large increases; both chambers would also boost NIST R&D
construction funding, on the House side with a new extramural construction program.
The America COMPETES Act replaced the ATP with a Technology Innovation Program
(TIP), and authorized the new program for the next three years; in the last several
weeks, the ATP awarded its last set of grants and is now gearing up to fund grants
as the TIP. The America COMPETES Act also authorizes continuing increases for
the NIST labs to 2010. Instead of a requested cut, both the House and the Senate
would provide large increases for NOAA R&D, on the Senate side by 18 percent
to $621 million. Both chambers would heavily favor NOAA’s climate change research
and the Senate would also favor oceans-related research with large increases.
Total Commerce R&D would climb 19.5 percent in the Senate to $1.3 billion
and 17.7 percent on the House side (see Tables 4 and 1).
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R&D in the Department of the Interior’s lead science
agency, the U.S. Geological Survey
(USGS), would increase 3.0 percent or $17 million to $581 million in Senate
action and 6.6 percent to $602 million in House action, both in contrast to a requested cut. The sharpest reversal would be in
the mineral resources R&D program, which Interior once again proposed to cut
in half but Congress would save. The House would add $10 million in new money
specifically for climate change research.
- The House would dramatically increase R&D funding in the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) by 11 percent or $60 million to $620 million
instead of a requested cut (see Table 1 and Figure 1). $50 million of the increase
would be new money for a proposed climate change commission to prioritize climate
change adaptation and mitigation research and then fund that research. In the
regular EPA budget, climate change R&D would also be a priority. The Senate
plan, without the climate change commission, would provide a small 0.9 percent
increase for EPA R&D.
- Both the House and the Senate
would boost R&D funding in the Department of Transportation
(DOT), with cuts to aviation R&D balanced by large increases for highway
R&D. The House would give DOT R&D
a 5.2 percent increase to $836 million (see Table 1), while the Senate would give
more, a 6.6 percent increase (see Table 4 and Figure 1).
-
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) federal
R&D would increase $61 million or 7.1 percent in the latest Senate appropriation
to $911 million in 2008, $20 million more than a similar House
appropriation.
Budget Outlook: Proposed Increases Uncertain
in a Long Autumn of Waiting
The
House has approved all 12 of its versions of its appropriations bills, but the
Senate has approved only 5 of its bills with the remaining 7 backed up in a long
queue to get to the Senate floor; none of the conference committees to craft House-Senate
compromises on the final versions of the appropriations bills has convened. Complicating
matters, President Bush has threatened to veto any 2008 appropriations bills that
exceed his budget request; as many as 10 bills could do so. Any vetoes would require
Congress to attempt to override a veto with a two-thirds majority in both chambers,
or to rework the bills with less funding. If Congress does the latter, then some
of the $23 billion that Congress has allocated itself for domestic appropriations
could disappear, and the R&D increases Congress has proposed with the extra
money will be threatened. After starting out the year promising to complete appropriations
on time and in an orderly manner, the 110th Congress is now in the
familiar situation of multiple continuing resolutions providing temporary funding
for programs in unfinished appropriations bills well past the November 16 expiration
of the current continuing resolution. This Congress, after hoping to get all 12
bills enacted individually, is also likely to wrap up multiple appropriations
bills into an omnibus spending bill (as in 4 of the last 5 years), with increases
for domestic programs packaged together with defense or homeland security bills
the President may find politically difficult to veto.
So
although early indications are that Congress supports the full requested increases
for American Competitiveness Initiative programs and funding well above requested
levels for biomedical research, environmental, and energy R&D, the President’s
veto power could force Congress to abandon or scale back R&D increases. Whatever
the outcome in dollar terms, it will not be a timely outcome so most R&D funding
agencies, as well as the U.S. science and engineering community that looks to
them, will start FY 2008 on hold at last year’s funding levels while waiting for
months to find out what the federal government’s fiscal commitment to R&D
in FY 2008 will be.
(This analysis is one of a series
of AAAS R&D Funding Updates on FY 2008 congressional appropriations. The complete
series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including continually updated analyses
of R&D in FY 2008 appropriations, is available on the AAAS R&D Web Site (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd)
in the “FY 2008 R&D” or the “What’s
New” sections.)
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October 5, 2007
