(This
analysis is an update on progress of the FY 2009 budget through Congress, and
also an update of 2008 and 2009 appropriations. This analysis provides details
on the House and Senate versions of the FY 2009 economic stimulus appropriations
bill. This January 28 analysis is updated from the January
16 version, and will be updated again as congressional debate continues.
More tables and continually updated supplemental materials on R&D in the FY
2009 budget can be found on the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
Highlights
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AAAS estimates that the just-released Senate draft of the 2009 economic stimulus
appropriations bill contains $11.9 billion in federal research and development
(R&D) funding, $9.7 billion for the conduct of R&D and $2.2 billion for
R&D facilities and capital equipment (see Table).
The recently approved House version of the bill contains more R&D funding,
$13.2 billion, with slightly less for the conduct of R&D ($9.5 billion) but
more for R&D facilities and equipment ($3.7 billion).
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Basic competitiveness-related research, biomedical research, energy R&D, and
climate change programs would be high priorities for both the House and the Senate
in the economic recovery bills. The National Science Foundation (NSF), the
Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE OS), and the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST), the three agencies highlighted in the America
COMPETES Act of 2007 and President Bush’s American Competitiveness Initiative
(ACI), would do well in the House and Senate bills. Both chambers would give the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) $3.9 billion in stimulus funding, and both
the House and the Senate would provide billions for energy R&D at the Department
of Energy (DOE) and would fund climate change-related projects in the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA).
R&D in the FY 2009 Stimulus Appropriations Bill
On
January 15, the House Appropriations Committee released its version of the long-awaited
and much-negotiated American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009 (HR 1), an
$825 billion economic stimulus package to deal with the current economic crisis,
and the full House approved it on January 28 with minor changes. The $825 billion
House bill contains $275 billion in tax provisions and $550 billion in spending,
of which $358 billion would be for discretionary appropriations. On January 27,
the Senate Appropriations Committee released its own version of an economic stimulus
bill with a higher price tag, including $365 billion in discretionary appropriations;
the full Senate is expected to debate, amend, and vote on its version shortly.
The
AAAS analysis of the House and Senate stimulus bills estimates that the House
bill contains $13.2 billion in federal research and development (R&D) funding
and the Senate version $11.9 billion. The House and the Senate would allocate
similar amounts for the conduct of R&D ($9.5 billion in the House and $9.7
billion in the Senate), but the House bill would provide $3.7 billion for R&D
facilities and large research equipment, far more than the Senate’s $2.2 billion
(see Table). There is also additional money for non-R&D
but science and technology-related programs, higher education construction and
other education spending of interest to academia. (The House totals have been
adjusted slightly since the January 16 version of this
analysis.)
The
three agencies highlighted for their support of economic competitiveness-related
basic research in the America
COMPETES Act of 2007 and President Bush’s American Competitiveness Initiative
(ACI) would receive $5.5 billion in the House bill and half that in the Senate
bill. In the House, the National Science Foundation (NSF) would receive $3.0
billion; the Department of Energy’s Office of Science (DOE OS) would receive $2.0
billion; and Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
would receive $520 million; nearly all of these supplementals are for R&D activities. The House’s $5.5
billion appropriations to these three agencies would finally put all three budgets
on track to double over the next 7 to 10 years as envisioned in the ACI, America
COMPETES, and Obama campaign promises. The Senate bill
would give NSF $1.4 billion, DOE’s Office of Science
$430 million, and NIST $595 million for a total of $2.4 billion, putting NSF and
NIST on a doubling track but not the Office of Science.
The
National Institutes of Health (NIH) would receive $3.9 billion in both the
House and the Senate, divided roughly evenly between research and infrastructure
(construction and maintenance of facilities) in the House and tilted heavily toward
research in the Senate. The stimulus funding would turn around a NIH budget that
has been in decline since 2004. The Department of Energy’s (DOE) energy programs
would also be a winner with $2.0 billion in the House and $2.6 billion in the
Senate for R&D and related activities in renewable energy and energy conservation,
with billions more for DOE in weatherization, loan guarantee, and clean energy
demonstration funds. And the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
would receive $600 million in the House and $1.5 billion in the Senate with an
emphasis on climate change-related satellite missions.
The
stimulus bills are heavily weighted toward infrastructure in an attempt to spend
money as quickly as possible in ‘shovel-ready’ projects, though only the House
bill would provide billions of dollars for universities to construct or renovate
laboratories. A full $3.7 billion of the $13.2 billion in R&D funding in the
House version of the stimulus would go to R&D facilities and capital equipment,
to pay for the repair, maintenance, and construction of scientific laboratories
as well as large research equipment and instrumentation. Considering that R&D
facilities funding totaled $4.5 billion in FY 2008, half of which went to just
one laboratory (the International Space Station), the $3.7 billion supplemental
will be an enormous boost in the federal government’s spending on scientific facilities.
The House would provide $2.3 billion for extramural, competitively selected R&D
facilities projects, nearly entirely at universities, through programs in NIH,
NSF, and NIST that received no federal money in FY 2008. Within the Senate’s less
generous $2.2 billion total for R&D facilities, the Senate would not allocate
any money for university laboratory projects, though NIH and NSF would receive
$500 million combined for large research equipment needs in academia. Instead,
the Senate would join the House in devoting resources to intramural laboratory
repair and renovation at NIH and DOE Science laboratories, and only the Senate
would fund construction needs at NIST and DOE weapons laboratories. And other
agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), NASA, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), and NOAA are set to receive stimulus funding in
both House and Senate plans for construction and maintenance, which while not
technically R&D facilities funding will be used to renovate existing laboratories
or construct new ones.
Both
the House and the Senate are poised to provide a big boost to the fortunes of
federal research in FY 2009 with their billions for the conduct of R&D (basic
and applied research, plus development). Both the House’s $9.5 billion and
the Senate’s $9.7 billion for the conduct of R&D are heavily weighted toward
basic research, with some applied research funding but relatively little development
funding. For a federal research portfolio that has been declining in real terms
since FY 2004, a final stimulus bill could provide an immediate boost and could
allow federal research funding to see a real increase for the first time five
years. Under the current CR and the few completed FY 2009 appropriations,
the federal research portfolio stands at $58.3 billion in FY 2009, up just 0.3
percent and thus short of inflation, but assuming enactment of the stimulus and
final FY 2009 appropriations at CR levels the federal research portfolio could
jump to $63 billion or more in FY 2009, and could go even higher if final FY 2009
appropriations are above CR funding levels, enough for an increase well ahead
of expected inflation.
Both
the House and Senate bills require nearly all of the funding to be awarded within
120 days of when the President signs the bill into law, with staggered deadlines
of 30 days for formula funds, 90 days for competitive grants, and 120 days for
competitive grants in brand-new programs, with the intention of spending the funding
as quickly as possible to provide immediate economic stimulus. Nearly all of the
money is designated as FY 2009 money, with agencies allowed to obligate funds
until the end of FY 2010.
But
in a nod to concerns about possible waste and fraud in the enormous appropriations
bill, there are extensive accountability and transparency mandates, including
separate appropriations for agency inspectors general and the Government Accountability
Office (GAO) to monitor stimulus spending, a set-aside within programs for oversight
spending, and the establishment of a new Recovery Act Accountability and Transparency
Board to monitor and oversee all spending. There will also be a recovery.gov web
site to provide detailed public disclosure of how stimulus funds are allocated
and spent.
In a highly
unusual move, this stimulus appropriations bill, technically an emergency supplemental
appropriations bill, appears before an FY 2009 omnibus appropriations bill to
provide federal agencies with their final, regular FY 2009 budgets. 9 out of the
12 FY 2009 appropriations bills remain unfinished, meaning only the Departments
of Defense (DOD), Homeland Security (DHS), and Veterans Affairs (VA) have their
final FY 2009 budgets. All other federal agencies are temporarily operating at
or below FY 2008 funding levels under a continuing resolution (CR) through March
6 until final FY 2009 appropriations are enacted. Most of the R&D funding
agencies highlighted below, then, could receive supplemental FY 2009 appropriations
even before regular FY 2009 appropriations, and the stimulus spending will be
added on top of the CR spending levels and eventual final FY 2009 regular budgets.
The accompanying
Table lists key R&D and other science and technology-related
items in the House and Senate stimulus appropriations bills. Key R&D funding
agency highlights of the bills include:
National
Science Foundation (NSF) - $3.0 billion in the House, $1.4 billion in the
Senate (see Table. Note: FY 2008 total budget $6.0
billion). The House would provide twice as much for NSF as the Senate. Within
Research and Related Activities (R&RA), NSF’s core research account, $2.0
billion in the House bill would go to research grants distributed through NSF’s
regular peer review process, enough to dramatically raise success rates for grant
competitions from 20 percent or below in recent years. The Senate would provide
$1.0 billion, half the House’s appropriation. The House would provide $300 million
and the Senate $200 million to the Major Research Instrumentation program (FY
08: $94 million) of competitively awarded instrumentation grants for university
researchers, and the House but not the Senate would give $200 million to restart
the Academic Research Infrastructure program, dormant since FY 1996, for competitively
awarded laboratory construction grants, primarily for universities. The $100 million
House education and human resources (EHR) appropriation would provide $60 million
to the Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (FY 08: $11
million) and $40 million to the Math and Science Partnerships program (FY 08:
$49 million), while the Senate’s $50 million EHR appropriation allocates $15 million
to a new Professional Masters Science Program authorized in the America COMPETES
Act. Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) spending of
$400 million in the House and $150 million in the Senate (FY 08: $205 million)
would accelerate the construction of major research facilities with unique capabilities
at the cutting edge of science, selected in a competitive internal process managed
by the National Science Board. Depending on final FY 2009 appropriations, even
the Senate’s lower $1.4 billion appropriation could put NSF well ahead of the
$7.3 billion authorized for FY 2009 in the America COMPETES Act of 2007 and thus
on a track to double over a decade.
National
Institutes of Health (NIH) - $3.9 billion in both the House and the Senate
(FY 08: $29.5 billion). In the House, $1.5 billion would be distributed proportionally
among the NIH’s institutes and centers (ICs) through
the Office of the Director (OD) to fund intramural and extramural research, divided
equally between FY 2009 and FY 2010 funding of $750 million each year to enable
NIH to award grants in FY 2009 and fund the second year of these grants in FY
2010. With NIH success rates running below 20 percent for grant competitions,
the hope is for NIH to distribute these funds through regular, already scheduled
grant review cycles without sacrificing quality. The Senate would up the ante with $2.7 billion
for research, all in FY 2009 but meant to be spent over two years, of which half
($1.35 billion) would be divided proportionally among the ICs and half ($1.35
billion) retained in the Office of the Director. Both the House and the Senate
would give NIH $500 million for intramural construction in the Buildings and Facilities
account. A key difference in the bills is that the House would provide $1.5 billion
for competitively awarded extramural grants through a dormant National
Center for Research Resources (NCRR)
program that last received $30 million in FY 2005, exclusively for the repair
and modernization of existing academic research facilities. But the Senate would
give NCRR just $300 million and would limit awards to instrumentation and other
capital equipment for research. And both the House and Senate provide $400 million
to be transferred from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) for
'health care comparative effectiveness research.'
Department
of Energy (DOE) Office of Science – There would be $2.0 billion in the House
and a far smaller $430 million in the Senate (FY 08: $4.0 billion) for a mix of
extramural basic research, DOE laboratory research, facilities upgrades and construction,
and advanced scientific computing. Of the total, $400 million in the House appropriation
would be carved out to start up the ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Energy), authorized in the America COMPETES Act of 2007 but never appropriated
until now. The Senate bill contains no money for ARPA-E, and its $430 million
would be heavily weighted toward laboratory facilities, with $100 million in research
funds for advanced scientific computing. The House stimulus appropriation combined
with the regular appropriation could leave DOE OS with a FY 2009 budget of $6.0
billion or higher, well above the $5.3 billion authorized for FY 2009 in the America
COMPETES Act of 2007 and thus on a track to double over a decade, but the Senate
supplemental could leave DOE Science short of the doubling goal.
NIST
- $520 million in the House, $595 million in the Senate (FY 08: $737 million).
In the House bill, there would be $100 million for NIST laboratory research (FY
08: $441 million), $70 million for the Technology Innovation Program (formerly
the ATP), $30 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, and $300 million
for a competitively awarded extramural construction grants program that was congressionally
initiated a few years ago but only received $30 million for one year and was able
to make only three awards out of 90 applications. The Senate would allocate more
money than the House but would spend it differently, including $218 million for
NIST laboratory research, nothing for the two extramural programs, and $357 million
for intramural rather than extramural construction and renovation of NIST facilities.
The proposed stimulus appropriations combined with a regular appropriation could
leave NIST with a FY 2009 budget of $1.3 billion or higher, well above the $882
million authorized for FY 2009 in the America COMPETES Act of 2007 and thus on
a track to double over a decade.
Department
of Energy (DOE) energy programs – The House would provide $2.0 billion for
energy efficiency and renewable research, development, demonstration, and deployment
projects, of which $800 million is set aside for biomass (FY 08: $198 million)
and $400 million for geothermal energy (FY 08: $20 million). The Senate would
allocate even more, $2.6 billion, without specifying which energy technologies
might benefit.
NASA
- $600 million in the House, $1.5 billion in the Senate (FY 08: $17.1 billion).
In the House bill, there would be $400 million for the Science portfolio of earth
science, planetary science, heliophysics, and astrophysics,
of which $250 million would be dedicated solely to accelerate the development
and launch of key earth science climate research missions highlighted in a 2007
National Academies Decadal Study as being critical to future U.S. climate research
and requiring extra funds to stay on track. The Senate’s $500 million Science
appropriation appears to be entirely for the earth science missions. Both the
House ($150 million) and the Senate ($250 million) would provide stimulus funding
for aeronautics research, and funding ($50 million in the House, $250 million
in the Senate) to reimburse NASA for construction and repair costs associated
with 2008 natural disasters. The Senate, unlike the House, would provide $500
million in development funding to Constellation Systems to narrow the looming
gap in U.S. human
space flight capabilities between the 2010 retirement of the Space Shuttle and
the 2015 launch of its replacement.
Department
of Defense (DOD) – There would be $350 million in the House and $200 million
in the Senate for energy-related R&D at DOD, which already has its final FY
2009 budget.
HHS
BARDA – There would be $430 million only in the House bill for advanced biodefense
countermeasures R&D (FY 08: $102 million) in the new Biomedical Advanced Research
and Development Authority (BARDA) for federal government efforts to research,
develop, and test potential countermeasures for the Strategic National Stockpile.
Other
R&D funding agencies receiving funding in the stimulus bills include: the
U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS), $209
million for deferred maintenance work at USDA laboratories only in the House bill;
USDA’s Agricultural Food and Research Initiative (AFRI) of competitively awarded
research grants, $100 million only in the Senate; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) in Commerce, $1.0 billion in the House and $1.2 billion
in the Senate for (non-R&D) habitat and fisheries restoration projects and
(non-R&D) acquisition and development of NOAA satellites and sensors, although
some of these satellites will eventually be used for climate research and climate
modeling; the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Interior, $200 million in the House
and $135 million in the Senate for repair and restoration of science facilities
and laboratory equipment for USGS’ nationwide network of federal laboratories;
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in HHS, $462 million in the
House and $412 million in the Senate to modernize aging laboratory facilities
at CDC headquarters in Atlanta; the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
(AHRQ), $1.1 billion in both the House and Senate for health care comparative
effectiveness research divided between a $400 million transfer to NIH (already
included in NIH totals above), a $400 million transfer to the Office of the HHS
Secretary, and $300 million for AHRQ; and the Office of the HHS Secretary, $420
million in the House and $870 million in the Senate in mostly non-R&D funding
to respond to possible pandemic flu.
Next Steps and Possible Impacts
With
House action on its version complete, it is now the Senate’s turn to act on its
version. Senators are expected to offer many amendments during Senate debate,
including some amendments to increase funding for R&D funding agencies such
as NIH. Final passage in the Senate is uncertain, but if the Senate approves its
version within the next week then congressional leaders hope to have a compromise
final version of the stimulus bill to the President’s desk by mid-February.
For
the science and engineering community, the two versions of the stimulus bill are
a welcome acknowledgement that scientific research, often regarded as long-term
and future-oriented, has a role to play in short-term economic recovery as well.
Although the bills are tilted toward construction projects and other short-term
spending ideas, there is still ample support for research grants and other R&D
funding mechanisms that tend to spend more slowly and whose impacts may not be
evident for years to come. And for a community still waiting for a resolution
of FY 2009 appropriations for most R&D funding agencies, stimulus appropriations
will provide a welcome infusion of new funds. But there is still a long road ahead
toward getting a stimulus appropriations bill signed into law, with many possible
changes. And the true FY 2009 budget situation will only be apparent after regular
FY 2009 appropriations are also decided.
(More materials on R&D in the FY 2009 budget,
historical data and charts, and more information on AAAS Report XXXIII: Research and Development FY
2009, can be found on the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
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January 16, 2009 (Updated January 28)
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
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Washington, DC 20005
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AAAS R&D
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