Funding Archives - GovAffairs

Computing Research Policy Blog

The Computing Research Association (or CRA) has been involved in shaping public policy of relevance to computing research for more than two decades. More recently the CRA Government Affairs program has enhanced its efforts to help the members of the computing research community contribute to the public debate knowledgeably and effectively.

Posts categorized under: Funding

Final FY20 Appropriations: Mostly Increases for Research but There is Some Bad News

December 18, 2019/In: Defense R&D Highlights, Funding, FY20 Appropriations, Information Technology R&D Highlights, Research /by Brian Mosley

Just in time for the calendar year 2020, and almost three months after the Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20) began, Congress is finally finishing up its work on the Federal budget with two Minibuses of all the appropriations legislation. For the research community, it’s mostly good news but there are a few clouds in the sky: the National Science Foundation will see very modest increases under the bill, and the defense research accounts are essentially flat-funded.

Budget Update: Got a Little Good News but More Bad News

November 1, 2019/In: Defense R&D Highlights, Funding, FY20 Appropriations, Information Technology R&D Highlights /by Brian Mosley

When we last discussed the Fiscal Year 2020 Appropriations, we were hopeful that the process was finally starting to move toward completion. A week later, we have some good news but we also have more bad news.

Fiscal Year 2020 Appropriations May, Sort of, be Moving…Maybe…

October 23, 2019/In: Funding, FY20 Appropriations, Policy, Research /by Brian Mosley

Regular readers of the Policy Blog will recall that we have been keeping track of the Fiscal Year 2020 appropriations process. The same readers will also remember that the bottleneck for completing the work on next year’s Federal budget has been the Senate. This isn’t unusual, the Senate’s tradition of seeking compromise and agreement, between the majority and minority, means that the gears move much slower (in comparison, the House works as a relatively fast “majority rules” chamber).

Get to Know a Budget Deal: What the New Budget Deal Means and How Does it Impact Research?

July 23, 2019/In: Defense R&D Highlights, Funding, FY20 Appropriations, Information Technology R&D Highlights, Research /by Brian Mosley

As we reported in the House Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20) Defense appropriations post, the Trump Administration and Congressional leaders were homing in on a budget agreement. Well, it sounds like a deal has been struck. This would provide top-line numbers for both defense and non-defense appropriations spending for FY20 and FY21, in addition to lifting the debt ceiling. All this would mean the Senate’s long delayed work on FY20 appropriations bills could start to move forward. Let’s get into the details.

Appropriations Update: House FY20 Energy & Water Bill is out and there are Reasons for Optimism

July 11, 2019/In: Funding, FY20 Appropriations, Research /by Brian Mosley

In June, the House of Representatives passed their version of the Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20) Energy and Water appropriations bill, including increases for some key computing programs at Department of Energy. This bill contains the budgets for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science (DOE SC) and ARPA-E, as well as funding for the Exascale Computing R&D program, for which DOE is the lead federal agency. While the increases are probably positive news for the computing research community, uncertainty about overall Federal spending levels likely puts these specific appropriations levels in doubt. Nevertheless, the bills at least send a signal about the areas House Democrats see as priorities for the Federal government in FY20.

Department of Energy FY 2020 Request: It’s Pretty Bad; You Might Want to Look Away…

March 22, 2019/In: Funding, FY20 Appropriations /by Brian Mosley

Continuing our series following the Trump Administration’s Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20) budget request, we now go to the Department of Energy (DOE). As bad as the NSF budget request is, DOE’s is much worse. The two key parts of DOE for the computing community are the Office of Science (SC), home of most of the […]

NSF FY2020 Request: It is Not Good

March 20, 2019/In: Funding, FY20 Appropriations /by Brian Mosley

As we discussed last week, the Trump Administration is slowly rolling out their Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20) budget request. What they released last week was only a high-level summary, which didn’t appear to be good for the federal research agencies, NSF in particular. However it lacked details, which are beginning to be revealed this week.

What’s up with the budget? Well, it’s complicated.

December 3, 2018/In: Funding, FY19 Appropriations /by Brian Mosley

When we last provided an update on the Fiscal Year 2019 Federal Budget, some sections had been passed into law, a large chunk of it was expected to move in a few days, and some key bills were anticipated to be left for after the mid-term elections. As it turns out, not all of that happened as expected.

Fiscal Year 2019 Update: Most of the Budget is Done…Except for what’s Most Important for Researchers

September 19, 2018/In: Funding, FY19 Appropriations, General /by Brian Mosley

It’s been a busy September from a Congressional appropriations perspective. As of this writing, nine of the twelve appropriations bills have passed, including the Defense, Energy and Water, and Labor-Health and Human Services (HHS) bills – a productive pace not seen from Congress in many years. While it’s good these were passed into law, and they do cover some important research agencies, left unfinished is one key bill of concern to the computing research community — the Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) appropriations bill, which includes funding for NSF, NIST, NOAA and NASA; more on that in a moment. Until then, here are the details of the pieces of legislative that have passed.

Fiscal Year 2019 Update: What to Expect the Rest of the Year

August 31, 2018/In: Funding, FY19 Appropriations /by Brian Mosley

Our regular readers will have noticed that Congress was busy over the summer with the Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19) Appropriations. With funding levels agreed to last year, both the House and Senate were able to plow ahead and get much of their work done for the next fiscal year (which is set to start on October 1st). However, our regular readers will also recognize that that’s when Congress tends to hit a roadblock; this year is no different. The twist for this year is that a good amount of research funding is being held up in the process.