The House Appropriations Committee has drafted an FY
2002 VA-HUD appropriations bill (HR 2620) that would provide a substantial
budget increase for the National Science Foundation (NSF). The House
would provide NSF with $4.8 billion in FY 2002, $423 million or 9.6
percent more than FY 2001. This would be more than the Administration's
request of $4.5 billion, and more than the Senate proposal of $4.7 billion.
In the House plan, NSF's R&D funding would rise 8.3 percent
for a total of $3.6 billion. NSF's research directorates would all receive
increases of 9 percent, in contrast to level or declining funding in
the request (see Table). The largest
increases in the request, House, and Senate plans would go to NSF's
non-R&D programs in education and human resources.
The House FY 2002 VA-HUD bill would provide $85 billion
for discretionary programs, more than the 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 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. The House, however,
would award an increase to NSF's budget and to NSF's R&D: the House
VA-HUD bill would exceed the request with $4.8 billion to NSF, an increase
of $423 million or 9.6 percent. NSF's R&D funding, which excludes
NSF's education and training activities and overhead costs, would total
$3.6 billion in the House plan, an increase of 8.3 percent or $272 million
(see Table). The Senate would provide
a more modest 4.0 percent increase.
The Research and Related Activities (R&RA)
account, which funds most of NSF's R&D, would receive $3.6 billion,
9.0 percent or $300 million more than FY 2001 in contrast to a requested
cut from the Bush Administration. The House would grant each of the
research directorates in R&RA a 9 percent increase. The House would
join the Senate in adding $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 Senate
bill contains language directing NSF to use the additional $25 million
specifically to fund the instrumentation needs of smaller research institutions.
The House bill does not contain this provision.
The Major Research Equipment (MRE) account,
which funds construction of large-scale scientific facilities, would
receive $135 million, $14 million or 11.3 percent more than FY 2001
and $39 million more than the request. The House would allocate $9 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 both the House and the Senate would fund
the project in MRE and would thus free up R&RA funds for more astronomy
research. Within MRE. the Senate would provide the requested $55 million
for the Terascale Computing Systems project, part of the Information
Technology R&D initiative; the House would provide only $35 million.
The House would add $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 House bill contains 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.
NSF's Education and Human Resources programs
would receive $886 million, 12.7 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 provide the
full $200 million, while the Senate would trim the request for the program
to $130 million, restoring funding to other EHR programs. The House
bill would thus go along with the Administration proposal to cut most
existing EHR programs.
The House and Senate versions of the VA-HUD bill are
due for floor debate and approval before the August congressional recess.
A House-Senate conference committee to produce the final version of
the bill is not expected to meet until September. The House appropriation
for NSF is higher than the Senate, so it is likely that the final funding
levels for NSF will be higher than the Senate-proposed levels.
- July 27, 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
