At the beginning of August, the Senate Appropriations Committee completed its work on its slate of Fiscal Year 2025 funding legislation. In their last bundle of bills was the chamber’s version of the Defense appropriations legislation, which handles funding for the Department of Defense. Unfortunately, the Senate’s plans are generally bad for the defense research accounts, calling for cuts or flat funding for basic, applied, and advanced technology development research areas.

As a refresher, DOD’s Science and Technology program is made up of three accounts: 6.1 (basic research), 6.2 (applied research), and 6.3 (advanced technology development). These accounts are themselves made up of individual accounts for each of the three services (Army, Navy, and Air Force), as well as a Defense Wide account. DARPA, or the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is a section under the Defense Wide account.

Getting into the details of the Senate’s proposal, Basic Research (6.1), which is the main Defense Department supporter of fundamental research at US universities, would receive a cut of 4.2 percent compared to its FY24 levels. The account goes from $2.63 billion in FY24 to $2.52 billion for FY25, a decrease of $110 million. A good amount of this decrease is due to reductions in the different services’ “University Research Initiative” subaccounts: the Army’s subaccount decreases by 8.8 percent, the Navy’s by -6.7 percent, and the Air Force’s by -20 percent. Only the Space Force received an increase (2.3 percent). The only other bright spot is the Defense-Wide account, which received an overall increase of about 2.0 percent.

The Applied Research (6.2) account fairs the worst among the defense accounts, receiving a significant cut in funding under the Senate’s mark. The full account would see a 14.1 percent decrease compared to last year’s budget, going from $7.60 billion in FY24 to $6.53 billion under the Senate’s plan, a reduction of $1.07 billion.

The Advanced Technology Development (6.3) account would be flat funded, receiving a slight cut under the Senate’s budget framework. It would go from $11.29 billion in FY24 to $11.20 billion in FY24, a decrease of $90 million (or -0.8 percent).

Finally, DARPA would be the one bright spot for defense research in the Senate’s funding mark. The agency would receive a 17 percent increase and go from $4.12 billion in FY24 to $4.84 billion in FY25, an increase of $720 million.

This is yet another example of a poor Presidential request creating problems further down the budgetary path. When one compares the Senate numbers against the President’s request from March, the 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3 accounts would receive a 2.9, 12.7, and 25 percent increase respectively. Put another way, the Senate looked after these accounts by giving them more than DOD requested, even though they are less than the accounts received a year before. While the Defense Department is in a difficult position with its overall budget, saying back in March that their planning comes from a zero-growth mindset, this is still poor support for the nation’s defense research efforts.

It’s hard to say where a final defense research budget will ultimately settle. The House and Senate are not far apart with their budget plans, which could make final numbers easy to agree. Unfortunately, with both chambers calling for cuts or flat funding, the likely final numbers could be poor. However, it is clear that nothing will be decided by the beginning of the new Fiscal year (October 1st). And as we have said about all the other research agencies, a final FY25 budget won’t be decided until after the November elections. In fact, depending on the outcome of the election, a final resolution for FY25 may slip into the next calendar year. CRA will continue to monitor the situation and report on any new develops; please keep checking back for the latest news.