Highlights
- In sharp contrast to a
House proposal to cut the National Science Foundation (NSF) budget next
year, the Senate Appropriations Committee would match the request for
an NSF budget of $5.7 billion in FY 2005, 3.0 percent more than the
current year (see Table). In contrast to
the House proposal to cut most research directorate budgets, the Senate
would allow for modest increases in the research directorates.
- The Senate
allocation of $5.7 billion would still be far short of the $7.4 billion
FY 2005 authorization signed into law 19 months ago as part of a plan
to double the NSF budget in the five years to FY 2007.
- NSF’s R&D funding would total $4.2 billion in FY 2005 in the Senate
plan, a 2.9 percent increase (see Table).
Within the same overall budget, the Senate R&D allocation would
be lower than the request because the Senate would shift R&D facilities
funding to non-R&D education and human resources programs.
- Major Research
Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) would fall $25 million
down to $130 million, far less than the $213 million request.
- Both the House and now the Senate would move funding for the Math
and Science Partnerships back to its traditional home in Education
and Human Resources (E.H.R) instead of the NSF proposal to move it to
the Research and Related Activities (R&RA) account. But total funding
would fall from $140 million this year down to $82.5 million in the
House and $110 million in the Senate.
NSF R&D in FY 2005 Senate Appropriations
On September
21, the Senate Appropriations Committee drafted its version of an FY
2005 VA/HUD appropriations bill (S 2825) that would match the budget
request for the National Science Foundation (NSF) in FY 2005. The Senate
would give NSF a total budget of $5.7 billion, $167 million or 3.0 percent
more than FY 2004. This proposal stands in sharp contrast to the House’s
proposal from July, which would cut the NSF budget by $111 million or
2.0 percent. An NSF authorization bill calling for a doubling of the
NSF budget between FY 2002 and FY 2007 was signed into law in December
2003, but both the House and Senate FY 2005 appropriations would fall
well short of the $7.4 billion authorized funding level for FY 2005.
(For details of R&D in the FY 2005 request, please see Chapter
7 of AAAS Report XXIX: R&D FY 2005 or the
February 26 AAAS R&D Funding Update. For
details of R&D in the House appropriation, see the July
26 AAAS R&D Funding Update.)
The Senate
FY 2005 VA-HUD bill would provide $93 billion for discretionary programs,
almost $1 billion more than the President’s request and $2 billion more
than this year’s funding level. 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. Although the Senate total appears
to be the same as the House, the Senate is able to provide more funds
for R&D in NSF, NASA, and EPA than the House because the Senate
bill contains an additional $2 billion in emergency spending for NASA
and veterans programs, freeing up resources for other programs. The
House was forced to cut NSF funding in its VA-HUD bill because both
the House and Senate are working with a total of $822 billion for all
discretionary programs in FY 2005 that is $1 billion lower than the
President’s request, but the House did not resort to designating funds
as emergency (and thus outside the budget totals).
An NSF authorization
bill calling for a doubling of the NSF budget between FY 2002 and FY
2007 was signed into law in December 2002, but this year’s NSF budget
falls $1 billion short of the authorized $6.6 billion funding level
for FY 2004. The gap widens in the FY 2005 request and Senate appropriation to $1.6
billion, the distance between the $5.7 billion request and the $7.4
billion authorized level.
NSF’s R&D funding, which excludes overhead costs and NSF’s education
programs, would total $4.2 billion in FY 2005 in the Senate plan, an
increase of 2.9 percent (see Table).
Within the same overall $5.7 billion budget, the Senate R&D allocation
would be $30 million lower than the request because the Senate would
shift R&D facilities funding to non-R&D education and human
resources programs.
The Senate would
allow for modest increases in the Research
and Related Activities (R&RA) account, which funds most of NSF’s
R&D. R&RA funding would rise $151 million
or 3.6 percent to $4.4 billion, slightly more than the request. The
budgets of the research directorates would increase between 1.9 and
4.2 percent, except for Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) Sciences
with a 10.3 percent increase and Integrative Activities (IA), which
would increase 14.5 percent (see Table).
The House plan would cut funding for the R&RA directorates.
Both the House and Senate would reject the Administration proposal to transfer
the Math and Science Partnerships
(MSP) from Education and Human Resources (E.H.R) to IA. The House
would keep the Partnerships in E.H.R. at a level of $82.5 million, down
substantially from $139 million this year but $2.5 million more than
the request, while the Senate would also keep MSP in E.H.R. at $110
million. The MSP program, run jointly by NSF and the Department of Education,
encourages academic institutions and schools to work together to improve
math and science education. The House and Senate would agree, however,
with the Bush Administration’s desire to shift the emphasis of the program
toward ED, even as it keeps the NSF share in E.H.R. The FY 2005 budget
requested $269 million for the $150 million fthe Department
of Education’s (ED) share of the program, up dramatically from $149
million this year; the House would go along with the ED request while
the Senate would give $200 million. Combined, the MSP programs would
receive $351.5 million in FY 2005 from the House and $310 million from
the Senate, up from $288 million this year.
NSF’s Education and Human Resources (EHR) programs would receive $929 million
in the Senate VA-HUD bill, more than the request but still slightly
less than this year. Most of the decline is due to the shift in Math and Science Partnerships (MSP) funding
to the Department of Education. The FY 2005 Senate appropriation contains
$95 million for the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research
(EPSCoR), $1 million more than the House and this year’s level.
EPSCOR assists research institutions and states that have traditionally
been underrepresented in federal R&D funding to build research capacity.
The program is currently open to 24 states, Puerto Rico,
and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Unlike the House, the Senate would cut NSF’s support of R&D facilities.
While R&D facilities would be the one bright spot in the House plan,
in the Senate there would be only $130 million for the Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction
(MREFC) account, down from $155 million this year and $208 million in
the House plan. The House would agree to two of the three proposed starts
(the Scientific Ocean Drilling Vessel and Rare Symmetry Violating Processes
(RSVP)), with the other proposed start (the
National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON)) a casualty of tight
budget constraints. But the Senate would fund none of the three proposed
starts.
Outlook and Historical Trends
NSF has enjoyed mostly steady budget growth over
the past 15 years, as shown in Figure 1. After declines in the mid-1990s
in the push toward a balanced budget, growth resumed after FY 1998 and
momentum began to build to double the NSF budget over five years, culminating
in the NSF authorization bill of December 2002. But NSF budget growth
slowed down to just ahead of the inflation rate in FY 2004, and would
slow down further in the FY 2005 request and Senate plan, and would
reverse in the House plan. As noted earlier, these smaller increases
put the NSF budget further and further behind the authorized doubling
path and have created downward pressures on NSF grant sizes and success
rates. While there is strong political pressure for Congress to approve
a budget more consistent with the authorized funding track, lawmakers
have been stymied by tight restraints on overall domestic discretionary
spending.
Figure 1. (click
on the image to view or download a color, full-size PDF version of the
chart)
Next Steps
The House VA-HUD
bill’s proposed cuts to NSF, NASA, and EPA look so steep, especially
in an election year, that the bill has not reached the House floor and
may never see a vote as a stand-alone bill. The Senate VA-HUD bill,
cushioned by $2 billion in emergency funds, may be approved by the full
Senate by the end of the month. But without a House-approved counterpart,
the bill is almost certain to be included in a year-end omnibus appropriations
bill that will be delayed until well after the October 1 start of FY
2005.
(This analysis is one of a series
of AAAS R&D Funding Updates on the FY 2005 congressional appropriations
process. The complete series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including
continually updated analyses of R&D by agency in FY 2005 appropriations,
is available on the AAAS R&D Web Site
(http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd) in the “FY 2005
R&D” or the “What’s New” sections.)
- September 22, 2004
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607; -6600
www.aaas.org/spp/rd
