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Go to: -Table
A. DOD R&D by Program in FY 2007 Conference Appropriations -Table
B. DOD R&D by Agency in FY 2007 Conference Appropriations -Table
C. DOD "S&T" by Agency in FY 2007 Conference Appropriations PDF
version of this document Main
R&D in the FY 2007 Budget Page
Supplemental
Materials: "DOD R&D Gains
in Senate Proposal,
Research Funding Falls," AAAS R&D Funding
Update on R&D in FY 2007 DOD Senate Appropriations "House
Boosts DOD R&D to Another Record High," AAAS R&D Funding Update
on R&D in FY 2007 DOD House Appropriations "DOD
Proposes Research Cuts, Weapons Gains in Record-Setting 2007 Budget,"
AAAS R&D Funding Update on R&D in the FY 2007 DOD Budget AAAS
Analysis of R&D in the FY 2007 Budget -
| Highlights -
With just days to go before the October 1 start of fiscal year (FY) 2007, Congress
finalized an FY 2007 Department of Defense (DOD) budget that contains
a record-breaking $76.8 billion for DOD’s research and development (R&D) spending
(see Table A). Nearly
the entire $3.5 billion or 4.8 percent increase would go to weapons development
programs, but DOD support of basic research would also increase by 4.8 percent
to $1.5 billion. - Once again, Congress would reverse sharp proposed
cuts in DOD’s “Science and Technology” (S&T) investments. Instead of a greater
than 20 percent requested cut, DOD S&T spending would remain near the 2006
funding level at $13.6 billion, $2.4 billion more than the request (see Table
C). -
A profusion of congressional earmarks would boost DOD support of basic and applied
research above 2006 levels. Basic research (“6.1”) would climb 4.8 percent
to $1.5 billion (see Table A), while applied research
(“6.2”) would increase 0.8 percent to $5.2 billion. The research-oriented Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) would see its budget increase 1.4 percent
to $3.0 billion (see Table B). -
The Air Force and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) would be the big winners
in weapons development funding. Air Force R&D would climb 10.7 percent to $24.4 billion (see Table
B), while MDA development would surge 22.1 percent to $9.4 billion after a
steep cut in 2006. DOD R&D in FY 2007 House-Senate Conference Appropriations On
September 25, the House and Senate agreed on the conference report (final version)
of the FY 2007 Defense appropriations bill (HR 5631), which funds most of the
Department of Defense (DOD). DOD, still engaged in a long and expensive war in
Iraq, continues
to spend record amounts on current military operations. But DOD is also investing
record amounts in the next generation of weapons; in February, Pentagon requested
$74.1 billion for DOD R&D in 2007, another substantial $1 billion increase
after similar increases in previous years (see Table A).
But Congress has added another $2.7 billion on top of the request for a total
DOD R&D appropriation in FY 2007 of $76.8 billion, a $3.5 billion or 4.8 percent
increase over 2006 that would again send DOD R&D into record territory (see
Figure 1). DOD becomes the first and so far only federal department to get its
final budget in time for the start of FY 2007. For the remaining departments and
agencies covered by appropriations, the final Defense bill contains a continuing
resolution providing stopgap funding at the lowest of House, Senate, or FY 2006
funding levels through November 17. The final Defense bill also contains $70 billion
in emergency funds for the war in Iraq
and Afghanistan
outside the regular DOD budget, including $407 million in emergency development
funds. (All figures in this analysis include emergency appropriations for both
2006 and 2007. They also assume House-approved appropriations for DOD programs
in the Military Quality of Life bill, which has not yet been finalized by Congress
and includes some medical research programs. All figures in this analysis are
adjusted to reflect rescissions, general reductions, and emergency supplementals
in the Defense bill.) Congress would reverse proposed cuts in DOD research funding. Although physical sciences research is a top
priority for the Bush Administration on the nondefense
side of the budget, in the Pentagon’s February request DOD support of research
would have plummeted. DOD is the fifth largest federal supporter of physical sciences
research, with about a tenth of the federal total. In the final Defense bill, DOD basic research
funding (the “6.1” category) would climb 4.8 percent to $1.5 billion (see Table
A). Funding for the three-service University Research Initiatives would
receive a combined $288 million, a 5.7 percent increase. URI competitively awards
basic research grants to university performers. The Defense Research Sciences
program, funded in the three services and Defense Agencies, would receive a combined
$961 million, up 4.6 percent. DARPA’s Defense Research
Sciences effort would climb 9 percent to $145 million. The relatively new National
Defense Education Program (NDEP), founded last year to encourage U.S.
students to pursue science and engineering degrees, would see its budget rise
from $2 million last year to $10 million in 2006 and up to $19 million in 2007.
The Chemical and Biological Defense Program’s (ChemBio)
basic research portfolio would gain 10.4 percent to $99 million. (For more on
the President’s request for FY 2007 DOD R&D, see Chapter
6 of AAAS Report XXXI: R&D FY 2007 or
the Feb. 22 R&D Funding Update; for more on earlier
House appropriations, see the June 19 R&D Funding Update;
and for more on earlier Senate appropriations, see the August
2 R&D Funding Update.)  Figure
1. (click on the image for PDF) Applied research funding (the “6.2” category) would increase a modest
0.8 percent to $5.2 billion, a dramatic improvement over a requested cut of 15
percent. Much of the improvement would
be due to the addition of congressional earmarks that DOD proposed to eliminate.
Air Force applied research would gain 7.4 percent
to $1.15 billion, while in the Defense Agencies ChemBio
“6.2” funding would gain 4.8 percent to $259 million. In sharp contrast to a requested cut greater than 20 percent, DOD funding
of “S&T” (the “6.1” through “6.3” categories plus medical research) would
remain stable at $13.6 billion in FY 2007, down 1.2 percent from 2006 (see
Table C). For every year this decade, Congress has
been far more supportive of S&T funding than the Pentagon, with the Pentagon
proposing sharp cuts each year and Congress adding billions of dollars in the
appropriations process. Advocates of DOD
S&T in the science and engineering community argue that S&T funding is
essential for building the knowledge and technology base for future DOD needs.
 Figure
2. (click on the image for PDF) The final 2007 appropriation keeps DOD S&T near its record-high 2005
funding level in real terms (see Figure 2). DOD S&T has increased in recent
years after hitting post-Cold War lows in the late 1990s, though it took nearly
two decades for S&T funding to return to mid-1980s levels. While this is a
relief for DOD S&T advocates, Figure 2 shows that the composition of the DOD
S&T portfolio has been changing. DOD support of basic research has increased
relatively little, and is a shrinking proportion of the DOD S&T portfolio.
While “6.2” funding has increased a little more, recent growth in DOD S&T
has come predominantly from growth in “6.3” funding of advanced technology development
rather than from research, a trend that has many DOD S&T advocates worried.
Recently, advocates have called for at least 20 percent of S&T funding to
be devoted to basic research. As Figure 2 shows, Congress, by increasing basic
research while cutting “6.3” funding, would reverse the longstanding trendline
by boosting the share of S&T devoted to basic research, though only to 11.3
percent. But
despite the good news for research programs, as usual the big gains go to weapons
development programs. DOD weapons development (the non-S&T portion of
DOD R&D) would jump $3.7 billion or 6.2 percent to $63.1 billion, led by enormous
increases for the Air Force and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA; see Table
B). These programs, in “6.4” and higher categories in DOD’s classification
system, are devoted to engineering, development, and testing work on specific
weapons systems and are extraordinarily expensive compared to research programs.
For example, the largest single development project in DOD, and indeed the entire
federal budget, would once again be the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), funded by
the Navy and the Air Force at $4.3 billion in 2007. Much of the Air Force’s $2.4
billion increase would go to development of space and satellite communications,
new weapons systems, and classified development programs, capping a series of
substantial increases for the Air Force in recent years to record levels (see
Figure 3). The MDA’s efforts in missile defense systems
development would receive a large increase in 2007 after a cut in 2006, climbing
22.1 percent to an all-time high of $9.4 billion; in real terms, the MDA budget
has nearly doubled since 2001 (see Figure 3). Adding in some missile defense development
efforts in the Army and procurement funding of completed systems elsewhere in
the DOD budget, the total 2007 missile defense budget would be $10.5 billion,
up 20 percent. The Navy has enjoyed spectacular growth in its development funding
over the last several years (see Figure 3) thanks to big-ticket programs such
as the JSF, but in 2007 funding would drop slightly to what would still be its
second-largest R&D budget ever of $18.8 billion after nearly doubling between
2001 and 2006. 
Figure
3. (click on the image for PDF) Led
by the MDA increase, R&D in the Defense Agencies would climb $1.5 billion
or 7.7 percent to $21.2 billion (see Table B). In
addition to the 22 percent increase for MDA, which is entirely development, Congress
has approved a 6.8 percent increase to $451 million for a mix of research and
development at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). DTRA’s
R&D efforts are focused on countermeasures against weapons of mass destruction;
the 2007 increase includes $5.1 million in new money for a DTRA University Strategic
Partnership Basic Research Program, and a 5 percent increase for DTRA’s
existing applied research programs to $329 million. While the ChemBio program’s overall budget would fall 6.6 percent to
$981 million, its basic research portfolio would gain 10.4 percent to $104 million
and its applied research program would increase 4.8 percent to $259 million. The
research-oriented Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) would see its budget gain 1.4 percent to $3.0 billion after adjusting
for rescissions and general reductions in other parts of the Defense bill. Slightly more than half of DARPA’s budget goes to “6.1” and “6.2” activities, with the
remainder devoted to “6.3” technology development. Its broad research portfolio
is aimed at expanding the frontiers of knowledge and military technology
to provide future solutions to DOD’s technology needs. DARPA’s
funding would increase across the board in areas such as tactical technology,
materials, network-centric warfare, information and communications technology,
cognitive computing, electronics technology, sensors, guidance technology, and
basic research, but the DARPA total is dragged down by steep cuts in land warfare
technology and biological warfare defense (down 26 percent to $109 million). DARPA’s IT (information technology) research efforts would
be the big winner in the agency’s “6.2” programs: the Information and Communications
Technology “6.2” portfolio would jump 15.5 percent to $226 million, while the
Cognitive Computing Systems “6.2” portfolio would climb 6.6 percent to $174 million.
DARPA’s budget would stay at roughly $3.0 billion in
today’s dollars for the fourth year in a row in 2007 (see Figure 3). Impacts of Defense R&D The
Department of Defense (DOD) is by far the largest supporter of R&D in the
federal government, accounting for more than half the total federal R&D portfolio.
Defense-related R&D is also funded by the Department of Energy (DOE), which
is responsible for maintaining the U.S.
nuclear weapons stockpile, and the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS),
whose primary mission is homeland defense but also performs biodefense
R&D related to military security (see Figure 1). Although the DOE and
DHS parts of the defense portfolio remain unfinished, the final 2007 DOD appropriation
is enough to take DOD R&D and total defense R&D to a record high for the
fifth year in a row, with no signs of slowing down (see Figure 1). DOD
supports a diverse group of science and engineering disciplines. More than half
of DOD’s research portfolio supports the engineering sciences, not surprising
considering the discipline’s potential contributions to DOD’s warfighting
capabilities (see Figure 4). But DOD also invests heavily in the mathematics and
computer sciences research necessary to sustain a high-tech, IT-heavy military
and in physical sciences research. In recent years, DOD support of life sciences
research has also grown, as a result of growth in congressionally designated medical
research programs but also from DARPA, ChemBio, and
service investments in biological
defense.  Figure
4. (click on the image for PDF) DOD
is responsible for only 11 percent of all federal support of basic and applied
research (“6.1” and “6.2”), but is a key sponsor for several science and engineering
(S&E) disciplines. DOD supports 34 percent of all federal research in the
computer sciences and a similar proportion of all engineering research, as well
as significant shares of research in mathematics and oceanography. DOD’s impact
is even greater in several engineering sub-disciplines such as electrical engineering
and mechanical engineering. DOD funds research in these disciplines for their
contributions to national defense, but this research also supports graduate education
in these fields and seeds major innovations in the civilian economy, most evident
in DOD’s early support for research that led to the now-ubiquitous Internet. DOD
is also a key supporter of social sciences research. DOD support for these disciplines
should increase in FY 2007 as a result of the final Defense appropriations bill.
A
majority of DOD’s R&D (and nearly all the work in categories “6.4” and higher)
is performed by industrial firms such as the large defense contractors Lockheed
Martin and Boeing. FFRDCs (federally funded research and development centers),
defense laboratories, and colleges and universities also perform R&D. If one
excludes DOD development, which is nearly exclusively performed by industry, DOD
basic and applied research (“6.1” and “6.2”) is performed by a diverse group of
institutions. 39 percent of DOD research is performed by DOD laboratories, while
37 percent is performed by industry. 18 percent of DOD basic and applied research
is performed by universities and colleges. All performers should benefit from
the increases in “6.1” and “6.2” funding in FY 2007; the development increases
will go almost entirely to defense contractors. Outlook
and Next Steps DOD
is presiding over a 2006 budget that hit a record $537 billion after Congress
approved a $70 billion war supplemental in May. With this week’s congressional
agreement, the 2007 DOD budget already totals $506 billion, including $70 billion
for seven months’ worth of emergency war funding attached to the regular Defense
bill, but will almost certainly exceed the 2006 total after the war’s full-year
costs eventually get appropriated. With military occupation costs in Iraq
and Afghanistan
actually increasing as time goes on to well over $2.5 billion a week, DOD spending
is expected to keep hitting new highs. Within these record totals, DOD R&D
has also set new records, in part driven by development costs of new weapons related
to current and near-term combat needs. Even the already record-breaking R&D
total of $76.8 billion for 2007 could increase if, as expected, a mid-year war
supplemental includes some development funding. The
House gave final approval to the Defense conference report on September 26, and
the Senate was scheduled to follow suit the next day. President Bush is expected
to sign the bill into law on or shortly after October 1. Among other R&D funding
agencies, only the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is likely to have a final
FY 2007 appropriation next week; R&D funding agencies other than DOD and DHS
(including the military construction and defense health programs in DOD) will
have to keep operating at the lowest of House-approved, Senate-approved, or 2006
funding levels until Congress finishes their appropriations in November or December.
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.) -
September 26, 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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