On July 25, as part of a
rush to draft all 13 FY 2003 appropriations bills before a month-long
August recess, the Senate Appropriations Committee drafted an FY 2003
VA-HUD appropriations bill (S. 2797) that would provide a substantial
budget increase for the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Senate
would provide NSF with a total budget of $5.4 billion in FY 2003, $564
million or 11.8 percent more than FY 2002. This would far exceed the
Administration’s request of $5.0 billion. In the Senate plan, NSF’s R&D
funding would rise 11.9 percent for a total of $3.9 billion, including
a 14.8 percent boost in the key Research and Related Activities account
which could be the first year of a five-year doubling effort (see
Table).
The Senate FY 2003 VA-HUD
bill would provide $91 billion for discretionary programs. 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. The President requested
$93 billion for the bill’s programs, but the Senate would rearrange
priorities to give NSF far more money than requested. The House is not
expected to draft its version of the bill until September or later.
In February, NSF won praise
from the Bush Administration for its management, but only modest increases
for its R&D programs. Excluding NSF’s non-R&D education activities,
NSF R&D would have totaled $3.7 billion, a boost of 3.5 percent
in which more than half of the increase would have
been due to the proposed transfer of three science programs from
other agencies. Without these transfers, NSF R&D would have increased
only 1.4 percent. The Senate has already drafted bills rejecting the
proposed transfer of a toxic hydrology program from the U.S. Geological
Survey (USGS) and the National Sea Grant College Program from the Department
of Commerce and funded these programs in their current agencies (see
the July 10 AAAS R&D Funding Update for Interior
R&D; see the July 26 AAAS R&D Funding
Update for Commerce R&D). The other proposed transfer is from
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); the fate of this transfer
was not available at the time or writing. (For details of the Administration
request for NSF, see Chapter
7 of AAAS
Report XXVII: R&D FY 2003).
The Senate would award large
increases to NSF’s budget and to NSF’s R&D: the Senate VA-HUD bill
would exceed the request with $5.4 billion to NSF, an increase of $564
million or 11.8 percent. NSF’s
R&D funding, which excludes NSF’s education and training activities
and overhead costs, would total $3.9 billion in the Senate plan, an
increase of 11.9 percent or $421 million (see Table). Senator Barbara
Mikulski (D-MD), the chairman of the Senate VA-HUD appropriations subcommittee,
and Senator Kit Bond (R-MO), the ranking member, are proponents of a
plan to double the NSF budget in five years, and the Senate appropriation
can be interpreted as the first step toward achieving that goal.
The Research and Related Activities (R&RA) account, which funds most
of NSF’s R&D, would receive $4.1 billion, 14.8 percent or $533 million
more than FY 2002 in an increase consistent with a doubling trajectory
beginning in FY 2003. The Senate bill would offer varying increases
to the R&RA research directorates. The big winner would be Integrated
Activities, which would receive $171 million for an increase of $64
million or 60.2 percent. The Senate would add $50 million to the request
for the Major Research Instrumentation program to bring funding to $104 million,
well above the $76 million FY 2002 total. This program provides funds
to address research equipment needs of research institutions, mostly
universities. The Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE)
directorate would receive a 19.8 percent boost to $617 million, with
an emphasis on cybersecurity and broadband
research; CISE is the lead partner in the multi-agency Networking and
Information Technology R&D initiative. The Engineering directorate
would see a 20.3 percent increase to $568 million.
The Mathematical and Physical
Sciences directorate would receive $115 million more than the request
for a total of $1.1 billion (up 14.8 percent), although mathematical
sciences would receive less than requested for $162 million, which would
still be a 7.2 percent increase over FY 2002. The Geosciences directorate
would receive slightly less than requested but still a 12.3 percent
boost over FY 2002 for a total of $684 million, but the requested increase
was inflated with the three proposed transfers; the Sea Grant program
alone would have totaled $57 million of a proposed $82 million increase.
The social sciences and the biological sciences (BIO) would receive
the requested amounts, although with some rearrangements of internal
priorities; within BIO, $85 million would go toward plant genome research
(up from $75 million in FY 2003 and the FY 2003 request).
The Major Research Equipment (MRE) account, which funds construction of
large-scale scientific facilities, would be the only declining account
in the Senate bill. MRE would receive $79 million, far less than the
$139 million FY 2002 funding level and the $126 million request. The
Senate would fund only five of the seven requested projects: the Atacama
Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope ($30 million), the Large
Hadron Collider ($10 million), the
Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES; $14 million), the
South Pole Station ($6 million), and Earth Scope ($20 million, less
than the $35 million request). The Senate would move funding for the
Terascale Computing Systems project out of
MRE into CISE at a reduced $10 million level. The Senate bill would
not fund the $12 million request for the National Ecological Observatory
Network (NEON).
NSF’s Education and Human Resources programs would receive $948 million,
an amount 8.3 percent
above FY 2002. The heart of the Administration’s request
was $200 million for the second year of a Math and Science Partnerships
program to encourage academic institutions and schools to work together
to improve math and science education. The Senate would trim the request
for the program to $120 million and spread the savings among other EHR
programs. The Senate would boost funding for the Experimental
Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR)
from $91 million to $110 million, with another $11 million in Integrative
Activities (R&RA) for Innovation Partnerships (funded within EPSCoR in FY 2002). Both programs assist research institutions
and states that have traditionally been underrepresented in federal
R&D funding.
The Senate VA-HUD bill could
see floor debate and approval before the August congressional recess
(begins August 2), but consideration may be delayed until September
because as many as 10 appropriations bills are now ready for Senate
consideration. The House will not draft its version of the bill until
September, at the earliest. The House is unlikely to be as generous
as the Senate toward NSF.
- July 26, 2002
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/rd
(new URL)
