3

Agency R&D Budgets

(Full agency analyses of R&D in FY 2002 appropriations, including historical charts and supplemental material, are available on the AAAS R&D Web site, or as links from agency titles below. The full agency analyses are in PDF format.) Department of Defense (DOD) Total research and development (R&D) at DOD rises to $50.1 billion in FY 2002 - an increase of 17.3 percent or $7.4 billion from the FY 2001 level of $42.7 billion, the largest dollar increase in history. In comparison with the request of the Bush Administration, this total represents a 3.5 percent increase, or an additional $1.7 billion for DOD R&D (see Table 4). The FY 2002 R&D appropriation is a record dollar increase for DOD and defense R&D, even in inflation-adjusted terms, as shown in Figure 1. After nearly a decade of post-Cold War cuts, DOD R&D had been increasing slightly for the past few years, but this year's increase represents a decisive step back to Cold War funding levels because of the new war in which the United States is now engaged. Although the Bush Administration had requested substantial increases in DOD R&D spending even before September 11, the entry of the U.S. into war in Afghanistan made approval of these proposed increases much more likely in Congress, even for controversial items such as national missile defense. The regular DOD budget as a whole receives a large increase in FY 2002, and DOD's budget receives an additional boost out of the $40 billion in emergency funds appropriated in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. President Bush has stated that he may request additional FY 2002 emergency funds early next year to pay for the ongoing war in Afghanistan and other DOD needs. Perhaps most prominent in the final DOD budget is a 66.4 percent rise in funding for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO), which places the BMDO R&D budget at $7.0 billion (see Table 5). Though less than the $7.6 billion requested by the Bush Administration, the final level still represents a significant jump in the BMDO R&D budget. Operating in partnership with each of the military services, other federal agencies, the private sector, and major research institutions, BMDO is charged with developing defensive systems to counter perceived theater and strategic ballistic missile threats. BMDO has received strong vocal and budgetary support from the Bush Administration. In fact, in a speech in early 2001 at the National Defense University, President Bush stated that the development of a national missile defense would be one of the top priorities of his administration. Furthermore, he asserted that the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty with the Soviet Union (now Russian Federation) - which explicitly precludes the development of a national missile defense system by either party - should not stand in the way of efforts by the United States to develop and deploy such a system; in December, he formally announced U.S. withdrawal from the treaty. Basic Research ("6.1") and Applied Research ("6.2") also receive substantial increases in funding. Basic Research rises by 5.0 percent from $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion, while Applied Research rises by 14.6 percent from $3.7 billion to $4.2 billion. Because of the agency's national security mission, DOD's research portfolio from the "6.1" and "6.2" accounts is weighted toward disciplines such as mathematics, physics, computer sciences, and especially engineering which have relevance to developing future weapons systems, but DOD also supports research in other fields for national security reasons, including the life sciences to combat bioterrorism threats and to ensure healthy soldiers, and environmental sciences (chiefly oceanography) to assist the Navy in operating its ships. DOD provides nearly one-third of all federal support for engineering research and a majority of federal support for some key engineering subfields. DOD also provides more than a third of total federal support for computer science research and plays a prominent funding role in other disciplines such as mathematics, oceanography, medical sciences, chemistry, physics, and environmental sciences. Because of the increases to "6.1" and "6.2", DOD support for all of these disciplines should rise in FY 2002. The "6.1," "6.2," and "6.3" categories are often grouped together as "Science and Technology" (S&T). This category encompasses basic research, applied research, and advanced technology development, which contribute to a broad knowledge base with potential applications to a wide variety of military as well as civilian uses. DOD S&T, including medical research appropriations outside the RDT&E account (see below), exceeds $10 billion for the first time to reach $10.5 billion, an 11.8 percent increase. Advocates for DOD S&T pushed last year for FY 2001 S&T funding of at least $9 billion, and reached that goal. For FY 2002, they advocated $10 billion, and although the Bush Administration fell far short with a request of $8.8 billion, the final Defense bill reaches that goal. Advocates of DOD S&T in the science and engineering community argue that DOD S&T funding is essential for building the knowledge and technology base for future DOD needs, and have successfully argued that post-Cold War cutbacks over the past decade eroded this base. In the past year, there has been growing support inside and outside the Pentagon for setting 3 percent of the DOD budget as a goal for the proper level of S&T investment, a goal reaffirmed in September's Quadrennial Defense Review of defense strategy; the FY 2002 DOD S&T appropriation meets that goal. The DOD budget contains a separate $461 million appropriation, outside the regular R&D accounts, for medical R&D (see Table 4). Included in this total is $150 million for breast cancer research and $85 million for prostate cancer research (down from $175 million and $100 million, respectively, in FY 2001) in peer-reviewed, competitively awarded grants. The budget also contains $10 million for ovarian cancer research and $50 million for research on various medical topics. These programs were congressionally initiated in the early 1990s and DOD has never requested funding for them, but Congress has annually provided funding. The final Defense bill also contains $43 million for a Senate-initiated national prion research project. Prions are modified forms of normal proteins that have been linked to variant Creutzfelt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). The bill instructs the Army to set up a new prion research program modeled along the lines of the existing peer-reviewed cancer programs. Among the service branches, Army, Navy, and Air Force R&D budgets all receive large increases (see Table 5). The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), one of the Defense Agencies, receives $2.3 billion in FY 2002, 14.1 percent more than FY 2001. The Biological Warfare Defense program receives $147 million, down from $167 million in FY 2001. Defense Research Sciences, DARPA's basic research program, rises from $109 million to $145 million (up 33 percent). National Institutes of Health (NIH) NIH's final appropriation of $23.6 billion in FY 2002 keeps the agency on track to double its budget between FY 1998 and FY 2003 (see Table 8). There is bipartisan support for doubling the NIH budget in five years, with FY 2002 as the fourth year. The final appropriation exceeds the $22.9 billion House-proposed appropriation for NIH and the $23.1 billion Bush Administration request, but falls slightly short of the $23.8 billion Senate proposal. The final appropriation does not include a House proposal to delay the obligation of nearly $2.9 billion until the last day of FY 2002. NIH R&D, which makes up 97 percent of the NIH budget, totals $22.8 billion (up 15.8 percent) in FY 2002. The remaining 3 percent of the NIH budget goes to research training and overhead costs. Every institute receives an increase greater than 12 percent, and five receive increases greater than 20 percent (see Table 8). The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) sees its budget jump 22.5 percent to $2.5 billion, primarily because of an emergency appropriation of $155 million, separate from the regular NIH budget, for counterterrorism activities. Construction of a new biosafety laboratory receives $70 million of the emergency funds, while the remaining $85 million goes to bioterrorism R&D. NIH Buildings and Facilities funding more than doubles to $345 million (up 124.1 percent), continuing the trend of large increases in NIH construction funds in recent years. Part of this appropriation comes from emergency funds to boost security of NIH laboratory facilities against terrorist attacks. Funding for the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) increases by 23.8 percent to $1.0 billion. NCRR is charged with developing and supporting critical research technologies and shared resources that underpin biomedical research. One beneficiary of the increase in NCRR funding is the Institutional Development Award (IDeA) program, a program that provides capacity-building assistance for biomedical research in states that have not previously participated fully in the research programs of NIH. IdeA receives $160 million in FY 2002, up sharply from the $100 million FY 2001 funding level. IdeA, established in FY 1993, has grown dramatically in the past few years from $40 million in FY 2000 and is open to proposals from 23 states and Puerto Rico. It is similar in intent to the National Science Foundation's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). Other beneficiaries of increases in NCRR funding are extramural research performers seeking to renovate or construct biomedical facilities. The final NIH appropriation increases funding levels for extramural construction from $75 million in FY 2001 to $110 million in FY 2002. These funds are to be awarded on a competitive basis. Although NIH has come under increasing congressional scrutiny over the past year because of several controversies in areas such as gene therapy research, stem cell research, and human cloning, the final Labor-HHS bill funding NIH is relatively free of legislative provisions that restrict the types of research NIH can fund. The only major provision is the restatement of an existing ban on NIH using its funds to create human embryos for research purposes or to fund any research in which human embryos are destroyed. The bill does not limit federal support for research involving human embryonic stem cells listed on an NIH registry and carried out in accord with the policy outlined by President Bush on August 9, 2001. There are large increases for R&D programs in other agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS; see Table 9). R&D in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) increases by 33.3 percent or $172 million to $689 million because of CDC's higher profile in recent weeks in combating anthrax terrorism. In addition to substantial increases in the regular Labor-HHS bill, CDC will receive more than $1 billion in emergency funds through the Defense bill to boost its capacity to respond to anthrax and other bioterrorism threats, including nearly $100 million in emergency funding for anthrax and other bioterrorism research, and R&D facilities upgrades. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sees its R&D funding rise by 15.4 percent to $159 million, partially because of emergency funds to boost FDA's ability to safeguard the U.S. food supply. Total HHS R&D rises 15.8 percent or $3.3 billion to $24.1 billion. Federal counter-terrorism R&D climbs from $579 million in FY 2001 to $1.5 billion in FY 2002 thanks to an infusion of emergency funds included in the Defense bill (see Chapter 2 for more details of counter-terrorism R&D). HHS agencies make up the largest part of the counter-terrorism R&D portfolio with $451 million in FY 2002, nearly four times the $116 million FY 2001 amount. As stated above, the CDC, FDA, and NIH all receive substantial funds for R&D and R&D facilities related to terrorism. Although other R&D funding agencies have struggled to maintain their budgets in the past several years, NIH has enjoyed extraordinary success on Capitol Hill and its budget growth is accelerating. NIH is on track to double its budget (in non-inflation adjusted terms) in the five years to FY 2003. Because of this growth, which far outpaces growth in other agencies' budgets, NIH alone now accounts for two-thirds of all federal support for R&D in colleges and universities. A majority of NIH R&D funds go to colleges and universities; because of the size of the NIH budget in comparison to other federal agencies, NIH is the dominant funding source for nearly all colleges and universities with medical schools. Because of the enormous increases for NIH R&D in the FY 2002 budget, universities and colleges and medically oriented nonprofits can expect substantial increases in federal R&D support in FY 2002, while the CDC and NIH laboratories will also receive substantial increases because of counter-terrorism R&D funds. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) In 2001, NASA administrator Daniel Goldin resigned after the longest-ever tenure of a NASA administrator, serving through the entire Clinton Administration and parts of both Bush (father and son) Administrations. At the end of the year, the Senate confirmed OMB deputy director Sean O'Keefe as the new NASA administrator, but O'Keefe will not have a chance to get a fresh start in 2002: the continuing saga of the International Space Station will take up much of his time, and he may be forced to continue his predecessor's drive to do more science with less money, as NASA and other domestic agencies face budgeting in another era of deficits. He will at least have some budgetary breathing room this year: the final NASA budget is $14.9 billion in FY 2002, $648 million or 4.5 percent more than FY 2001 (see Table 6). This is $390 million more than the Administration's request of $14.5 billion, and includes $109 million in emergency funds for counter-terrorism and domestic security activities. Two-thirds of the NASA budget, which excludes the Space Shuttle program and its associated costs, is classified as R&D. NASA's R&D totals $10.3 billion in FY 2002, $375 million or 3.8 percent above FY 2001. The troubled International Space Station is now projected to run more than $4 billion over budget over the next five years, but Congress cut the Space Station budget in FY 2002. The International Space Station account receives $1.7 billion, down 18.4 percent or $389 million from FY 2001, but the final NASA spending bill transfers Space Station research to the Biological and Physical Research (BPR) account; the FY 2002 final appropriation for life and microgravity research aboard the Station is $284 million, the same as the request, and there is another $55 million in BPR for the Fluids and Combustion Facility and other space station research and equipment. Placing these research funds in a separate account would make it more difficult for NASA to siphon funds from research to construction of the Station. After adjusting for transfers, the total Space Station project receives $50 million less than the FY 2001 funding level. The final bill includes $40 million for a Crew Return Vehicle (CRV). The House bill would have provided $275 million for a CRV, a program deleted from the request and Senate plans. The CRV would be used as an emergency escape vehicle for the Station crew. Without this six or seven-person vehicle, Station crews would be limited to three, drastically reducing the amount of research that can be done on the Station to an estimated 20 person-hours a week. NASA had proposed to eliminate the CRV as a cost-cutting measure. Although the Space Station receives nearly full funding, the conference report of the final VA-HUD bill expresses major concerns about the project. It criticizes NASA's newly redesigned concept for the finished space station as ill-defined, and expresses concerns that research space and time are inadequately provided for. The report instructs NASA to submit a report to Congress outlining in full NASA's plans for the "U.S. Core Complete" configuration of the Space Station, including a ten-year cost profile and clear definitions of the station research program. The Science, Aeronautics, and Technology (SAT) account, which funds nearly all of NASA's R&D not related to the Space Station, receives $7.9 billion, 11.6 percent or $823 million above FY 2001 (see Table 6). Included in the appropriation is $33 million in emergency R&D funds from the $40 billion post-September 11 emergency response fund for security upgrades, communications, and information security. Nearly half of the remaining increase is due to the transfer of Space Station research to Biological and Physical Research (BPR), while much of the remainder is due to $233 million in congressionally designated R&D projects. BPR, formerly known as Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications, receives $714 million for an 88.6 percent increase. Taking out the Space Station research, however, would leave $375 million, slightly below the FY 2001 funding level. This program funds ground and space-based research to advance the safety and health of astronauts in space, but covers investigations on a variety of life, medical, and microgravity sciences research topics. In Space Science (up 8.5 percent to $2.8 billion), Congress added $30 million to the budget for a Pluto mission that NASA has tried to cancel. The Aero-Space Technology program rises 12.4 percent or $275 million to $2.5 billion. Much of the increase is due to a boost from $272 million in FY 2001 to $465 million in FY 2002 for the Space Launch Initiative, which funds research and development efforts for reusable launch vehicle technology. There are also unrequested congressional earmarks totaling $83 million. Because NASA funds both space and aeronautics programs from this account, obscuring the precise NASA investment in aeronautics, the conference report instructs NASA to establish a separate aeronautics line in the next budget. The Academic Programs appropriation of $231 million is a substantial 73.9 percent or $98 million increase over FY 2001. The final budget includes 40 congressionally designated projects totaling $67 million. Although all programs in this account are classified as R&D, the congressionally designated projects include funds for planetariums, science museums, education center, and even a dormitory. The relatively generous FY 2002 appropriation is welcome news for NASA, whose budget has stagnated in recent years both because of tight fiscal policies for all discretionary programs and because of NASA's goal of doing more with less. After adjusting for inflation, NASA's R&D has been essentially flat at $10 billion in today's dollars since FY 1991, and in fact has declined slightly. NASA's R&D grew dramatically from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, first because of the development of a new Space Shuttle after the Challenger disaster, and then because of the International Space Station and the expansion of NASA's earth science activities. Since then, however, NASA has had to accommodate increased costs of the Space Station and an ambitious research agenda within a stagnant R&D budget. After bottoming out in FY 2000, NASA R&D has stayed ahead of inflation for two years. Department of Energy (DOE) Although energy policy was much in the news in 2001 before the September 11 terrorist attacks because of gasoline price hikes, brownouts in California, the release of a controversial Bush Administration National Energy Policy, and proposals to open the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for oil drilling, in the later months of 2001 those concerns took a back seat to simply moving appropriations forward and responding to the terrorist attacks. In the end, the Bush Administration was unsuccessful in its plan to dramatically reduce DOE investments in energy R&D and to reorder U.S. national energy policy toward expanding supply and away from managing demand. The final DOE budget avoids controversies over DOE and energy in order to provide DOE with basically a status-quo budget, except for emergency appropriations from the post-September 11 response fund. Falling oil prices even in a time of U.S. military action in the Middle East have taken much of the urgency away from formulating new energy policies. Total DOE R&D in FY 2002 is $8.1 billion, a 4.9 percent increase over FY 2001, with small increases for energy R&D (up 1.6 percent) and science R&D (up 2.1 percent) and a larger increase for defense R&D (up 8.4 percent). The slight increase for energy R&D compares favorably to the DOE budget request, which called for a 28.3 percent cut in DOE's energy-related R&D (see Table 7). While the Bush Administration proposed drastic cuts in many of DOE's energy R&D programs, the final bills generally keep funding at FY 2001 levels or provide slight increases. While the Administration requested a 30.8 percent cut in Renewable Energy Resources R&D, the final appropriation allows for a 3.3 percent increase over FY 2001 to $339 million. In the final Interior bill, Fossil Energy R&D increases 3.0 percent to $408 million, a far cry from the requested cut of more than 25 percent. The request would have reduced funding for several fossil energy areas such as oil and gas by as much as 50 percent, offset somewhat by an increased emphasis on coal research. The final bill keeps funding for most fossil fuels at close to FY 2001 levels, while also providing additional funds for coal technologies. The Interior bill also boosts Energy Conservation R&D by 3.1 percent to $454 million, a sharp contrast to a proposed 28 percent cut. The overall Energy Conservation account climbs by 11.9 percent to $913 million because of significant boosts to two non-R&D grants programs, the weatherization assistance program and the state energy grants program. The only energy R&D program to decline is Nuclear Energy R&D, down 3.5 percent to $78 million, though this is well above the $57 million request. In the Science account, the final Energy-Water bill provides $3.0 billion for R&D, a $63 million or 2.1 percent increase. Most Science programs receive funding close to FY 2001 funding levels. Both Fusion Energy Sciences and Nuclear Physics receive the same amounts as last year ($245 million and $355 million, respectively). The High Energy Physics (up 0.6 percent to $706 million) program edges up slightly. The Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) declines by 4.6 percent to $158 million. Within the Basic Energy Sciences (BES) program, Congress provides $291 million in funding for the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), the same as the request and 4.8 percent more than FY 2001. The largest increase in the Science account is in the Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program, which funds DOE's contribution to the Human Genome Project. BER funding jumps $46 million or 9.6 percent to $527 million because the conference report contains $73 million for more than 50 congressional earmarks, some of them renewed from FY 2001. On the defense side, most of DOE's R&D is funded by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which was created two years ago by Congress in response to national security concerns and allegations of espionage at DOE weapons laboratories. NNSA began operations on March 2000, and is designed to be a semi-autonomous agency within DOE with its own command structure separate from the rest of DOE. NNSA is responsible for $7.6 billion, or more than a third, of the total DOE budget in FY 2002 (up 12.2 percent from FY 2001; see Table 7a). NNSA funds almost half of DOE's total R&D, $3.6 billion out of a $8.1 billion portfolio in FY 2002. Maintaining the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile is one of DOE's major defense responsibilities, and since the U.S. banned nuclear testing DOE has relied on science to ensure the continuing reliability and safety of U.S. nuclear weapons. DOE's major R&D program in that effort is in Weapons Activities. The final Energy-Water bill provide $2.6 billion for Weapons Activities R&D in FY 2002, a 9.0 percent increase. The total includes a supplemental emergency appropriation of $60 million for R&D out of the post-September 11 emergency fund. This program funds most of the R&D at the three weapons labs (Los Alamos and Sandia in New Mexico, Lawrence Livermore in California) which are responsible for the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile. Within the account, the final bill cuts funding for Advanced Simulation and Computing (formerly the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI)), an effort to develop the next generation of computer processing technologies to better model nuclear explosions. The program receives $730 million, down 2.3 percent from this year. Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) receives $261 million, an increase of 11.9 percent. DOE hopes to use ICF technologies to simulate nuclear explosions. The National Ignition Facility, the major facility for the ICF effort, receives the requested $245 million for construction in the final bill, despite continuing concerns that the project may fall further behind schedule and over budget. The emergency funds mostly go to improving physical and cyber security at the weapons laboratories. Included in the Defense bill's emergency appropriations for DOE is $78 million for nonproliferation R&D to develop improved detection technologies for bioterrorism and nuclear terrorism agents and an expanded research effort on potential nuclear terrorism. Because of the emergency funds, total nonproliferation and verification R&D increases 51.2 percent to $309 million. DOE's R&D budget has had an up-and-down history over the past several years. After the end of the Cold War, DOE's defense R&D declined sharply from FY 1992 to FY 1995, but has increased since then as the Stockpile Stewardship (now Weapons Activities) program's budget has grown. The FY 2002 increase brings DOE defense R&D nearly back to its late Cold War funding levels. DOE's nondefense R&D also peaked in FY 1992 but then suffered a steeper and more prolonged decline that lasted until FY 1998. Initially, the cuts were driven by the cancellation of the Superconducting Super Collider in 1993. But after the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, DOE nondefense R&D declined further because of tight restrictions on domestic discretionary spending aimed at achieving a balanced budget and because of Republican animosity toward DOE itself. In the last few years, DOE nondefense R&D has begun to inch back toward previous funding levels but falls behind inflation in FY 2002. Total DOE R&D has been increasing for the past five years but remains well below the funding levels of the early 1990s. National Science Foundation (NSF) There was dismay among NSF advocates in April when the Bush Administration requested only a $56 million or 1.3 percent increase in the total NSF budget, after a 13 percent increase in FY 2001 led to high expectations of substantial increases in FY 2002. Because the Bush Administration chose to emphasize a large increase for education and human resources programs in NSF, NSF's R&D programs were actually proposed to decline 1.6 percent in the request. Congress, however, awarded large increases to NSF's budget and to NSF's R&D: the final NSF budget exceeds the request with $4.8 billion, an increase of $373 million or 8.4 percent. NSF's R&D funding, which excludes NSF's education and training activities and overhead costs, totals $3.5 billion in FY 2002, an increase of 7.6 percent or $249 million (see Table 10). The Research and Related Activities (R&RA) account, which funds most of NSF's R&D, receives $3.6 billion, 7.7 percent or $256 million more than FY 2001 in contrast to a requested cut from the Bush Administration. The final appropriation gives most of the research directorates increases of 8 percent or greater, except for Biological Sciences (BIO; up 4.9 percent to $509 million) and Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE; up 2.7 percent to $169 million). The BIO appropriation includes a $75 million designation for the plant genome research program, up from $65 million in FY 2001. The final budget adds $25 million to the request of $50 million for the Major Research Instrumentation program to bring funding back to the FY 2001 level. This program provides funds to address research equipment needs of research institutions, mostly universities; the final NSF bill contains language directing NSF to address the instrumentation needs of smaller research institutions. The bill boosts the requests for information technology and nanotechnology research at NSF by $25 million each, bringing the IT research investment to $180 million (up from $155 million in FY 2001) and nanotechnology to $199 million (up from $150 million). Research funding in the Research and Related Activities (R&RA) account includes no R&D earmarks; the Senate had proposed to allocate $10 million in R&RA funds to maintain the Homestake Mine in South Dakota in preparation for construction of a National Underground Science Laboratory for particle physics research. In the final FY 2002 budget, that $10 million earmark moved to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) instead of NSF. The final FY 2002 Defense bill transferred title of the mine from the mine owners to the state of South Dakota in exchange for liability relief from environmental hazards on the site. NSF is reviewing a proposal for the laboratory, and further funding for the project may be part of the FY 2003 budget or appropriations. The Major Research Equipment (MRE) account, which funds construction of large-scale scientific facilities, receives $139 million, $17 million or 14.1 percent more than FY 2001 and $42 million more than the request. The bill allocates $12.5 million to the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope project; the request proposed to fund the project out of R&RA instead of Major Research Equipment, but the final bill funds the project in MRE and thus frees up R&RA funds for more astronomy research. Within MRE, the Senate would have provided the requested $55 million for the Terascale Computing Systems project, part of the Information Technology R&D initiative; the final bill provides only $35 million. The final bill follows the House in adding $35 million for the High-Performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research (HIAPER) in FY 2002 although NSF proposed to eliminate funding. The $35 million allocation is far above the FY 2001 funding level of $12 million for this atmospheric research aircraft. The final bill also follows the House in providing a new start of $15 million for the IceCube Neutrino Detector project, a South Pole facility recently approved by the National Science Board but not yet part of NSF's budget plans. The final bill changes the name of this account to Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction. NSF's Education and Human Resources programs receive $875 million, 11.4 percent more than FY 2001. The heart of the Administration's request was $200 million for a new Math and Science Partnerships program to encourage academic institutions and schools to work together to improve math and science education. Although half of the program was proposed as new money, the other half would have come out of existing EHR programs. The final appropriation offers $160 million, and avoids cuts to other EHR programs. The final NSF appropriation boosts funding for the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) from $75 million to $80 million and adds another $11 million to fund the Office of Innovation Partnerships, and encourages R&RA programs to fund at least $30 million in research at EPSCoR institutions. Both programs assist research institutions and states that have traditionally been underrepresented in federal R&D funding. The Senate bill encouraged consideration of an application from Rhode Island to be eligible for the EPSCoR program; the final bill does not mention this provision. The FY 2002 appropriation continues the recent trend of large increases for NSF, although the FY 2002 increase is smaller than the 13 percent increase of last year. NSF R&D grew steadily in the 1980s and until FY 1995, but then stagnated and even declined because of severe budget pressures in the mid-1990s as the federal government restrained discretionary spending to achieve a balanced budget. NSF's R&D investment resumed its long-term growth trend after FY 1998, when the government entered a (now-ended) era of surpluses. The FY 2002 increase brings NSF R&D to an all-time high. Other Agencies The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) funds agricultural research in universities and in its own laboratories, and forestry research through the Forest Service. On November 28, President Bush signed into law the final version of an appropriations bill providing funding for USDA, but USDA also received emergency counter-terrorism and domestic security appropriations in a Defense bill that cleared Congress on December 20. Together, the bills provide $2.1 billion for USDA's R&D programs, $180 million or 9.2 percent more than FY 2001, and a substantial $338 million above the request (see Table 12). The final bill blocks funds for two mandatory competitive research grants programs, and instead dramatically boosts funding for congressionally designated, geographically specific projects in both USDA's intramural and extramural programs. The emergency funds will boost security at two USDA laboratories and fund research on bioterrorism. The President's request for USDA R&D of $1.8 billion, 8.0 percent less than FY 2001 funding levels, called for steep cuts in congressionally designated research projects, mostly for extramural research grants. Both the House and the Senate proposed higher funding levels, mainly by increasing congressionally earmarked projects. The final bill keeps most of the House-proposed and Senate-proposed earmarks and makes offsetting cuts in competitively awarded research grants. In a reprise of a perennial fight, Congress blocked two mandatory (non-appropriated) grants programs from spending their funds. The Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food Systems (IFAFS) was created in June 1998 as a mandatory program to spend $120 million a year for five years on competitively awarded grants for agricultural research and extension, to be administered by USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES). The Appropriations Committees were upset that this program, created by the House and Senate Agriculture Committees, would take spending decisions on agricultural research out of their jurisdictions, so they have periodically tried to block USDA from spending these funds. Although funding for IFAFS was eventually released in FY 2000 and FY 2001, the final Agriculture bill blocks FY 2002 funds, of which an estimated $64 million would have gone toward R&D. Similarly, the Fund for Rural America in the Office of the Secretary was reauthorized two years ago for five years, but Congress has also tried periodically to block these funds for competitively awarded research and extension grants on rural topics. The final Agriculture bill blocks funds for this program, resulting in a cut of $8 million from planned R&D spending in FY 2002. Other competitively awarded research grants fare somewhat better in the final USDA budget. CSREES also administers appropriated research grants programs. The National Research Initiative (NRI), the existing competitive research grants program which IFAFS was designed to supplement, receives $120 million, above the FY 2001 and requested level of $106 million but far short of the amount needed to make up for lost IFAFS funds. Instead of competitively awarded grants, Congress directs funds toward Special Research Grants, which receive $97 million, $94 million more than the request. The House and Senate would have awarded $82 million and $84 million, respectively, for these grants; the final bill funds nearly all of the partially overlapping House and Senate proposed projects. These funds go to 174 itemized projects, all but six of which are for geographically specific congressionally designated projects. The final bill also contains 29 other congressionally designated R&D projects in other parts of the CSREES budget. Most formula funding programs for academic R&D such as the Hatch Act ($181 million, same as FY 2001) receive level funding. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) R&D totals $1.2 billion in FY 2002, a substantial increase of 22.0 percent or $223 million, $265 million more than the request. ARS funds intramural research through a nationwide network of intramural laboratories and agricultural experiment stations. In addition to substantial increases in regular appropriations, in December the Defense appropriations bill allocated additional emergency funds for ARS programs out of the $40 billion post-September 11 emergency response fund for domestic security and counter-terrorism activities. The emergency allocation provides $40 million for ARS research programs related to security or terrorism and $73 million for Buildings and Facilities. The net result is an 11.2 percent increase in ARS research and a 158.7 percent increase in Buildings and Facilities. Although USDA requested only $30 million for Buildings and Facilities, Congress nearly quadrupled the request to fund congressionally designated R&D facilities projects at ARS laboratories. The largest designation is $40 million for construction and modernization of ARS facilities in Ames, Iowa, devoted to animal research, a facility made famous because of its stocks of anthrax spores for research purposes. Then, in the Defense bill, Congress provided an additional $50 million for Ames for a new animal bio-containment facility and $23 million for security upgrades of laboratory facilities at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York. The Forest Service (FS) funds an extensive program of forest and rangeland research, mostly in FS laboratories, as well as programs in fire science. FY 2002 Forest Service R&D totals $265 million, an increase of $19 million or 7.7 percent over FY 2001. The core forest and rangeland research program receive an increase of $11 million to $241 million, but Congress also boosted funding dramatically for research aimed at assisting FS efforts in wildland fire management. The FY 2002 increase for R&D continues a trend of increases over the past few years. USDA R&D peaked in FY 1992 and declined for several years before hitting a low in FY 1996. Since then, the funding trend has been generally upward, especially in the last four years as the federal budget surplus has made more discretionary funds available to congressional appropriators. In FY 2000 and FY 2001, the release of the IFAFS funding allowed USDA to exceed its early 1990s funding levels; although the IFAFS funds will not be available in FY 2002, the explosion in congressionally designated R&D projects and the last-minute infusion of emergency funds will bring USDA R&D to an all-time high in FY 2002. The Department of Commerce receives $1.4 billion for its R&D programs, $153 million or 12.7 percent more than FY 2001, and a substantial $244 million above the request (see Table 11). Commerce's two major R&D agencies-the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-both receive substantial increases. NOAA R&D rises by 15.3 percent, or $111 million above FY 2001, while NIST R&D rises by 17.1 percent, $72 million above the FY 2001 level. The final budget breaks with the Bush Administration and the House's proposals to eliminate NIST's Advanced Technology Program and provides an almost 30 percent increase in FY 2002 for the program. NOAA performs R&D related to its mission of environmental stewardship of coastal and marine environments and the atmosphere to ensure sustainable economic opportunities. It plays a key role in research on the topics of climate change, weather, and fisheries. The final NOAA budget provides large increases-ranging from 4 to more than 20 percent-across several NOAA R&D accounts, including those in the National Ocean Service (NOS); Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR); the National Weather Service (NWS); and the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS). Total NOAA R&D rises 15.3 percent to $836 million. The final Commerce spending bill follows the Senate lead in keeping NIST's Advanced Technology Program (ATP) alive with a boost of 26.6 percent in its R&D to $150 million. The Bush Administration and the House would have all but eliminated the program. Started by the first Bush Administration but promoted as a key technology initiative by the Clinton Administration, the ATP is an extramural research grants program to provide precompetitive cost-shared R&D support for promising market technologies. The House has repeatedly voted to terminate the program, but the Senate and the Clinton Administration had managed to preserve it in past budget struggles. The new Bush Administration requested only $13 million for ATP in FY 2002, only enough to close out previously awarded grants and pay for administration costs, with no funds for R&D in FY 2002. The House went along with the Administration proposal, but the Senate bill expressed strong support for the program and the final bill follows the Senate version. Because of the large boost to ATP R&D, total NIST R&D increases by 17.1 percent to $493 million, in sharp contrast to the House's proposed 24.1 percent cut down to $319 million and an even steeper cut in the request down to $313 million. The main NIST R&D activity-Scientific and Technical Research and Services (STRS), which funds intramural research at the NIST laboratories-rises by a modest 4.3 percent (or $12 million) to $279 million. The STRS appropriation includes $5 million in emergency funds for the development of cybersecurity technologies, allocated in the Defense bill out of the $40 billion post-September 11 emergency response fund. The other NIST R&D program, Construction of Research Facilities, increases a substantial $29 million over FY 2001 and $43 million over the request for a total of $64 million, of which $41 million is reserved for 11 congressionally designated research projects and $1.2 million of which is emergency funds to upgrade NIST lab security. The FY 2002 increase, after adjusting for expected inflation, brings Commerce R&D to an all-time high, surpassing the previous peak of FY 1995. Mostly because of strong Clinton Administration support for NIST programs over the last eight years, and secondarily because of bipartisan support for NOAA's R&D programs in the early 1990s, Commerce R&D in FY 2002 is nearly double the funding level of a decade ago (in inflation-adjusted terms). Commerce R&D peaked in FY 1995 and had been up and down since then because partisan disagreements on the proper role of the federal government in commercial technology made ATP a contentious political issue, because Republican hostility toward some environmental R&D programs resulted in cuts to NOAA, and because tight discretionary spending caps limited the pool of money available for both NIST and NOAA. But in recent years, continuing to FY 2002, there has been strong growth for NOAA R&D programs as the agency's environmental R&D mission has gained increasing favor in Congress, and NIST R&D programs have grown because of bipartisan support for the intramural lab programs and a more stable funding outlook for the ATP. The Department of the Interior has an R&D budget of $673 million in FY 2002, $41 million or 6.5 percent more than FY 2001 (see Table 14). The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is the primary sponsor of R&D in Interior. The final Interior bill provides $914 million for its total budget in FY 2002, $101 million more than the request. The Administration requested a $70 million cut in USGS from the FY 2001 funding level; the final Interior appropriation restores the cuts and provides a 3.5 percent increase over FY 2001. R&D accounts for nearly two-thirds of the USGS budget. The Bush Administration requested only $491 million for USGS R&D, a proposed cut of 10.7 percent from FY 2001, but the final Interior bill provides $567 million, an increase of 3.1 percent over FY 2001. The request proposed to cut funding for R&D in all four USGS divisions, but hardest hit would have been programs in Water Resources (down 25.5 percent) and Biological Research (down 7.0 percent). The FY 2002 request explained that USGS performs a significant amount of research that primarily benefits other federal agencies, states, and local governments; the budget proposed to reduce funding for these programs, though without corresponding increases in other agencies' budgets. The final Interior bill instead keeps most programs' funding close to or slightly above the FY 2001 level. The Interior bill provides $140 million for R&D in the Water Resources Division (up 2.8 percent from FY 2001), $38 million more than the request. The request proposed to cut the National Water Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA) by nearly a third. NAWQA is charged with monitoring the nation's water quality, and its data are used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and many state regulatory agencies. The final Interior bill allows the program to continue at close to its FY 2001 funding level. The final Interior bill provides $166 million for the USGS Biological Resource Division (BRD), $17 million more than the request and $6 million more than FY 2001. The request proposed to eliminate funding for the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) program. The NBII uses the World Wide Web and other technologies to establish a distributed web of biological data and information sources through which people can find specific information, retrieve it electronically, and apply it to resource management questions. The request also proposed to cut funding for other BRD programs, but the final bill restores funding for all programs to at least their FY 2001 funding levels. The FY 2002 increase enables Interior R&D to stay just ahead of inflation. Interior R&D has declined sharply since FY 1994, primarily because of the elimination of the Bureau of Mines in FY 1996 and the merging of the National Biological Service into USGS. Since then, Interior R&D has been mostly flat, with small increases in some years. The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) R&D totals $702 million in FY 2002, 15.3 percent or $93 million above the FY 2001 level because of emergency R&D appropriations totaling $70 million (see Table 15). EPA requested $7.3 billion for its total budget, a cut of $494 million or 6.3 percent from FY 2001 because of cuts to State and Tribal Assistance Grants, perennially a higher priority for Congress than for EPA, and cuts in funds for congressionally designated projects. The final EPA budget provides $8.1 billion (including $176 million in emergency funds out of the $40 billion post-September 11 emergency response fund), 3.4 percent more than FY 2001 and $762 million more than the request. EPA's R&D, mostly funded in the Science and Technology account, totals $702 million, well above both the request and the FY 2001 funding level. EPA requested a cut in R&D down to $569 million (down 6.5 percent), mostly because EPA proposed to eliminate dozens of congressionally designated research projects while keeping core research funding flat. The final FY 2002 EPA budget funds most R&D programs at the requested level, but adds nearly 50 congressionally designated research projects to the Science and Technology account and nearly 20 earmarked projects to the normally non-R&D Environmental Programs and Management account to bring FY 2002 R&D more than $63 million above the requested level and $23 million above the earmark-laden FY 2001 level. The R&D earmarks in the final VA-HUD bill total $62 million, nearly exactly the amount total EPA R&D exceeds the request. On top of that, the Defense bill allocates an estimated $70 million in emergency R&D funds to EPA S&T out of the post-September 11 $40 billion emergency fund. The funds go to R&D and R&D facilities projects, including security upgrades at EPA laboratories, drinking water vulnerability assessments, and anthrax decontamination work. Congress mostly stuck to the EPA's priorities for FY 2002, except for a boost in funding for State and Tribal Assistance Grants. Although EPA requested a cut in this program from $3.6 billion to $3.3 billion, the final EPA budget bill provides $3.7 billion because of more than 300 congressional add-on projects. Most of this money goes to state and local governments. For Environmental Programs and Management, which funds most of EPA's operating expenses, the final bill provides $2.1 billion, $10 million more than FY 2001 and $121 million more than the request because of congressionally designated projects, including some for R&D projects. The Superfund program increases slightly to $1.3 billion. Superfund continues to support $37 million (same as FY 2001) in research on hazardous substances. The EPA research portfolio is balanced between the environmental sciences, the life sciences, and engineering research. Although EPA is the major environmental regulatory agency in the federal government, its R&D is primarily oriented toward its regulatory mission. Many other agencies (NOAA, NASA, Interior) fund environmental research related to their missions of research, resource stewardship, and economic management of the natural environment, so EPA is a relatively small part of federal environmental R&D. Roughly a quarter of EPA's R&D is performed in the agency's own laboratories, while about a third is performed by industrial firms. Nearly a third of EPA's R&D is performed by colleges and universities, a share that has been growing in recent years as EPA has attempted to expand its links with academia. The remainder is performed by nonprofit institutions and state and local governments. The Department of Transportation (DOT) has a record R&D budget of $853 million in FY 2002, a substantial boost of 14.2 percent or $106 million over FY 2001 (see Table 13). The large increase for DOT R&D is in part due to emergency appropriations for aviation security R&D out of the post-September 11 response fund. The total DOT budget, also bolstered by emergency funds, rises by 6.3 percent or $3.7 billion to $61.7 billion thanks to guaranteed funding increases provided in recent highway and aviation authorization bills. Much of the spending in the Transportation bill is exempt from limits on discretionary spending and the normal give-and-take of the appropriations process because of three new categories of discretionary spending created in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) of 1998 and the Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century (AIR21) of 2000. TEA-21, a six-year authorization bill for most highway and transit programs, dedicated all highway and transit trust fund receipts to transportation and created two new categories of discretionary spending (highways and transit programs) for that purpose. Spending in these two categories is determined by receipts from transportation taxes and not by legislative limits. AIR21 provided TEA21-like guarantees of increased funding for many FAA programs beginning in FY 2001. Because transportation revenues have been rising and all these revenues are required to be spent on transportation, the final bill is relatively generous toward R&D programs in the two primary beneficiaries of guaranteed spending, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA; $322 million, up 9.6 percent) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA; $323 million in non-emergency funds, up 7.3 percent). The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) receives $373 million for R&D activities, an increase of 23.9 percent. FAA's R&D benefits from increased concern over aviation security in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, although most of the post-September 11 increases go to non-R&D measures such as using existing technology to better protect airports and buying new security equipment. Included in the FAA R&D portfolio is $64 million for aircraft safety technology R&D, $45 million for aviation system security technology, and $24 million for weather research. In mid-December, Congress approved an additional $50 million in emergency R&D funds for FAA R&D out of the $40 billion post-September 11 emergency response fund, mostly for development of new security technologies to protect the U.S. civil aviation system. The overall FAA budget rises by $2.1 billion to $14.1 billion, including more than $1 billion in emergency funds. Because of large increases for DOT R&D in FY 2001 and FY 2002, the agency's support for R&D reaches an all-time high in FY 2002, even after adjusting for inflation. DOT's R&D peaked in FY 1995 and then suffered a steep decline, particularly in the FAA, as a result of efforts to bring the federal budget into surplus. Because of guaranteed funding in TEA-21 and AIR21, FAA and FHWA R&D have been increasing in recent years, and with the help of emergency FAA R&D funds DOT R&D rises above the FY 1995 level in FY 2002.