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Go to: -Table.
Commerce R&D by Program in FY 2007 House Appropriations PDF
version of this document Main
R&D in the FY 2007 Budget Page
Supplemental
Materials: "Commerce R&D
Falls Despite Big Proposed Gains For NIST Labs," AAAS R&D Funding
Update on R&D in the FY 2007 Commerce Budget AAAS
Analysis of R&D in the FY 2007 Budget -
| Highlights -
The House has endorsed the Bush Administration’s proposed large increase for
the intramural research activities of the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) in 2007 as part of the President’s American Competitiveness
Initiative. NIST’s Scientific and Technical Research Services (STRS) would
see its R&D funding increase 20 percent to $377 million in the latest House
appropriation, while intramural Construction of Research Facilities (CRF) R&D
would jump 41 percent to $68 million. -
But the House would go along with the Administration’s proposed cuts in other
Commerce R&D programs, more than offsetting the NIST gains. Total Commerce
R&D would fall 7.8 percent in the House plan down to $990 million, far lower
than even the request (see Table). -
Once again, the House would agree to the Bush Administration’s proposal to
eliminate NIST’s external Advanced Technology Program
(ATP), already on its last legs at roughly a quarter of historical levels.
- R&D
in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would fall sharply
by $108 million or 17.6 percent in the House plan, with steep cuts to most
oceans and fisheries programs. Commerce R&D in FY 2007 House Appropriations On
June 20, the House Appropriations Committee approved its version of the FY 2007
Science, State, Justice, and Commerce appropriations bill (SSJC; HR 5672), sending
it to the House floor for debate and expected approval next week. The large bill,
the last of the 11 FY 2007 appropriations bills to be drafted in the House, is
a major funding source for federal R&D, combining funding for the National
Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA), and the Department of Commerce. The
House would fully endorse proposed increases for Commerce’s National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST) intramural laboratories as part of the American
Competitiveness Initiative. The House SSJC bill would provide $377 million
for NIST’s intramural research (up 20 percent) and $68
million for intramural laboratory construction (up 41 percent), as requested.
Both NSF and Commerce are key parts of the President’s proposed “American
Competitiveness Initiative” (ACI) that was first previewed in his State of the
Union address in response to a growing wave of concern about the state of U.S.
innovation. The ACI proposes to double funding for three key physical sciences
agencies over the next decade, and the 2007 budget requests the first installment
of this ambitious plan. NSF and the NIST laboratories, both funded in the SSJC
bill, are two of the three favored agencies (the other is DOE’s Office of Science). The House has now agreed to the
proposed increases for all three ACI agencies.
But
the House generosity for NIST intramural R&D would be offset by steep cuts
to NIST’s extramural R&D and R&D in Commerce’s
other major R&D agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA). Steep cuts to these two areas result in a total Commerce R&D appropriation
that would fall below $1 billion for the first time in a decade down to $990 million,
an $84 million or 7.8 percent cut (see Table). NOAA R&D would total only
$509 million, a $108 million or 17.6 percent cut compared to the current year.
(For details of the President’s request for Commerce R&D, please see Chapter
13 of AAAS Report XXXI: R&D
FY 2007 or March 6 Commerce R&D
Funding Update). The House has endorsed the Administration’s proposal to
boost NIST intramural research 20 percent to $377 million within the Scientific
and Technical Research and Services (STRS) account, and construction funding for
NIST research facilities by 41 percent to $68 million. The large increases would
allow for more of everything: there would be increases for R&D across the
broad range of NIST programs, including hydrogen, nanotechnology, neutron research,
measurement science and technology, cybersecurity, and
bioimaging. On the construction side, the large increase
would allow for major renovations at NIST’s Boulder
(CO) site, repair for aging facilities, and construction of NIST’s
Center for Neutron Research. But
once again, the increased investments for the NIST laboratories would be offset
by cuts in NIST’s external programs, even though they all support the
physical sciences and related research. The House and Bush Administration once
again join forces to eliminate NIST’s extramural Advanced
Technology Program (ATP), as they have in the past several years only to be
foiled by the Senate. The ATP has a total budget of $79 million in FY 2006, down
by nearly half from the previous year, and can only fund previously awarded grants
because it has no money available for new grants in 2006.
The zero House appropriation would force an immediate shutdown of the program.
The House would come to the rescue of the non-R&D Hollings Manufacturing Extension
Partnership (MEP), however, turning a 56 percent requested cut into a 12 percent
cut, leaving program funding at $92 million next year. MEP is a program to operate
a nationwide network of extension centers to disseminate better manufacturing
technologies to small- and medium-sized manufacturers on a cost-shared basis with
state governments and with users. The $105 million current budget for MEP is slightly
off the previous year’s funding level, but in line with historical trends. The
cuts to NIST’s external programs leave the total NIST
budget down a steep $125 million or 16.6 percent to $627 million. Because the
budget cuts disproportionately affect non-R&D earmarks and the non-R&D
MEP in the 2007 House appropriation, total NIST R&D would increase 5.3 percent
to $445 million. The
House would further reduce an already falling National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) request to take NOAA R&D down 18 percent to just $509
million (see Table). NOAA’s request would have achieved most of its savings by
not renewing a bumper crop of 2006 congressional earmarks in 2007; the House would
refrain from earmarking projects, but would make steep cuts to many core NOAA
programs as well. Within the NOAA budget, the largest research office is Office
of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), whose R&D programs would fall $20
million or 6.1 percent down to $302 million. OAR funds the few programs to hold
their ground in the House appropriation: Climate Research would increase from
$170 million to $184 million, while the National Sea Grant College Program would
decline slightly to $52 million. But ocean R&D programs in the National Ocean
Service would plummet 46 percent down to $52 million as part of a widespread downsizing
in the House SSJC bill, as would nearly all fisheries and other ocean resources-related
R&D programs in the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS, down 34 percent
to $48 million). For the past several years, the House has proposed steep cuts
to NOAA while the Senate has proposed large increases, with the final result somewhere
in the middle. Impacts of Commerce R&D Despite
the good news for NIST’s laboratories, a broader look at all Commerce R&D
investments shows that the 2007 House appropriation would continue a steady fall
in Commerce R&D for most of this decade (see Figure 1). Since 2002, the
Commerce R&D budget has declined in real terms every year, and the 2007 House
appropriation would reduce it below $1 billion in today’s dollars for the first
time since 1992. The
differing missions of NOAA and NIST mean that Commerce has a diverse research
portfolio in terms of science and engineering disciplines. NOAA funds environmental
sciences and life sciences research related to its oceanic and atmospheric missions,
which are not favored in the ACI, while NIST funds more ACI-relevant
engineering, physical sciences, mathematics, and computer sciences research. Although
Commerce is not the leading funding source for any of the science and engineering
disciplines, the department does provide key support for specific areas in oceanography,
atmospheric sciences, standards research, measurement technologies, and physics
most closely related to NIST and NOAA missions. 
Figure
1. (click on the image for PDF) The
vast majority of Commerce R&D is performed internally in NOAA and NIST laboratories.
83 percent of Commerce R&D is performed in federal labs, both NOAA’s
network of laboratories throughout the country and NIST’s
large facilities in Maryland and
Colorado. Only 13 percent of the
Commerce R&D portfolio goes to universities, while just 2 percent goes to
industrial firms. As a result, Commerce’s R&D portfolio is heavily concentrated
geographically. Maryland and Colorado
alone receive nearly half of Commerce’s R&D funds because of NIST’s
and NOAA’s presences in these two states. The other
states in Commerce’s top 10 are locations of large NOAA laboratories. 
Figure
2. (click on the image for PDF) Outlook
and Next Steps The
full House will debate and likely approve the Science-State-Commerce-Justice bill
next week. The Senate version of the bill, however, may not be drafted until July
or later. (This analysis is one of a series
of AAAS R&D Funding Updates on FY 2007 congressional appropriations. The complete
series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including continually updated analyses
of R&D in FY 2007 appropriations, is available on the AAAS
R&D Web Site (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd)
in the “FY 2007 R&D” or the “What’s
New” sections.)-
June 23, 2006
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
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