On Friday, the House and Senate leadership, along with the White House, reached an agreement on a final budget for the federal government through September 30, 2011 (or FY11, for short). The agreement helped avert a government shutdown over the weekend and will finally give federal agencies some certainty about the funding they’ll have available for the remainder of the fiscal year. While the agreement doesn’t cut federal science budgets nearly as deeply as the continuing resolution the House approved in February, science agencies won’t see any increases under the plan. Here’s a quick summary of what the agreement both chambers will likely approve this week will do to some key science agencies:
The National Science Foundation, which had been slated to receive a $140 million cut under the original House-approved plan, would instead see a cut of $43 million (or 0.8 percent) to its research accounts in FY11 compared to the levels approved for FY10 — a full $444 million less than the President requested in his FY11 budget. NSF’s Education and Human Resources directorate would see a cut of $10 million vs. FY10, $29 million less than the President’s request.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology would see a $7 million cut in FY11 compared to FY10 — a $77 million reduction from the President’s requested level.
DOE’s Office of Science, which had faced a $1.1 billion cut in the original House plan, would instead see a decrease of $35 million in FY11 compared to FY10. This is $252 million less than the President requested.
We’ll have more details on the progress of the bill and a look at the defense R&D it contains in the next update.
So, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’re probably someone who’d be interested in CRA’s most recent effort to increase science policy literacy amongst the computing research community. Today CRA’s Computing Community Consortium is putting out a Call for Nominations for participants in a workshop hosted by the new CCC Leadership in Science Policy Institute. Below is the actual call. If you’re a researcher who is interested in learning more about the ways science policy affects the discipline and the country, or how members of the community can help shape that policy, we want to hear from you! Nominations are being accepted through May 15th. Here are the details:
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS — CCC LEADERSHIP IN SCIENCE POLICY INSTITUTE
As part of its mission to develop a next generation of leaders in the computing research community, CRA’s Computing Community Consortium (CCC) announces the CCC Leadership in Science Policy Institute (LiSPI), intended to educate a small cadre of computing researchers on how science policy in the U.S. is formulated and how our government works. We seek nominations for participants.
LiSPI will be centered around a one-day workshop to be held on Monday, November 7, 2011 in Washington, DC. (Full details of LiSPI are available at: https://cra.org/ccc/spi)
LiSPI will feature presentations and discussions with science policy experts, current and former Hill staff, and relevant agency and Administration personnel about mechanics of the legislative process, interacting with agencies, advisory committees, and the federal case for computing. (You can see a list of speakers and sessions at http://www.cra.org/ccc/spi_agenda.php )
LiSPI participants are expected to
+ complete a short lesson describing the basic structure and function of government (a sort of “Civics 101” assignment) prior to attending the workshop, so that time spent at the workshop can focus on more advanced content,
+ attend the November 7 workshop, which includes breakfast and lunch, as well as a reception with the speakers and invited guests at the conclusion of the day, and
+ complete a small-group assignment afterwards that puts to use the workshop content on a CCC-inspired problem—perhaps writing an argument in favor of particular initiative for an agency audience, or drafting sample testimony on a CCC topic.
LiSPI is not intended for individuals who wish to undertake research on science policy, become science policy fellows, or take permanent positions in Washington, DC. Rather, we are trying to reach work-a-day academics who appreciate that our field must be engaged in helping government.
The CCC will provide funds for hotel accommodations for two nights (before and after the workshop), meals, as well as airfare and other travel expenses in connection with attending the November 7 workshop.
ELIGIBILITY AND NOMINATION PROCESS
LiSPI participants are expected to be tenured academics from Computer Science or Information Science departments who are adept at communicating. They must be nominated by their chair or department head and must have demonstrated an interest in science policy, especially as it relates to computer science (and closely allied fields).
Specifically, the nomination process is as follows:
* A chair or department head proposes a LiSPI candidate by visiting
and providing the name and institution of the nominee, along with a letter of recommendation.
* The candidate will then be contacted by the CCC and asked to submit a CV, a short essay detailing their interests in science policy, and an indication of whether they would require financial aid to attend.
All nominations and material from nominators and nominees must be received by May 15, 2011.
SELECTION PROCESS
The LiSPI selection committee will evaluate each nomination based on record of accomplishment, proven ability to communicate, and promise. Selections will be announced by June 15, 2011. Funding is available for approximately 15 participants in this initial LiSPI offering.
Please discuss this opportunity with your colleagues, identify those you believe would be interested in participating, and submit nominations!
Total enrollments among U.S. computer science undergraduates increased 10 percent in 2010, data from the most recent annual CRA Taulbee Survey show. This is the third straight year of increases in total enrollment and indicates that the post “dot-com crash” decline in undergraduate computing program enrollments is over.
The CRA Taulbee Survey is conducted annually by CRA to document trends in student enrollment, degree production, employment of graduates, and faculty salaries in Ph.D-granting departments of computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE) and information (I) in the United States and Canada. CRA today released the enrollment and degree production results (available as a pdf) from the latest edition of the survey.
Overall bachelor’s degree production in computer science, computer engineering and information sciences departments in 2010 rose nearly 11 percent from that in 2009 . Bachelor’s degree production in computer science departments was up more than 9 percent. The increases in new students observed during each of the past two years have resulted in increased degree production, a welcome turnaround from the past several years of declining bachelor’s degree production.
Also notable from the survey:
Ph.D. production in computing programs held steady in 2009-2010, following a drop in production last year.
Among CRA member schools, the share of bachelor’s degrees in CS granted to females rose to 13.8 percent in 2010, an increase of 2.5 percentage points over 2009. The share of bachelor’s degrees in CS granted to minority students held nearly steady at 10.3 percent in 2010.
The full report, which also includes information about faculty size, demographics and salaries, graduate student support and research expenditures, will be available in May 2011 on the CRA web site.
At the State of the Union in January, President Obama said, “We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time. We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit and reform our government. That’s how our people will prosper. That’s how we’ll win the future.” Secretary Chu chose this quote to begin the FY2012 Department of Energy budget briefing. The message was clear: investing in science research is NOT optional if we want to be competitive with the rest of the world.
The President’s Budget Request (PBR) included a 9.1 percent increase in the overall budget of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science for FY2012 compared to FY2010, for a total budget of $5.41 billion.
The Advanced Scientific Computing Research program would see a significant increase of 21.5 percent for a total of $465.6 million. Basic energy sciences would get a 24.1 percent increase, a total of $1.99 billion.
The Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists program is still heavily supported. That request is for a 72 percent increase to $35.6 million, which is the exact same request made for FY2011.
ARPA-E, a program that has not yet seen funding from normal appropriations, requested $550 million.
The presentations and detailed budget information for the Department is available online.
Unfortunately, as we reported earlier, despite this strong support for science funding by the Administration, the House has been very vocal that decreases will be the standard moving forward.
The President released his FY12 Budget Request to Congress this morning. We’ll take close-up looks at several of the key science agency budget requests as the day goes on, but here’s a first look at the overall picture. From the Analytical Perspectives on the Budget:
The Administration recognizes the Government’s role in fostering scientific and technological breakthroughs, and has committed resources to ensure America leads the world in the innovations of the future. The Budget proposes $66 billion for basic and applied research because it is a reliable source of new knowledge to drive job creation and economic growth.
The President’s 2012 Budget maintains his commitment to double Federal investment in key basic research agencies: the National Science Foundation (NSF); the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science; and the laboratories of the Department of Commerce (DOC) National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The Budget proposes $14 billion in 2012 for these three agencies, an increase of $1.5 billion over 2010 funding. Priorities for 2012 include clean energy and advanced manufacturing research in areas such as information technology, nanotechnology, and biotechnology at NSF, basic energy sciences at DOE, and cybersecurity, biomanufacturing, and innovative energy technologies at NIST.
The Federal R&D effort needs complementary R&D investments from business to provide a much wider range of technology options than the Government alone could provide and to translate scientific discoveries into commercially successful, innovative products and services. In order to provide businesses with greater confidence to invest, innovate, and grow, the Budget proposes to simplify and expand the Research and Experimentation tax credit, and make it permanent.
Some quick agency-specific numbers:
NSF would see a 16 percent increase in R&D vs. FY10 (the FY11 year isn’t available for comparison yet because Congress hasn’t finished it).
Energy research would see an increase of 20 percent vs. FY10
NASA R&D overall would increase 6 percent, and NASA basic research would grow 220 percent from $835 million to $2.7 billion…but only because construction on the International Space Station is complete, so any resources to operate this new “national lab” are considered “basic research”
Defense basic research would see an increase of 14 percent, applied would decrease 4 percent.
NIH research would increase 3 percent.
Of course, this budget is essentially “dead on arrival” as far as the House is concerned. But it’s still important to have a good request from the President and the agencies on record when we go advocating for the science agencies during the FY12 appropriations process.
We’ll have lots more as we go through a day of briefings…
The House Appropriations Committee released their spending cuts version 2.0 — after having their previous attempt to cut $74 billion from the President’s request for non-defense discretionary spending savaged by conservative Republicans in the House — and NSF and DOE both face significant cuts. The appropriators went back and took another look at their first proposal, which cut about $74 billion from the President’s budget request, and found another $26 billion. The new proposed cuts mean real cuts for agency budgets (not just cuts to requested increases).
Here’s a list of the proposed cuts in the CR, which will be taken up on Monday in a vehicle that combines the CR and the FY 11 Defense Appropriation.
Notable cuts for science:
National Science Foundation’s Research and Related Activities account – cut $150 million compared to NSF’s FY10 budget.
NSF’s Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction – cut $62.5 million vs. FY 10.
NSF’s Education and Human Resources – cut $147 million vs. FY 10.
DOE’s Office of Science – cut $893 million.
DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy – cut $786 million
NIST’s Scientific and Technical Research Services – cut $45.5 million
About the only positive — and that’s a very qualified positive — is that ARPA-E does manage to get an appropriation in the bill ($50 million), averting some concerns that the agency would receive $0. That’s significantly lower than their original funding of $400 million, but the agency is in an awkward spot because it has never had a “normal” appropriation (it was authorized in the America COMPETES Act and given a one-time appropriation in the 2009 stimulus bill), so a CR could very well have included no funding for it.
We’ll have more as we figure it out, but these numbers show the community has a lot of work to do in the House and Senate to prevent the country from taking a big step backwards in trying to improve our long-term innovative potential….
Update: Um, nevermind. After conservative Republicans savaged the proposed $32 billion in cuts as inadequate, House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers pledged to come back with a proposal that would cut $100 billion, potentially putting NSF right back under the crosshairs. Here’s Roger’s statement:
My Committee has been working diligently to go line-by-line in every agency budget to find and cut unnecessary spending to reduce our deficit and help our economy thrive.
After meeting with my subcommittee Chairs, we have determined that the CR can and will reach a total of $100 billion in cuts compared to the President’s request immediately – fully meeting the goal outlined in the Republican ‘Pledge to America’ in one fell swoop. Our intent is to make deep but manageable cuts in nearly every area of government, leaving no stone unturned and allowing no agency or program to be held sacred. I have instructed my committee to include these deeper cuts, and we are continuing to work to complete this critical legislation.
We’ll have more when we learn more.
Original Post: As readers of this blog are no doubt aware, Congress has not yet finished the FY 11 appropriations process, leaving federal agencies in funding limbo, despite being five months into FY 11 fiscal year. Starting Monday, House appropriators hope to start the process of resolving the FY 11 budget by passing a “continuing resolution” for the remainder of the fiscal year that will make significant cuts to the budgets of a lot of key agencies. The GOP leadership of the House Appropriations Committee today released a list of some key cuts they plan to make and science agencies aren’t spared — with two notable exceptions.
The list of cuts is available here.
It’s important to keep in mind that the cuts are to the President’s requested budget for FY 11, not to the agency’s FY 10 budgets. In many cases, the President requested substantial increases for these programs, so the “cuts” listed here are actually just reductions to the level of increase requested. The agency might still fare better than it did in FY 10.
The National Science Foundation is targeted for $139 million in “cuts” in the proposal. However, the President requested an increase of $479 million for the agency in FY 11, so in real terms, NSF would see an *increase* of $340 million in FY 11 vs FY 10, or about 6.0 percent. That’s pretty astonishing, given the circumstances. (more on that below)
DOE Office of Science is the other side of the coin, though. They’re slated for $1.1 billion in cuts in the proposal. The President requested an increase of only $226 million for the agency in FY 11, so the proposed cuts are a real cut of $874 million (or 18 percent) to the Science budget compared to FY 10. DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy account would get hit even harder, suffering a $786 million real cut, or 35 percent.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology is another loser, receiving almost 15 percent in real cuts in the proposal, though as always, it’s difficult to assess where the cuts will fall (will they hit the controversial TIP or MEP programs, or NIST’s core research?).
NASA is a big winner in the proposal. The GOP leadership wants a “cut” of $379 million for the agency, but the President requested an increase of $1.7 billion for the agency. So, the agency still would clear $1.3 billion in new funding in FY 11 vs. FY 10 (14 percent increase).
NIH would be flat funded in real terms by the proposal.
So, encouraging news for NSF, but very bad news for DOE. Also, these numbers aren’t final. There are a many proposed cuts that hit very politically charged accounts, like the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program (which, among other things, funds the purchase of bulletproof vests for police officers) and the food assistance program for low-income women, infants and children. If appropriators are forced to back off cuts to those accounts (and others), they may look for other places to achieve the same savings, which could put NSF back in the crosshairs.
But, looking on the bright side, the fact that even in this fiscally harsh environment — this huge laundry list of belt-tightening — NSF was still singled out for special treatment (and increases) is a pretty important symbol. It perhaps means that the GOP leadership still understands that there’s value in the investment in NSF — that an investment in NSF probably provides more real return to the country than it costs. So there’s a little reason for optimism amongst the carnage. But apparently they haven’t gotten that message about DOE….
On Monday we’ll also get our first look at the President’s budget proposal for FY 12. Given the high prominence he gave research and education issues in his State of the Union address last month, and the degree to which he’s been touring the country the last two weeks talking up the importance of innovation to America’s future, it’s likely that we’ll see some healthy requests for science funding. But achieving those increases in this Congress and this fiscal environment is likely to be an extremely steep climb. But stay tuned because we’ll have all the details here.
The President delivered his annual State of the Union address this evening and made innovation – and the research and education investments that enable it – the central focus of nearly the first 25 minutes of it. It’s hard to quote just a part of it – I’d encourage you to read the whole thing, though the first three pages are pretty key for the science advocacy community.
Giving research and education issues such prominent mentions in the speech is both a blessing and a curse, perhaps. Talking about the importance of these investments 25 mins before he focused the current budget crisis shows the priority his Administration places on them. He was clearly making the case that, even in these fiscally worrisome times where budget-slashing is likely to be the norm, federal investments in research and education have huge payoffs and ought to be protected. But in making the case so prominently, he painted a huge target on research and education funding for Republicans as symbols of the “big government” Democrats are trying to continue to fund, even while the need for cutting spending has never been greater. (That overall federal spending for basic research in the U.S. represents barely a blip in the overall budget picture is largely immaterial. Symbolically, it’s spending, and reducing it means reducing “the size of government.”)
Here are two key quotes that I think show the divergence of views and approaches. From the State of the Union:
We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time. We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit, and reform our government. That’s how our people will prosper. That’s how we’ll win the future. And tonight, I’d like to talk about how we get there.
The first step in winning the future is encouraging American innovation.
…
This is our generation’s Sputnik moment. Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and development we haven’t seen since the height of the Space Race. In a few weeks, I will be sending a budget to Congress that helps us meet that goal. We’ll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology – an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.
And from the Republican response, given by House Budget Committee Chair, Paul Ryan (R-WI):
We are at a moment, where if government’s growth is left unchecked and unchallenged, America’s best century will be considered our past century. This is a future in which we will transform our social safety net into a hammock, which lulls able-bodied people into lives of complacency and dependency.
Depending on bureaucracy to foster innovation, competitiveness, and wise consumer choices has never worked — and it won’t work now.
We need to chart a new course.
So it’s a pretty stark division. The science community has its work cut out making the case to Republicans to understand the value of federal investments in fundamental research and education. The President made a good start at it. It’s up to us now to talk about the impact of the computing community – a community in which nearly every major subfield, every major billion-dollar sector of the market, bears the stamp of federal support for research. I hope you’ll help!
Tom Kalil, Deputy Director for Policy at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), discusses the importance of IT R&D from the perspective of the Administration. He talks about the huge impact that IT has on the economy as a whole as well as on productivity and on other scientific disciplines. He also discusses the unbreakable connections between IT and national priorities such as health care, education, energy and national security.
Tom Leighton, Professor of Applied Mathematics, MIT, and Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of Akamai Technologies, discusses his experience doing high-risk, basic research for DARPA and how it led to the founding of a company and better Internet reliability for consumers and government.
Robert Atkinson, President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, discusses many aspects of the report including the concerns that IT R&D needs to be more than supercomputers and that a portion of the money included as IT R&D is really going toward NIT infrastructure instead of research. He also makes note that there are 20 new billion dollar industries related to IT created in the last couple of decades but that we are not investing enough in basic research to compete going forward.
Today the House voted to pass a revised version of the America COMPETES Act, a bill that would reauthorize several key science agencies and STEM Education programs, completing an unlikely resurrection of a bill most in the science advocacy community (including this correspondent) figured was dead in this session.
COMPETES has been through quite a legislative rollercoaster on its trip through Congress and has emerged at the end significantly leaner. The version the House granted final approval of today has been trimmed significantly since its original passage — the Senate having shed the bill of a number of controversial tech-transfer and tech-innovation programs, cut the authorization amounts for NSF, NIST and DOE Office of Science, and removed the Networking and Information Technology R&D (NITRD) Program reauthorization and the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) from the package. The resulting “clean” package was far more palatable to Senate Republicans who had opposed the House version of the bill, and the Senate was able to find time on its calendar late on Sunday to pass the bill by unanimous consent.
Unfortunately, the Senate managed to find time on its calendar because the Democratic leadership wasn’t able to strike a deal on passage of a Omnibus Appropriations bill that would have contained — along with funding for all the operations of government — real funding increases for NSF and NIST in FY 11. Instead, the Senate leadership pulled the omnibus legislation and has passed a so-called “Continuing Resolution” (CR) that would keep the government running at the FY 10 budget levels through March 4, 2011. The House is expected to agree to the March 4th CR this evening.
But despite actual appropriations being left up in the air for science agencies, it is still symbolic that both chambers decided to use precious closing-session floor time to debate and ultimately authorize increases for science funding. Advocates for science can now at least point to these authorized levels as a target for appropriators as the new Congress convenes in January.
And what did legislators ultimately approve? The Alliance for Science and Technology Research in America (ASTRA) has put together a handy comparison chart (pdf) showing the various authorization levels approved along COMPETES bumpy path. In short, here’s where NSF and NIST finished up:
National Science Foundation: Authorized for three years with a total increase of nearly 20 percent over the three years, compared to the agency’s FY 10 budget. Under the plan, NSF would grow by 7.2 percent in FY 11.
National Institute of Standards and Technology: Authorized for three years with a total increase of 21.4 percent over FY 10. Under the plan NIST would grow 7.3 percent in FY 11.
DOE Office of Science: Authorizes a 14 percent increase in DOE’s R&D programs over three years. Includes $900 million in authorization for DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E) over three years.
The bill passed by a vote of 228 to 130, on an essentially party-line vote. Sixteen Republicans did cross the aisle to vote for the measure, though.
We’ll have more on what’s actually in the revised COMPETES Act in a future post. For now, the bill’s passage is about the only cause for celebration we’re likely to get as this Congress comes to a close. And given the changing tenor in Washington, it may be the only thing we celebrate for much of the next one, too…
Update: (12/22/2010) — The White House has weighed in. A snippet:
Passage of the Act comes at a crucial time in our Nation’s economic and technological trajectory—a time that President Obama characterized last month as a “Sputnik moment.” Just as Americans in 1957 quickly grasped the significance of the Soviet Union’s historic launch of the world’s first artificial satellite—responding aggressively with new investments in research and development (R&D) and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education—Americans today are recognizing that we are once again on the brink of a new world. The decisions we make today about how we invest in R&D, education, innovation, and competitiveness will profoundly influence our Nation’s economic vitality, global stature, and national security tomorrow.
Science Numbers in the FY11 Continuing Resolution
/In: FY11 Appropriations, Policy /by Peter HarshaOn Friday, the House and Senate leadership, along with the White House, reached an agreement on a final budget for the federal government through September 30, 2011 (or FY11, for short). The agreement helped avert a government shutdown over the weekend and will finally give federal agencies some certainty about the funding they’ll have available for the remainder of the fiscal year. While the agreement doesn’t cut federal science budgets nearly as deeply as the continuing resolution the House approved in February, science agencies won’t see any increases under the plan. Here’s a quick summary of what the agreement both chambers will likely approve this week will do to some key science agencies:
The National Science Foundation, which had been slated to receive a $140 million cut under the original House-approved plan, would instead see a cut of $43 million (or 0.8 percent) to its research accounts in FY11 compared to the levels approved for FY10 — a full $444 million less than the President requested in his FY11 budget. NSF’s Education and Human Resources directorate would see a cut of $10 million vs. FY10, $29 million less than the President’s request.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology would see a $7 million cut in FY11 compared to FY10 — a $77 million reduction from the President’s requested level.
DOE’s Office of Science, which had faced a $1.1 billion cut in the original House plan, would instead see a decrease of $35 million in FY11 compared to FY10. This is $252 million less than the President requested.
We’ll have more details on the progress of the bill and a look at the defense R&D it contains in the next update.
CCC Announces Science Policy Institute for Computing Researchers
/In: Computing Community Consortium (CCC), CRA, Events, People, Policy /by Peter HarshaSo, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’re probably someone who’d be interested in CRA’s most recent effort to increase science policy literacy amongst the computing research community. Today CRA’s Computing Community Consortium is putting out a Call for Nominations for participants in a workshop hosted by the new CCC Leadership in Science Policy Institute. Below is the actual call. If you’re a researcher who is interested in learning more about the ways science policy affects the discipline and the country, or how members of the community can help shape that policy, we want to hear from you! Nominations are being accepted through May 15th. Here are the details:
Undergrad CS Enrollments Climb for Third Year — CRA Taulbee Survey
/In: People /by Peter HarshaTotal enrollments among U.S. computer science undergraduates
increased 10 percent in 2010, data from the most recent annual CRA Taulbee Survey show. This is the third straight year of increases in total enrollment and indicates that the post “dot-com crash” decline in undergraduate computing program enrollments is over.
The CRA Taulbee Survey is conducted annually by CRA to document trends in student enrollment, degree production, employment of graduates, and faculty salaries in Ph.D-granting departments of computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE) and information (I) in the United States and Canada. CRA today released the enrollment and degree production results (available as a pdf) from the latest edition of the survey.
Overall bachelor’s degree production in computer science, computer engineering and information sciences departments in 2010 rose nearly 11 percent from that in 2009 . Bachelor’s degree production in computer science departments was up more than 9 percent. The increases in new students observed during each of the past two years have resulted in increased degree production, a welcome turnaround from the past several years of declining bachelor’s degree production.
Also notable from the survey:
The full report, which also includes information about faculty size, demographics and salaries, graduate student support and research expenditures, will be available in May 2011 on the CRA web site.
DOE Office of Science FY2012 Budget Request
/In: FY12 Appropriations, Policy /by MelissaNorrAt the State of the Union in January, President Obama said, “We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time. We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit and reform our government. That’s how our people will prosper. That’s how we’ll win the future.” Secretary Chu chose this quote to begin the FY2012 Department of Energy budget briefing. The message was clear: investing in science research is NOT optional if we want to be competitive with the rest of the world.
The President’s Budget Request (PBR) included a 9.1 percent increase in the overall budget of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science for FY2012 compared to FY2010, for a total budget of $5.41 billion.
The Advanced Scientific Computing Research program would see a significant increase of 21.5 percent for a total of $465.6 million. Basic energy sciences would get a 24.1 percent increase, a total of $1.99 billion.
The Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists program is still heavily supported. That request is for a 72 percent increase to $35.6 million, which is the exact same request made for FY2011.
ARPA-E, a program that has not yet seen funding from normal appropriations, requested $550 million.
The presentations and detailed budget information for the Department is available online.
Unfortunately, as we reported earlier, despite this strong support for science funding by the Administration, the House has been very vocal that decreases will be the standard moving forward.
IT Research Remains a Priority in President’s FY12 Budget Request
/In: Funding, FY12 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaThe President released his FY12 Budget Request to Congress this morning. We’ll take close-up looks at several of the key science agency budget requests as the day goes on, but here’s a first look at the overall picture. From the Analytical Perspectives on the Budget:
Some quick agency-specific numbers:
NSF would see a 16 percent increase in R&D vs. FY10 (the FY11 year isn’t available for comparison yet because Congress hasn’t finished it).
Energy research would see an increase of 20 percent vs. FY10
NASA R&D overall would increase 6 percent, and NASA basic research would grow 220 percent from $835 million to $2.7 billion…but only because construction on the International Space Station is complete, so any resources to operate this new “national lab” are considered “basic research”
Defense basic research would see an increase of 14 percent, applied would decrease 4 percent.
NIH research would increase 3 percent.
Of course, this budget is essentially “dead on arrival” as far as the House is concerned. But it’s still important to have a good request from the President and the agencies on record when we go advocating for the science agencies during the FY12 appropriations process.
We’ll have lots more as we go through a day of briefings…
House Approps Proposes Even More Cuts for NSF, DOE
/In: Funding, FY11 Appropriations, Policy /by Peter HarshaThe House Appropriations Committee released their spending cuts version 2.0 — after having their previous attempt to cut $74 billion from the President’s request for non-defense discretionary spending savaged by conservative Republicans in the House — and NSF and DOE both face significant cuts. The appropriators went back and took another look at their first proposal, which cut about $74 billion from the President’s budget request, and found another $26 billion. The new proposed cuts mean real cuts for agency budgets (not just cuts to requested increases).
Here’s a list of the proposed cuts in the CR, which will be taken up on Monday in a vehicle that combines the CR and the FY 11 Defense Appropriation.
Notable cuts for science:
National Science Foundation’s Research and Related Activities account – cut $150 million compared to NSF’s FY10 budget.
NSF’s Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction – cut $62.5 million vs. FY 10.
NSF’s Education and Human Resources – cut $147 million vs. FY 10.
DOE’s Office of Science – cut $893 million.
DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy – cut $786 million
NIST’s Scientific and Technical Research Services – cut $45.5 million
About the only positive — and that’s a very qualified positive — is that ARPA-E does manage to get an appropriation in the bill ($50 million), averting some concerns that the agency would receive $0. That’s significantly lower than their original funding of $400 million, but the agency is in an awkward spot because it has never had a “normal” appropriation (it was authorized in the America COMPETES Act and given a one-time appropriation in the 2009 stimulus bill), so a CR could very well have included no funding for it.
We’ll have more as we figure it out, but these numbers show the community has a lot of work to do in the House and Senate to prevent the country from taking a big step backwards in trying to improve our long-term innovative potential….
NSF Fares (Suprisingly) Well, DOE Does Not, in Proposed Approps Cuts for FY11
/In: Funding, FY11 Appropriations, FY12 Appropriations, Policy /by Peter HarshaUpdate: (Feb 11, 2011) – They’ve released version 2.0 of the proposal…
Update: Um, nevermind. After conservative Republicans savaged the proposed $32 billion in cuts as inadequate, House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers pledged to come back with a proposal that would cut $100 billion, potentially putting NSF right back under the crosshairs. Here’s Roger’s statement:
Original Post: As readers of this blog are no doubt aware, Congress has not yet finished the FY 11 appropriations process, leaving federal agencies in funding limbo, despite being five months into FY 11 fiscal year. Starting Monday, House appropriators hope to start the process of resolving the FY 11 budget by passing a “continuing resolution” for the remainder of the fiscal year that will make significant cuts to the budgets of a lot of key agencies. The GOP leadership of the House Appropriations Committee today released a list of some key cuts they plan to make and science agencies aren’t spared — with two notable exceptions.
The list of cuts is available here.
It’s important to keep in mind that the cuts are to the President’s requested budget for FY 11, not to the agency’s FY 10 budgets. In many cases, the President requested substantial increases for these programs, so the “cuts” listed here are actually just reductions to the level of increase requested. The agency might still fare better than it did in FY 10.
The National Science Foundation is targeted for $139 million in “cuts” in the proposal. However, the President requested an increase of $479 million for the agency in FY 11, so in real terms, NSF would see an *increase* of $340 million in FY 11 vs FY 10, or about 6.0 percent. That’s pretty astonishing, given the circumstances. (more on that below)
DOE Office of Science is the other side of the coin, though. They’re slated for $1.1 billion in cuts in the proposal. The President requested an increase of only $226 million for the agency in FY 11, so the proposed cuts are a real cut of $874 million (or 18 percent) to the Science budget compared to FY 10. DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy account would get hit even harder, suffering a $786 million real cut, or 35 percent.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology is another loser, receiving almost 15 percent in real cuts in the proposal, though as always, it’s difficult to assess where the cuts will fall (will they hit the controversial TIP or MEP programs, or NIST’s core research?).
NASA is a big winner in the proposal. The GOP leadership wants a “cut” of $379 million for the agency, but the President requested an increase of $1.7 billion for the agency. So, the agency still would clear $1.3 billion in new funding in FY 11 vs. FY 10 (14 percent increase).
NIH would be flat funded in real terms by the proposal.
So, encouraging news for NSF, but very bad news for DOE. Also, these numbers aren’t final. There are a many proposed cuts that hit very politically charged accounts, like the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program (which, among other things, funds the purchase of bulletproof vests for police officers) and the food assistance program for low-income women, infants and children. If appropriators are forced to back off cuts to those accounts (and others), they may look for other places to achieve the same savings, which could put NSF back in the crosshairs.
But, looking on the bright side, the fact that even in this fiscally harsh environment — this huge laundry list of belt-tightening — NSF was still singled out for special treatment (and increases) is a pretty important symbol. It perhaps means that the GOP leadership still understands that there’s value in the investment in NSF — that an investment in NSF probably provides more real return to the country than it costs. So there’s a little reason for optimism amongst the carnage. But apparently they haven’t gotten that message about DOE….
On Monday we’ll also get our first look at the President’s budget proposal for FY 12. Given the high prominence he gave research and education issues in his State of the Union address last month, and the degree to which he’s been touring the country the last two weeks talking up the importance of innovation to America’s future, it’s likely that we’ll see some healthy requests for science funding. But achieving those increases in this Congress and this fiscal environment is likely to be an extremely steep climb. But stay tuned because we’ll have all the details here.
Research and Education Take Center Stage in SOTU
/In: Economic Stimulus and Recovery, Funding, FY11 Appropriations, Policy, R&D in the Press /by Peter HarshaThe President delivered his annual State of the Union address this evening and made innovation – and the research and education investments that enable it – the central focus of nearly the first 25 minutes of it. It’s hard to quote just a part of it – I’d encourage you to read the whole thing, though the first three pages are pretty key for the science advocacy community.
Giving research and education issues such prominent mentions in the speech is both a blessing and a curse, perhaps. Talking about the importance of these investments 25 mins before he focused the current budget crisis shows the priority his Administration places on them. He was clearly making the case that, even in these fiscally worrisome times where budget-slashing is likely to be the norm, federal investments in research and education have huge payoffs and ought to be protected. But in making the case so prominently, he painted a huge target on research and education funding for Republicans as symbols of the “big government” Democrats are trying to continue to fund, even while the need for cutting spending has never been greater. (That overall federal spending for basic research in the U.S. represents barely a blip in the overall budget picture is largely immaterial. Symbolically, it’s spending, and reducing it means reducing “the size of government.”)
Here are two key quotes that I think show the divergence of views and approaches. From the State of the Union:
And from the Republican response, given by House Budget Committee Chair, Paul Ryan (R-WI):
So it’s a pretty stark division. The science community has its work cut out making the case to Republicans to understand the value of federal investments in fundamental research and education. The President made a good start at it. It’s up to us now to talk about the impact of the computing community – a community in which nearly every major subfield, every major billion-dollar sector of the market, bears the stamp of federal support for research. I hope you’ll help!
NITRD Report Release Videos
/In: Events, People, Policy, Research /by MelissaNorrAs noted over at the CCC blog, the presentations during the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology issued Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) report roll out are available in online videos. These eight short videos are all worth watching but three are of particular note.
Tom Kalil, Deputy Director for Policy at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), discusses the importance of IT R&D from the perspective of the Administration. He talks about the huge impact that IT has on the economy as a whole as well as on productivity and on other scientific disciplines. He also discusses the unbreakable connections between IT and national priorities such as health care, education, energy and national security.
Tom Leighton, Professor of Applied Mathematics, MIT, and Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of Akamai Technologies, discusses his experience doing high-risk, basic research for DARPA and how it led to the founding of a company and better Internet reliability for consumers and government.
Robert Atkinson, President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, discusses many aspects of the report including the concerns that IT R&D needs to be more than supercomputers and that a portion of the money included as IT R&D is really going toward NIT infrastructure instead of research. He also makes note that there are 20 new billion dollar industries related to IT created in the last couple of decades but that we are not investing enough in basic research to compete going forward.
America COMPETES Rises From Ashes; However, Appropriations Punted to February
/In: Funding, FY11 Appropriations, Policy /by Peter HarshaToday the House voted to pass a revised version of the America COMPETES Act, a bill that would reauthorize several key science agencies and STEM Education programs, completing an unlikely resurrection of a bill most in the science advocacy community (including this correspondent) figured was dead in this session.
COMPETES has been through quite a legislative rollercoaster on its trip through Congress and has emerged at the end significantly leaner. The version the House granted final approval of today has been trimmed significantly since its original passage — the Senate having shed the bill of a number of controversial tech-transfer and tech-innovation programs, cut the authorization amounts for NSF, NIST and DOE Office of Science, and removed the Networking and Information Technology R&D (NITRD) Program reauthorization and the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) from the package. The resulting “clean” package was far more palatable to Senate Republicans who had opposed the House version of the bill, and the Senate was able to find time on its calendar late on Sunday to pass the bill by unanimous consent.
Unfortunately, the Senate managed to find time on its calendar because the Democratic leadership wasn’t able to strike a deal on passage of a Omnibus Appropriations bill that would have contained — along with funding for all the operations of government — real funding increases for NSF and NIST in FY 11. Instead, the Senate leadership pulled the omnibus legislation and has passed a so-called “Continuing Resolution” (CR) that would keep the government running at the FY 10 budget levels through March 4, 2011. The House is expected to agree to the March 4th CR this evening.
But despite actual appropriations being left up in the air for science agencies, it is still symbolic that both chambers decided to use precious closing-session floor time to debate and ultimately authorize increases for science funding. Advocates for science can now at least point to these authorized levels as a target for appropriators as the new Congress convenes in January.
And what did legislators ultimately approve? The Alliance for Science and Technology Research in America (ASTRA) has put together a handy comparison chart (pdf) showing the various authorization levels approved along COMPETES bumpy path. In short, here’s where NSF and NIST finished up:
The bill passed by a vote of 228 to 130, on an essentially party-line vote. Sixteen Republicans did cross the aisle to vote for the measure, though.
We’ll have more on what’s actually in the revised COMPETES Act in a future post. For now, the bill’s passage is about the only cause for celebration we’re likely to get as this Congress comes to a close. And given the changing tenor in Washington, it may be the only thing we celebrate for much of the next one, too…
Update: (12/22/2010) — The White House has weighed in. A snippet:
Here’s the whole post.