When last we left the Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21) budget process, we were worried about a potentially stalled continuing resolution at the end of September. Luckily, no one wanted to shut down the government just before the November Election; a CR was passed and signed into law. The CR created a new deadline to get a permanent budget into place, which is December 11th. Now with the election behind us, and hoping to jumpstart the process, yesterday the Senate Appropriations Committee released its slate of appropriations bills. Let’s get into the details.

CJS: NSF, NIST, and NASA

The Senate Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) bill provides a 2.4 percent increase over Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20) funding for NSF. The Foundation would receive $8.48 billion for FY21 overall, an increase of $200 million over last year. The Research and Related Activities (R&RA) account, which hosts NSF’s research portfolio, would receive a similar 2.5 percent increase, up from $6.74 billion in FY20 to $6.91 billion for FY21. As well, the Education and Human Resources (EHR) account would also see an increase of 2.4 percent, going from $940 million in FY20 to $963 million in FY21. These numbers are between the very bad numbers in the President’s Budget Request (PBR) back in February and the slightly better numbers in the House mark over the summer.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) numbers are a bit more mixed, but very similar to the House numbers. The top line for the agency would be just above being flat funded, receiving just a 1.9 percent increase, going from $1.03 billion in FY20 to $1.05 billion in FY21 (a $20 million increase). However, the institutes’ Science and Technical Research and Services (STRS) account, where the majority of the agency’s research is housed, would see a healthy increase for FY21; $787 million for this year, which is $33 million more (4.4 percent) than it received for FY20.

In a bit of change from the above, NASA’s budget under the Senate is much better than the House’s mark. The top line for the agency gets a healthy increase, going from $22.63 billion in FY20 to $23.50 billion under the Senate plan (an increase of $870 million or 3.8 percent). The NASA Science account would fare better, as it would receive a 1.8 percent increase, rather than a slight cut. The account would go from $7.14 billion in FY20 to $7.27 billion in FY21 under the Senate number.

Energy: Dept of Energy, ASCR, and ARPA-E

The Senate’s Energy and Water bill proposes only a slight increase (+<1 percent) for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science over FY20 levels; bringing the agency’s budget to $7.05 billion for FY21, an increase of only $30 million. Within the Office of Science, the Advanced Scientific Computing Research program, which houses the majority of the computing research at DOE, would see a more generous increase of 5.1 percent – going from $980 million in FY20 to $1.03 billion in FY21. This is a bit of a mix in comparison to the House numbers, where the top line was slightly better (though not good) but it provided less for ASCR.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy, or ARPA-E, would receive $430 million for FY21, a 1.2 percent increase from $425 million in FY20. That is exactly half of what the House provided, but significantly better than the President’s plan to zero out the agency. In fact, the committee was quite emphatic in their report language, saying, “the Committee continues to definitively reject the short-sighted proposal to terminate ARPA–E, and instead increases investment in this transformational program.”

Defense: DOD and DARPA

This is where the very bad news resides. Regular readers will recall that the House Defense numbers released in the summer were not objectively good, but appeared good in comparison to the PBR. The Senate’s numbers are mostly between these two bad options.

Basic Research (6.1) gets a significant cut against FY20 numbers. The account goes from $2.60 billion to $2.41 billion in FY21, a decrease of 7.3 percent or $190 million. This is below the House number in July.

The Applied Research (6.2) account fairs relatively better. The full account would see a decrease of 1.2 percent compared to last year’s budget, going from $6.07 billion in FY20 to $6.00 billion (a loss of $70 million). This is actually better than the House’s mark.

The Advanced Technology Development (6.3) account would receive the largest cut, going from $7.40 billion in FY20 to $6.75 billion in FY21, a cut of $650 million or 8.8 percent. This is significantly lower than the House number.

All of these accounts would receive a boost, and significant ones at that, if compared to the Trump Administration’s plan. Which probably explains what the Senate appropriators were comparing their numbers against.

Finally, DARPA would see an increase over FY20 but only a slight one. The agency would go from $3.46 billion in FY20 to $3.49 billion under the Senate’s FY21 plan, an increase of just 1 percent (or $30 million). The Administration requested $3.57 billion for the agency, the one defense research account to receive an increase in the PBR; the House approved $3.51 billion.

Where do things head from here? Given the differences between the House and Senate numbers, some form of compromise will need to be reached for final passage of a budget. With the election of President-Elect Biden and both chambers likely to stay in their respective party’s control, it’s likely that this budget will be finalized before the end of the year, if not before the December 11th deadline, rather than be punted to 2021. However, as has been the case for four years, outgoing President Trump is a potential wild card. Will he stand by his budget request numbers and refuse to sign anything else into law? With no electoral restrictions, Trump may want to burnish his fiscal bonafides for a future Presidential run and veto a compromise bill that comes out of Congress. This process is far from over. We’ll keep following this process and report back when news develops.