On June 20, the House Appropriations Committee drafted
an FY 2001 Energy-Water appropriations bill, which funds most of the
Department of Energy (DOE). [The full House approved the bill with some
amendments on June 27.] Earlier on June 14, the full House gave final
approval to its version of the FY 2001 Interior appropriations bill
(HR 4578), which funds the remainder of DOE. Together, the two bills
would provide $7.2 billion for DOE's R&D programs, [a slight
$51 million or 0.7 percent more than FY 2000 but $471 million less than
the request] (see Table). The House
would increase funding for DOE's defense R&D programs, but would
make steep cuts to DOE's energy-related nondefense R&D and would
hold science programs even with this year.
Both the Energy-Water and Interior bills would provide
less overall for nondefense discretionary programs in FY 2001 than in
FY 2000, and would provide much less than the substantial increases
proposed for these programs in the Clinton Administration request. Earlier
this year, Congress laid out a plan to spend $17 billion less than the
President's request of $622 billion for all discretionary programs in
FY 2001 while at the same time increasing defense spending (which makes
up half of all discretionary spending) well above the President's request.
As a result, the House Appropriations Committee received far less money
for the nondefense portions of the Energy-Water bill and the Interior
bill than the President requested, and as a result was forced to allocate
cuts to domestic programs. The Energy-Water bill also funds DOE's defense-related
activities, which make up nearly two-thirds of the total DOE budget.
Because of the planned increases for overall defense spending in the
House budget plan, these programs would receive increases.
The total DOE budget would be $18.2 billion in the
House bill, an increase of 3.4 percent, but the entire increase would
be due to DOE's defense activities, which would increase [6.6 percent]
to $12.8 billion (see Table). DOE's nondefense
programs would decline compared to FY 2000, and would be nearly $900
million below the President's request. Within this mix, it is not surprising
that the House would allocate increases to DOE's defense R&D programs
but cuts to DOE's science and energy R&D programs. [Total DOE
R&D would be $7.2 billion in the House plan, a slight 0.7 percent
increase over FY 2000, but the total would be divided into an increase
to $3.5 billion for defense R&D (up 4.8 percent), flat funding for
science R&D to $2.7 billion (up 1.2 percent), and sharp cuts to
$1.0 billion for energy R&D (down 11.8 percent).]
Only defense R&D would be above the President's
request. The request of $7.6 billion for DOE's R&D (up 7.3 percent
over FY 2000) made DOE a high priority in the Clinton Administration's
effort to present a balanced federal research portfolio by requesting
large increases for key R&D programs funding non-life sciences disciplines.
DOE, as a major sponsor of the physical sciences and computing sciences,
benefited from this effort. The request included a 12.6 percent increase
for science R&D programs and a 7.4 percent increase for energy R&D
programs, but the House appropriation would fall far short.
On the defense side, FY 2001 would be the first full
year of operation for the National Nuclear Security Administration
(NNSA), which was created last year by Congress in response to national
security concerns and allegations of espionage at DOE weapons laboratories.
NNSA began operations on March 1, and is designed to be a semi-autonomous
agency within DOE with its own command structure separate from the rest
of DOE. NNSA is responsible for $5.7 billion, or roughly a third, of
the total DOE budget in FY 2000, and the request for FY 2001 was $6.2
billion, an increase of more than 8 percent. The House would provide
nearly the same amount as the request.
NNSA funds almost half of DOE's total R&D, $3.1
billion out of a $7.1 billion portfolio in FY 2000. Maintaining the
U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile is one of DOE's major defense responsibilities,
and since the U.S. banned nuclear testing DOE has relied on science
to ensure the continuing reliability and safety of U.S. nuclear weapons.
DOE's major R&D program in that effort is in Weapons Activities.
[The House would provide $2.3 billion for Weapons Activities R&D
in FY 2001, a 4.2 percent increase over FY 2000 that would provide boosts
to a variety of science programs.] This program funds most of the
R&D at the three weapons labs (Los Alamos and Sandia in New Mexico,
Lawrence Livermore in California) which are responsible for the nation's
nuclear weapons stockpile and which are at the heart of the DOE security
controversy, including the most recent controversy over misplaced nuclear
secrets at Los Alamos. Within the account, the Accelerated Strategic
Computing Initiative (ASCI), an effort to develop the next generation
of computer processing technologies to better model nuclear explosions,
would receive $457 million, an increase of 15.1 percent. ASCI is also
a major part of the Clinton Administration's multi-agency Information
Technology R&D initiative. Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) would
receive $291 million, nearly triple the FY 2000 funding level, but most
of the increase would be due to transfers of responsibilities from other
existing programs. DOE hopes to use ICF technologies to simulate nuclear
explosions. The National Ignition Facility, the major facility
for the ICF effort, would receive the requested $74 million in the House
plan, despite recent reports that the project's total cost has ballooned
significantly and that its completion date has been pushed back by several
years. The report accompanying the House bill states that the House
may reexamine funding for the NIF as more detailed project plans become
available in the next few months.
In the Science account, the House would provide
$2.7 billion for R&D, an increase of only 1.2 percent that contrasts
sharply with a requested 12.6 percent increase. The House report accompanying
the bill explains that these programs are a priority for Congress, but
severe funding constraints in the overall Energy-Water bill make it
impossible to award large increases, much less meet requested funding
levels. Fusion Energy Sciences would receive $247 million for
R&D, a slight $3 million increase. Both the High Energy Physics
(up 1.7 percent to $704 million) and Nuclear Physics (up 4.7
percent to $364 million) programs would also receive increases. The
Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) would increase
by 7.1 percent to $137 million, but this would be far below the $182
million that DOE requested to expand the agency's participation in the
multi-agency IT R&D initiative. Within the Basic Energy Sciences
program, the House would hold funding for the Spallation Neutron
Source (SNS) to $130 million, the same as the FY 2000 level, instead
of the $281 million request. Last year's House bill criticized DOE for
shoddy management of the project, but this year's bill indicates satisfaction
with the progress of the SNS and denies the full request only because
of a lack of available funds. The only major cut in the Science account
would be to the Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program,
which funds DOE's contribution to the Human Genome Project. BER would
decline $29 million or 6.7 percent to $404 million.
Although much of the debate over the Energy-Water bill
in committee focused on energy, specifically recent spikes in gasoline
prices, DOE's energy R&D programs would face steep cuts in the House
plan, from $1.2 billion in FY 2000 to $1.0 billion ([down 11.8 percent]).
[Only Solar and Renewable Energy R&D would increase even
slightly (up 15.7 percent to $315 million), but the program would receive
$61 million less than the request.] The House bill criticizes DOE for
requesting substantial increases across the board for solar and renewables
programs without clear justifications for the additional investments.
Other energy R&D programs would decline substantially. Nuclear energy
R&D would fall $12 million to $80 million. In the House Interior
bill, Fossil Energy R&D would decline 19.2 percent to $265
million. The original proposed reduction in the House Appropriations
Committee draft was smaller, but an amendment on the House floor transferred
money out of the R&D accounts to give to weatherization assistance
and state energy programs. The House would also slash spending for Energy
Conservation R&D by 24.8 percent down to $324 million. The program
was originally slated for a small increase, but an amendment on the
House floor eliminated the entire $127 million appropriation for the
Partnership for the Next Generation of Vehicles (PNGV), a cooperative
R&D program with the major U.S. automakers to develop more fuel-efficient
vehicles, ironically just as gasoline prices surged above $2 per gallon
in many parts of the country.
[The Energy-Water bill was approved by the House on
June 27 after approval of several amendments, including one transferring
funds from the NNSA to Solar and Renewable Energy programs. The House
approved the Interior bill on June 14 after making several amendments
that cut energy R&D below the originally proposed levels. The Senate
has drafted its Interior bill, but not the Energy-Water bill.]
These bills are unlikely to be signed into law in the
near future; the House funding levels for domestic programs in these
bills are so low that they will almost certainly draw a veto from President
Clinton. Congressional Democrats are also likely to try to block any
further action on the Interior bill; Republican members maneuvered to
prevent approval of Democratic amendments to add funds to the bill,
using tactics that angered many Democrats. Although the Senate bills
are likely to be slightly more generous than the House, until congressional
leaders find more money to boost the bills' funding levels it is unlikely
that Congress will be able to move the bills to House-Senate conference.
If the search for additional funding drags on into September, which
is becoming increasingly likely, then both bills may end up in a year-end,
omnibus appropriations bill. The delay may be good for DOE's R&D,
however, in that the longer the delay, the more money the programs are
likely to receive.
- June 21, 2000 (revised June 28)
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607; -6600
science_policy@aaas.org
http://www.aaas.org/spp/R&D
