Highlights
- After a year-end across-the-board
cut, the Department of Energy (DOE) has $8.6 billion in its final 2006
budget for R&D activities, a slight cut of 0.1 percent (see Table).
- Although DOE’s
Office of Science (OS) originally received a modest increase in its
R&D portfolio, an across-the-board cut in December leaves the Science
portfolio down 0.4 percent to $3.3 billion. DOE requested an even steeper
cut, but Congress added $130 million in congressional earmarks and a
boost in computing research. The final budget will lead to dramatic
cuts in DOE support of operating times at scientific user facilities.
- Energy-related
R&D appears to gain 9.6 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
2.4 percent to $4.0 billion, including a steep cut to defense computing
research.
DOE R&D in FY 2006 Final Appropriations
On November
19, President Bush signed into law the FY 2006 Energy and Water appropriations
bill (HR 2419), 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. But in December, the final Defense appropriations
bill in December imposed an across-the-board cut of 1 percent on all
discretionary programs, including both defense and nondefense
programs in DOE. The final Energy/Water bill combined with the
1 percent cut provides $24.0 billion for the total DOE budget in 2006,
a 1.5 percent cut, of which $8.6 billion goes for DOE’s
R&D activities, down 0.1 percent or $5 million (see Table).
R&D related to DOE’s energy missions appears
to increase but actually declines, while DOE’s
science R&D declines slightly and defense R&D falls significantly.
(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 $136 million to the request for DOE’s
Office of Science (OS), turning a 4.5 percent requested cut into a 0.4
percent cut, but nearly all of the congressional additions go to congressional
earmarks. The total for the DOE OS R&D portfolio of $3.3 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, and the 1 percent across-the-board could further
reduce times. 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 have squeezed 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. But the 1 percent across-the-board cut could force
DOE to reduce operating times even further.
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 5.0 percent to $288 million, in 2006 just
slightly off 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 last 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 in 2005 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 $28 million to a requested cut in ASCR for a total of
$235 million, a 1.0 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 $3 million to a requested cut in High
Energy Physics for a total of $717 million, still a cut of 2.7 percent.
Congress
leaves in place the request for Basic Energy Sciences, the largest OS
program, for a 2.7 percent increase to $1.1 billion after the 1 percent
cut. 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
$147 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 $580 million BER total is up $2 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 even before
adjusting for inflation.
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. But at the same time, Congress sets new records
in R&D earmarks, earmarking more than 1 out of every 5 energy R&D
dollars. The overall DOE energy R&D portfolio climbs 9.3 percent
or $109 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
5.9 percent to $474 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 $377 million with the largest
increase going to carbon sequestration R&D (up from $45 million
to $66 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 17 percent or $61 million to $306 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 $136
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 31 percent to $111 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 49 percent to
$136 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 $80
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
$91 million (from $81 million).
R&D earmarks
eat up whatever increases there are for most energy programs, and cut
deeply into core R&D programs. Energy R&D earmarks total
$266 million in 2006, more than double the previous record from last
year, and make up 1 out of every 5 R&D dollars in energy. These
earmarks are concentrated in some areas, including biomass R&D where
they make up more than 50 percent of total program funds, hydrogen (27
percent), and wind energy (33 percent). Overall, R&D earmarks total
a new record of $524 million in the FY 2006 DOE budget, nearly double
the previous record.
Congress leaves
DOE’s defense R&D funding slightly below 2005. R&D
in DOE’s core Weapons Activities account totals
$2.9 billion, 5.8 percent below FY 2005. Advanced
Simulation and Computing (ASC) funding falls 14 percent to $600 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 $544 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 42 percent to $319 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. But the RNEP project actually
remains alive at the Department of Defense (DOD), which receives $7.5
million for R&D on a ‘non-nuclear’ Earth Penetrator prototype which could be identical to the RNEP
except for the warhead.
Next Steps and Likely Impacts
DOE’s
FY 2006 budget will cause the department’s research funding to fall.
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.
Figure 2. (click on the image for PDF)
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 cuts or increases falling short of inflation in these programs,
which should translate into real cuts in engineering and computer sciences
support from DOE.
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.
Figure 3. (click on the image for PDF)
- December 28, 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
(202) 326-6607; -6600
AAAS R&D
Web site: www.aaas.org/spp/rd
