Computing Research Policy Blog

Posts categorized under: Funding

FY21 Appropriations Update: A Continuing Resolution is Coming but Will it be Passed into Law?

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Despite appearances, Congress has not forgotten about the Fiscal Year 2021 budget. The problem has been the ongoing disagreement on how to respond to the COVID pandemic. Since Congress hasn’t been able to get beyond that issue, it hasn’t been able to focus on other high-level topics. However, the approaching November election, and a desire to not have a government shutdown just before voters go to the polls, has necessitated a continuing resolution (or CR) to be considered.

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FY21 Appropriations Update: House Numbers for the Dept of Energy are Better than the Administration’s but are Not Great

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Continuing our review of the Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21) federal budget, we turn to the House Appropriations Committee’s Energy and Water bill. 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 House’s numbers are significantly better than the 17% cut that the Administration requested in February, they represent a fairly small increase over last year’s budget. Let’s get into the details.

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FY21 Appropriations Update: From a Certain Point of View, the House Numbers for the Defense Department are Good. But They’re Not Good.

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Continuing our review of the Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21) federal budget, we turn to the House Appropriations Committee’s bill for the Department of Defense. DOD’s Science and Technology (DOD S&T) 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. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a section under the Defense Wide account. Unfortunately, the numbers that the House settled on for these accounts are not good, but they are better than what the Administration requested.

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New Legislation Proposes Major Reorganization of NSF

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Last week, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the Democratic Leader in the Senate, introduced bipartisan legislation that would authorize $100 billion in new funding for the National Science Foundation and make the agency responsible for maintaining the country’s global leadership in innovation. The bill, called S. 3832 “The Endless Frontiers Act,” proposes a major reorganization of NSF and possibly a significant change to the culture of the agency.

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What’s Happening with the Federal Budget, Particularly with the Research Agencies, During the Pandemic?

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It should come as no surprise that the normal operations of official Washington have been heavily disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Current events have derailed almost every aspect of the usual budget process. Adding to that, the situation remains very fluid as to when legislation, or any official business, will be acted upon by Congress; […]

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House SS&T Committee Introduces Bipartisan AI Research Bill to Significantly Increase Research Authorizations

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House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) and Ranking Member Frank Lucas (R-OK) yesterday introduced long-awaited legislation aimed at solidifying the U.S. leadership role in artificial intelligence research, education, and workforce development.

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Roundup of FY2021 Research Agency Requests: NIST, NIH, and NASA, A Familiar Theme of Cuts

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In our continuing series following the Trump Administration’s Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21) budget request, we close out with a roundup of an assortment of Federal research agencies. These include the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and NASA. There’s a familiar theme to all of these accounts: cuts to […]

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

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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.

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