On September 15th, the Senate approved the FY 2006 Commerce, Science, Justice appropriations bill (its version of the House’s Science, State, Justice, Commerce bill, which the House approved back in June), approving funding for a number of science agencies for the coming year. As we noted back in June, the Senate indicated it was going to be less generous than the House for some key science agencies, and that indication held true. With the Senate’s action, we now have a substantial piece of the puzzle that is the annual appropriations process for science, so it seems like an appropriate time to summarize where we stand. After the agency-by-agency summaries, see the “outlook” section for the reasons why things will probably get even worse.

Latest Agency Funding Levels
NSF:

While the Senate increase of 1.1 percent for FY 2006 would be well below the expected rate of inflation over the next year (meaning its increase is actually a small cut in real-dollar terms), even the slightly-more-reasonable increase approved by the House would still be a decline in real dollars of $114 million over the FY 2004 level, marking the second straight year of real-dollar budget cuts to the only federal agency focused exclusively on basic research.

NIST:

These numbers are subject to significant change during conference, as conferees will have to reconcile the $140 million discrepancy between the House and Senate numbers for NIST’s controversial Advanced Technology Program. Unfortunately, either NIST Labs or construction of research facilities will likely bear the brunt of the reconciliation.

Energy:

NASA:

It’s not clear yet how how supercomputing at NASA Ames would be further affected by these numbers….

NOAA:

The House and Senate funding levels are so far apart for NOAA it’s hard to imagine where the final number will be after the conference, or what other agency funding will look like as a result. It’s possible that the Senate could back off the NOAA number and use the difference to increase funding for NSF (the Senate did include some glowing praise for NSF in its report, just no significant funding), but it’s unclear anyone knows what the final outcome will be.

Outlook

In theory, with the Senate’s consideration of the Commerce, Science, Justice bill we should have a more complete view of how federal science agencies should fare in the FY 06 appropriations process. But in reality, even with the Senate and House numbers, there are other factors at play that make predicting a “final” number impossible at this point.

The most significant “X” factor is the impact of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina — ultimately expected to exceed over $200 billion in emergency spending. As that number grows, so does the chorus of voices calling for other cuts in federal spending to mitigate the blow to the budget (including efforts in the blogosphere gaining some attention). The House Republican Study Committee — which numbers about 100 GOP congressmen — has already announced “Operation Offset,” a list of budget cuts (pdf) that could be used to help offset the predicted spending. Included in the recommendations are cuts to the NSF Math and Science Program (saving $188 million this year), canceling NASA’s Moon/Mars Initiative (saving $1.5 billion), and eliminating ATP and MEP  ($140 million and $110 million respectively). 

While it’s not likely that budget cuts will happen line-by-line as the RSC suggests, it’s possible that the leadership could adopt an across-the-board recision to all federal agencies as they did last year — which cost NSF (and every other Science agency, save NASA’s shuttle and moon/mars program) 2% of their FY 05 appropriation. Another slightly less likely possibility is that the appropriators decide to punt on FY 06 funding and pass a Continuing Resolution that lasts the duration of the fiscal year, freezing funding across the board.

With ten appropriations bills still unfinished and the start of the 2006 fiscal year only 5 days away, Congress will have to pass a Continuing Resolution to keep the federal government operating after October 1st. The first CR will hit the House floor on Wednesday and will likely keep things running through early November, absent the resolution of all outstanding appropriations bills. Funding in the CR will be set at either the lower of the Senate or House approved levels, or at the current level, with no new starts (or programs cancelled). There is some interest within the congressional leadership for sidestepping some of the concerns about Katrina offsets and the effect on the budget reconciliation process by passing a CR that would be in effect for all of FY 06.

Any of the scenarios above puts science funding in jeopardy for FY 06 and would prove very difficult for the science community to combat. The decision will be purely political, based on the extent of the leadership’s fears that they’ll be punished by conservatives in the 06 elections for spending so freely.

That noted, the science community still needs to weigh in on the appropriations debate. CRA’s Computing Research Advocacy Network will be doing its part with an activity targeted at urging House members to support — at the very least — the increases they’ve already approved for NSF, NIST, and DOE Science (including ASC) in conference, and urging Senate members to the House number. If you haven’t yet joined CRAN, now’s your chance. CRAN members, keep your eyes peeled for the next CRAN alert, which will provide all the details.