Highlights
- The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science (OS) emerged from the
FY 2005 budget process a winner with $3.3 billion for its R&D programs,
4.3 percent more than last year (see Table).
DOE OS programs in high energy physics, fusion research, nuclear physics,
computing research, and basic energy sciences all receive increases.
- Total DOE R&D rises 1.7 percent to $9.0 billion.
- DOE’s energy
R&D declines 2.6 percent to $1.3 billion. Congress rejected a proposed
boost to $237 million for the FutureGen program to develop a next-generation
hydrogen power plant and left funding at $18 million.
- DOE’s defense-related
R&D increases a modest 1.2 percent to $4.3 billion. Congress rejected
DOE requests for $36 million in new funds to develop a new generation
of nuclear weapons, including ‘bunker buster’ tactical nuclear weapons.
DOE R&D in FY 2005 Final Appropriations
On November 20,
Congress came to an agreement on an FY 2005 omnibus appropriations bill
(HR 4818), incorporating the final versions of the FY 2005 Energy-Water
and Interior appropriations bills, which together fund the Department
of Energy (DOE). The House is expected to give final approval on December
6, and President Bush is expected to sign the bill into law on December
8. The omnibus bill keeps funding for domestic programs flat in FY 2005;
the domestic side of the DOE budget is caught in the squeeze, especially
after factoring in a 0.80 percent across-the-board cut for most programs,
but DOE overall does well because the bulk of its budget is defense
spending, which increases substantially. (All figures in this analysis
reflect the across-the-board cut.) DOE is especially lucky because there
was some doubt until the last minute whether the Energy-Water bill would
make it into the omnibus bill; the Senate had never even drafted its
version of it, and the entire bill was stuck in a protracted dispute
over funding the Yucca Mountain
waste depository. But just two days before the omnibus was finalized,
Energy-Water bill was rolled into the bill.
The omnibus
bill provides $9.0 billion for DOE’s R&D programs in
FY 2005, $152 million or 1.7 percent more than FY 2004, an increase
just ahead of the 1.25 percent expected inflation rate (see Table). Although DOE’s science and
defense-related R&D activities receive modest increases, funding
for DOE’s energy R&D falls. (For details of R&D in the FY 2005
request, please see Chapter 9 of AAAS Report XXIX: R&D
FY 2005.)
The total FY
2005 DOE budget is $24.4 billion, an increase of $582 million or 2.4
percent that is well below the Administration request, primarily because
Congress did not authorize a $749 million proposal for expanded Yucca
Mountain activities financed through a new trust fund transfer, and
had to find Yucca Mountain dollars from other sources, including transfers
from other DOE programs (see Table). More
than two-thirds of the DOE budget ($16.6 billion) goes to defense-related
activities involving the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and related
environmental clean-up costs, including defense-related R&D to support
these activities.
R&D in the DOE Office of Science (OS)
R&D in DOE’s
Office of Science (OS) programs emerged a winner in the omnibus bill, with increases
going to most OS programs. Although the Administration proposed
declining funding at $3.2 billion for the fourth year in a row, Congress
added $152 million to the request for a total of $3.3 billion in R&D
for FY 2005, a 4.3 percent boost compared to last year. The final appropriation
contains $78 million in congressionally designated projects (earmarks)
that were not in the request, but this compares to $95 million in FY
2004 earmarks, so the Office of Science actually has even more funds
to devote to its core R&D programs in FY 2005.
The funding boost
should allow major OS research programs to increase operating time and
user support at scientific user facilities. The Office of Science operates
unique, large-scale research facilities at DOE’s national laboratories
around the country, which external researchers can use for their own
experiments through a competitive proposal process. In recent years,
tight budgets have squeezed operating time at these facilities. Funding
for the largest OS account, Basic Energy Sciences, increases $96 million
to $1.1 billion, at the same time that construction costs of the Spallation
Neutron Source, a new large-scale facility in Tennessee,
decline. As a result, BES support of research grants and user time at
existing facilities should increase substantially in FY 2005, especially
in the area of nanoscale science.
In addition
to its support of facilities, DOE’s Office of Science is also the dominant
federal supporter of research in the physical sciences, particularly
high-energy physics and nuclear physics. Both physics programs increase
slightly in FY 2005. It is also a leading supporter of biological sciences,
environmental sciences, computing sciences, and fusion research.
Figure 1. (click
on the image for PDF)
Congress provides additional funds to the Fusion Energy Sciences
program to ensure that U.S. participation in an international fusion project will not crowd out
domestic research. The Fusion appropriation of $274 million is $11 million
more than last year and $10 million more than the request. The additional funds
would go to increase user time at domestic fusion experimental facilities.
Congress also urges DOE to support additional domestic fusion research with
funds freed up by delays in the International Thermonuclear Experimental
Reactor (ITER). The $5 billion international project has been delayed because
the international partners have been unable to agree on a site in either Japan
or France; a
year after a deadline to pick a site has come and gone, the six partners are
still deadlocked.
The largest Office of Science increase goes to Advanced Scientific Computing
Research (ASCR), whose funding jumps 14.9 percent to $232 million
in contrast to a flat request. The additional funds would help develop
hardware, software, and algorithms necessary for world-leading research
supercomputing capabilities. There has been increasing congressional
concern that the U.S.
is losing its lead in high-performance research computing, especially
to Japan.
Just a few weeks ago, the President signed into law an authorization
bill (HR 4516) that would give a higher profile to DOE’s high performance
computing activities and would establish a specific DOE R&D program
in ASCR to develop more advanced research supercomputing user facilities.
The Biological and Environmental Research (BER) account declines 3.0 percent
to $572 million in the omnibus bill. The BER account is the traditional
home of earmarks in the OS account, totaling $95 million in FY 2004
for R&D earmarks and a reduced but still formidable list of $78
million for 103 projects in FY
2005. The $17 million drop in earmarks should allow core BER funding
to remain stable to support research in genomics, medical applications,
biological imaging, climate change science, and environmental remediation.
After more than a decade of steep cuts and stagnant budgets, the DOE Office
of Science has less money now for its R&D programs than it did in
the early 1990s (see Figure 1). In
today’s dollars, the Science program has been stuck at roughly $3.1
billion since FY 2001, but the FY 2005 increase represents an increase
in inflation-adjusted terms to the highest level since 1993.
DOE Energy and Defense R&D Programs
Congress approved a cut to DOE’s energy-related R&D overall, but big
increases for selected energy programs. The overall Solar and Renewables
R&D program increases to $325 million in FY 2005; Congress agreed
to the Administration’s requested increase for hydrogen-related research
to $95 million. Nuclear energy
R&D surges 31 percent to $171 million in contrast to a requested
cut. Earlier in the year, the House criticized DOE for designating the
newly consolidated Idaho National Laboratory (INL) as the home of nuclear
energy R&D, but proposing cuts in nuclear energy R&D there;
the final bill assures INL increased funding for its first full year
of operation, including funds to develop technologies needed for a next-generation
nuclear reactor. Electricity transmission and distribution R&D also
receives a large boost (up 32 percent), to $91 million.
Fossil Energy
R&D falls 18.9 percent to $377 million because Congress denied the
Administration’s $237 million request for the FutureGen program, offering
only $18 million. FutureGen is an initiative aimed at building an integrated,
near-emission-free electricity and hydrogen production plant and began
with $9 million in FY 2004. Congress used some of the funds freed up
by the FutureGen reductions to boost funding for other programs, but
not enough to keep overall Fossil Energy R&D from falling steeply.
The separate Clean Coal power initiative received $50 million, far below
the $170 million FY 2004 funding level. But Advanced Research increases
to $43 million, a small boost instead of the 20 percent cuts requested
by the President, and distributed generation systems aimed at fuel cell
research received $78 million, more than triple the requested amount.
DOE has responsibility
for managing and disposing of the nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high-level
radioactive waste, both civilian and military. In past years, Waste
Management R&D represented a small part of the DOE’s portfolio.
However, as the Yucca Mountain
long-term, high-level nuclear waste repository moves forward after receiving
congressional and White House approvals a year ago, the FY 2005 request
would have quadrupled the budget for radioactive waste management R&D
to $275 million, funded by the proposed transfer of nuclear power funds
out of a trust fund. In last-minute negotiations over the omnibus bill,
Congress did not agree to the trust fund transfer and had to find Yucca
Mountain funding from other
DOE programs, resulting in a boost to Yucca
Mountain but not as high
as requested. Yucca Mountain-related R&D received $127 million,
half the request but nearly double last year’s funding level.
On the defense
side, most of DOE’s R&D is funded by the National
Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which funds maintenance
of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile through science-based research,
mostly in its core Weapons Activities account. R&D in Weapons Activities
has grown substantially in recent years in lockstep with rapid growth
in overall defense spending, from $2.4 billion in FY 2001 to $3.2 billion
last year, but slows down to a 0.9 percent increase to $3.2 billion
in the FY 2005 budget. Within the overall portfolio, Inertial Confinement
Fusion R&D funding rises 4.4 percent to $537 million, including
$129 million for continued construction of the National Ignition Facility
at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
DOE’s considerable investments in research computing on the defense
side of the budget continue at $698 million, down 3.2 percent from last
year but still nearly triple the ASCR investment on the nondefense side.
This year, there
was again considerable controversy over the Bush
Administration’s proposal to initiate research on a new generation of
nuclear weapons, including the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP)
project (nicknamed a ‘bunker buster’ bomb) and other tactical or ‘low-yield’
nuclear weapons. The President requested $28 million in FY 2005 for
continued R&D on the RNEP project and $9 million for similar concept
studies, but the omnibus bill specifically zeroes out funding for both
programs. Last year, President Bush signed into law a defense authorization
bill which repealed the longstanding U.S.
prohibition on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons,
thus allowing this research program to take place, but prohibited DOE
from entering the development phase of the RNEP or other tactical nuclear
weapons unless it receives explicit authorization from Congress. Congress
has repeatedly criticized DOE for continuing to claim that the RNEP
is only a research program, while at the same time projecting $485 million
in its budget over the next five years, an investment more than sufficient
to move the program well into design and development toward eventual
production.
Figure 2. (click
on the image for PDF)
Likely Impacts of the DOE FY 2005 Budget
DOE’s FY 2005
budget should allow for a modest expansion of the department’s research
efforts. As Figure 2 suggests, roughly two-thirds of DOE’s R&D portfolio
goes to basic and applied research, with the remainder going to development
and R&D facilities. More than a third of this research portfolio
goes to support of the physical sciences, a third to engineering research,
and the remainder to the computer sciences, mathematics, and other disciplines.
Figure 3.
(click on the image for PDF)
This DOE support for the
physical sciences is crucial to the health of the U.S.
physical sciences enterprise. DOE support is the largest single federal
agency sponsor for the physical sciences, as shown in Figure 3. DOE
funds more than 40 percent of all federal support for the physical sciences,
and in physics research it is responsible for nearly two-thirds of all
federal support. In addition to the overwhelming DOE role in research
funding, DOE also funds construction and maintenance of large physics
facilities at its national laboratories such as Argonne National Laboratory
and in Europe such as the Large Hadron Collider
which are used by physicists and other researchers for their experiments.
Because of recent stagnation in
the Office of Science budget (see Figure 1), DOE support for physical sciences
research in particular has declined in recent years, peaking in FY 1994 and
declining by nearly 20 percent since then from $2.5 billion a year to $2.1
billion in FY 2004. While the modest FY
2005 increase will not reverse these cuts, the FY 2005 DOE budget should at
least allow the department to keep its support for physical sciences research
level with last year. Similarly, DOE support of the environmental sciences and
life sciences, primarily in the OS BER program, has also declined since the
1990s.
In recent years,
the growth areas for DOE’s research portfolio have been in the computer
sciences and engineering, which now collectively make up half the DOE
research portfolio. This recent growth reflects funding increases in
DOE defense programs supporting the nuclear stockpile stewardship mission
such as Advanced Simulation and Computing and Inertial Confinement Fusion,
along with more modest increases in their ASCR and Fusion Energy Sciences
non-defense counterparts. The FY 2005 budget promises increases in these
programs, which should translate into modest increases in engineering
and a large increase in computer sciences support from DOE.
Nearly two-thirds
(63 percent) of DOE’s is performed in DOE’s network of national laboratories,
which are government owned but operated by contractors. These are split
between the three primarily defense laboratories (Los Alamos, Sandia,
and Lawrence Livermore) which receive the bulk of their funding from
the Weapons Activities account, and the multi-program civilian laboratories
(such as Argonne, Brookhaven, and Oak Ridge) which receive a mix of
Office of Science, energy, and defense funding. Universities and colleges
receive less than 10 percent of the DOE R&D portfolio, but university
researchers benefit from being able to use the scientific user facilities
located at the national laboratories for their experiments. Another
tenth of the DOE R&D portfolio is performed at DOE federal laboratories,
which are similar to the national laboratories except that they are
fully owned and operated by the federal government. Finally, 16 percent
of the DOE R&D portfolio funds work in private industry, primarily
in the energy R&D programs but also in the defense programs.
Because DOE’s
R&D performance is dominated by the national laboratories, a majority
of DOE’s R&D is performed in just the three states of New Mexico
(Los Alamos, Sandia), California (Lawrence Livermore, Lawrence Berkeley),
and Tennessee (Oak Ridge), with Illinois (Argonne, FermiLab) and New
York (Brookhaven) the next largest recipient states for DOE R&D
funds.
Next Steps
President Bush
is likely to sign the omnibus bill into law on December 8, thus finalizing
DOE’s FY 2005 budget.
- December 6, 2004
(This analysis is one of a series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates
on the FY 2005 congressional appropriations process. This analysis
includes information on R&D in final FY 2005 aappropriations for
the Department of Energy. The complete series of AAAS R&D Funding
Updates, including continually updated analyses of R&D by agency
in FY 2005 appropriations, is available on the AAAS
R&D Web Site (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd) in the "FY
2005 R&D" or the "What's New"
sections.)
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607; -6600
www.aaas.org/spp/rd
