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Go to: Table.
FY 2002 NSF R&D in House-Senate Conference Appropriations
PDF version of this document
Related documents:
"House Gives
NSF R&D 8 Percent Increase," AAAS R&D Funding Update
July 27 (House appropriations for NSF R&D)
"Senate Boosts
NSF R&D by 4 Percent," AAAS R&D Funding Update July 25
(Senate appropriations for NSF R&D)
AAAS Report XXVI: Research and Development
FY 2002 (President's Request for FY 2002)
Chapter 7:
National Science Foundation in the FY 2002 Budget
-George L. Leventhal, AAU
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(This analysis is part of a series
of AAAS R&D Funding Updates on the FY 2002 congressional appropriations
process. This analysis includes information on House-Senate conference
appropriations for the National Science Foundation. The complete series
of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including continually updated analyses
of R&D by agency in FY 2002 appropriations, is available on the
AAAS R&D Web Site (http://www.aaas.org/spp/R&D)
in the "FY 2002 R&D" or the "What's
New" sections.)
On November 6, a conference report was filed for the
FY 2002 VA-HUD appropriations bill (HR 2620; House Report 107-272),
which funds the National Science Foundation (NSF). The final bill would
provide NSF with $4.8 billion in FY 2002, $372 million or 8.4 percent
more than FY 2001. This would be more than the Administration's request
of $4.5 billion and the Senate proposal of $4.7 billion, but less than
the $4.8 billion House proposal. In the final FY 2002 budget,
NSF's R&D funding would rise 7.6 percent for a total of $3.5
billion. Most of NSF's research directorates would receive increases
greater than 8 percent, in contrast to level or declining funding in
the request (see Table). The largest
increases in the request and final plans would go to NSF's non-R&D
programs in education and human resources.
The final FY 2002 VA-HUD bill would provide $85 billion
for discretionary programs, more than the House version of the bill
($85 billion), Senate version of the bill ($84 billion) and the request
($83 billion). The bill funds science agencies including NSF, the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), and non-R&D programs for veterans and
housing. (For information on House appropriations for NSF, please see
the July 27 AAAS R&D Funding Update; for
information on Senate appropriations for NSF, please see the July
25 AAAS R&D Funding Update; for details of the FY 2002 request
for NSF, please see Chapter
7 of AAAS
Report XXVI: R&D FY 2002.)
There was dismay among NSF advocates in April when
the Bush Administration requested only a $56 million or 1.3 percent
increase in the total NSF budget, after a 13 percent increase in FY
2001 led to high expectations of substantial increases in FY 2002. Because
the Bush Administration chose to emphasize a large increase for education
and human resources programs in NSF, NSF's R&D programs were actually
proposed to decline 1.6 percent in the request. Congress, however, would
award a large increase to NSF's budget and to NSF's R&D: the final
VA-HUD bill would exceed the request with $4.8 billion to NSF, an increase
of $372 million or 8.4 percent. NSF's R&D funding, which excludes
NSF's education and training activities and overhead costs, would total
$3.5 billion in FY 2002, an increase of 7.6 percent or $249 million
(see Table).
The Research and Related Activities (R&RA)
account, which funds most of NSF's R&D, would receive $3.6 billion,
7.6 percent or $256 million more than FY 2001 in contrast to a requested
cut from the Bush Administration. The House would have grant each of
the research directorates in R&RA a 9 percent increase, while the
Senate would have provided less; the final bill would give most of the
research directorates increases of 8 percent or greater, except for
Biological Sciences (BIO; up 4.9 percent to $509 million) and Social,
Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE; up 2.7 percent to $169 million).
The BIO appropriation includes a $75 million designation for the congressionally
initiated plant genome research program, up from $65 million in FY 2001.
The final bill would add $25 million to the request of $50 million for
the Major Research Instrumentation program to bring funding back to
the FY 2001 level. This program provides funds to address research equipment
needs of research institutions, mostly universities; the bill contains
language directing NSF to address the instrumentation needs of smaller
research institutions. The bill would boost the requests for information
technology and nanotechnology research at NSF by $25 million each, bringing
the IT research investment to $180 million (up from $155 million in
FY 2001) and nanotechnology to $199 million (up from $150 million).
The Major Research Equipment (MRE) account,
which funds construction of large-scale scientific facilities, would
receive $139 million, $17 million or 14.1 percent more than FY 2001
and $42 million more than the request. The bill would allocate $12.5
million to the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope
project; the request proposed to fund the project out of R&RA instead
of Major Research Equipment, but the final bill would fund the project
in MRE and would thus free up R&RA funds for more astronomy research.
Within MRE. the Senate would have provided the requested $55 million
for the Terascale Computing Systems project, part of the Information
Technology R&D initiative; the House and the final bill would provide
only $35 million. The final bill would follow the House in adding $35
million for the High-Performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for
Environmental Research (HIAPER) in FY 2002 although NSF proposed to
eliminate funding. The $35 million allocation would be far above the
FY 2001 funding level of $12 million for this atmospheric research aircraft.
The final bill also follows the House in providing a new start of $15
million for the IceCube Neutrino Detector project, a South Pole facility
recently approved by the National Science Board but not yet part of
NSF's budget plans. The final bill changes the name of this account
to Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction.
NSF's Education and Human Resources programs
would receive $875 million, 11.4 percent more than FY 2001. The heart
of the Administration's request was $200 million for a new Math and
Science Partnerships program to encourage academic institutions and
schools to work together to improve math and science education. Although
half of the program was proposed as new money, the other half would
have come out of existing EHR programs. The House would have provide
the full $200 million, while the Senate would trim the request for the
program to $130 million. The final bill splits the difference and offers
$160 million, restoring funding to other EHR programs.
The final VA-HUD bill would boost funding for the Experimental
Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) from $75 million
to $80 million and add another $11 million to fund the Office of Innovation
Partnerships, and encourages R&RA programs to fund at least $30
million in research at EPSCoR institutions. Both programs assist research
institutions and states that have traditionally been underrepresented
in federal R&D funding. The Senate bill encouraged consideration
of an application from Rhode Island to be eligible for the EPSCoR program;
the final bill does not mention this provision.
Figure 1. (click on the image to view or download a color
full-page PDF version of the chart)
The FY 2002 appropriation continues the recent trend
of large increases for NSF, although the FY 2002 increase is smaller
than the 13 percent increase of last year. Figure 1 shows the recent
history of NSF's budget for R&D and compares the final appropriated
budgets with the requests. The lower (red) line shows that NSF R&D
grew steadily in the 1980s and until FY 1995, but then stagnated and
even declined because of severe budget pressures in the mid-1990s as
the federal government restrained discretionary spending to achieve
a balanced budget. But the chart also shows that NSF's R&D investment
resumed its long-term growth trend after FY 1998, when the government
entered the current age of surpluses. The FY 2002 increase brings
NSF R&D to an all-time high. The upper line shows that nearly
every year, NSF has requested more than Congress ended up appropriating,
but in FY 2002 Congress appropriated far more than the Bush Administration
requested.
Figure 2. (click on the image to view or download a color
full-page PDF version of the chart)
NSF is the only federal agency with responsibility
for research in all major science and engineering fields. As shown in
Figure 2, NSF has a balanced research portfolio covering the
breadth of science and engineering. In most fields, NSF is the largest
or second-largest source of federal funding.
Figure 3. (click on the image to view or download a color
full-page PDF version of the chart)
Although well balanced, NSF's mix of support for various
disciplines has varied over time. The long-term growth trend in NSF's
budget has not affected all disciplines equally. Figure 3 shows recent
trends in NSF support for selected disciplines. While NSF support
for physical sciences, life sciences, and environmental sciences stagnated
or declined until the late 1990s, NSF budget increases have resulted
in dramatic increases in NSF support for the engineering sciences and
mathematics/computer sciences, corresponding to growing NSF interest
in information technology research and increased support for engineering
research centers and other engineering-related projects. The large increases
beginning in FY 1999 and continuing to FY 2002, which is not pictured
in Figure 3, have resulted in across-the-board increases for all disciplines
in the past few years. Funding for all disciplines hit all-time highs
in FY 2001, and FY 2002 should see further increases.
Congress is expected to give final approval to the
VA-HUD bill in the next few days, and President Bush is expected to
sign it into law before the current continuing resolution (temporary
appropriations bill) expires on November 16.
- November 7, 2001
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
American Association for the Advancement of Science
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607
science_policy@aaas.org
http://www.aaas.org/spp/R&D
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