(This analysis is a preview of the
Dept. of Commerce section in the forthcoming AAAS Report XXXI: Research and
Development FY 2007, a comprehensive look at the President's budget for R&D
in FY 2007. This analysis contains revised AAAS estimates of Commerce R&D,
different from figures originally presented in the President's budget. More tables
and continually updated supplemental materials on R&D in the FY 2007 budget
can be found on the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
Highlights
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The intramural research activities of the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) would be favored with substantial proposed increases in the
2007 budget as part of the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative.
NIST’s Scientific and Technical Research Services (STRS)
would see its R&D funding increase 21.3 percent to $382 million, while intramural
Construction of Research Facilities (CRF) R&D would jump 41 percent to $68
million.
- But
proposed cuts in other Commerce R&D programs would more than offset the proposed
gains. Total Commerce R&D would fall 0.9 percent to $1.1 billion (see
Table II-14).
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Once again, the Bush Administration proposes to eliminate NIST’s
external Advanced Technology Program (ATP), already on its last legs at roughly
a quarter of historical levels. The proposed budget would also slash the non-R&D
Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program to less than half current
funding levels.
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R&D in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would
fall sharply by $39 million or 6.3 percent down to $578 million (see Table
II-14), primarily but not exclusively from the proposed elimination of 2006 earmarks.
Commerce
R&D in the FY 2007 Budget
President
Bush’s proposed FY 2007 budget proposes substantial increases for key physical
sciences research agencies as part of an “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. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the Department
of Commerce is one of the three favored agencies (the others are the DOE Office
of Science, and the National Science Foundation), and would receive a substantial
increase in the 2007 budget after years of flat or declining funding.
The
increases would go only to NIST’s intramural laboratories and intramural construction,
and would be offset by steep cuts in NIST’s external
programs. Commerce’s other main R&D agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) whose portfolio is oriented toward environmental R&D
rather than the physical sciences, would be in line for
R&D funding cuts like most domestic programs in the declining overall domestic
budget. Total Commerce R&D would fall 0.9 percent or $10 million to $1.1
billion (see Table II-14), with cuts in NOAA R&D
and NIST external R&D offsetting large proposed increases for NIST’s intramural portfolio.
The
NIST laboratories in Maryland and
Colorado would be stars in the 2007
R&D budget as part of the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative
(ACI). NIST intramural research would climb 21.3 percent to $382 million within
the Scientific and Technical Research and Services (STRS) account, while construction
funding for NIST research facilities would jump 41 percent to $68 million. The
large proposed 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 other NIST programs, even though they all support the physical sciences
and related research. The Bush Administration once again proposes to eliminate
NIST’s extramural Advanced Technology Program (ATP), as
it has in the past several budget requests. 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. Congress has repeatedly saved the
program from termination, and will be asked to do so again in the 2007 appropriations
process. In another repeat of previous requests, the budget would cut the non-R&D
Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) by 56 percent down to $46 million.
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 request would phase out the federal contribution to
this federal-state partnership and leave MEP center funding heavily in state hands,
a move that Congress has strongly resisted in past budgets.
The
cuts to NIST’s external programs leave the total NIST
budget down a steep $171 million or 22.7 percent to $581 million. Among the proposed
cuts are $126 million in non-R&D congressionally earmarked projects in places
far away from NIST facilities that were inserted into the normally R&D and
internal Construction of Research Facilities account in 2006. Because the budget
cuts disproportionately affect the non-R&D earmarks and the non-R&D MEP
in the 2007 budget, total NIST R&D would increase 6.4 percent to $451 million.
National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) R&D would fall $39 million or
6.3 percent down to $578 million (see Table II-14),
primarily but not entirely due to the proposed elimination of a bumper crop of
2006 congressional earmarks in 2007. Within the NOAA budget, the largest research
office is Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), whose budget would
fall from $380 million down to $349 million. In OAR, the entire cut would be from
eliminating earmarks, allowing for increases in OAR core programs. Climate Research
would increase from $170 million to $182 million, including a 14 percent boost
to $126 million for competitively awarded research programs after a
reorganization and a cut in 2006. The National Sea Grant College Program
would hold steady at $55 million after a cut in 2006, as would the core Weather
and Air Quality Research program at $41 million. (These NOAA data are preliminary,
and will be revised shortly to reflect more detailed NOAA data on R&D in the
budget.)
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 budget 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 would fall 23 percent below
the 2002 funding level. Both NOAA and NIST have lost ground over the last several
years.
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)
Outlook for the Commerce Budget
Because
the American Competitiveness Initiative is a high priority in the FY 2007 budget,
NIST would receive an increase even as most other domestic agencies face cuts
within a declining domestic budget. Looking to the future, the Bush Administration’s
outyear budget projections show that in the push to
reduce the budget deficit in half over the next few years, funding for most domestic
programs would decline each year to 2011, but funding for NIST and the other two
ACI programs would continue to increase in the outyears. The projections show NIST’s
intramural STRS account increasing steadily from $463 million in 2007 up to $653
million by 2011, accompanied by similar increases in the construction account.
The gains would be offset somewhat by the elimination of the ATP, but even after
adjusting for inflation all NIST R&D would gain 35 percent over the next five
years. NOAA R&D, however, would share the fate of other R&D agencies that
are not part of the ACI; projections show its R&D falling 19 percent after
inflation over the next five years. Although budgets are always determined one
year at a time, and Congress has not even acted on the first installment for 2007,
Congress has so far been supportive of the Administration’s proposed 2007 increase
for NIST. But in past years, Congress has had to temper its support for NIST intramural
programs by shifting funds to shore up requested cuts in ATP, MEP, and NOAA funding.
If a similar scenario takes place in 2007 appropriations, then the Commerce R&D
budget may end up more evenly distributed when appropriations are done.
(More
materials on R&D in the FY 2007 budget, historical data and charts, and more
information on AAAS Report XXXI: Research and Development FY 2007, can
be found on the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
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March 6, 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
