Yesterday, President Biden announced his intent to nominate Dr. Arati Prabhakar to the positions of Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and, once confirmed by the Senate, will also serve as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. In this capacity, Dr. Prabhakar will also be, “the President’s Chief Advisor for Science and Technology, a co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), and a member of the President’s Cabinet.”
CRA applauds this announcement and released the following statement:
The Computing Research Association applauds President Biden for announcing his intention to nominate Dr. Arati Prabhakar to the positions of Director of the Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) and the President’s science advisor. Dr. Prabhakar is no stranger to the computing research community, having served as the Senate-confirmed directors of both the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Additionally, she spent 15 years in Silicon Valley, helping bring R&D to deployment as a company executive and as a venture capitalist; she is also a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Should Dr. Prabhakar be confirmed, she will be the first woman, first immigrant, and first person of color to head OSTP; all inspiring firsts. We would also like to thank Dr. Alondra Nelson for her excellent leadership of OSTP since February.
With so many computing research topics and other research policy issues before the nation today, from the ethics surrounding the use of artificial intelligence, to the complexities of balancing an open research environment against foreign government interference and exploitation of federally supported research, it will be invaluable to have a leader with firsthand knowledge of how to build and sustain research communities, which deliver results for the American people. We look forward to working with Dr. Prabhakar and we hope she is quickly confirmed to her position.
[Editor’s Note: CRA’s new Tisdale Policy Fellow for Summer 2022, Dalton Hellwege, contributed to this post.]
When we last left the NSF reauthorization legislation in early February, the House of Representatives had just introduced and passed the America COMPETES Act of 2022. We had expected this legislation to head rapidly into a conferencing process with the Senate’s US Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), where a compromise bill would be hammered out. Unfortunately, the process has been much slower to progress than expected and has all but ground to a halt. For example, members of the conferencecommittee weren’t announced until April. And now the legislation appears to be falling prey to more pressing political topics, such as gun control, and political calculations with an eye toward the approaching Midterm Elections.
The conference committee did hold a public “kickoff” meeting in mid-May where all 107 members of the committee were given two minutes to provide a statement on their views and priorities with this legislation. The meeting was led by the conference committee chair, Senate Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell (D-WA). In her opening statement, Cantwell said, “we know that R&D is less than 1 percent of our gross domestic product invested in federal research compared to 2 percent in the ’60s. That 2 percent kept us competitive with innovations from DARPA, NASA, DOE, NSF and helped us to win the Cold War. But today, we are losing ground in a number of areas, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, pharmaceuticals, energy revolution.”
Other champions of NSF and scientific research had a chance to speak at the event. Both the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) and Frank Lucas (R-OK), spoke in the favor of the research provisions in the legislation and advocated for NSF. Chairwoman Johnson said, “it is time for us to revitalize federal support for the kinds of research and development initiatives that have long made the U.S. a beacon of excellence in science and innovation.” Rep. Lucas was critical of the process that produced the COMPETES Act legislation but was in favor of the scientific research sections: “I’m committed in good faith towards a bill that strengthens American science and technology and protects our threats from Chinese leadership.” All in all, a majority of the conferees were supportive of the legislation and spoke of its importance to the nation.
However, the conference committee has taken few public actions since this kickoff event. That likely means that the horse-trading process (i.e.: seeing what provisions of the two bills will be cut, retained, and/or modified in order to get enough votes for passage of the legislation) has begun behind closed doors. Unfortunately, that makes gauging the prospects for advancement difficult. An agreement could be struck very quickly if there is enough support to get something done. Or it can get bogged down in negotiations and be delayed.
There are two reasons the legislation could get held up. The first is that it falls prey to more pressing matters, such as the before mentioned gun-control legislation. Congress only has so many days it can vote on matters. And since this is not must-pass legislation, it lacks the extra push a deadline can provide. The other reason for a delay is political: Republicans view the coming November Midterm elections as very favorable to them, so why give Congressional Democrats a legislative win? Especially on a matter that could be handle after the election (or even next year, when Congressional Republicans could craft their own legislation).
There is also mounting criticism that the White House should be more involved in getting a bill passed. But that is a double-edged sword; if President Biden pushes too much for a bill, Republicans could balk at the idea of appearing to work too closely with a Democratic President just before facing voters.
The unfortunate reality is we won’t know more until it happens. We’ll keep our ears to the ground and report any new developments; please keep checking back for updates.
Last week, the National Science Board (NSB) elected former CRA Board Chair Daniel Reed, from the University of Utah, as its next chair. The NSB oversees the operations of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and, “identifies issues that are critical to NSF’s future, approves NSF’s strategic budget directions and the annual budget submission to the Office of Management and Budget, and approves new major programs and awards,” according to the body’s website. It also serves as, “an independent body of advisors to the President and Congress on policy matters related to science and engineering and education in science and engineering.” Dr. Reed was appointed to the NSB in 2018. He served on the CRA Board of Directors from 1999 to 2009, was chair from 2005 to 2009, and currently serves on the CRA Government Affairs Committee.
At this critical juncture for NSF — with the focus on emerging technologies, the creation of the new Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP), and the pending NSF legislation in Congress which will likely reshape the mission of the agency — it’s crucial to have someone from the computing and IT research community helping to steer the NSB in its oversight of the agency and in crafting Federal science policy. We wish to congratulate Dr. Reed on this great honor, and we look forward to working with him as he continues to serve the Nation in this new role!
In our continuing series following the Biden Administration’s Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) 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. All three agencies received good requests, though there are some details that make the final assessments more nuanced.
First, let’s look at NASA. Under the President’s plan, the space agency would receive an 8.3 percent increase, going from $24.00 billion in FY22 to $26.00 billion in FY23. NASA Science, which handles the research funding at the agency, would get an increase though not as good: 5.1 percent, going from $7.60 billion in FY22 to $7.99 billion in FY23.
FY21
FY22
FY23 PBR
$ Change
% Change
NASA Total
$22.27B
$24.00B
$26.00B
+$2.00B
+8.3%
Science
$7.30B
$7.60B
$7.99B
+$390M
+5.1%
The next agency, NIST, is one of the big winners under the Biden Administration’s budget request. The top line for the agency would see a large increase of 20 percent, going from $1.23 billion in FY22 to $1.48 billion in FY23. The institutes’ Science and Technical Research and Services (STRS) account, where the majority of the agency’s research is housed, would see an only slightly smaller increase of 15 percent; going from $850 million in FY22 to $975 million in FY23.
FY21
FY22
FY23 PBR
$ Change
% Change
NIST Total
$1.03B
$1.23B
$1.48B
+$250M
+20%
STRS
$788M
$850M
$975M
+$125M
+15%
Finally, we come to the National Institutes of Health, the research agency request which has that nuance. Under the President’s plan, the agency would go from $44.96 billion in FY22 to $49.04 billion in FY23, an increase of $4.08 billion or 9.1 percent. The nuance comes in with the proposed budget for ARPA-H, or Advanced Research Project Agency, Health. Established in the 2022 Omnibus, ARPA-H would go from its initial budget of $1 billion in FY22 to $5 billion for FY23. According to the President’s plan, the program would be a part of NIH; that would mean its $4 billion increase would be the vast majority of the larger agency’s increase, leaving the other parts of NIH to receive flat funding or slight cuts.
FY21
FY22
FY23 PBR
$ Change
% Change
NIH Total
$42.90B
$44.96B
$49.04B
+$4.08B
+9.1%
ARPA-H
NA
$1.0B
$5.0B
+$4.0B
+500%
ARPA-H is likely to have a complicated year, from a policy perspective. While it was established in last year’s Omnibus, it still will require an authorization bill (ie: policy bill) to establish its operations. There is currently a legislative fight brewing over where the agency will be located, bureaucratically and physically. The Administration wants ARPA-H under NIH, while several Congressional leaders want it to be independent of NIH’s culture (and NIH’s physical location in Bethesda, MD) and under the Department of Health & Human Services. Secretary of Health Xavier Becerra has suggested a compromise where ARPA-H would be located within NIH but its director would report directly to the Secretary of Health; the Secretary recently issued a noticed in the Federal Register implementing this compromise. It will be interesting to see Congress’ reaction to this action.
ARAP-H is a major priority of the Biden Administration this year, as well as several members of Congress, so we can expect to see some wheeling and dealing as the year progresses. But we’ll have to let this process play out before we know how things will finally fall.
As with the other research accounts we’ve profiled, with the exception of the defense research accounts, these are a great place for the budget process to start. However, it’s worthwhile to temper expectations, as it is unlikely that all these increases will pass Congress as proposed (see: 2022 Omnibus). But, as with last year’s budget requests, it’s great to see scientific research be given this level of support.
Next steps in the FY23 budget process are for each chamber of Congress to come up with their individual funding plans. That process is beginning in earnest and should get into full swing by the beginning of the summer. We’ll have updates as those bills become public; keep checking back for more information.
Regular readers will notice that something is missing in this year’s request: ARPA-Climate, or ARPA-C. Last year, President Biden recommended the establishment of this new ARPA program at DOE to focus on climate change research. That didn’t get much traction in Congress and was never funded; it appears that the Biden Administration will not continue to pursue this as a priority. Instead, they are focusing their climate research efforts in ARPA-E. Elsewhere in DOE’s request you’ll see the general Biden Administration themes and priorities of focusing on climate change, health and pandemic readiness programs, scientific innovation for national competitiveness, and racial equity efforts.
The President’s FY23 request for DOE SC is $7.80 billion; which is an increase of $320 million, or 4.3 percent, compared to the approved FY22 Omnibus level of $7.48 billion. The increase goes to, “Administration priorities including basic research on climate change and clean energy, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), and biopreparedness.” The Office of Science is also continuing its RENEW (Reaching a New Energy Sciences Workforce) program, doubling the initiative to, “expand targeted efforts to increase participation and retention of underrepresented groups in SC research activities,” and, “to ensure a future science workforce that is creative, innovative, and capable of meeting the nation’s needs via proactive stewardship of talent with diverse ideas and backgrounds.” The request will support, “ongoing investments in priority areas including microelectronics, critical materials, exascale computing, fundamental science to transform manufacturing, and accelerator science and technology.”
Within the Office of Science account, the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program – home to most of SCs computing research programs – would appear to fare less well, but its only appearances. The program would be funded at $1.07 billion, which is an increase of $30 million, or 2.9 percent, over last year. As with last year’s request, and the FY22 Omnibus mark, the Exascale Computing Project line-item is reduced heavily (-54 percent) due to construction projects nearing completion; meanwhile, all other subaccounts, including the research ones, get a healthy increase of 9.4 percent, generally. The increases to ASCR’s research will:
“advance science and U.S. competitiveness through investments in computational research, applied mathematics, and computer science, as well as development and operation of multiple, large, high performance and leadership computing user facilities and high performance networking. The efforts prioritize basic research in applied mathematics and computer science with emphasis on the challenges of data intensive science, including AI and ML, and future computing technologies.”
The Office of Science is also standing up three new initiatives: Energy Earthshots; Funding for Accelerated, Inclusive Research (FAIR); and Accelerate Innovations in Emerging Technologies (Accelerate). The Energy Earthshots is a climate research program which will, “bring together multi-investigator, multi-disciplinary teams to address key research challenges at the interface between basic research and applied research and development activities.” The FAIR initiative, “will support a directed effort to fund clean energy, climate, and related activities at minority serving institutions (MSIs), including historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs);” the program’s goal is to, “increase research capacity and support faculty at HBCUs and other MSIs by funding core research relevant to the SC mission at these institutions.” Finally, the Accelerate program, “aims to drive scientific discovery for sustainable production of new technologies across the innovation continuum, to train a STEM workforce to support industries of the future, and to meet the nation’s needs for abundant clean energy, a sustainable environment, and national security.”
As for ARPA-E the agency would see a healthy increase. Under the President’s plan ARPA-E would receive $700 million, an increase of $250 million over last year, or 56 percent. As mentioned above, the Biden Administration is proposing to expand ARPA-E’s scope to, “include R&D on climate adaptation and resilience innovations.”
FY21
FY22
FY23 PBR
$ Change
% Change
DOE SC Total
$7.03B
$7.48B
$7.80B
+$320M
+4.3%
ASCR
$1.02B
$1.04B
$1.07B
+$30M
+2.9%
ARPA-E
$427M
$450M
$700M
+$250M
+56%
The Department of Energy’s budget is now in Congress’ hands, and we’ll continue to track its progress. Please keep checking back for more updates and additional information.
In our continuing series following the Biden Administration’s Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) budget request, we now turn to the Department of Defense (DOD). In a mirror of this year’s NSF request, it’s déjà vu all over again: a terrible request for the defense research accounts that makes one think the Biden Administration hit copy and paste on their proposal from last year.
A little background: the 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.
All three of DOD S&T’s accounts do badly under the Biden Administration’s plan. Basic Research (6.1), which is the main Defense Department supporter of fundamental research at US universities, gets a big cut of 14 percent; going from $2.76 billion in the FY22 Omnibus to $2.38 billon under the Administration’s plan (a cut of $380 million). The details for 6.1 accounts are not any better: the Army, Navy, and Air Force’s “University Research Initiative” subaccounts are cut at 23, 48, and 9 percent, respectively.
The Applied Research (6.2) account is also cut heavily at 16 percent; going from $6.91 billion in FY22 to $5.79 billion under the Administration’s framework, a loss of $1.12 billion. Finally, Advanced Technology Development (6.3) would also not escape a large cut, going from $9.22 billion in FY22 to $8.29 billion in FY23, a cut of $930 million, or 10 percent. In short: no good news here.
DARPA is the only bright spot among the defense accounts, escaping any proposed cuts. The agency would see a healthy increase, going from $3.87 billion in FY22 to $4.12 billion in FY23, an increase of 6.5 percent (or $250 million).
FY21
FY22
FY23 PBR
$ Change
% Change
DOD 6.1
$2.67B
$2.76B
$2.38B
-$380M
-14%
DOD 6.2
$6.45B
$6.91B
$5.79B
-$1.12B
-16%
DOD 6.3
$7.76B
$9.22B
$8.29B
-$930M
-10%
DARPA
$3.50B
$3.87B
$4.12B
+$250M
+6.5%
As with last year’s defense research request, it’s fair to ask, what’s going on here? Especially in light of the Biden Administration’s general support for scientific research. The most likely reason is one we’ve talked about before: budget gamesmanship by Pentagon leadership. Namely that they pull money from what is seen as a Congressional priority (ie: research funding) to put toward something else that does not have the same support. If the scheme works, Congress puts money back into R&D and the moved money “sticks” elsewhere in the DOD budget. It’s not a new strategy, as the Trump Administration (and the Obama and Bush Administrations before them) did this same thing. Given that defense spending generally isn’t getting the attention with the Biden Administration that it has in Administration’s past, there’s probably more of a feeling from the Pentagon leadership that they have to do this. And they are likely to keep doing it until there’s a reason to stop.
These budgets are now in the hands of Congress, and it will be interesting to see how they are handled. It’s likely, though not assured, that this will play out much like this past year’s defense budget: a House mark that is better than the Administration’s, though not objectively good, and then a Senate mark which is quite good. The final numbers will be somewhere between the two. But one thing for sure is that this is a bad place to start this process and the defense research community in Washington will need to put in another year of hard work to get these proposed cuts rejected. CRA will continue to make the case, in concert with our friends and allies in the other scientific fields and higher education institutions, for the importance of these Federal investments in defense research for our national security. We’ll keep track of the progress at each step of the process, so please check back for updates.
Earlier this week, the Biden Administration released its long anticipated Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) Budget Request. As we have done in years past, we’ll be writing a series of posts on the assorted agency budgets that are important to the computing research community. First up: the National Science Foundation. As with last year’s budget request, the Biden Administration is advocating a strong vision for NSF, assigning the agency a leading role in many of the Administration’s science priorities, and backing it up with a generous budget increase.
Under the Administration’s FY23 plan, NSF fares very well; the agency would see a 19 percent increase compared to the FY22 Omnibus. NSF would go from $8.84 billion in FY22 to $10.5 billion in FY23, an increase of $1.66 billion.
A large part of that increase would go into Research and Related Activities (R&RA), the subaccount that contains the funding for research grants. R&RA would increase from $7.20 billion in FY22 to $8.43 billion in FY23, a plus up of $1.23 billion (or 17 percent). Education and Human Resources (EHR), the subaccount that contains the agency’s education programs, would also see an increase of $370 million, going from $1.01 billion in FY22 to $1.38 billion under the President’s plan; that’s an increase of 37 percent.
FY21
FY22
FY23 PBR
$ Change
% Change
NSF Total
$8.49B
$8.84B
$10.5B
+$1.66B
+19%
R&RA
$6.91B
$7.20B
$8.43B
+$1.23B
+17%
CISE
$1.01B
NA
$1.15B
NA
NA
TIP
NA
NA
$880M
NA
NA
EHR*
$968M
$1.01B
$1.38B
+$370M
+37%
* – Please see below for a note about EHR.
The Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate (CISE), located within R&RA, and the home for most computing research support at NSF, will likely receive an increase, though it’s hard to be sure at the moment. This is because CISE doesn’t currently have an estimate on its budget for FY22 (remember, NSF’s budget was just approved by Congress last month). CISE would receive $1.15 billion under the President’s FY23 budget plan, which is an increase over the directorate’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget of $1.01 billion.
According to the program’s budget justification, the funds will support, “the Nation’s priorities through investments in AI, advanced computing systems and services including high-performance computing (HPC), QIS, advanced communications technologies, advanced manufacturing, semiconductors and microelectronics, biotechnology, cybersecurity, and disaster response and resilience.” The directorate’s plans will also, “continue to invest in a broad suite of activities to support broadening participation in research and education in CISE fields and STEM more generally.” Specifically called out are CISE’s Broadening Participation in Computing Alliances (BPC-A) and Minority-Serving Institutions Research Expansion (CISE-MSI) programs, and the directorate’s investments in Computer Science for All (CSforAll) and CISE Graduate Fellowships (CSGrad4US).
Overall, the requested budget would allow CISE to fund an estimated 8,300 research grants in FY23 (7,054 were funded in FY21), allowing for an estimated 26 percent funding rate. The directorate estimates that its activities will support a total of 21,900 people in FY23; that number includes senior researchers, other professionals, postdos, graduate students, and undergrads. Finally, CISE says that it provides about 79 percent of the federal funding for fundamental computer science research at U.S. academic institutions.
As for NSF’s newest directorate, the Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP), the Biden Administration calls for $880 million for FY23. As with CISE, TIP doesn’t have a FY22 budget to compare against; however, the Administration did recommend $865 million in their budget request a year ago. In the TIP justification document, the directorate will, “advance emerging technologies to address societal and economic challenges and opportunities; accelerate the translation of research results from the lab to market and society; and cultivate new education pathways leading to a diverse and skilled future technical workforce comprising researchers, practitioners, technicians, and entrepreneurs.” Within TIP’s request, $200 million is set aside to create “Regional Innovation Engines.” TIP’s goal with these “NSF Engines” is to, “create regional-scale innovation ecosystems throughout the U.S. and spur economic growth,” catalyzing, “new business and economic growth in those regions of America that have not fully participated in the technology boom of the past several decades.” TIP is also making major NSF-wide investments in, “emerging technologies to sustain and enhance U.S. competitiveness.” It should be no surprise that the largest single investment is for AI, with QIS, advanced wireless, and microelectronics and semiconductors being well represented.
How TIP will integrate with the existing R&RA directorates and the rest of the Foundation is still somewhat of an open question. The directorate could look and operate very different once Congress has its say in the matter. We will have to keep an eye on both how Congress sets the policy direction for TIP, as well as how the directorate is stood up.
As the saying goes, it feels like déjà vu all over again! For the second year President Biden has proposed large investments for NSF. The catch is, again, that Congress has to agree with this plan and then appropriate the funds. It didn’t exactly do that last year, even though NSF was lavished with bipartisan praise and attention. Hopefully, the USICA and COMPETES bills, which have slowly made their way through both chambers, will be conferenced and passed into law soon; that could give NSF a much needed push with Congressional appropriations. But we said much the same thing last year, so it’s best to keep hopes reasonable until we see more concrete actions taken by Congress.
But, as with last year’s request, this budget plan shows great confidence in NSF, and it is an excellent place for the FY23 budget process to begin. Next stop is the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, both of which should hold hearings on the agency’s budget soon and will then start drafting their bills. We can expect to get the first indications sometime in the summer. We’ll be keeping track, so please check back for more updates.
* Note about EHR: NSF is proposing changing the name of EHR to the Directorate for STEM Education (EDU) and rename the Division of Human Resource Development (HRD) within EDU to the Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM (EES). According to NSF this is to, “more accurately capture the totality of the Directorate’s work.” We’ll have to see if Congress will go along with this, even though it appears to be only a name change. It will likely be looked at by both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, as well as the authorizing committees with jurisdiction over NSF: the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee and the Senate Commerce Committee.
The President’s FY23 proposal calls for $1.6 trillion for discretionary funds, including $813 billion for defense-related programs and $769 billion for domestic spending. That compares to $1.5 trillion enacted in the fiscal 2022 omnibus spending bill signed into law by President Biden earlier this month; that had $782 billion for defense and $730 billion for domestic spending.
Many of the general themes of this budget proposal are the same as with last year’s budget request and the R&D priorities memo that OSTP released at the end of the summer. The Administration is still focusing heavily on climate change; health and pandemic readiness programs; scientific innovation in critical and emerging technologies; and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
One item to note: the Administration decided to release their budget plan with comparisons to Fiscal Year 2021, not the recently passed FY22 Omnibus. It’s unclear why this was done. We are making comparisons here using the FY22 Omnibus numbers (where we can), hence why our information may not match other news outlets.
Let’s get into the details of the request:
National Science Foundation: Topline $10.5 billion, an increase of $1.66 billion, or 19 percent, over FY22 Omnibus levels. As with last year’s President’s request, NSF is the big winner by percentage increase among the science agencies. And the good news here goes down the line, with the Research and Related Activities (RRA) account receiving an increase of 17 percent and the Education and Human Resources (EHR) account receiving a 37 percent increase.
The budget materials also call for the CISE Directorate to receive a budget of $1.15 billion for FY23. It’s hard to get a solid idea on whether this is an increase for CISE, as they don’t have an estimate for their FY22 budget yet. It is an increase over the directorate’s FY21 budget of $1.01 billion. According to the program’s budget justification, the funds will, “accelerate climate and clean energy research, advance equity in science, engineering, and society, and bolster U.S. leadership in critical and emerging technologies.” The directorate’s plans also call for major investments in artificial intelligence, QIS, and semiconductors.
Established in the FY22 Omnibus is the new Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP). The requested topline for TIP is $880 million. Since Congress didn’t set a specific amount for the directorate in the Omnibus, there isn’t a comparison that can be made to last year’s budget (the Administration did request $865 million in their FY22 request last year). The aim for TIP is, “to advance emerging technologies to address societal and economic challenges and opportunities; accelerate the translation of research results from the lab to market and society; and cultivate new education pathways leading to a diverse and skilled future technical workforce comprising researchers, practitioners, technicians, and entrepreneurs.” We’ll have to keep a close eye on TIP as it makes its way through the budget process, as Congress is likely to have significant changes for the directorate in the near future.
Department of Energy, Office of Science: Topline $7.8 billion, an increase of $320 million or 4.3 percent over FY22 Omnibus levels. Within the Office of Science account, the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program, home to most of SCs computing research programs, would fare slightly worse. The program would be funded at $1.07 billion, which is an increase of $30 million, or 2.9 percent, over last year. DOE hasn’t released their detailed justification but what is provided by the Administration makes clear the department will continue their investments in AI, QIS, and Exascale computing.
The Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E, fairs quite well in the Administration’s proposal. The program would receive a topline of $700 million, which is an increase of $250 million over the FY22 Omnibus, or +56 percent. The budget documents state that, “this investment in high-potential, high-impact research and development would help remove the technological barriers to advance energy and environmental missions.” It would also appear that the Biden Administration is stepping away from plans to create a new ARPA-C program, for climate research, instead focusing efforts at ARPA-E. This is likely because ARPA-C did not get much traction in Congress last year. The Administration states that, “the budget…proposes expanded authority for ARPA-E to more fully address innovation gaps around adaptation, mitigation, and resilience to the impacts of climate change.”
National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST):The topline is $1.48 billion, an increase of $250 million, or 20 percent, over the FY22 Omnibus. The institutes’ Science and Technical Research and Services (STRS) account, where the majority of the agency’s research is housed, would see almost as good of an increase; $975 million for this year, which is $125 million more (+15 percent) than it received in the FY22 Omnibus.
National Institutes of Health (NIH): The health research agency has a complicated budget request. At the topline, it would appear to do quite well, being funded for FY23 at $49.04 billion, receiving an increase of $4.08 billion over the FY22 Omnibus, or +9.1 percent. However, things are a bit deceptive, as the new ARPA-H program is included in that number. Modeled after DARPA at the Defense Department and ARPA-E at the Department of Energy, ARPA-H received $1 billion in the FY22 Omnibus and would receive $5 billion under the President’s FY23 plan. So, the majority of NIH’s increase is going to the new ARPA-H program, leaving only modest increases for the rest of the agency.
Department of Defense (DOD): Unfortunately, the information that has been released for the defense research accounts is contradictory to the information we have been using to track these accounts over the last few years; we will need more time to analyze this information. However, for DARPA, or the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, the topline is provided: $4.12 billion, an increase of 6.5 percent (+$250 million) over FY22 levels.
NASA: Topline $26.0 billion, an increase of $2 billion or 8.3 percent over FY22 levels. The justification for the space agency’s FY23 budget is to invest in, “human and robotic exploration of the Moon; new technologies to improve the Nation’s space capabilities; and addressing the climate crisis through cutting-edge research satellites and green aviation research.” To that end, the Administration plans on providing the NASA Science program with a budget of $7.99 billion dollars, which is an increase of 5.1 percent, or $390 million, over FY22 Omnibus levels.
What happens now? The budget process now heads to both chambers of Congress for deliberations. Due to the late start, with last year’s budget only being finalized earlier this month, this is likely to be a long year for the federal budget process. Throwing in that this is an election year, it’s safe to say it’s unlikely FY23 will be finalized at the start of the fiscal year (which is October 1st). But we’ll be keeping track of developments, as well as have our normal detailed dives into specific agency’s requests, so be sure to check back for more information.
TIP’s mission is to position NSF as the nation’s lead science agency for innovation and to maintain the country’s competitiveness in new research fields and technology. As Dr. Panchanathan said in the announcement, “TIP is about developing exciting new approaches that supercharge research outcomes and enhance the cycle of discovery and innovation so that more solutions and technologies are available to the American people faster than ever.”
At present it’s just a reorganization of existing programs at the agency, with little in terms of details on the TIP website. But NSF is repositioning much of its existing portfolio of innovation and translation programs into the new Directorate, such as the NSF’s Lab-to-Market Platform comprising the NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps), Partnerships for Innovation (PFI), and Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR and STTR) programs, and the NSF Convergence Accelerator. Likely new programs and missions will follow as authorization legislation is agreed to by Congress in the, hopefully, near future.
CRA looks forward to working with the new TIP Directorate and its leadership to see how we can keep the United States the world leader in innovation for generations to come.
UPDATE: The Senate passed the Fiscal Year 2022 Omnibus late in the evening on March 10th, sending it to President Biden to be signed into law. Therefore, Fiscal Year 2022 is complete.
Original Post: Over six months after the fiscal year began, Fiscal Year 2022 (FY22) is inching closer to being passed into law by Congress. Unfortunately, this massive legislative package does not contain good news for many of the research accounts that the computing community is concerned about, most especially NSF.
Released in the early hours of March 9th, the FY22 Omnibus funding legislation is a legislative behemoth of over three thousand pages combining all twelve appropriation bills, a new four day continuing resolution (till March 15th), and two supplemental funding requests (one for the Ukraine War and the other for COVID response; to add to the drama, the COVID supplemental was ultimately yanked from the final package). Not only is there a lot going on with this legislative package but there is also not a lot of time for Congress to act, with the current continuing resolution (CR) only running until Friday March 11th.
Before getting into the details of the Omnibus, it’s worth taking a step back to understand what thinking that has shaped the funding plans for Fiscal Year 2022. Both the Biden Administration and Congressional Democrats were adamant that they were increasing non-defense spending (which includes most of the research agencies we care about), while keeping defense spending flat. Their view is that during the sequestration budget years, non-defense spending had disproportionally received cuts and Democrats would be making up for lost time. The Administration budget request, and both the House and Senate budget plans, were developed with this mindset.
But when Democrat and Republican appropriators came to an agreement on final top line numbers for FY22 in mid-February, it was decided that defense and non-defense spending would be raised equally. This was because Democrats needed Senate Republicans to pass a final bill into law and this was the price of that support. At a high level, the details of the FY22 Omnibus confirm this agreement: the bill provides $730B in non-defense funds, a $46 billion increase over fiscal 2021, while it includes $782B in defense funds, a $42 billion increase. Unfortunately, that means the increases for non-defense spending in both the House and Senate plans had to be pared back; in NSF’s case, that meant a significant change in fortunes.
CJS: NSF, NIST, and NASA
The National Science Foundation would receive $8.84 billion for FY22, an increase of $350 million over last year or +4.1 percent. The Research and Related Activities (R&RA) account, which hosts NSF’s research portfolio, would receive a similar 4.2 percent increase, up from $6.91 billion in FY21 to $7.2 billion for FY22. Finally, the Education and Human Resources (EHR) account would also see an increase of 4.3 percent, going from $996 million in FY21 to $1.01 billion in FY22.
As for the new TIP Directorate, no dollar amount is given for establishing it. However, in the explanatory statements for Division B, which covers NSF, the appropriators say, “the agreement (meaning the omnibus) supports the new Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) within R&RA that builds upon and consolidates existing NSF programs.” This gives the agency the greenlight to start spending money on new initiatives within TIP. The Administration had requested $865 million in its initial request for the agency, so that will likely be what the agency will spend.
Regular readers will notice these numbers are well below both the House (+13.4 percent) and Senate (+11.8 percent) marks, to say nothing of what the President proposed (+19.8 percent). But when you consider that inflation is currently running at 7.5 percent, this increase is an effective cut; the agency won’t be able to maintain the same level of effort. This is a terrible way for the agency to close out the fiscal year, especially given what Congress is planning for NSF with the USICA and COMPETES bills. In fact, it’s fair to ask how the agency is supposed to keep the nation competitive without providing sufficient funding?
FY21
FY22 PBR
FY22 House
FY22 Senate
FY22 Final
$ Change
% Change
NSF Total
$8.49B
$10.20B
$9.63B
$9.49B
$8.84B
+$350M
+4.1%
R&RA
$6.91B
$8.14B
$7.70B
$7.67B
$7.20B
+$290M
+4.2%
EHR
$968M
$1.29B
$1.27B
$1.10B
$1.01B
+$42M
+4.3%
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) numbers are better and it’s the big winner within the CJS section of the Omnibus. The top line for the agency would be well funded, receiving $1.23 billion in FY22, which would be an increase of $200 million or a 19 percent increase. The institutes’ Science and Technical Research and Services (STRS) account, where the majority of the agency’s research is housed, would also see a healthy increase for FY22: $850 million, which is $62 million more (+7.9 percent) than it received for FY21. Despite being objectively good numbers, these are well below either the House or Senate plans for either the agency’s top line (House +33 percent; Senate +35 percent) or STRS (House +19 percent; Senate +16 percent).
FY21
FY22 PBR
FY22 House
FY22 Senate
FY22 Final
$ Change
% Change
NIST Total
$1.03B
$1.50B
$1.37B
$1.39B
$1.23B
+$200M
+19%
STRS
$788M
$916M
$938M
$913M
$850M
+$62M
+7.9%
NASA’s budget is similar to NSF, in that it will receive increases that don’t keep up with inflation. The top line for the agency goes from $23.27 billion in FY21 to $24 billion in FY22, an increase of $730 million or 3.1 percent. That is well below both the House (+7.6 percent) and Senate (+6.6 percent) marks.
As for the NASA Science account, it would receive a 4.1 percent increase and go from $7.30 billion in FY21 to $7.60 billion in FY22. Much like the agency’s top line, these numbers are well below both the House (+9.2 percent) and Senate (+8.2 percent) marks.
FY21
FY22 PBR
FY22 House
FY22 Senate
FY22 Final
$ Change
% Change
NASA Total
$23.27B
$24.80B
$25.04B
$24.80B
$24.00B
+$730M
+3.1%
Science
$7.30B
$7.93B
$7.97B
$7.90B
$7.60B
+$300M
+4.1%
Energy: Dept of Energy, ASCR, and ARPA-E
The Department of Energy’s Office of Science would receive a relatively good increase in the FY22 Omnibus. The agency’s budget would go from $7.03 billion in FY21 to $7.475 billion in FY22, an increase of 6.3 percent or $445 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 a deceptively good increase of 2.0 percent – going from $1.02 billion in FY21 to $1.04 billion in FY22. I say deceptive because, much like the House and Senate plans, the ASCR construction subaccounts receive large decreases due to their projects coming closer to be completed. Meanwhile the ASCR research subaccounts would receive increases of 6 to 7 percent.
Finally, the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy, or ARPA-E, would receive an increase but not near the House (+41 percent) or Senate (+17 percent) plans. The agency would be funded at $450 million in FY22, an increase of 5.4 percent or $23 million over FY21. Additionally, the proposed ARPA-C (Climate) was not funded in the FY22 Omnibus.
FY21
FY22 PBR
FY22 House
FY22 Senate
FY22 Final
$ Change
% Change
DOE SC Total
$7.03B
$7.44B
$7.32B
$7.50B
$7.475B
+$445M
+6.3%
ASCR
$1.02B
$1.04B
$1.03B
$1.04B
$1.04B
+$20M
+2.0%
ARPA-E
$427M
$500M
$600M
$500M
$450M
+$23M
+5.4%
Defense: DOD and DARPA
In some good news, the Defense Department’s research accounts fared much better in the final Omnibus agreement. Regular readers will recall that the House numbers were not good (though not as bad as the Biden Administration’s request), while the Senate numbers were pretty good. The final numbers were very much a compromise between the two chambers but provided increases for all the accounts.
Basic Research (6.1) would receive an increase, going from $2.67 billion in FY21 to $2.76 billion in FY22, an increase of 3.4 percent or $90 million. The Administration originally requested a 14.5 percent cut for the account; the House had proposed an 8.7 percent cut, while the Senate numbers suggested a 12.5 percent increase.
The Applied Research (6.2) account fairs better. The account would see an increase of 7.1 percent compared to last year’s budget, going from $6.45 billion in FY21 to $7.1 billion (+$460 million) in FY22. These were both better than the House (-8.3 percent) and the Senate, (+1.3 percent) marks.
The Advanced Technology Development (6.3) account would also receive the biggest increase, going from $7.76 billion in FY21 to $9.22 billion in FY22; an increase of $1.46 billion or 19 percent. This is significantly better than both the House (-1.5 percent) and Senate (+4.98 percent).
Finally, DARPA would also receive a healthy increase over FY21. The agency would go from $3.50 billion in FY21 to $3.87 billion under the FY22 Omnibus, an increase of 10.6 percent or $370 million. This is better than the House mark (-0.6 percent) but below the Senate’s (+12.1 percent).
FY21
FY22 PBR
FY22 House
FY22 Senate
FY22 Final
$ Change
% Change
DOD 6.1
$2.67B
$2.28B
$2.44B
$3.00B
$2.76B
+$90M
+3.4%
DOD 6.2
$6.45B
$5.51B
$5.92B
$6.53B
$6.91B
+$460M
+7.1%
DOD 6.3
$7.76B
$6.89B
$7.64B
$8.13B
$9.22B
+$1.46B
+19%
DARPA
$3.50B
$3.53B
$3.48B
$3.93B
$3.87B
+$370M
+10.6%
Unless something extraordinary happens, these are likely to be the final numbers for FY22. While Congress currently has until the end of the week to pass this package, the House included a new CR (running until March 15th) in their flurry of votes, just in case extra time is needed. But that’s likely the last CR Congress will consider for this fiscal year. The House passed the Omnibus late last night. It now heads to the Senate and will likely receive expedited consideration, but the timing will be incredibly close to avoid a break in funding authority (hence the four-day CR). Expect the Senate to move slowly but it will pass, short of some incredible political grandstanding (which can’t be ruled out these days).
In conclusion, this is a very disappointing way to close out this fiscal year, particularly for NSF. While a four percent increase in previous years may have been something to celebrate – or at least not something to complain very loudly about – given the House and Senate proposed funding levels, the urgency around competitiveness, and the President’s budget request for the agency, hopes were considerably higher. When we add the impact of inflation, the four percent stops looking like an increase entirely and instead looks like we’re failing to keep pace with our current level of effort. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the importance of the investment in science and technology needed to remain competitive in an increasingly competitive world.
Looking ahead, we’re still waiting for the President to release his Fiscal Year 2023 request; we are now hearing it will be release by the end of this month but only as a “skinny” budget plan (meaning top line numbers and few details). And given that this is a mid-term election year, it’s safe to expect another slow budget process for FY23.
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CRA Statement Applauding the Nomination of Arati Prabhakar to the Positions of Director of OSTP & the President’s Science Advisor
/In: People, R&D in the Press, Statements /by Brian MosleyYesterday, President Biden announced his intent to nominate Dr. Arati Prabhakar to the positions of Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and, once confirmed by the Senate, will also serve as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. In this capacity, Dr. Prabhakar will also be, “the President’s Chief Advisor for Science and Technology, a co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), and a member of the President’s Cabinet.”
CRA applauds this announcement and released the following statement:
USICA and Competes Act Update: Legislation is Stalled and its Future is Uncertain
/In: Funding, Policy, Research /by Brian Mosley[Editor’s Note: CRA’s new Tisdale Policy Fellow for Summer 2022, Dalton Hellwege, contributed to this post.]
When we last left the NSF reauthorization legislation in early February, the House of Representatives had just introduced and passed the America COMPETES Act of 2022. We had expected this legislation to head rapidly into a conferencing process with the Senate’s US Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), where a compromise bill would be hammered out. Unfortunately, the process has been much slower to progress than expected and has all but ground to a halt. For example, members of the conference committee weren’t announced until April. And now the legislation appears to be falling prey to more pressing political topics, such as gun control, and political calculations with an eye toward the approaching Midterm Elections.
The conference committee did hold a public “kickoff” meeting in mid-May where all 107 members of the committee were given two minutes to provide a statement on their views and priorities with this legislation. The meeting was led by the conference committee chair, Senate Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell (D-WA). In her opening statement, Cantwell said, “we know that R&D is less than 1 percent of our gross domestic product invested in federal research compared to 2 percent in the ’60s. That 2 percent kept us competitive with innovations from DARPA, NASA, DOE, NSF and helped us to win the Cold War. But today, we are losing ground in a number of areas, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, pharmaceuticals, energy revolution.”
Other champions of NSF and scientific research had a chance to speak at the event. Both the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) and Frank Lucas (R-OK), spoke in the favor of the research provisions in the legislation and advocated for NSF. Chairwoman Johnson said, “it is time for us to revitalize federal support for the kinds of research and development initiatives that have long made the U.S. a beacon of excellence in science and innovation.” Rep. Lucas was critical of the process that produced the COMPETES Act legislation but was in favor of the scientific research sections: “I’m committed in good faith towards a bill that strengthens American science and technology and protects our threats from Chinese leadership.” All in all, a majority of the conferees were supportive of the legislation and spoke of its importance to the nation.
However, the conference committee has taken few public actions since this kickoff event. That likely means that the horse-trading process (i.e.: seeing what provisions of the two bills will be cut, retained, and/or modified in order to get enough votes for passage of the legislation) has begun behind closed doors. Unfortunately, that makes gauging the prospects for advancement difficult. An agreement could be struck very quickly if there is enough support to get something done. Or it can get bogged down in negotiations and be delayed.
There are two reasons the legislation could get held up. The first is that it falls prey to more pressing matters, such as the before mentioned gun-control legislation. Congress only has so many days it can vote on matters. And since this is not must-pass legislation, it lacks the extra push a deadline can provide. The other reason for a delay is political: Republicans view the coming November Midterm elections as very favorable to them, so why give Congressional Democrats a legislative win? Especially on a matter that could be handle after the election (or even next year, when Congressional Republicans could craft their own legislation).
There is also mounting criticism that the White House should be more involved in getting a bill passed. But that is a double-edged sword; if President Biden pushes too much for a bill, Republicans could balk at the idea of appearing to work too closely with a Democratic President just before facing voters.
The unfortunate reality is we won’t know more until it happens. We’ll keep our ears to the ground and report any new developments; please keep checking back for updates.
Former CRA Board Chair Dan Reed Elected Chair of the National Science Board
/In: People, R&D in the Press /by Brian MosleyAt this critical juncture for NSF — with the focus on emerging technologies, the creation of the new Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP), and the pending NSF legislation in Congress which will likely reshape the mission of the agency — it’s crucial to have someone from the computing and IT research community helping to steer the NSB in its oversight of the agency and in crafting Federal science policy. We wish to congratulate Dr. Reed on this great honor, and we look forward to working with him as he continues to serve the Nation in this new role!
Roundup of FY2023 Research Agency Requests: Generally Good Numbers for the Budget Requests for NIST, NIH, and NASA, with Some Caveats
/In: Funding, FY23 Appropriations, Research /by Brian MosleyIn our continuing series following the Biden Administration’s Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) 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. All three agencies received good requests, though there are some details that make the final assessments more nuanced.
First, let’s look at NASA. Under the President’s plan, the space agency would receive an 8.3 percent increase, going from $24.00 billion in FY22 to $26.00 billion in FY23. NASA Science, which handles the research funding at the agency, would get an increase though not as good: 5.1 percent, going from $7.60 billion in FY22 to $7.99 billion in FY23.
The next agency, NIST, is one of the big winners under the Biden Administration’s budget request. The top line for the agency would see a large increase of 20 percent, going from $1.23 billion in FY22 to $1.48 billion in FY23. The institutes’ Science and Technical Research and Services (STRS) account, where the majority of the agency’s research is housed, would see an only slightly smaller increase of 15 percent; going from $850 million in FY22 to $975 million in FY23.
Finally, we come to the National Institutes of Health, the research agency request which has that nuance. Under the President’s plan, the agency would go from $44.96 billion in FY22 to $49.04 billion in FY23, an increase of $4.08 billion or 9.1 percent. The nuance comes in with the proposed budget for ARPA-H, or Advanced Research Project Agency, Health. Established in the 2022 Omnibus, ARPA-H would go from its initial budget of $1 billion in FY22 to $5 billion for FY23. According to the President’s plan, the program would be a part of NIH; that would mean its $4 billion increase would be the vast majority of the larger agency’s increase, leaving the other parts of NIH to receive flat funding or slight cuts.
ARPA-H is likely to have a complicated year, from a policy perspective. While it was established in last year’s Omnibus, it still will require an authorization bill (ie: policy bill) to establish its operations. There is currently a legislative fight brewing over where the agency will be located, bureaucratically and physically. The Administration wants ARPA-H under NIH, while several Congressional leaders want it to be independent of NIH’s culture (and NIH’s physical location in Bethesda, MD) and under the Department of Health & Human Services. Secretary of Health Xavier Becerra has suggested a compromise where ARPA-H would be located within NIH but its director would report directly to the Secretary of Health; the Secretary recently issued a noticed in the Federal Register implementing this compromise. It will be interesting to see Congress’ reaction to this action.
ARAP-H is a major priority of the Biden Administration this year, as well as several members of Congress, so we can expect to see some wheeling and dealing as the year progresses. But we’ll have to let this process play out before we know how things will finally fall.
As with the other research accounts we’ve profiled, with the exception of the defense research accounts, these are a great place for the budget process to start. However, it’s worthwhile to temper expectations, as it is unlikely that all these increases will pass Congress as proposed (see: 2022 Omnibus). But, as with last year’s budget requests, it’s great to see scientific research be given this level of support.
Next steps in the FY23 budget process are for each chamber of Congress to come up with their individual funding plans. That process is beginning in earnest and should get into full swing by the beginning of the summer. We’ll have updates as those bills become public; keep checking back for more information.
Department of Energy FY 2023 Request: Increases for ASCR and ARPA-E with Focus on Exascale, AI, and QIS and Other Administration Priorities
/In: Funding, FY23 Appropriations, Research /by Brian MosleyIn our continuing series following the Biden Administration’s Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) budget request, we now turn to the Department of Energy. The two key parts of DOE that are of concern to the computing community are the Office of Science (SC), home to most of the agency’s basic research support, and ARPA-E, or the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.
Regular readers will notice that something is missing in this year’s request: ARPA-Climate, or ARPA-C. Last year, President Biden recommended the establishment of this new ARPA program at DOE to focus on climate change research. That didn’t get much traction in Congress and was never funded; it appears that the Biden Administration will not continue to pursue this as a priority. Instead, they are focusing their climate research efforts in ARPA-E. Elsewhere in DOE’s request you’ll see the general Biden Administration themes and priorities of focusing on climate change, health and pandemic readiness programs, scientific innovation for national competitiveness, and racial equity efforts.
The President’s FY23 request for DOE SC is $7.80 billion; which is an increase of $320 million, or 4.3 percent, compared to the approved FY22 Omnibus level of $7.48 billion. The increase goes to, “Administration priorities including basic research on climate change and clean energy, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), and biopreparedness.” The Office of Science is also continuing its RENEW (Reaching a New Energy Sciences Workforce) program, doubling the initiative to, “expand targeted efforts to increase participation and retention of underrepresented groups in SC research activities,” and, “to ensure a future science workforce that is creative, innovative, and capable of meeting the nation’s needs via proactive stewardship of talent with diverse ideas and backgrounds.” The request will support, “ongoing investments in priority areas including microelectronics, critical materials, exascale computing, fundamental science to transform manufacturing, and accelerator science and technology.”
Within the Office of Science account, the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program – home to most of SCs computing research programs – would appear to fare less well, but its only appearances. The program would be funded at $1.07 billion, which is an increase of $30 million, or 2.9 percent, over last year. As with last year’s request, and the FY22 Omnibus mark, the Exascale Computing Project line-item is reduced heavily (-54 percent) due to construction projects nearing completion; meanwhile, all other subaccounts, including the research ones, get a healthy increase of 9.4 percent, generally. The increases to ASCR’s research will:
The Office of Science is also standing up three new initiatives: Energy Earthshots; Funding for Accelerated, Inclusive Research (FAIR); and Accelerate Innovations in Emerging Technologies (Accelerate). The Energy Earthshots is a climate research program which will, “bring together multi-investigator, multi-disciplinary teams to address key research challenges at the interface between basic research and applied research and development activities.” The FAIR initiative, “will support a directed effort to fund clean energy, climate, and related activities at minority serving institutions (MSIs), including historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs);” the program’s goal is to, “increase research capacity and support faculty at HBCUs and other MSIs by funding core research relevant to the SC mission at these institutions.” Finally, the Accelerate program, “aims to drive scientific discovery for sustainable production of new technologies across the innovation continuum, to train a STEM workforce to support industries of the future, and to meet the nation’s needs for abundant clean energy, a sustainable environment, and national security.”
As for ARPA-E the agency would see a healthy increase. Under the President’s plan ARPA-E would receive $700 million, an increase of $250 million over last year, or 56 percent. As mentioned above, the Biden Administration is proposing to expand ARPA-E’s scope to, “include R&D on climate adaptation and resilience innovations.”
The Department of Energy’s budget is now in Congress’ hands, and we’ll continue to track its progress. Please keep checking back for more updates and additional information.
Department of Defense FY 2023 Request: Yet Another Terrible Budget Request for the Defense Research Accounts
/In: Defense R&D Highlights, Funding, FY23 Appropriations /by Brian MosleyIn our continuing series following the Biden Administration’s Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) budget request, we now turn to the Department of Defense (DOD). In a mirror of this year’s NSF request, it’s déjà vu all over again: a terrible request for the defense research accounts that makes one think the Biden Administration hit copy and paste on their proposal from last year.
A little background: the 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.
All three of DOD S&T’s accounts do badly under the Biden Administration’s plan. Basic Research (6.1), which is the main Defense Department supporter of fundamental research at US universities, gets a big cut of 14 percent; going from $2.76 billion in the FY22 Omnibus to $2.38 billon under the Administration’s plan (a cut of $380 million). The details for 6.1 accounts are not any better: the Army, Navy, and Air Force’s “University Research Initiative” subaccounts are cut at 23, 48, and 9 percent, respectively.
The Applied Research (6.2) account is also cut heavily at 16 percent; going from $6.91 billion in FY22 to $5.79 billion under the Administration’s framework, a loss of $1.12 billion. Finally, Advanced Technology Development (6.3) would also not escape a large cut, going from $9.22 billion in FY22 to $8.29 billion in FY23, a cut of $930 million, or 10 percent. In short: no good news here.
DARPA is the only bright spot among the defense accounts, escaping any proposed cuts. The agency would see a healthy increase, going from $3.87 billion in FY22 to $4.12 billion in FY23, an increase of 6.5 percent (or $250 million).
As with last year’s defense research request, it’s fair to ask, what’s going on here? Especially in light of the Biden Administration’s general support for scientific research. The most likely reason is one we’ve talked about before: budget gamesmanship by Pentagon leadership. Namely that they pull money from what is seen as a Congressional priority (ie: research funding) to put toward something else that does not have the same support. If the scheme works, Congress puts money back into R&D and the moved money “sticks” elsewhere in the DOD budget. It’s not a new strategy, as the Trump Administration (and the Obama and Bush Administrations before them) did this same thing. Given that defense spending generally isn’t getting the attention with the Biden Administration that it has in Administration’s past, there’s probably more of a feeling from the Pentagon leadership that they have to do this. And they are likely to keep doing it until there’s a reason to stop.
These budgets are now in the hands of Congress, and it will be interesting to see how they are handled. It’s likely, though not assured, that this will play out much like this past year’s defense budget: a House mark that is better than the Administration’s, though not objectively good, and then a Senate mark which is quite good. The final numbers will be somewhere between the two. But one thing for sure is that this is a bad place to start this process and the defense research community in Washington will need to put in another year of hard work to get these proposed cuts rejected. CRA will continue to make the case, in concert with our friends and allies in the other scientific fields and higher education institutions, for the importance of these Federal investments in defense research for our national security. We’ll keep track of the progress at each step of the process, so please check back for updates.
NSF FY2023 Request: Again, President Biden Calls for a Strong Vision for NSF’s Future Backed Up with a Robust Funding Increase
/In: CS Education & IT Workforce Highlights, Funding, FY23 Appropriations, Research /by Brian MosleyEarlier this week, the Biden Administration released its long anticipated Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) Budget Request. As we have done in years past, we’ll be writing a series of posts on the assorted agency budgets that are important to the computing research community. First up: the National Science Foundation. As with last year’s budget request, the Biden Administration is advocating a strong vision for NSF, assigning the agency a leading role in many of the Administration’s science priorities, and backing it up with a generous budget increase.
Under the Administration’s FY23 plan, NSF fares very well; the agency would see a 19 percent increase compared to the FY22 Omnibus. NSF would go from $8.84 billion in FY22 to $10.5 billion in FY23, an increase of $1.66 billion.
A large part of that increase would go into Research and Related Activities (R&RA), the subaccount that contains the funding for research grants. R&RA would increase from $7.20 billion in FY22 to $8.43 billion in FY23, a plus up of $1.23 billion (or 17 percent). Education and Human Resources (EHR), the subaccount that contains the agency’s education programs, would also see an increase of $370 million, going from $1.01 billion in FY22 to $1.38 billion under the President’s plan; that’s an increase of 37 percent.
* – Please see below for a note about EHR.
The Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate (CISE), located within R&RA, and the home for most computing research support at NSF, will likely receive an increase, though it’s hard to be sure at the moment. This is because CISE doesn’t currently have an estimate on its budget for FY22 (remember, NSF’s budget was just approved by Congress last month). CISE would receive $1.15 billion under the President’s FY23 budget plan, which is an increase over the directorate’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget of $1.01 billion.
According to the program’s budget justification, the funds will support, “the Nation’s priorities through investments in AI, advanced computing systems and services including high-performance computing (HPC), QIS, advanced communications technologies, advanced manufacturing, semiconductors and microelectronics, biotechnology, cybersecurity, and disaster response and resilience.” The directorate’s plans will also, “continue to invest in a broad suite of activities to support broadening participation in research and education in CISE fields and STEM more generally.” Specifically called out are CISE’s Broadening Participation in Computing Alliances (BPC-A) and Minority-Serving Institutions Research Expansion (CISE-MSI) programs, and the directorate’s investments in Computer Science for All (CSforAll) and CISE Graduate Fellowships (CSGrad4US).
Overall, the requested budget would allow CISE to fund an estimated 8,300 research grants in FY23 (7,054 were funded in FY21), allowing for an estimated 26 percent funding rate. The directorate estimates that its activities will support a total of 21,900 people in FY23; that number includes senior researchers, other professionals, postdos, graduate students, and undergrads. Finally, CISE says that it provides about 79 percent of the federal funding for fundamental computer science research at U.S. academic institutions.
As for NSF’s newest directorate, the Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP), the Biden Administration calls for $880 million for FY23. As with CISE, TIP doesn’t have a FY22 budget to compare against; however, the Administration did recommend $865 million in their budget request a year ago. In the TIP justification document, the directorate will, “advance emerging technologies to address societal and economic challenges and opportunities; accelerate the translation of research results from the lab to market and society; and cultivate new education pathways leading to a diverse and skilled future technical workforce comprising researchers, practitioners, technicians, and entrepreneurs.” Within TIP’s request, $200 million is set aside to create “Regional Innovation Engines.” TIP’s goal with these “NSF Engines” is to, “create regional-scale innovation ecosystems throughout the U.S. and spur economic growth,” catalyzing, “new business and economic growth in those regions of America that have not fully participated in the technology boom of the past several decades.” TIP is also making major NSF-wide investments in, “emerging technologies to sustain and enhance U.S. competitiveness.” It should be no surprise that the largest single investment is for AI, with QIS, advanced wireless, and microelectronics and semiconductors being well represented.
How TIP will integrate with the existing R&RA directorates and the rest of the Foundation is still somewhat of an open question. The directorate could look and operate very different once Congress has its say in the matter. We will have to keep an eye on both how Congress sets the policy direction for TIP, as well as how the directorate is stood up.
As the saying goes, it feels like déjà vu all over again! For the second year President Biden has proposed large investments for NSF. The catch is, again, that Congress has to agree with this plan and then appropriate the funds. It didn’t exactly do that last year, even though NSF was lavished with bipartisan praise and attention. Hopefully, the USICA and COMPETES bills, which have slowly made their way through both chambers, will be conferenced and passed into law soon; that could give NSF a much needed push with Congressional appropriations. But we said much the same thing last year, so it’s best to keep hopes reasonable until we see more concrete actions taken by Congress.
But, as with last year’s request, this budget plan shows great confidence in NSF, and it is an excellent place for the FY23 budget process to begin. Next stop is the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, both of which should hold hearings on the agency’s budget soon and will then start drafting their bills. We can expect to get the first indications sometime in the summer. We’ll be keeping track, so please check back for more updates.
* Note about EHR: NSF is proposing changing the name of EHR to the Directorate for STEM Education (EDU) and rename the Division of Human Resource Development (HRD) within EDU to the Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM (EES). According to NSF this is to, “more accurately capture the totality of the Directorate’s work.” We’ll have to see if Congress will go along with this, even though it appears to be only a name change. It will likely be looked at by both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, as well as the authorizing committees with jurisdiction over NSF: the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee and the Senate Commerce Committee.
President Biden Releases Fiscal Year 2023 Budget Request; Topline Numbers for Multiple Science Agencies Do Well; NSF Gets 19% Increase
/In: Defense R&D Highlights, Funding, FY23 Appropriations, Research /by Brian MosleyYesterday, the Biden Administration released some details of their $5.8 trillion budget request for Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23). We say “some details” because there are several important supporting documents that the Administration plans to release over the next week. Despite the lack of a few details, it is still possible to have a high-level view of the Administration’s plans; from what we see in this request, research agencies across the federal government will do quite well under President Biden’s budget request, much as they did in last year’s request.
The President’s FY23 proposal calls for $1.6 trillion for discretionary funds, including $813 billion for defense-related programs and $769 billion for domestic spending. That compares to $1.5 trillion enacted in the fiscal 2022 omnibus spending bill signed into law by President Biden earlier this month; that had $782 billion for defense and $730 billion for domestic spending.
Many of the general themes of this budget proposal are the same as with last year’s budget request and the R&D priorities memo that OSTP released at the end of the summer. The Administration is still focusing heavily on climate change; health and pandemic readiness programs; scientific innovation in critical and emerging technologies; and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
One item to note: the Administration decided to release their budget plan with comparisons to Fiscal Year 2021, not the recently passed FY22 Omnibus. It’s unclear why this was done. We are making comparisons here using the FY22 Omnibus numbers (where we can), hence why our information may not match other news outlets.
Let’s get into the details of the request:
National Science Foundation: Topline $10.5 billion, an increase of $1.66 billion, or 19 percent, over FY22 Omnibus levels. As with last year’s President’s request, NSF is the big winner by percentage increase among the science agencies. And the good news here goes down the line, with the Research and Related Activities (RRA) account receiving an increase of 17 percent and the Education and Human Resources (EHR) account receiving a 37 percent increase.
The budget materials also call for the CISE Directorate to receive a budget of $1.15 billion for FY23. It’s hard to get a solid idea on whether this is an increase for CISE, as they don’t have an estimate for their FY22 budget yet. It is an increase over the directorate’s FY21 budget of $1.01 billion. According to the program’s budget justification, the funds will, “accelerate climate and clean energy research, advance equity in science, engineering, and society, and bolster U.S. leadership in critical and emerging technologies.” The directorate’s plans also call for major investments in artificial intelligence, QIS, and semiconductors.
Established in the FY22 Omnibus is the new Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP). The requested topline for TIP is $880 million. Since Congress didn’t set a specific amount for the directorate in the Omnibus, there isn’t a comparison that can be made to last year’s budget (the Administration did request $865 million in their FY22 request last year). The aim for TIP is, “to advance emerging technologies to address societal and economic challenges and opportunities; accelerate the translation of research results from the lab to market and society; and cultivate new education pathways leading to a diverse and skilled future technical workforce comprising researchers, practitioners, technicians, and entrepreneurs.” We’ll have to keep a close eye on TIP as it makes its way through the budget process, as Congress is likely to have significant changes for the directorate in the near future.
Department of Energy, Office of Science: Topline $7.8 billion, an increase of $320 million or 4.3 percent over FY22 Omnibus levels. Within the Office of Science account, the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program, home to most of SCs computing research programs, would fare slightly worse. The program would be funded at $1.07 billion, which is an increase of $30 million, or 2.9 percent, over last year. DOE hasn’t released their detailed justification but what is provided by the Administration makes clear the department will continue their investments in AI, QIS, and Exascale computing.
The Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E, fairs quite well in the Administration’s proposal. The program would receive a topline of $700 million, which is an increase of $250 million over the FY22 Omnibus, or +56 percent. The budget documents state that, “this investment in high-potential, high-impact research and development would help remove the technological barriers to advance energy and environmental missions.” It would also appear that the Biden Administration is stepping away from plans to create a new ARPA-C program, for climate research, instead focusing efforts at ARPA-E. This is likely because ARPA-C did not get much traction in Congress last year. The Administration states that, “the budget…proposes expanded authority for ARPA-E to more fully address innovation gaps around adaptation, mitigation, and resilience to the impacts of climate change.”
National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST): The topline is $1.48 billion, an increase of $250 million, or 20 percent, over the FY22 Omnibus. The institutes’ Science and Technical Research and Services (STRS) account, where the majority of the agency’s research is housed, would see almost as good of an increase; $975 million for this year, which is $125 million more (+15 percent) than it received in the FY22 Omnibus.
National Institutes of Health (NIH): The health research agency has a complicated budget request. At the topline, it would appear to do quite well, being funded for FY23 at $49.04 billion, receiving an increase of $4.08 billion over the FY22 Omnibus, or +9.1 percent. However, things are a bit deceptive, as the new ARPA-H program is included in that number. Modeled after DARPA at the Defense Department and ARPA-E at the Department of Energy, ARPA-H received $1 billion in the FY22 Omnibus and would receive $5 billion under the President’s FY23 plan. So, the majority of NIH’s increase is going to the new ARPA-H program, leaving only modest increases for the rest of the agency.
Department of Defense (DOD): Unfortunately, the information that has been released for the defense research accounts is contradictory to the information we have been using to track these accounts over the last few years; we will need more time to analyze this information. However, for DARPA, or the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, the topline is provided: $4.12 billion, an increase of 6.5 percent (+$250 million) over FY22 levels.
NASA: Topline $26.0 billion, an increase of $2 billion or 8.3 percent over FY22 levels. The justification for the space agency’s FY23 budget is to invest in, “human and robotic exploration of the Moon; new technologies to improve the Nation’s space capabilities; and addressing the climate crisis through cutting-edge research satellites and green aviation research.” To that end, the Administration plans on providing the NASA Science program with a budget of $7.99 billion dollars, which is an increase of 5.1 percent, or $390 million, over FY22 Omnibus levels.
What happens now? The budget process now heads to both chambers of Congress for deliberations. Due to the late start, with last year’s budget only being finalized earlier this month, this is likely to be a long year for the federal budget process. Throwing in that this is an election year, it’s safe to say it’s unlikely FY23 will be finalized at the start of the fiscal year (which is October 1st). But we’ll be keeping track of developments, as well as have our normal detailed dives into specific agency’s requests, so be sure to check back for more information.
NSF Announces the Establishment of New TIP Directorate to “ensure the U.S. will be a global leader in science, engineering and technology for generations to come”
/In: CS Education & IT Workforce Highlights, People, Policy, Research /by Brian MosleyYesterday the Director of the National Science Foundation, Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan, formally announced the establishment of the Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships, or TIP. This is the first new NSF directorate established in more than 30 years. This move came about because of the passage of the Fiscal Year 2022 Omnibus appropriations bill by Congress last week, which stipulated that NSF was authorized to establish this new directorate.
TIP’s mission is to position NSF as the nation’s lead science agency for innovation and to maintain the country’s competitiveness in new research fields and technology. As Dr. Panchanathan said in the announcement, “TIP is about developing exciting new approaches that supercharge research outcomes and enhance the cycle of discovery and innovation so that more solutions and technologies are available to the American people faster than ever.”
In addition to announcing the formation of the new directorate, Erwin Gianchandani was named as the inaugural assistant director for TIP. Dr. Gianchandani is no stranger to the computing community, as he is a former Director of CRA’s Computing Community Consortium, as well as the former Deputy Assistant Director at NSF’s CISE Directorate. NSF Director Panchanathan called Dr. Gianchandani, “a visionary leader with a wealth of experience in research, innovation, and partnership programs.”
At present it’s just a reorganization of existing programs at the agency, with little in terms of details on the TIP website. But NSF is repositioning much of its existing portfolio of innovation and translation programs into the new Directorate, such as the NSF’s Lab-to-Market Platform comprising the NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps), Partnerships for Innovation (PFI), and Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR and STTR) programs, and the NSF Convergence Accelerator. Likely new programs and missions will follow as authorization legislation is agreed to by Congress in the, hopefully, near future.
CRA looks forward to working with the new TIP Directorate and its leadership to see how we can keep the United States the world leader in innovation for generations to come.
FY22 Update: Omnibus Numbers Released; NSF Fares Badly While Defense Research Does Well
/In: Funding, FY22 Appropriations, Research /by Brian MosleyUPDATE: The Senate passed the Fiscal Year 2022 Omnibus late in the evening on March 10th, sending it to President Biden to be signed into law. Therefore, Fiscal Year 2022 is complete.
Original Post: Over six months after the fiscal year began, Fiscal Year 2022 (FY22) is inching closer to being passed into law by Congress. Unfortunately, this massive legislative package does not contain good news for many of the research accounts that the computing community is concerned about, most especially NSF.
Released in the early hours of March 9th, the FY22 Omnibus funding legislation is a legislative behemoth of over three thousand pages combining all twelve appropriation bills, a new four day continuing resolution (till March 15th), and two supplemental funding requests (one for the Ukraine War and the other for COVID response; to add to the drama, the COVID supplemental was ultimately yanked from the final package). Not only is there a lot going on with this legislative package but there is also not a lot of time for Congress to act, with the current continuing resolution (CR) only running until Friday March 11th.
Before getting into the details of the Omnibus, it’s worth taking a step back to understand what thinking that has shaped the funding plans for Fiscal Year 2022. Both the Biden Administration and Congressional Democrats were adamant that they were increasing non-defense spending (which includes most of the research agencies we care about), while keeping defense spending flat. Their view is that during the sequestration budget years, non-defense spending had disproportionally received cuts and Democrats would be making up for lost time. The Administration budget request, and both the House and Senate budget plans, were developed with this mindset.
But when Democrat and Republican appropriators came to an agreement on final top line numbers for FY22 in mid-February, it was decided that defense and non-defense spending would be raised equally. This was because Democrats needed Senate Republicans to pass a final bill into law and this was the price of that support. At a high level, the details of the FY22 Omnibus confirm this agreement: the bill provides $730B in non-defense funds, a $46 billion increase over fiscal 2021, while it includes $782B in defense funds, a $42 billion increase. Unfortunately, that means the increases for non-defense spending in both the House and Senate plans had to be pared back; in NSF’s case, that meant a significant change in fortunes.
CJS: NSF, NIST, and NASA
The National Science Foundation would receive $8.84 billion for FY22, an increase of $350 million over last year or +4.1 percent. The Research and Related Activities (R&RA) account, which hosts NSF’s research portfolio, would receive a similar 4.2 percent increase, up from $6.91 billion in FY21 to $7.2 billion for FY22. Finally, the Education and Human Resources (EHR) account would also see an increase of 4.3 percent, going from $996 million in FY21 to $1.01 billion in FY22.
As for the new TIP Directorate, no dollar amount is given for establishing it. However, in the explanatory statements for Division B, which covers NSF, the appropriators say, “the agreement (meaning the omnibus) supports the new Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) within R&RA that builds upon and consolidates existing NSF programs.” This gives the agency the greenlight to start spending money on new initiatives within TIP. The Administration had requested $865 million in its initial request for the agency, so that will likely be what the agency will spend.
Regular readers will notice these numbers are well below both the House (+13.4 percent) and Senate (+11.8 percent) marks, to say nothing of what the President proposed (+19.8 percent). But when you consider that inflation is currently running at 7.5 percent, this increase is an effective cut; the agency won’t be able to maintain the same level of effort. This is a terrible way for the agency to close out the fiscal year, especially given what Congress is planning for NSF with the USICA and COMPETES bills. In fact, it’s fair to ask how the agency is supposed to keep the nation competitive without providing sufficient funding?
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) numbers are better and it’s the big winner within the CJS section of the Omnibus. The top line for the agency would be well funded, receiving $1.23 billion in FY22, which would be an increase of $200 million or a 19 percent increase. The institutes’ Science and Technical Research and Services (STRS) account, where the majority of the agency’s research is housed, would also see a healthy increase for FY22: $850 million, which is $62 million more (+7.9 percent) than it received for FY21. Despite being objectively good numbers, these are well below either the House or Senate plans for either the agency’s top line (House +33 percent; Senate +35 percent) or STRS (House +19 percent; Senate +16 percent).
NASA’s budget is similar to NSF, in that it will receive increases that don’t keep up with inflation. The top line for the agency goes from $23.27 billion in FY21 to $24 billion in FY22, an increase of $730 million or 3.1 percent. That is well below both the House (+7.6 percent) and Senate (+6.6 percent) marks.
As for the NASA Science account, it would receive a 4.1 percent increase and go from $7.30 billion in FY21 to $7.60 billion in FY22. Much like the agency’s top line, these numbers are well below both the House (+9.2 percent) and Senate (+8.2 percent) marks.
Energy: Dept of Energy, ASCR, and ARPA-E
The Department of Energy’s Office of Science would receive a relatively good increase in the FY22 Omnibus. The agency’s budget would go from $7.03 billion in FY21 to $7.475 billion in FY22, an increase of 6.3 percent or $445 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 a deceptively good increase of 2.0 percent – going from $1.02 billion in FY21 to $1.04 billion in FY22. I say deceptive because, much like the House and Senate plans, the ASCR construction subaccounts receive large decreases due to their projects coming closer to be completed. Meanwhile the ASCR research subaccounts would receive increases of 6 to 7 percent.
Finally, the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy, or ARPA-E, would receive an increase but not near the House (+41 percent) or Senate (+17 percent) plans. The agency would be funded at $450 million in FY22, an increase of 5.4 percent or $23 million over FY21. Additionally, the proposed ARPA-C (Climate) was not funded in the FY22 Omnibus.
Defense: DOD and DARPA
In some good news, the Defense Department’s research accounts fared much better in the final Omnibus agreement. Regular readers will recall that the House numbers were not good (though not as bad as the Biden Administration’s request), while the Senate numbers were pretty good. The final numbers were very much a compromise between the two chambers but provided increases for all the accounts.
Basic Research (6.1) would receive an increase, going from $2.67 billion in FY21 to $2.76 billion in FY22, an increase of 3.4 percent or $90 million. The Administration originally requested a 14.5 percent cut for the account; the House had proposed an 8.7 percent cut, while the Senate numbers suggested a 12.5 percent increase.
The Applied Research (6.2) account fairs better. The account would see an increase of 7.1 percent compared to last year’s budget, going from $6.45 billion in FY21 to $7.1 billion (+$460 million) in FY22. These were both better than the House (-8.3 percent) and the Senate, (+1.3 percent) marks.
The Advanced Technology Development (6.3) account would also receive the biggest increase, going from $7.76 billion in FY21 to $9.22 billion in FY22; an increase of $1.46 billion or 19 percent. This is significantly better than both the House (-1.5 percent) and Senate (+4.98 percent).
Finally, DARPA would also receive a healthy increase over FY21. The agency would go from $3.50 billion in FY21 to $3.87 billion under the FY22 Omnibus, an increase of 10.6 percent or $370 million. This is better than the House mark (-0.6 percent) but below the Senate’s (+12.1 percent).
Unless something extraordinary happens, these are likely to be the final numbers for FY22. While Congress currently has until the end of the week to pass this package, the House included a new CR (running until March 15th) in their flurry of votes, just in case extra time is needed. But that’s likely the last CR Congress will consider for this fiscal year. The House passed the Omnibus late last night. It now heads to the Senate and will likely receive expedited consideration, but the timing will be incredibly close to avoid a break in funding authority (hence the four-day CR). Expect the Senate to move slowly but it will pass, short of some incredible political grandstanding (which can’t be ruled out these days).
In conclusion, this is a very disappointing way to close out this fiscal year, particularly for NSF. While a four percent increase in previous years may have been something to celebrate – or at least not something to complain very loudly about – given the House and Senate proposed funding levels, the urgency around competitiveness, and the President’s budget request for the agency, hopes were considerably higher. When we add the impact of inflation, the four percent stops looking like an increase entirely and instead looks like we’re failing to keep pace with our current level of effort. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the importance of the investment in science and technology needed to remain competitive in an increasingly competitive world.
Looking ahead, we’re still waiting for the President to release his Fiscal Year 2023 request; we are now hearing it will be release by the end of this month but only as a “skinny” budget plan (meaning top line numbers and few details). And given that this is a mid-term election year, it’s safe to expect another slow budget process for FY23.