(This
analysis is a preview of the DOE chapter in the forthcoming AAAS Report XXXI:
Research and Development FY 2007, a comprehensive look at the President's
budget for R&D in FY 2007. This analysis contains revised AAAS estimates of
DOE R&D, different from figures originally presented in the President's budget.
More tables and continually updated supplemental materials on R&D in the FY
2007 budget can be found on the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
Highlights
- The Department of Energy (DOE) would enjoy a
substantial increase for its science portfolio in 2007 because of the Office
of Science's (OS) leading role in the Bush Administration's proposed increases
for physical sciences research in the American Competitiveness Initiative. DOE
R&D would increase $326 million or 3.7 percent in FY 2007 to $9.0 billion
(see Table II-11), despite tough budgetary conditions
in the overall budget. DOE's Office of Science would emerge as the clear winner
among R&D funding agencies with a 14.4 percent increase to $3.8 billion for
its R&D portfolio centered on the physical sciences.
- After several
years of flat or declining budgets, funding for every OS program would increase
substantially. The largest OS programs would all receive increases of 8 percent
or more, including a dramatic boost of 24 percent for Nuclear Physics after a
decade of stagnant funding, a 36 percent increase for computing research, a 25
percent increase for Basic Energy Sciences centered around several large-scale
facilities, and a 31 percent increase for the core life sciences research portfolio.
- Although President Bush outlined large increases for some alternative
energy R&D programs as part of an Advanced Energy Initiative in his State
of the Union address, overall DOE energy R&D would fall 4.8 percent to
$1.3 billion in 2007. Substantial increases for R&D on hydrogen, fuel
cells, biomass, and solar technologies would be more than offset by steep cuts
in other areas of the energy R&D portfolio. Many but not all of the cuts would
be due to the proposed elimination of a bumper crop of 2006 congressional earmarks.
Many of the increases are related to a $288 million Hydrogen Fuel Initiative (up
from $235 million) to develop technologies for hydrogen-powered cars.
-
DOE's defense R&D would fall 2.1 percent to $4.0 billion in 2007.
DOE
R&D in the FY 2007 Budget
In January, President Bush put DOE's programs
in the spotlight when he announced an American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI)
to boost physical sciences research and an Advanced Energy Initiative to boost
alternative energy R&D. The FY 2007 budget would enable the department to
increase its R&D funding at a time when most other agencies face declining
budgets. DOE's Office of Science (OS) is the largest federal sponsor of physical
sciences research and is one of three federal agencies (the other two are the
National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology
laboratories) that would receive substantial R&D increases to fulfill the
ACI's physical sciences goals. DOE's energy R&D portfolio funds R&D on
a variety of energy topics, including renewable energy R&D on the new Administration
priorities of hydrogen, solar power, and biomass energy, all of which would receive
substantial increases. But those increases would be matched by cuts in other energy
R&D programs. Within a total DOE budget of $23.6 billion that would remain
flat from this year to next year, DOE would shift nearly $1 billion in projected
savings from completed environmental cleanups in Colorado and Ohio to other DOE
programs in 2007, with half going to OS and the other half going to energy and
nonproliferation activities. The DOE R&D portfolio in FY 2007 would total
$9.0 billion, an increase of $326 million or 3.7 percent (see Table
II-11) that would reverse the sliding DOE R&D portfolio of the last few
years (see Figure 1).
Figure 1.
(click on the image for PDF)
R&D
in the DOE Office of Science (OS)
DOE's Office of Science has long been
the dominant federal sponsor of physical sciences research, especially in physics
and related fields. It is also a large sponsor of computer sciences, mathematics,
environmental sciences, materials research, nanotechnology, mathematics, and engineering;
the push by the Bush Administration to boost physical sciences research broadly
defined through large increases in the OS budget would pay off for all of the
Office's research areas. The total Science budget would climb 14.1 percent to
$4.1 billion, a $505 million increase that could be the first step in an Administration
vision of doubling the OS budget by 2016. More than 90 percent of the Science
budget goes to R&D activities, with the remainder going to administrative
and operating costs. Science R&D would gain 14.4 percent in the FY 2007 budget
to $3.8 billion, making the Office of Science the big winner among the major R&D
funding agencies in the 2007 budget (see Table II-11).
The large proposed increase would mark a sharp departure from the flat or declining
funding trends of recent years, and could be the first in a series of increases
to double the OS budget over the next decade (see Figure 1).
After several
years of flat or declining budgets, funding for every OS program would increase
substantially. The largest OS programs would all receive increases of 8 percent
or more, including a dramatic boost of 24 percent for Nuclear Physics after a
decade of stagnant funding, a 36 percent increase for computing research, a 25
percent increase for Basic Energy Sciences centered around several large-scale
facilities, and a 31 percent increase for the core life sciences research portfolio
(see Figure 2).
Figure 2.
(click on the image for PDF)
OS
programs support cutting-edge research through a mix of laboratory research at
DOE's national laboratories, university-based research, and the construction and
operation of large scientific user facilities that can be used by external researchers
for their experiments. Roughly half of OS R&D funding ($1.8 billion) would
go to operate and construct facilities, while the other half ($1.9 billion) would
support research, mostly at DOE laboratories ($1.1 billion) but a large portion
at universities ($600 million, with the remainder going to other types of institutions).
The laboratory research and large facilities are housed primarily at ten Office
of Science laboratories around the nation that are federally owned and contractor
operated, such as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, Brookhaven National
Laboratory in New York, and Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. After facing
several years in which tight budgets have forced the cancellation of planned facilities
construction projects, dramatic reductions in facilities operating times (resulting
in one facility being forced to accept private donations to keep operating in
2006), and reductions in external research support, the large requested 2007 increase
would allow OS to have the best of all worlds: new facilities would come on line
and others would begin construction, operating times for users would be expanded
at existing facilities, and increasing numbers of external researchers could win
research grants.
Basic Energy Sciences (BES) is the OS program that has
fared the best even in the tough budget conditions of recent years, and would
more than half the additional OS dollars in 2007 (see Figure 2). BES funding would
surge 25 percent to $1.4 billion in the 2007 request across the entire range of
BES programs, from materials sciences, nanotechnology research, and basic hydrogen
research to ramped-up construction of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) in
California. The largest increase to $171 million (up $71 million) would go to
operations of the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge in Tennessee, which
would have its first full year of operations in 2007. BES also takes the lead
in DOE's nanotechnology efforts with a $51 million requested increase to $254
million for research and 5 nanoscale research facilities. BES would also fund
$50 million (up from $33 million) in basic hydrogen research as part of the Administration's
Hydrogen Fuel Initiative.
The largest percentage increase of 36 percent
would go to Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) which leads DOE's efforts
in high-performance computing for research applications. The $319 million 2007
request would boost high performance computing capacity that researchers can use
for their experiments, primarily at Oak Ridge, Argonne, and Lawrence Berkeley
laboratories. In 2007, ASCR would work toward achieving 250 teraflop computing
capabilities to run the most complicated and detailed scientific models.
The Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program appears to decline
by 12 percent in the FY 2007 request, but the 2006 total includes $129 million
in congressional earmarks that would be eliminated in 2007. As a result, non-earmarked
BER funding would climb 12 percent to $510 million, including a 31 percent boost
for the Life Sciences program to $264 million, to pay for a dramatic expansion
of the Genomes to Life program and a boost for the Joint Genome Institute's sequencing
capacity.
The U.S. contribution to the multinational International Thermonuclear
Experimental Reactor (ITER) would go full speed ahead in 2007, but unlike
in past years' requests there would also be a robust domestic fusion program.
The 11 percent increase to $319 million for Fusion Energy Sciences would be a
sharp break from the flat funding of recent years (see Figure 2), and would alleviate
congressional concerns that U.S. participation in ITER construction could siphon
off resources from domestic fusion research and facilities. ITER funding would
climb from $19 million to $60 million in 2007, leaving enough funding to keep
domestic fusion activities nearly level. The $5 billion international project
had been delayed because the international partners were unable to agree on a
site, but 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 2005 authorized
U.S. participation in the project and authorized DOE to negotiate with the other
partners. But in the 2006 budget, Congress shifted $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 High Energy Physics (HEP)
program, which funds basic research on the nature of matter and energy, would
get an 8.1 percent increase to $775 million (see Table II-11). The program does
most of its work at three facilities located at two DOE labs (Fermilab in Illinois
and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in California), and also cooperates
in the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. The increase would allow DOE to sustain
operating times at facilities, boost research funding slightly, increase support
for the LHC toward the beginning of operations in 2007, and double the DOE contribution
to $60 million for design and development of the International Linear Collider,
the next big international high-energy physics project. The Nuclear Physics program
(NP) would enjoy a 23.7 percent surge in funding to $454 million after being stuck
at $400 million in today's dollars for nearly a decade (see Figure 2). NP seeks
to understand the structure and interactions of subatomic particles, and supports
two large facilities, the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Virginia
and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in New York. After yet another
year of flat appropriations in the 2006 budget, the program was forced to announce
the termination of operations at RHIC, and in an embarrassing turn of events was
only able to keep the facility operating because of a private donation. But the
large 2007 increase would provide full funding for facility operations at all
NP facilities and also money to initiate new facilities construction and upgrades.
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, but the 2007 budget could be a reversal of fortune (see Figure 1). In today's
dollars, the Science program has been stuck at roughly $3.3 billion since FY 2001,
but the large 2007 request would represent a decisive break from recent trends,
and is envisioned as the first in a decade of increases that could double the
OS budget over the next decade.
DOE Energy R&D Programs
Although
some alternative energy R&D programs would receive large increases in the
FY 2007 budget request because of the Administration's new push to reduce U.S.
dependence on Middle East oil, overall DOE energy R&D would decline 4.8
percent to $1.3 billion as increases in some areas would be offset by steep cuts
in fossil energy R&D and conservation programs (see Figure 3). Some, though
not all, of the cuts would be due to the proposed elimination of 2006's bumper
crop of energy R&D earmarks, but several longstanding energy programs would
be eliminated in the 2007 request.
Figure 3.
(click on the image for PDF)
The
Bush Administration has consistently favored increases for hydrogen and fuel cell
R&D as investments in a promising energy source for the future, but in his
2006 State of the Union address the President added solar energy and biomass energy
to his list of renewable energy priorities. The Administration's Hydrogen Fuel
Initiative would total $288 million from the DOE budget, up from $235 million
in 2006 for an agency-wide effort to enable hydrogen-powered motor vehicles using
fuel cells, including $50 million from the Office of Science. Most of the hydrogen
R&D would come from the Energy Supply and Conservation account, which combines
the formerly separate Energy Supply and Energy Conservation programs. R&D
in the combined account would climb 13.9 percent to $888 million in 2007. Within
the total, the Hydrogen Technology program would increase from $156 million to
$196 million, a 25.8 percent boost (see Table II-11 and Figure 3). But taking
out $43 million in congressional earmarks from the 2006 budget would allow for
an even larger 73 percent increase for core hydrogen R&D funding. The program
would dramatically boost funding to tackle technical challenges in hydrogen production
and delivery, hydrogen storage, and hydrogen fuel cells. The Nuclear Energy R&D
portfolio would contain $19 million for the Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative to produce
hydrogen from nuclear power plants, and the Fossil Energy program would have $24
million for the initiative to fund additional fuel cells R&D.
After
several years of flat or declining funding requests, the Bush Administration would
seek $148 million for the solar energy R&D program, a dramatic 79 percent
increase from 2006. Excluding 2006 earmarks, the core solar energy R&D portfolio
would double. Similarly, after flat funding for many years the biomass R&D
program would increase 65 percent to $150 million, but because more than half
the 2006 portfolio is earmarked the non-earmarked biomass R&D portfolio would
more than triple. The requested increase would dramatically expand federal efforts
to develop biorefineries to convert biomass into gasoline substitutes, new and
improved biofuels, and technologies to enable cars to run on several kinds of
biofuels. Wind energy R&D would also increase, by 13 percent to $44 million.
But there would be steep cuts to other renewable energy R&D programs.
The budget request would eliminate the $23 million geothermal R&D program,
and also eliminate the dwindling hydropower R&D program. Although the Administration
proposes a dramatic increase in Nuclear Energy programs, including a $250 million
initiative called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, the increases would go
to non-R&D programs, leaving the Nuclear Energy R&D portfolio with a 19
percent tumble to $95 million, though after a larger increase in 2006. Funding
for Nuclear Power 2010, next-generation nuclear energy systems, and hydrogen from
nuclear would all fall, to make room for large increases in demonstration projects
and other nuclear projects.
There would also be steep cuts in energy
conservation and fossil energy R&D programs. Fossil Energy R&D funding
would fall 31.1 percent down to $330 million, in part because the Administration's
longstanding emphasis on coal R&D would wane and also because other R&D
on other fossil fuels would end. Coal R&D would fall $46 million down to $330
million (see Table II-11 and Figure 3). Although FutureGen funding to develop
a near-emission-free, coal-fired electricity and hydrogen production plant would
triple from $18 million to $54 million, funding for the Clean Coal Power Initiative
program to develop cleaner coal-based power plants would tumble from $50 million
to $5 million to clear a backlog of unspent funds from previous years. Other coal-related
research would fall to $271 million, but there would be increases for key areas:
carbon sequestration R&D, after a big increase in 2006, would further increase
to $74 million, while fuel cells R&D related to coal would increase slightly
to $63 million. But as the Administration proposed last year (but Congress rejected),
the budget would eliminate the oil R&D and gas R&D programs, and also
cooperative fossil energy R&D. Although the Energy Conservation portfolio
is now part of the larger Energy Supply and Conservation program, funding for
its component Vehicle Technologies (down $16 million to $166 million) and Industrial
Technologies (down $11 million to $46 million) programs would fall, offsetting
a gain in the Building Technologies program (up $8 million to $77 million). Some
of the cuts would be from the elimination of 2006 earmarks, allowing for increases
not only in residential buildings conservation R&D but also in hybrid vehicle
R&D (up from $44 million to $51 million in Vehicles). As shown in Figure 3,
energy conservation R&D has declined every year since 2001 in real terms.
DOE Defense R&D
DOE and its predecessors have long had
responsibility for managing the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile, supplying
nuclear reactors to the Navy, and dealing with the environmental legacies of nuclear
weapons work. DOE's defense R&D to address these responsibilities would fall
2.1 percent to $4.0 billion in the 2007 budget (see Table
II-11). The core Weapons Activities program, which funds science-based alternatives
to nuclear testing in order to maintain the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, would
receive $6.4 billion in 2007. Roughly half of this portfolio goes to R&D activities,
totaling $2.9 billion in 2007, a decline of $51 million or 1.7 percent. To keep
pace with an increasing reliance on complex high-end computing simulations of
nuclear explosions, the Advanced Simulation and Computing program would increase
3.0 percent to $618 million. The program, the defense counterpart to the nondefense
ASCR program, would mostly take place in DOE's three weapons laboratories (Los
Alamos and Sandia in New Mexico, Lawrence Livermore in California).
After
Congress terminated research on the controversial Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator
(RNEP) program in 2006, DOE would move on to other nuclear weapons projects. The
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, DOE would move forward on the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) project,
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. DOE requests $28 million in 2007 for the RRW.
Although
the 2007 request takes a step back from a substantial increase in 2006, the Nonproliferation
and Verification R&D program investment of $272 million (down $50 million)
is a substantial increase compared to previous years, and reflects increasing
concern about the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the perceived need to find
new technical solutions for verifying compliance with nonproliferation agreements.
Outlook for the DOE Budget
Because the American Competitiveness
Initiative and alternative energy R&D are high priorities in the FY 2007 budget,
DOE would receive an increase even as most other domestic agencies face cuts within
a declining domestic budget. Looking to the future, the Bush Administration's
outyear budget projections show that in the push to reduce the budget deficit
in half over the next few years, funding for most domestic programs would decline
each year to 2011, but funding for DOE's Office of Science and the other two ACI
programs would continue to increase. The projections show the Office of Science
budget increasing steadily from $4.1 billion in 2007 up to $5.3 billion by 2011.
After adjusting for inflation, Science would gain 35 percent over the next five
years. Although budgets are always determined one year at a time, and Congress
has not even acted on the first installment for 2007, Congress has so far been
supportive of the Administration's proposed 2007 increase for the Office of Science,
and key appropriators have promised to sustain most if not all of the increase
in 2007 appropriations. But the increases for alternative energy R&D may be
short-lived; the budget projections show renewable energy funding falling after
2007, joining other energy R&D funding in decline. As a result, the 14 percent
increase in 2007 for Energy Supply and Conservation R&D would be eroded over
subsequent years and would end up back at the 2006 level in real terms by 2011.
Fossil Energy R&D, meanwhile, would lose 39 percent of its funding in real
terms by 2011 according to the budget projections.
(More
materials on R&D in the FY 2007 budget, historical data and charts, and more
information on AAAS Report XXXI: Research and Development FY 2007, can
be found on the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
-
February 24, 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
