Highlights
- Congress has
agreed on a final DOE budget containing $8.7 billion for DOE’s
R&D activities in FY 2006, a slight increase of 0.9 percent that
could be erased in later across-the-board cuts
(see Table).
- Although DOE’s
Office of Science receives a modest 0.6 percent increase in its R&D
portfolio to $3.4 billion instead of a requested cut of 4.5 percent,
the difference is due to $130 million in congressional earmarks and
a boost in computing research. Earlier congressional attempts to boost
utilization of scientific user facilities did not make it into the final
budget.
- Energy-related
R&D appears to gain 10.7 percent to $1.3 billion because of a rescission
in 2005, but actual funding declines slightly. Congress supports Administration
priorities in coal and nuclear energy R&D, but there are cuts in
other energy areas including the Administration priorities of hydrogen
and fuel cells.
- Congress terminates
the controversial Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator
program in 2006. DOE’s defense R&D declines
slightly to $4.1 billion, including a steep cut to defense computing
research.
DOE R&D in FY 2006 Conference Appropriations
On November 7,
congressional appropriators released the conference report (final agreement)
for the FY 2006 Energy and Water appropriations bill (HR 2419), setting
the stage for final congressional approval and a presidential signature
in the next week. But a later appropriations bill may impose across-the-board
cuts of up to 2 percent on all programs, even after the bill is signed
into law. For the first time, the bill funds all of the
Department of Energy (DOE), while in previous years some DOE programs
had been funded in the Interior bill. The
final Energy/Water bill provides $24.3 billion for the total DOE budget
in 2006, a slight cut, of which $8.7 billion goes for DOE’s
R&D activities, a slight increase of 0.9 percent or $81 million
in contrast to a requested cut of 2.6 percent (see Table). R&D related
to DOE’s energy missions appears to increase but actually declines,
while DOE’s science R&D remains flat and
defense R&D declines slightly. (For details of the President’s
request for DOE R&D, please see Chapter 9
of AAAS Report XXX: R&D FY 2006 or the March 1 DOE R&D Funding Update.)
R&D in the DOE Office of Science (OS)
Congress adds $170 million to the request for DOE’s
Office of Science (OS), turning a 4.5 percent
requested cut into a slight 0.6 percent increase, but nearly all of
the increase goes to congressional earmarks. The total for the DOE OS
R&D portfolio of $3.4 billion is similar to earlier House and Senate
proposals (see Table), but the difference is that earlier proposals
made additional operating time at OS user facilities a priority, while
the final appropriation leaves in place requested cuts in operating
times. Congress adds funds for high energy physics and advanced computing
research, and finds more money for domestic fusion research by trimming
the request for an international fusion project.
The FY 2006 appropriation confirms DOE plans to reduce operating times
at OS 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 (see Figure 1) have squeezed operating time at these facilities,
and the FY 2006 request would squeeze even tighter, with operating times
reduced by as much as 61 percent at some OS facilities. Earlier House
and Senate versions of the Energy-Water bill would have allocated additional
funds specifically to sustain operating times at current rates, especially
programs funded in the Basic Energy Sciences (BES) and Nuclear Physics
(NP) programs, but the final bill provides just the request for most
OS accounts and thus confirms the requested reductions in operating
times.
Figure 1. (click on the image for PDF)
Domestic
fusion research facilities, however, should be able to operate at 2005
levels thanks to a funding shift. Total Fusion funding jumps 6.1 percent
to $291 million, the same as the request, but Congress rearranges fusion
priorities to favor domestic fusion over an international collaborative
project. In its budget request, DOE proposed $56 million for the
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, up
from just $5 million this year, at the cost of reducing operating times
at domestic fusion facilities. The $5 billion international project
had been delayed because the international partners were unable to agree
on a site, but earlier this year a site in France
was chosen, a director was selected, and construction got underway.
The energy policy bill signed into law in August authorized U.S.
participation in the project and authorized DOE to negotiate with the
other partners. But Congress shifts $30 million from the ITER request
to domestic fusion research in order to sustain operating times at fusion
facilities in New Jersey,
California, and Massachusetts.
The $26 million remaining for ITER is still far above the $5 million
in 2005. Congress looks to the future by calling on DOE to fund any
further increases for ITER in FY 2007 and beyond through additional
resources rather than through cuts to domestic fusion.
The final DOE
budget contains a boost for advanced scientific computing research (ASCR).
Congress adds $30 million to a requested cut in ASCR for a total of
$237 million, a 2.0 percent increase over 2005. The additional funds
go to accelerate R&D efforts on a world-class supercomputer to provide
advanced scientific computing capabilities to U.S.
researchers. Congress also adds $10 million to a requested cut in High
Energy Physics for a total of $724 million, still a cut of 1.7 percent;
the additional funds go for R&D on an international linear collider
and neutrino research.
Congress
leaves in place the request for Basic Energy Sciences, the largest OS
program, for a 3.7 percent increase to $1.1 billion. The Senate
had earlier tried to add $30 million in new funds to establish a National
Nanotechnology Enterprise Development Center (NNEDC) in New
Mexico, and also $67 million in new funds for
R&D on energy and water resources issues, but the final budget leaves
out these funds. The largest project in BES is the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) in Tennessee,
which receives $149 million as the facility transitions from construction
to operations in 2006.
Congress adds $130 million to the Biological and Environmental Research
(BER) account in 2006, entirely for 164 earmarked projects. The $586 million BER total is up $4 million
from 2005, but because 2005 earmarks totaled only $78 million, funding
for core BER programs is down significantly in 2006 compared to last
year. Although the majority of the 164 earmarks are for biological and
environmental projects, many of them are in unrelated areas such as
water resources, energy technologies, and science education. Nearly
all go to universities and colleges.
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 $3.3
billion since FY 2001, and the 2006 appropriation falls behind inflation
even before an expected across-the-board cut.
DOE Energy and Defense R&D Programs
Congress cuts back on funding for energy R&D programs, funding Administration
priorities in coal and nuclear energy but scaling back requested boosts
for hydrogen and fuel cell R&D, and trimming funding as requested
for other energy R&D. The overall DOE energy R&D portfolio
climbs 10.7 percent or $122 million to $1.3 billion, but the increase
is due to a $160 million rescission in 2005 for Clean Coal Technology
that reduces the funding base. Without the 2005 rescission, energy R&D
falls in 2006. The final appropriation combines the Energy Supply and
Energy Conservation accounts into a single account; in past years and
in the 2006 request, they were funded in separate appropriations bills.
This analysis splits the single 2006 appropriation into separate accounts
for comparison purposes.
In fossil energy,
coal remains the top priority. Fossil Energy R&D funding increases
6.9 percent to $479 million, in sharp contrast to steep cuts in the
House and the request. Funding for FutureGen
remains at $18 million for this program to develop a near-emission-free,
coal-fired electricity and hydrogen production plant, while overall
coal R&D climbs from $351 million to $380 million with the largest
increase going to carbon sequestration R&D (up from $45 million
to $67 million). Oil and gas R&D decline, though not as much as
the request to eliminate these programs. Energy conservation R&D
appears to fall 16 percent or $58 million to $309 million, but nearly
all of the decline is due to the transfer of
the $60 million distributed energy and energy transmission R&D program
from this account to the Electricity Transmission and Distribution program
in Energy Supply. Funding for the remaining Energy Conservation programs
is flat, with cuts in industrial conservation technologies offset by
increases in building and vehicle technologies. Fuel cells R&D,
a key part of the Bush Administration hydrogen initiative to move toward
a hydrogen economy, receives a cool reception in Congress with a $138
million appropriation spread across the two accounts, down from $149
million in 2005.
In Energy Supply,
nuclear energy is the top priority. Nuclear energy R&D surges dramatically
by 32 percent to $112 million. Most of the new funding supports a dramatically
expanded effort to develop new technologies for future nuclear power
plants in an effort led by the Idaho National Laboratory. There are
also dramatic boosts in nuclear hydrogen R&D to explore ways to
use nuclear power to produce hydrogen, and in advanced fuel cycle R&D
to develop better technologies for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel.
Electricity Transmission and Distribution R&D jumps 51 percent to
$138 million because of the transfer of a $61 million distributed energy
and electricity reliability R&D portfolio from the Energy Conservation
account. In Solar and Renewables, a requested
boost for hydrogen R&D turns into an appropriated cut down to $81
million, but the bill also goes along with requested cuts in R&D
on other renewables such as geothermal technology, wind energy, and
solar energy, the only exception being a boost in biomass R&D to
$92 million (from $81 million).
Congress adds to the request for DOE’s defense R&D, but still leaves funding slightly
below 2005. R&D in DOE’s core Weapons Activities
account totals $2.9 billion, 4.9 percent below FY 2005. Advanced
Simulation and Computing (ASC) funding falls 13 percent to $606 million.
The ASC program funds R&D in high-end computing for leading-edge
supercomputers and software necessary to simulate nuclear explosions without
nuclear testing, and is the defense counterpart to the OS Advanced Scientific
Computing Research (ASCR) program. Left out of the final bill is a Senate
attempt to boost ASC funding for Los Alamos National Laboratory to acquire a
150 teraflop computing system for weapons-related calculations. Also left out of
the final bill is a Senate attempt to slash Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF)
funding by zeroing out the National Ignition Facility (NIF) under construction
at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
Instead, ICF funding increases to $549 million and the NIF project is fully
funded. ICF is the defense counterpart to the OS Fusion Energy Sciences program
which focuses on magnetic fusion. The largest increase in defense R&D goes
to Nonproliferation and Verification R&D (up 44 percent to $322 million),
with large boosts for R&D on proliferation detection, nuclear explosion
monitoring, and treaty monitoring.
Congress agrees
with the Administration’s recent decision to terminate research on the
controversial Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator
(RNEP) program in 2006. Last year, DOE requested funds but Congress
provided no money. DOE tried again in FY 2006 with a request of $4 million,
but last month the Administration signaled that it would drop its support
for the program. This Administration proposal to
initiate research on a new generation of nuclear weapons, including
the RNEP and other tactical or ‘low-yield’ nuclear weapons (also called
‘bunker buster’ bombs), has been opposed by Congress so far because
building these weapons would require the repeal of a U.S. ban on developing
new nuclear weapons. Instead, Congress provides $25 million instead
of a $9 million request for R&D on the Reliable Replacement Warhead,
a 5-year, $98 million project initiated by Congress in the FY 2005 budget
that would explore the possibility of new warhead designs to use with
existing rather than new nuclear weapons.
Next Steps and Likely Impacts
Figure 2. (click on the image for PDF)
DOE’s
FY 2006 budget should allow the department’s research efforts to increase
modestly, though not enough to keep pace with inflation. 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.
This DOE
support for the physical sciences is crucial to the health of the U.S.
physical sciences enterprise. DOE is the largest single federal agency
sponsor for the physical sciences, as shown in Figure 2. 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 scientific user facilities at its national laboratories
which are used by scientists of all disciplines.
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.
The cuts to the physics programs in FY 2006 will continue the
decline. Similarly, DOE support of the environmental sciences and life
sciences, primarily in the OS BER program, has also declined since the
1990s and will continue to decline based on the 2006 BER budget outcome.
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 2006 budget
promises increases in these programs, which should translate into modest
increases in engineering and computer sciences support from DOE.
Figure 3. (click on the image for PDF)
Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of
DOE’s R&D is performed in DOE’s
network of national laboratories, which are government owned but operated by contractors
(see Figure 3). 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.
The House and
the Senate are expected to give final approval to the Energy/Water bill
shortly, and President Bush is expected to sign the bill into law before
the temporary FY 2006 funding bill expires on November 18. But this
conference report may not be the final word; Congress is working on
an across-the-board cut for all appropriations to add to the final FY
2006 appropriations bill. The cut is expected to reach back even to
enacted appropriations bills and reduce funding for all programs by
up to 2 percent.
- November 10, 2005
(This analysis is one of a series of AAAS R&D Funding
Updates on FY 2006 congressional appropriations. The complete series
of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including continually updated analyses
of R&D in FY 2006 appropriations, is available on the AAAS
R&D Web Site (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd) in the "FY
2006 R&D" or the "What's New"
sections.)
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
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AAAS R&D
Web site: www.aaas.org/spp/rd
