(This analysis is a progress
report on FY 2006 House and Senate appropriations so far in the budget
process. The complete series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including
continually updated analyses of R&D by agency in FY 2006 appropriations,
is available on the AAAS R&D
Web Site (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd) in the “FY
2006 R&D” or the “What’s New” sections.)
The funding outlook for the
federal research and development (R&D) portfolio looks just a little
brighter going into the August congressional recess than it did a month
ago, and brighter still than when the fiscal year (FY) 2006 budget request
was released in February. Because of Senate-proposed increases for biomedical
R&D at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and congressional
agreement on modest increases for environmental research in July, the
federal R&D investment appears headed toward modest increases next
year despite tough budget conditions. But the House and the Senate remain
far apart on funding levels for key R&D programs with little chance
of resolving their differences before the October 1 start of FY 2006.
Because the Senate has diverted billions of dollars from defense programs
and found additional billions through accounting tricks, the Senate
has so far allocated more for R&D programs than the House, even
though both chambers are supposedly working under the same budget targets.
Although funding for federal research would fall behind inflation in
the House proposals, the Senate proposals would allow for significant
increases in research spending. The Senate gains could be ephemeral,
however, since the House is unlikely to accept the extra Senate dollars
in final budget negotiations this fall.
As of the August
recess, the Senate has drafted appropriations for all R&D funding
agencies except the Department of Defense (DOD), while the House has
approved all of its appropriations. The House and the Senate have reached
final agreements on the budgets for the Department of the Interior and
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Based on action so far, the
Senate would increase the nondefense R&D investment by $2.2 billion or 3.9 percent
over this year (see Table 1). The Senate
would provide $1.7 billion more for nondefense R&D than the House would, and $1.8 billion
more than the President’s request from February. The major differences
between the House and the Senate are the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) and the Department of Commerce: the Senate would give NIH nearly
$900 million more for its FY 2006 budget than the House or the Bush
Administration for a 3.7 percent increase compared to this year as opposed
to a 0.5 percent increase (House and Administration), and the contrast
for Commerce R&D could not be sharper than a 21 percent increase
in the Senate plan against a 21 percent CUT in the House for a nearly
$500 million difference (see Figure 1). The Senate would provide more
for R&D than the House in many other agencies, also. Looking only
at the federal research portfolio (excluding development and R&D
facilities), the Senate is on track to provide nearly $1.3 billion more
than the House for basic and applied research, again primarily because
of NIH and Commerce, but both chambers would go well above the request
for research.
Most R&D funding agencies are in line
to receive flat funding or modest increases falling short of inflation
in their R&D portfolios, in contrast to cuts or flat funding in
the request (see Tables
1 and 3, and
Figure 1). In their final budgets, the Department of the Interior and
EPA receive modest increases short of the 2.0 percent inflation rate
for their environmental R&D portfolios, in contrast to the requested
cuts proposed by the Administration. The Department of Energy’s (DOE)
Office of Science (OS), a key supporter of the physical sciences, would
receive an increase slightly more than 1 percent in separate House and
Senate plans instead of a requested cut. The National Science Foundation
(NSF) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are in line for increases
of about 2 percent, in the DHS case a sharp fall-off from double-digit
percentage gains in the last few years. And NIH is likely to end up
closer to the House’s 0.5 percent increase than the Senate’s 3.7 percent
boost, the first time in more than two decades that the NIH budget would
fail to keep pace with inflation.
The winner so far in appropriations is R&D
in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), but troubles
with the recent Space Shuttle launch threaten to erase increases for
R&D programs once again. Both the House and the Senate drafted increases
greater than 7 percent for NASA R&D before the Shuttle’s July 26
return to flight, but NASA’s scrubbing of future launches until safety
problems discovered during the launch can be resolved threaten to once
again divert R&D money to the non-R&D Space Shuttle program
next year, just as in previous years.
Figure 1. (click
on the image for PDF version)
Highlights of FY 2006 R&D in House and Senate Appropriations
Congress is working through the FY 2006 appropriations
process to determine program-by-program funding allocations for R&D
programs for the fiscal year beginning October 1. Congress is responding
to the President’s proposed budget, released in February, which would
make significant cuts in many areas of the federal R&D portfolio.
The House of Representatives approved all (11) of its appropriations
bills before the 4th of July recess for the first time since 1988, but
the Senate has proceeded more slowly, approving only 5 bills (out of
12) by the August recess and drafting 11 out of 12 but leaving the largest
one (Defense) for September. Before the August recess, Congress sent
two bills to the President for his signature, including the bill funding
Interior and EPA. The federal R&D portfolio is divided among 10
bills in both the House and the Senate. This analysis focuses mostly
on Senate action. Tables 1 and 2
provide details of Senate FY 2006 R&D appropriations, while Tables
3 and 4
provide details of House action so far. Details of House appropriations
can be found in last month’s July Status Report
on the AAAS R&D web site.
- The Senate would provide $58.7 billion for the nondefense
R&D portfolio next year, an increase of $2.2 billion or 3.9 percent
over this year and a $1.8 billion boost over the request (see Table 1; the Senate has not finished the
defense R&D portfolio). The Senate’s appropriation would be $1.7
billion more than the comparable House appropriation of $57.0 billion
(see Table 3),
leaving big differences to resolve this fall. NIH and Commerce account
for most of the difference: the Senate would use accounting tricks to
boost the NIH budget to $29.6 billion for a 3.7 percent gain, roughly
$900 million more than the House and the request, while the Senate Commerce
R&D appropriation of $1.4 billion (up 20.5 percent) would be nearly
$500 million more than the House’s 20.6 percent cut. Within the total,
the Senate’s federal research portfolio (basic and applied) would be
$51.1 billion, 4.2 percent or $2.1 billion more than this year and $1.5
billion more than the comparable request, with the majority of the boost
due to Senate generosity toward NIH and Commerce.
- So far, congressional appropriators have added
funds to turn requested cuts into modest increases for key R&D programs.
Both the House and the Senate would add roughly $200 million to the
request for DOE’s Office of Science to turn
a proposed cut into a slight increase over this year, with an emphasis
on sustaining operating times at DOE scientific user facilities and
protecting domestic fusion research. The final budgets for the U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS) in Interior and EPA show modest increases for
their R&D funding (2.5 percent for USGS, 1.2 percent for EPA) in
contrast to requested cuts. And the House would add $2.6 billion to
the request for DOD’s S&T (research and technology development)
programs to bring funding back near current levels at $13.5 billion
instead of a proposed 22 percent cut. The Senate is likely to do the
same in September.
- But in the
extremely tight domestic budget approved by Congress this spring, in
which overall domestic spending would remain flat in 2006, congressional
appropriators so far have trimmed some requested increases in order
to fund other priorities. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
would see its R&D portfolio increase modestly by 1.9 percent in
the Senate and 1.3 percent in the House to $1.3 billion, slightly off
a 3.6 percent requested increase and well below the 21 percent increase
DHS received in 2005. The National Science Foundation (NSF) R&D
portfolio would gain 1.6 percent in the Senate and 2.6 percent in the
House to bring most research directorates just to last year’s funding
level after cuts this year. Congress would trim the 2.8 percent requested
increase to shore up funding for NSF’s education and human resources
programs.
- Other
R&D funding agencies would see little to no change in funding because
of the tight fiscal environment. The House would provide the $28.7
billion request for the NIH, but the 0.5 percent increase for next year
would be the first time in 24 years that the NIH budget would fail to
keep pace with inflation for the economy as a whole (see Table
3). While the Senate’s $1 billion increase would be far more generous,
it relies on accounting tricks that the House is unlikely to accept.
- The clear
winner in the nondefense R&D portfolio would be NASA, but problems with
the July Space Shuttle launch threaten to erase these gains (see Figure
1). Both the House and the Senate would endorse the Administration’s
vision of space exploration for NASA, boosting total NASA R&D by
7.8 percent in the House and 7.1 percent in the Senate to $11.5 billion
so that the agency can focus on resuming construction of the Space Station
and embarking on the R&D efforts necessary for planned moon-and-Mars
missions. But safety problems discovered after the launch prompted NASA
to postpone future flights and to invest in further safety investments,
which will require continuing diversions from R&D accounts to the
Space Shuttle in FY 2006.
FY 2006 Appropriations in Historical Context
Despite some potential gains in July because of generous Senate
appropriations, the latest congressional budget plans would still leave most nondefense R&D programs with flat or declining budgets
for more than a decade, and next year even biomedical and homeland security
research could decline from historical highs. Defense R&D would continue to
set new records, but defense funding of basic and applied research would fall
behind.
In nondefense R&D,
the House appropriations’ 0.9 percent increase would fall behind the
2.0 percent expected rate of inflation but the Senate would boost the
investment by 3.9 percent. As Figure 2 incorporating the Senate FY 2006
number shows, nondefense R&D
investments peaked in FY 2004, primarily because of the completed campaign
to double the NIH budget between 1998 and 2003 and also because
of the creation of DHS to fund new homeland security research. All the
other nondefense R&D funding agencies
collectively have seen their budgets barely increase over the past decade.
Increases in the years to 2003 in nondefense
R&D served only to recover the lost ground of the mid-1990s when
discretionary spending declined in the push to balance the federal budget,
but since 2003 these investments have lost ground to inflation and would
continue to do so in FY 2006 House appropriations. These non-NIH agencies,
combined with DOD’s research investments, fund nearly all of the federal
investment in the non-biomedical sciences, including the physical sciences,
non-medical life sciences, environmental sciences, engineering, mathematics,
computer sciences, and social sciences. The FY 2006 Senate appropriations
would keep non-NIH R&D ahead of inflation, but these gains are threatened
by NASA’s shuttle troubles and the strong probability that the House
will not go along with the Senate’s big boosts to Commerce R&D.
For biomedical research, NIH R&D would decline after hitting new
highs in the immediate post-doubling period if the House appropriation
prevails. The slight rise in Figure 2 shows the Senate’s $1 billion
NIH increase, which is unlikely to be sustained in conference.
Figure 2. (click
on the image for PDF version)
The combination of modestly
increasing funding for nondefense R&D agencies
and likely cuts in DOD research would leave the federal basic and applied
research investment with a slight increase in the Senate plans. As shown in
Figure 3, the federal research investment peaked in FY 2004, primarily because
of the NIH doubling campaign but also because of budget increases for NSF and
other nondefense agencies in a time of budget
surpluses. But with record-breaking budget deficits and consequent restrictions
on domestic spending, federal research investments fall in FY 2005. Although
these research investments would recover in FY 2006 in the Senate plan because
of large NIH, NASA, and Commerce increases, all of these boosts are threatened
in this fall’s negotiations. If the final FY 2006 appropriations bills trim or
eliminate proposed Senate increases for these agencies, then the federal
research investment would continue to fall across all disciplinary groups in FY
2006.
Figure 3.
(click on the image for PDF version)
Agency Highlights in FY 2006 House and Senate R&D Appropriations So
Far
(For details on individual
agency appropriations, please see the agency R&D Funding Updates
on the AAAS R&D Web site.
The on-line version of this document contains links.)
- The House has approved
an FY 2006 budget for the National Institutes
of Health (NIH) that would essentially agree to NIH’s
request for $28.7 billion next year, an increase of $143 million or
0.5 percent. NIH R&D would rise 0.5 percent to $27.9 billion, failing
to keep pace with general inflation for the first time in 24 years (see
Table 3). The Senate would add $1 billion to the NIH budget for a total
of $29.6 billion, a boost of 3.7 percent, but the increase depends on
shifting a program payday from FY 2006 to FY 2007 and other accounting
tricks that the House is unlikely to accept. Most NIH institutes would
receive increases between 2.8 and 3.8 percent in the Senate plan.
- Only the House
has acted on the Department of Defense (DOD) budget; the Senate has
postponed its action until September. The
House would provide $73.6 billion for R&D in the Department
of Defense (DOD), $2.1
billion more than the current year for a 2.9 percent increase in contrast
to a requested cut (see Table 3). The
House would add $2.8 billion to the request for DOD “Science and Technology”
(S&T) programs for a total of $13.5 billion (see Table
3). Basic research (“6.1”) would fall 4.0 percent to $1.5 billion,
an improvement over the Pentagon’s 13 percent proposed cut. Applied
research (“6.2”) would gain 4.2 percent to $5.1 billion, again despite
steep cuts in the Pentagon request.
- The National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA), with the Space Shuttle returned
to flight, was expecting to shift its focus to its many R&D challenges
next year. But safety problems that became apparent after the July 26
launch of the Shuttle will rearrange the agency’s plans. In the latest
Senate plan, drafted before the launch, the total NASA budget of $16.4
billion would be a $200 million or 1.2 percent increase, but NASA’s
R&D funding would climb 7.1 percent in FY 2006 and an even larger
7.8 percent in the House as an expected decline in Shuttle costs frees
up money for NASA’s R&D programs (see Tables 1 and 3). But the need
to keep spending money on Shuttle safety into next year will most likely
result in a repeat of this year’s budget, when NASA transferred money
from R&D accounts to the Space Shuttle and even imposed mid-year
cuts. The large House and Senate increases would only restore NASA R&D
to last year’s level, but now those increases are threatened. Under
the Senate and House plans before the launch, the agency would receive
additional resources for its ambitious plans to finish construction
of the International Space Station and develop the technologies needed
for future moon and Mars missions, but there would also be steep cuts
in NASA’s aeronautics research portfolio, the earth sciences portfolio,
and biological and physical research. Those cuts could become even steeper
in the final NASA appropriation.
- The Senate
would provide $8.9 billion for R&D in the Department
of Energy (DOE) next year, a 3.1 percent
boost over FY 2005 in contrast to a requested cut of nearly 2.6 percent
(see Table 1). Both the House and the Senate
would add roughly $200 million to the request for DOE’s
Office of Science (OS) for a gain of 1.3 percent in the Senate and 1.5
percent in the House to $3.4 billion, both dramatic improvements over
a requested cut of 4.5 percent. Energy-related R&D would rise dramatically
in both the House and Senate appropriations to support Administration
priorities in hydrogen, coal, and nuclear energy R&D strongly while
at the same time sustaining DOE investments in other energy R&D
areas. In defense, there are
sharp differences between House and Senate plans: the Senate would moderate
steep requested cuts while the House would leave them in place, the
Senate would eliminate funding entirely for the National Ignition Facility
unlike the House, and the Senate would fund the controversial Robust
Nuclear Earth Penetrator program in 2006 but the House would eliminate it.
Congress also approved an energy authorization bill in July that establishes
future priorities for DOE energy and science R&D: the bill envisions
dramatic increases FY 2007 through FY 2009, but appropriations are unlikely
to meet these targets. The energy bill also creates a new R&D program
beginning in 2007 in oil and gas R&D out of mandatory funds. (See
the AAAS R&D Funding Update on the energy
bill for more details.)
- The National
Science Foundation (NSF) budget, after declining in 2005, would
barely increase by 1.1 percent to $5.5 billion next year in the latest
Senate plan, falling short of the $5.6 billion in the House and Administration
proposals and even falling short of the $5.6 billion NSF had last year.
NSF’s total R&D funding would increase just 1.6 percent to $4.1
billion (see Table 1), falling short of the
2.0 percent expected inflation rate, while the House would go just above
it with a 2.6 percent boost (see Table 3).
Most NSF research directorates would receive increases between 1 and
3 percent in 2006, which would barely bring their budgets back to last
year’s levels. Most of NSF’s education and training programs, however,
would suffer steep cuts for the second year in a row under the House,
Senate, and Administration plans.
- The Senate and the House
would both slow recent growth in Department
of Homeland Security (DHS) R&D funding. The Senate would
provide $1.3 billion for DHS R&D in FY 2006, a small increase of
$23 million or 1.9 percent (see Table 1),
after increases of more than $200 million in each of the past three
years, while the House would provide an even smaller 1.3 percent boost
(see Table 3). Congress would provide large boosts for DHS’
top R&D priorities, but would slash funding in other areas. The
biggest gains would go to radiological and nuclear countermeasures and
the chemical countermeasures portfolios.
- The House
and the Senate could not disagree more strongly on R&D funding in
the Department of Commerce. In a sharp
reversal from a 20.6 percent cut in the House appropriation (see Table
3 ) and a similar one in the request, the Senate would dramatically
increase Commerce R&D by 20.5 percent to $1.4 billion in FY 2006
(see Table 1). The Senate would keep the
Advanced Technology Program (ATP) funded at this year’s budget of $140
million next year, in sharp contrast to House and Administration plans
to eliminate it. The House would slash National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) R&D by 23 percent,
while the Senate would boost it by 6.5 percent to $693 million (see
Table 1). The House and the Senate would
agree, however, to sustain the non-R&D Hollings Manufacturing Extension
Partnership (MEP) program at $106 million, in contrast to a requested
cut of almost two-thirds.
- The U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA), enjoying a record R&D
portfolio this year, would see its R&D funding fall by 1.3 percent
in the latest Senate budget plan and 7.4 percent in the House plan (see
Tables 1 and 3).
Both proposals would be far higher than Administration proposals for
cuts of 14.6 percent. Both the House and the Senate would add to the
request to restore earmarked intramural research, construction, and
extramural research projects that the request proposed to delete. Both
the House and the Senate would reject USDA’s proposals to slash formula
funds in its extramural research portfolio, and both would keep Hatch
Act formula funding for land-grant colleges at $179 million. Both chambers
would boost competitive grants in the National Research Initiative.
- Congress finished the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) budget before the August recess. EPA’s
R&D budget increases slightly by 1.2 percent to $579 million in
FY 2006 (see Table 1). Because of a reduction
in congressional earmarks, most EPA R&D programs are set to receive
increases.
- Congress
has come to an unusually early agreement on a final budget for the Department
of the Interior. Interior R&D totals $620 million in FY 2006, a
slight gain of 0.8 percent. Congress reverses proposed cuts to R&D
in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and
instead agreed on a 2.5 percent increase to $555 million (see Table
1), primarily by restoring funds for minerals research.
- Both the House and the Senate once again reject the Department
of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) proposal to reorganize its budget to
fully report all costs associated with its R&D portfolio, including
support and personnel costs. VA federal R&D would total $805 million
in the Senate plan, up 2.7 percent from this year and a similar boost
over the House and requested appropriations.
- Department of Transportation
(DOT) R&D funding would
total $742 million in the latest Senate plan, a slight cut of 0.3 percent
(see Table 1) compared to a steeper cut in
the House.
Budget Outlook and Next Steps
Because Congress is working from its FY 2006 budget resolution essentially
agreeing to the President’s requested total for discretionary spending
of $843 billion next year, there is little room for Congress to change
the request substantially, although appropriators have become very creative
in finding accounting tricks. The little flexibility Congress has shown
so far is primarily due to the shift of some defense spending to domestic
spending, offset by the shift of billions in defense spending through
budgetary tricks from the regular DOD budget to emergency funding. The
traditionally more fiscally conservative House has resisted these tricks
more than the Senate, and thus final negotiations over budgets could
end up closer to House levels if the House, as expected, insists on
minimizing funding shifts and accounting tricks. Thus, although the
funding outlook in August looks better than it did in July because of
Senate actions, the final federal R&D portfolio for FY 2006 looks
like another year of flat or at-best modestly increasing funding and
a continuation of the downward trends of the last few years after adjusting
for inflation except for defense R&D, where House actions preview
another substantial increase in weapons development.
When Congress returns to session on September 6, appropriators will have
less than four weeks before the October 1 start of FY 2006 to complete the
appropriations bills. The unprecedented task of reconciling 11 House
bills with 12 Senate bills, some of them completely different in jurisdiction,
means that budgets will not be finalized until well after the October 1 start
of the fiscal year in a year-end omnibus appropriations bill rolling together
several bills into one package. Last year, the FY 2005 omnibus bill wasn’t
signed into law until December 8; similar delays are likely this fall.
- August 4, 2005
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
Go to Tables
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