Highlights-
The Senate would add to a requested increase for R&D in the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) for a total R&D portfolio of $1.1 billion, a $92 million
or 9.2 percent increase over 2008.
-
R&D on radiological and nuclear countermeasures in the Domestic Nuclear Detection
Office (DNDO) would continue to gain slightly with a $5 million or 1.8 percent
boost to $279 million, while chemical and biological countermeasures in the Science
and Technology Directorate would fall (down 3.7 percent to $200 million).
-
University Programs funding would fall from $49 million in both 2007 and 2008
down to $44 million in both the DHS request and now the Senate appropriation for
2009.
DHS R&D in FY 2009 Senate Appropriations
On
June 19, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its version of the FY 2009
Homeland Security appropriations bill (S 3181) providing funding for the Department
of Homeland Security (DHS), for consideration by the full Senate in July. The
House approved its own version of the bill on June 24; full details of the House
version will be available shortly. Both the House and Senate bills contain $42
billion in 2009 discretionary spending,
nearly $5 billion more than the current year and between $2.3 and $2.5 billion
more than the President’s request for these programs.
The DHS R&D portfolio for FY 2009 would
be $1.1 billion in the Senate plan, an increase of $92 million or 9.2 percent
over 2008. The Senate total is $51 million more than the request, of which $30
million comes from earmarked projects (see Table).
Radiological and nuclear
countermeasures R&D in the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) continues
to be the largest part of the DHS R&D portfolio in 2009 (see Figure 1).
DNDO was carved out of the S&T Directorate in 2006 and is now a stand-alone
entity devoted to radiological and nuclear countermeasures. The Senate would go
along with DNDO’s plan to increase its basic and applied research portfolio slightly
by 1.8 percent or $5 million to $279 million in 2009, within a total budget of
$541 million. (The difference between the two totals is procurement of nuclear
detection devices for U.S.
ports of entry, management costs, and operations support costs.) In 2009, the
largest increases for DNDO would go to the procurement side instead of the research
side. But within the research portfolio
the Transformational Research and Development program, tending toward the basic
research end with a focus on transformative breakthroughs, would receive a large
$17 million increase from the Senate, as requested, to $113 million.
The chemical and biological
countermeasures portfolio, which remains in the S&T directorate, would receive
$200 million, down 3.7 percent from the current year
to remain the second-largest part of the DHS R&D portfolio (see Figure 1).
Although this portfolio has been larger in previous years (see Figure 2), in 2007
DHS spun off non-R&D programs such as the BioWatch surveillance system to
other DHS units, leaving behind only purely R&D programs.
Figure 1. (click on the image for
PDF)
Separately, in the Laboratory Facilities appropriation
($162 million, up $58 million), construction of the National Biodefense Analysis
and Countermeasures Center (NBACC) would be finished in 2008 and the FY 2009 request
of $33 million, double this year’s funding, would be used to start operations.
NBACC will be part of a biodefense complex of DHS, NIH, and DOD facilities at
Fort Detrick, Maryland.
There would also be $36 million, more than triple 2008 funding, for detailed design
of the National Bio and Agrodefense Facility, working toward the beginning of
construction in 2010 after a site selection later this year. The Senate would
add $15 million to the request for ongoing construction activities at the Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory in Washington,
for a total of $25 million. As DHS ramps up the operation and construction of
its own laboratories, this portfolio has become the fastest-growing part of DHS
R&D (see Figure 2).
The
Senate would add $25 million to the Command, Control, and Interoperability portfolio
for a total of $87 million, a 53 percent increase over this year. This program
funds most of DHS’ cybersecurity research activities. The Senate bill instructs
DHS to boost its cybersecurity research spending, with an emphasis on developing
tools to enable private firms to protect themselves against cyberattacks, particularly
the financial sector.
Figure 2. (click on the image for
PDF)
Funding
for University Programs would fall $6 million down to $44 million in 2009.
This program funds university-based Centers of Excellence that are multi-year
university consortia to perform R&D on homeland security-related topics and
also fellowships to encourage U.S.
students to pursue scientific and technical degrees in areas of study related
to homeland security. There are now seven DHS Centers of Excellence, one funded
jointly with EPA and another with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and up to six more could be awarded soon.
The
Innovation portfolio, to develop breakthrough technologies and highly innovative
approaches to homeland security problems, would remain at $33 million in the 2009
Senate plan instead of a requested 36 percent increase. Among the technologies
this program will tackle are liquid explosives detection, container security,
mobile screening technologies, tunnel detection devices, improvised explosive
devices, and critical infrastructure resiliency.
Outlook
and Next Steps
The
full Senate is expected to debate and approve the Homeland Security bill in July,
while the House is also expected to consider its version in July. But there is
increasing doubt as to whether Congress will try to send a final version of the
bill to President Bush before the October 1 start of FY 2009. The President has
threatened to veto any 2009 appropriations bill that exceeds his request; since
both the House and Senate versions of the bill do so and since Congress is not
inclined to do the heavy lifting of negotiating a House-Senate compromise bill
only to see it vetoed, the bill may have a long way to go before its funding levels
become final.
(This
analysis is one of a series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates on FY 2009 congressional
appropriations. The complete series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including
continually updated analyses of R&D in FY 2009 appropriations, is available
on the AAAS R&D web site (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd)
in the "FY 2009 R&D" or the "What's
New" sections.)
- July 1, 2008
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy
Program
1200 New York Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607
AAAS
R&D Web site: http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd
