On October 10, with FY 2003
already well underway, Congress gave final approval to an FY 2003 Defense
appropriations bill (HR 5010) that provides $355 billion in funding
for the Department of Defense (DOD). In the final Defense bill, [which
President Bush signed into law on October 23], total
research and development (R&D) at DOD rises
to $58.8 billion – an increase of 18.4 percent or $9.1 billion from
the FY 2002 level of $49.6 billion, the largest increase in history.
The FY 2003 appropriation would bring DOD R&D to an all-time high
in inflation-adjusted dollars. In comparison with the request of the
Bush Administration, this total represents a 7.9 percent increase, or
an additional $4.3 billion for DOD R&D (see Table
A).
DOD is by far
the largest supporter of R&D in the federal government, accounting
for half the total federal R&D portfolio. Because of defense cutbacks
following the end of the Cold War, DOD’s support for R&D declined
by a third following a peak in FY 1987 but has increased dramatically
in the past few years (see Figure 1). The Bush Administration has made
increasing DOD spending in general and DOD development spending in particular
a high priority, especially in the aftermath of September 11. Both the
House and the Senate added to the already record-setting Administration
request for DOD R&D, and the final appropriation exceeds both earlier
versions. At $58.8 billion for FY 2003, the final appropriation well
exceeds the peak FY 1987 DOD R&D investment of $53.7 billion in
FY 2002 dollars (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. (click on the image to view or download a full-page color
version of the chart)
(For information on the
President’s FY 2003 request for DOD R&D and historical trends in
DOD R&D, please see Chapter 6 of AAAS Report XXVII: R&D FY 2003. For
information on House appropriations for DOD R&D, please see the
July 8 AAAS R&D Funding Update. For information
on Senate appropriations for DOD R&D, please see the
July 22 AAAS R&D Funding Update).
(The figures
in this analysis may differ from other accounts of the conference report.
The funding levels in this analysis have been adjusted to reflect rescissions
and general reductions contained in the FY 2003 Defense bill, which
subtract up to 2 percent from the stated appropriations amounts.)
DOD Basic Research (“6.1”) and Applied Research (“6.2”) receive significant
boosts in the final bill, though smaller than the increases for development.
Basic Research rises by 6.8 percent to $1.5 billion, a gain of $94 million,
though the Pentagon requested a cut. Applied Research rises by 10.8
percent from $4.1 billion to $4.5 billion, again in contrast to a requested
cut (see Table A). The final Defense bill
exceeds both the House and Senate totals for applied research, and falls
just short of the Senate basic research total. (Table
C provides details of “6.1” and “6.2” funding by the military services
and agencies). The “6.1” and “6.2” research accounts provide a significant
share of federal support for several key
science and engineering disciplines (see Figure 2). DOD provides
nearly 40 percent of all federal support for engineering research and
a majority of federal support for some key engineering subfields. DOD
also provides a third of total federal support for computer sciences
research and plays a prominent funding role in other disciplines such
as mathematics, oceanography, medical sciences, chemistry, physics,
and environmental sciences. The “6.1” and “6.2” accounts are also important
for the nation’s colleges and
universities, which perform more than half of the “6.1” research
and roughly 20 percent of “6.2” research.
Figure 2. (click on the image to view or download a full-page color
version of the chart)
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. S&T is performed by a variety
of performers (see Figure 3). S&T is separate from the “6.4” and
higher categories, which are focused on the development and testing
of specific weapons systems and are performed almost entirely by industrial
firms. In the final bill, DOD
S&T, including medical research appropriations outside the RDT&E
account (see below), exceeds
$11 billion for the first time to reach $11.7 billion, a 13.5 percent
increase, mostly because of an $868 million or 19.8 percent boost for
“6.3” funding. Advocates of DOD S&T investments pushed last year
for $10 billion in FY 2002 S&T funds, a goal Congress granted, and
pushed successfully for an investment of at least $11 billion in FY
2003. 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 target for the
proper level of S&T investment. These efforts were dealt a setback
by the Pentagon request, which would have cut DOD S&T to $9.7 billion
in FY 2003, just 2.6 percent of the overall DOD budget. The
final S&T appropriation of $11.7 billion would be 3.2 percent of
the total DOD budget, exceeding the target. The
final appropriation brings DOD S&T back up to the FY 1993 level
in inflation-adjusted dollars, its peak funding year before steep post-Cold
War cuts in the mid-1990s (see Figure 1).
Figure 3. (click on the image to view or download a full-page color
version of the chart)
The final Defense
bill contains a separate $458 million appropriation, outside the regular
R&D accounts, for medical research (see Table
A). Included in this total is $150 million for breast cancer research
and $85 million for prostate cancer research (up slightly from FY 2002)
in peer-reviewed, competitively awarded grants. The bill also contains
$10 million for ovarian cancer research, $50 million for peer-reviewed
research on other medical topics, and miscellaneous amounts for other
medical research topics. These programs were congressionally initiated
in the early 1990s and DOD has never requested funding for them, but
Congress has annually provided funding. These programs are managed by
the Army. The final Defense bill also contains numerous congressionally
designated appropriations for medical research in DOD’s regular accounts,
mostly in the Army, totaling $225 million. Counting these appropriations,
the Defense bill provides more than $600 million for congressionally
designated medical research projects.
Nearly all ($7.8
billion) of the enormous $9.1 billion DOD R&D increase goes to weapons
development activities (“6.4” through “6.7” plus other appropriations),
which make up nearly all of the DOD R&D investment. Of the $58.8
billion appropriation, 89 percent goes to development activities, leaving
only 2.5 percent for basic research (“6.1”) and 8 percent for applied
research (“6.2”; see Table A). Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD; “6.5”) and Operational
Systems Development (“6.7”) receive the largest increases. EMD rises
by 25.0 percent to $13.7 billion while Operational Systems Development
rises by 30.9 percent to $18.8 billion. These categories cover advanced
development work, mostly performed by industrial firms as defense contractors,
on specific weapons systems. Most of the “6.5” increase comes from the
$3.5 billion appropriation (up from $1.5 billion in FY 2002), divided
between the Navy and Air Force, for the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF),
a next-generation fighter in development for future use by all the services
and U.S. allies.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), one of the Defense
Agencies, receives
$2.7 billion in the Defense bill, 21.0 percent more than
FY 2002 (see Table B). DARPA’s
Biological Warfare Defense program receives $166 million, up $20 million
from FY 2002. Defense Research Sciences, DARPA’s
basic research program, climbs substantially from $142 million to $207
million. The Defense Agencies in general do very well,
especially in the S&T accounts (see Table
C). The FY 2003 Defense bill continues the trend in recent years
of shifting S&T investments from the services to Defense-wide agencies;
while Defense-wide S&T jumps by 23.4 percent to reach $5.2 billion,
nearly half the total DOD portfolio, the Navy’s S&T portfolio remains
flat and the Army and Air Force S&T portfolios show smaller increases than the Defense-wide
portfolio.
The largest increase
among the Defense Agencies, in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist
attacks, goes to the Chemical
and Biological Defense Program (CBDP) whose R&D portfolio jumps
89.4 percent to $1.0 billion (see Table B).
The agency funds basic and applied research as well as all forms of
development geared toward new technologies to keep U.S. troops safe
from biological and chemical attack on the battlefield, and is heavily
involved in developing counter-terrorism technologies.
Last year’s big
winner in the FY 2002 budget, the
Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO), declines 2.9 percent
from the lofty FY 2002 level to $6.8 billion for R&D; this amount
is still well above the $4.2 billion FY 2001 funding level. BMDO no
longer funds research; there would be some funds for generic technology
development, but now nearly all BMDO R&D funds go to advanced development,
testing, and evaluation of missile defense systems performed by industrial
defense contractors. BMDO is charged with developing defensive systems
to counter perceived theater and strategic ballistic missile threats.
The House approved
the final Defense bill on October 10. [The Senate gave final approval
on October 16, and President Bush signed the bill into law on October
23, making the Defense bill the first of the FY 2003 appropriations
bills to be signed into law.] All the nondefense
R&D agencies’ FY 2003 budgets are much further behind in the FY
2003 appropriations process, and are unlikely to be signed into law
until December at the earliest.
- October 11, 2002 (revised
October 23)
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
American Association for the Advancement of Science
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607
science_policy@aaas.org
http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd
(new URL)
