[Editor’s Note: This post was written by CRA’s Tisdale Policy Fellow for Summer 2024, Radhika Agrawal.]

In our ongoing coverage of the Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) federal budget process, we turn to the House Appropriations Committee’s Energy and Water Development bill. The bill outlines the budget allocations for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science (DOE SC) and ARPA-E. Even though the House Committee has recommended only a small increase for DOE SC overall, there is some good news for the computing community: the ASCR program receives a substantial funding increase.

The bill proposes a 1.8 percent increase for the Office of Science over FY24 enacted levels, bringing the agency’s budget to $8.39 billion for FY25 (an increase of $150 million). Within the Office of Science, the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program, which houses the majority of the computing research at DOE, would see an overall increase of 8.8 percent – going from $1.02 billion in FY24 to $1.11 billion for FY25, under the House’s plan. However, these proposals are still less than the recommended increase in the President’s budget request in March.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), which supports research for developing high-risk energy technologies that address critical economic, environmental, and energy security challenges, is funded at $450 million, as requested by the Administration. That amount represents a cut of $10 million, or 2.2 percent, as compared against the program’s FY24 budget. No policy details were given in the committee’s report for ARPA-E’s budget.

In the committee’s report, DOE’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) program gets special attention and the appropriators recommend at least $35 million for the program. Additionally, the committee provides not less than $245 million for quantum information sciences, with a breakdown of $120 million for research and $125 million for the five National Quantum Information Science Research Centers. The report also provides up to $15 million for research in support of the Quantum User Expansion for Science and Technology program (QUEST) to facilitate researcher access to the nation’s quantum computing resources. The recommendation provides $10 million for furthering research and development in the field of quantum entanglement networking, including activities to secure communications between energy systems and protect electric grid Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA). Within ASCR, the House allocates $330 million to support research in the mathematical, computational, and computer sciences. The committee provides $35 million to support research to develop a new path to energy efficient computing.

While the House appropriators are relatively supportive of research, they are less supportive for workforce development and broadening participation efforts. In the bill’s report, the committee voices its support for the efforts of the Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientist program. This is a program within the Office of Science which ensures, “a sustained pipeline of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workers to meet national goals and objectives.” However, the committee’s allocated budget ($32 million) falls short of the FY24 enacted levels of the program by $8 million. Moreover, the House appropriators provide no funding for the RENEW and FAIR programs, with no further policy justifications.

The House Appropriations Committee approved their bill on July 9. It will now proceed to the full House chamber for passage, where it is likely to be passed. Once the bill clears the House floor, we will have to wait and see how the Senate handles their funding plan for the energy research accounts. As with the other FY25 appropriations bills, we are not expecting the budget to be passed into law until after the upcoming November elections. Please keep checking back for the latest updates.