Since it’s apparently official, we can spread the word that the new head of NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate is Jeannette Wing, president’s professor and head of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon. Jeanette takes over for Peter Freeman, who served as CISE AD since 2002. Jeannette will take over CISE starting July 1, 2007.
Those who know Jeannette will likely agree that the computing community is lucky to have someone with her passion and energy for the field ready (and willing) to take such a critical position. We at CRA join in wishing her the best of luck and stand willing to help as she takes the reins.
Read NSF’s official release.
It appears House and Senate appropriators have reached a final agreement on the “continuing resolution” for FY 2007 and it looks like good news for federal science agencies. For weeks now we (and the other members of the science community) have been concerned that FY 2007 appropriations debacle would freeze agencies like NSF, NIST, and DOE’s Office of Science at FY 2006 levels, postponing planned increases to the agencies called for in the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative and approved by the full House and the Senate Appropriations Committee. However, in a joint continuing resolution filed last night, the House and Senate Appropriations Committee chairs agreed to exempt NSF, NIST, and DOE Office of Science (and NIH additionally) from the CR and provide increases to each agency’s FY 2007 budget.
While the agencies won’t receive the full amounts they requested as part of ACI, each agency should receive significantly more than they received in FY 2006. Under the agreement, NSF’s research accounts would receive a 6 7.7 percent increase, slightly below the 7.8 percent matching the increase called for in the ACI, but $335 million more than FY 2006.* NIST would receive $50 million in additional funding for its core research budget. DOE Office of Science would see $200 million more than FY 06, plus the elimination of $127.8 million in earmarks that would then be available for competitive research. And NIH, while not officially part of the ACI and expecting flat-funding in FY 07, would see an increase of $619.5 million — which, according to the appropriations committee, would “support an additional 500 research project grants, 1,500 first time investigators, and expand funding for high risk and high-impact research.”
Given where we thought we might be as a result of the CR, this is great news. The agreement was announced by both House Appropriations Chair David Obey (D-WI) and Senate Appropriations Chair Robert Byrd (D-WV), so it’s a good bet that the bill will pass in its current form. The House will vote on the CR on Wednesday and the Senate will take it up soon after.
This is a big win for the science community. Protecting these increases for the federal investment in science in a resolution that cut more than 60 other domestic programs below FY 2006 levels sends a powerful signal that basic research is a national priority. Science was one of just a few priorities protected by Congressional Democrats in the bill — it joins federal highway programs, veteran’s health care, the FBI and local law enforcement, and Pell grant funding. The science community — along with its partners in industry — weighed in heavily in support of ACI funding, and its clear that advocacy had the desired effect. So thanks to all of you who joined with CRA as part of the Computing Research Advocacy Network to help make the case for science. It’s clear your voices were heard!
We’ll have more details as this bill moves towards final passage. Then it’s on to FY 2008, which just might be off to a good start. Update: (5:50 pm, 1/31/07) — The House easily passed the measure today, unamended, by a vote of 286-140. The Senate should take up the resolution next week. Update: (4:22 pm, 2/8/07) — * a closer look at the numbers actually in the resolution show that it only specifically calls out NSF’s R&RA account, increasing it $335 million over FY 2006 to $4.7 billion (matching the Administration’s request). It appears the remainder of NSF’s accounts aren’t addressed in the resolution and so they’ll stay at FY 06 levels.
The Senate is considering the resolution today. The Senate Democrats have apparently blocked any amendments to the resolution from Republicans (using some of the Senate’s arcane procedural techniques), so it’s likely it will pass in its current form.
In contrast to last year’s State of the Union address by the President, this year’s speech didn’t feature much in the way of competitiveness or themes. While we’ve gotten many assurances from the White House in recent weeks that the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative — introduced with great fanfare last year and currently mired in the debacle which has become the FY 07 Appropriations process — is still a priority for the Administration and will continue in the FY 08 budget, in the wake of Tuesday’s State of the Union I thought I’d just check in again and make sure things hadn’t changed. Fortunately, they haven’t. Here’s the word from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (posted with permission):
Me: I notice the ACI didn’t recieve much mention in the President’s SOTU. Is ACI still a priority for the Administration? Will we see the commitment continue in FY 08? OSTP: The SOTU was focused this year to a limited number of topics (mostly new of course), but I can assure you were still fully committed to its success. FYI, below is a response to a similar question that Dr. Marburger shared with a reporter earlier this week. I suspect well have more details to share between now and the budget release so Ill keep you posted.
…
The President remains fully committed to the success of the American Competitiveness Initiative and the Administration looks forward to Year Two of the ACI and working with the 110th Congress to achieve the Presidents vision for innovation.
Individually, the House and Senate funded Year One of the Presidents proposal to increase basic research in the physical sciences. However, to remain on track to meet the Presidents goal of doubling funding for these key research agencies over 10 years, Congress now needs to complete full funding for Year One of the Initiative (FY07).
The White House also indicated it plans to continue working to see ACI addressed in whatever final resolution Congress comes up with for FY 07 appropriations. News on that front is that the House plans to take up the CR next week, but as of this writing, there’s still no final decision on what will make the cut and what won’t. By pledging to “eliminate earmarks” in the CR, appropriators will free up somewhere on the order of $17 billion to $33 billion in funding to apply to agencies for FY 07. But that range demonstrates the difficulties the decision-makers are facing — gaining consensus on what constitutes an earmark in this case is fraught with political landmines. As a result, there is even talk at the moment of yet again extending the CR for a short duration past the Feb 15th deadline to give appropriators more time to negotiate a CR that will extend the balance of the fiscal year.
As always, as we learn more detail, we’ll pass it on….
The House Committee on Science and Technology has announced its membership and subcommittee chairs for the 110th Congress. The committee membership includes 24 Democrats and 20 Republicans with one vacancy on the minority membership. The subcommittee structure is slightly different with this Congress in that the some subcommittee names have been changed to more accurately reflect their jurisdictions and a Subcommittee on Investigation and Oversight has been added. The complete list of committee members as well as the subcommittees memberships is available here. Subcommittee on Energy & Environment
Chairman Nick Lampson (D-TX)
Ranking Member Bob Inglis (R-SC) Subcommittee on Technology & Innovation
Chairman David Wu (D-OR)
Ranking Member Phil Gingrey (R-GA) Subcommittee on Research & Science Education
Chairman Brian Baird (D-WA)
Ranking Member Vern Ehlers (R-MI) Subcommittee on Space & Aeronautics
Chairman Mark Udall (D-CO)
Ranking Member Ken Calvert (R-CA) Subcommittee on Investigations & Oversight
Chairman Brad Miller (D-NC)
Ranking Member F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI)
Essential to our children’s future is the economic security of their families now. Preparing for the 21st century means bolstering our commitment to keep our nation number one. In our Innovation Agenda, unveiled more than a year ago here at the Press Club, House Democrats made a commitment to competitiveness. We will provide our nation with the tools necessary to unleash the next generation of growth and jobs.
In his State of the Union address last year, President Bush spoke of keeping America competitive. With Democrats in the majority, we must work together with our Republican colleagues to do so – nothing less than America’s economic leadership and our national security is at stake.
Innovation and economic growth begins in America’s classrooms. To create a new generation of innovators, we must fund No Child Left Behind so that we can encourage science and math education, taught by the most qualified and effective teachers.
…
Innovation also requires federal grants to our universities, which have long been the spark for great breakthroughs: from the Internet, to biosciences, to fiber optics, to nanotechnology.
We must commit to doubling federal funding for basic research and development in the physical sciences and modernize and expand the research and development tax credit. And we will bring broadband access to every American within five years, creating millions of jobs.
These investments, and initiatives to support a thriving small business environment, will allow us to pursue the long-term, trailblazing research that gives rise to new advances, spawns new industries, and creates good jobs here at home.
We hope this means that basic science research agencies like NSF will receive the President’s proposed increases for the FY07 budget in the forthcoming CR and further increases in future budgets.
The full text of the speech can be found here.
NSF has released some data on the impact of a “continuing resolution” on the agency for FY 2007, something we have discussedpreviouslyin this space. It confirms essentially what we expected: programs will have reduced funding for FY 2007 or be put on hold and award rates and award size will decline signficantly. Some examples:
Overall budget would be $4.175 billion, $400 million below the Adminstration’s request and $168 million below the FY 2004 budget in constant dollars ($4.343 billion);
Will reduce the number of new grants by 10% and the funding rate by 20%
Reductions in programs will include: International Polar Year, Petascale Supercomputer Acquisitions ($50 million for the Office of Cyber Infrastructure’s Petascale Computing system), Explosives and Related Threats, Science of Science and Innovation Policy, and Engineering Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation
New starts that would potentially be on hold are the Alaska Region Research Vessel, National Ecological Observatory Network, and Ocean Observatories Initiative
Administrative costs have risen by $8 million from FY06 to FY07 and offsets in services and infrastructure will be required
The outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year remains highly uncertain, with one possibility being an extension of funding at the current level. While we are acutely aware of the tight constraints on the available budgetary resources, NSF is continuing to issue program announcements and solicitations as previously planned.
It is likely, however, that NSF may be unable to fund a number of activities planned for this fiscal year. We believe it is important for NSFs grantee community to be aware of this uncertainty, as a number of activities may be affected later in the fiscal year.
Stay tuned and we will update you on the CR status and impacts to agencies as we learn more.
Aswe’vepreviouslynoted, the potential adoption of a “continuing resolution” to freeze funding at federal agencies at FY 2006 (or lower) levels through FY 2007 has the potential to cause major disruptions at federal science agencies and imperil the increases for science called for in the American Competitiveness Initiative.
In response, the leading organizations of the computing community have joined together to call on the Democratic leadership to preserve in any continuing resolution the hard-won increases for science already approved by the full House and the Senate Appropriations committee:
January 12, 2007
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker
House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Madam Speaker:
As leaders and supporters of the computing research community responsible for providing the research base that has propelled the new economy and enabled our nation’s dominant position in information technology, we are greatly concerned to learn that difficulties in the appropriations process might endanger proposed increases to three key federal science agencies in FY 2007. We urge you to protect the increases for FY 2007 already approved by the full House and the Senate Appropriations Committee for the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Department of Energy Office of Science in the FY 2007 appropriations Continuing Resolution or final appropriations.
As you know, NSF, NIST and DOE Office of Science are key participants in the federal Networking and Information Technology R&D initiative, the multi-agency effort that comprises the federal role in supporting long-term, fundamental IT research. The importance of this research in enabling the new economy is well documented. Nearly every aspect of information technology research upon which we rely today traces its roots to federally sponsored university-based research. The resulting advances in information technology have led to significant improvements in product design, development and distribution for American industry, provided instant communications for people worldwide, and enabled new scientific disciplines like bioinformatics and nanotechnology that show great promise in improving a whole range of health, security, and communications technologies. Leaving basic federal science funding at FY 2006 (or lower) levels threatens to disrupt that chain of innovation, placing our nation at risk of not having the necessary resources – the people, the ideas and the infrastructure – we need to maintain our global economic leadership and ensure our continued security.
You and your colleagues in the Democratic Caucus earned high praise from our community in recognizing in your Innovation Agenda the need to increase support for fundamental research in the physical sciences, mathematics, computing and engineering in order to ensure the Nation’s continued leadership in an increasingly competitive world. The President’s American Competitiveness Initiative shared that commitment and the full House and the members of the Senate Appropriations Committee endorsed the need for those increases on a bipartisan basis in the appropriations bills they approved.
We commend you for your continued leadership in helping ensure the U.S. has the resources it needs to remain innovative and competitive, especially in information technology. Preserving the proposed increases for NSF, NIST and DOE Office of Science in a limited adjustment to the FY 2007 Continuing Resolution would be a simple and necessary step to ensure U.S. competitiveness. While the payoffs of past research have been dramatic, the field of information technology remains in relative infancy. Tremendous opportunities remain – far more can happen in the next ten years than has happened in the last thirty, and it is crucial that America lead the way.
Sincerely, American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Computing Research Association (CRA) Coaltion for Academic Scientific Computation (CASC) EDUCAUSE Insitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE-USA) Internet2 Microsoft Corporation Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) TechNet
As an aside, regardless of the success of this effort (we understand there’s not a whole lot of wiggle-room in the CR for anything beyond providing increases in veteran’s benefits), the fact that the wide-breadth of the computing community — from the research side, to the practitioner side, to the corporate community — joined together with one voice is worthy of note and certainly bodes well for future efforts.
Keep an eye here for all the details of the CR as they emerge….
Today’s Washington Times features an OpEd from two champions of science from opposite sides of the aisle: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the new Chair of the House Committee on Science and Technology, Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN). The piece was motivated by the recent Task Force on the Future of American Innovationreport, (covered previously) which calls for a strong federal investment in fundamental research in order to help preserve the Nation’s economic leadership and ensure our continued security. Gingrich participated in the roll-out event for the Benchmarks report and was quite eloquent on the national security implications of basic research, themes he and Gordon return to in this OpEd:
Throughout history, national security has been dependent on economic prosperity, and visa versa. An economically strong America is better able to defend itself. Likewise, the nation’s ability to defend itself is a prerequisite to maintaining the infrastructure and other elements of a strong national economy.
Unfortunately, the nation has forgotten one of the most important ways our economic prosperity and national security are linked investment in fundamental scientific research. Investments made in fundamental scientific research after World War II and during the Cold War have been essential to making our fighting men and women today the best equipped in the world. These previous investments and the new knowledge they generated also made enormous contributions to our economic vitality.
But our commitment to that defense-oriented fundamental research the kind of research that pays off not in a year or two but in the long run, sometimes decades in the future has eroded. If we do not renew this commitment, it will harm our global economic competitiveness as well as the effectiveness and safety of our troops.
The piece is very well-timed, given the currentdeliberationsonthe stalled FY 2007 Appropriations process and the President’s forthcoming State of the Union Address. Its bipartisan authorship highlights the bipartisan support for fundamental research in Congress. With a flood of new Members of Congress in Washington, and “old” Members with new positions of responsibility, this is a drum that will need continuous beating in the coming months…as we try to make up for the painful stumbles late after a year of fantastic progress.
Read the whole piece.
Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN), and Rep. Rush Holt (R-NJ) are the impetus behind a Dear Colleague letter to Chairman David Obey (D-WI) and Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) of the Appropriations Committee regarding NSF funding in the FY2007 CR that will be delivered tomorrow. It currently has 14 co-signers. The letter makes all the points about NSF funding that CRA and the rest of the science research community have been making since the first CR for FY2007. Some highlights:
Specifically, we ask that you fund NSF at the House-passed, Presidents requested level of $6.02 billion in fiscal year 2007. This is essential, because the flat funding for this agency under the Continuing Resolution will directly inhibit our national competitiveness and jeopardize American innovation.
The NSF is the major source of funding in many fields such as the basic sciences, mathematics, computer science, and the social sciences, and it funds approximately 20 percent of all federally-supported basic research conducted by Americas colleges and universities. If Congress only flat funding, peer-reviewed basic science research will suffer across the country. NSF-funded researchers have won more than 170 Nobel Prizes and pioneered innovations that have improved quality of life of all Americans.
CRA has sent letters to the leadership in both chambers and to the chairmen of both Appropriations Committees supporting increased funding for NSF in the CR. There is still time for all of you to weigh in with your members regarding funding levels as we have suggested here previously. Update: As of January 16th, there are 78 signatures on the Congressional Dear Colleague. For the list of co-signers click the link at the bottom of the post. Update 2:Sen. Joseph Lieberman has begun a similar effort in the Senate with a letter to Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Sen. Richard Shelby, the chair and ranking member, respectively, of the Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. Highlights:
The NSF has suffered from budgetary constraints in recent years, and even saw its budget cut in fiscal year 2005. In 2007, the Presidents budget included a significant increase in NSF funding, particularly for physical sciences and engineering. This increased funding will support the development of innovative technologies, and will promote science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in the United States. NSF funding is also critical to our nations continued investment in higher education, providing 20 percent of all federally-funded research in Americas universities and colleges. In their respective 2007 appropriations bills, both the House and the Senate concurred with the Presidents increased funding request for the NSF.
The NSF is a sensible investment of our federal dollars. The agency earns exemplary budgetary performance scores, and all grants are awarded through a peer-review process. The NSF is unique in that a small federal investment in research has the potential to yield immeasurable results in both the short and long term.
As of this morning, the Senate letter had 8 co-signers.
The failure of Congress to pass new budgets for the current fiscal year has produced a crisis in science financing that threatens to close major facilities, delay new projects and leave thousands of government scientists out of work, federal and private officials say.
It touches on a number of agencies, programs, and labs that are hurting and facing possible discontinuation. Regarding NSF it states:
The National Science Foundation, which supports basic research at universities, had expected a $400 million increase over the $5.7 billion budget it received in 2006. Now, the freeze is prompting program cuts, delays and slowdowns.
“It’s rather devastating,” said Jeff Nesbit, the foundation’s head of legislative and public affairs. “While $400 million in the grand scheme of things might seem like decimal dust, it’s hugely important for universities that rely on N.S.F. funding.”
The threatened programs include a $50 million plan to build a supercomputer that universities would use to push back frontiers in science and engineering; a $310 million observatory meant to study the ocean environment from the seabed to the surface; a $62 million contribution to a global program of polar research involving 10 other nations; and a $98 million ship to explore the Arctic, including the thinning of its sheath of floating sea ice.
A number of quotes are included but one that sums up the thoughts of most of the community is from Mike Lubell at the American Physical Society, a fellow member of the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation.
“The consequences for American science will be disastrous. The message to young scientists and industry leaders, alike, will be, Look outside the U.S. if you want to succeed. “
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Jeannette Wing New CISE AD at NSF
/In: People /by Peter HarshaSince it’s apparently official, we can spread the word that the new head of NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate is Jeannette Wing, president’s professor and head of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon. Jeanette takes over for Peter Freeman, who served as CISE AD since 2002. Jeannette will take over CISE starting July 1, 2007.
Those who know Jeannette will likely agree that the computing community is lucky to have someone with her passion and energy for the field ready (and willing) to take such a critical position. We at CRA join in wishing her the best of luck and stand willing to help as she takes the reins.
Read NSF’s official release.
Good News for Science in the FY 07 CR
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY07 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaIt appears House and Senate appropriators have reached a final agreement on the “continuing resolution” for FY 2007 and it looks like good news for federal science agencies. For weeks now we (and the other members of the science community) have been concerned that FY 2007 appropriations debacle would freeze agencies like NSF, NIST, and DOE’s Office of Science at FY 2006 levels, postponing planned increases to the agencies called for in the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative and approved by the full House and the Senate Appropriations Committee. However, in a joint continuing resolution filed last night, the House and Senate Appropriations Committee chairs agreed to exempt NSF, NIST, and DOE Office of Science (and NIH additionally) from the CR and provide increases to each agency’s FY 2007 budget.
While the agencies won’t receive the full amounts they requested as part of ACI, each agency should receive significantly more than they received in FY 2006. Under the agreement, NSF’s research accounts would receive a
67.7 percent increase,slightly below the 7.8 percentmatching the increase called for in the ACI,but$335 million more than FY 2006.* NIST would receive $50 million in additional funding for its core research budget. DOE Office of Science would see $200 million more than FY 06, plus the elimination of $127.8 million in earmarks that would then be available for competitive research. And NIH, while not officially part of the ACI and expecting flat-funding in FY 07, would see an increase of $619.5 million — which, according to the appropriations committee, would “support an additional 500 research project grants, 1,500 first time investigators, and expand funding for high risk and high-impact research.”Given where we thought we might be as a result of the CR, this is great news. The agreement was announced by both House Appropriations Chair David Obey (D-WI) and Senate Appropriations Chair Robert Byrd (D-WV), so it’s a good bet that the bill will pass in its current form. The House will vote on the CR on Wednesday and the Senate will take it up soon after.
This is a big win for the science community. Protecting these increases for the federal investment in science in a resolution that cut more than 60 other domestic programs below FY 2006 levels sends a powerful signal that basic research is a national priority. Science was one of just a few priorities protected by Congressional Democrats in the bill — it joins federal highway programs, veteran’s health care, the FBI and local law enforcement, and Pell grant funding. The science community — along with its partners in industry — weighed in heavily in support of ACI funding, and its clear that advocacy had the desired effect. So thanks to all of you who joined with CRA as part of the Computing Research Advocacy Network to help make the case for science. It’s clear your voices were heard!
We’ll have more details as this bill moves towards final passage. Then it’s on to FY 2008, which just might be off to a good start.
Update: (5:50 pm, 1/31/07) — The House easily passed the measure today, unamended, by a vote of 286-140. The Senate should take up the resolution next week.
Update: (4:22 pm, 2/8/07) — * a closer look at the numbers actually in the resolution show that it only specifically calls out NSF’s R&RA account, increasing it $335 million over FY 2006 to $4.7 billion (matching the Administration’s request). It appears the remainder of NSF’s accounts aren’t addressed in the resolution and so they’ll stay at FY 06 levels.
The Senate is considering the resolution today. The Senate Democrats have apparently blocked any amendments to the resolution from Republicans (using some of the Senate’s arcane procedural techniques), so it’s likely it will pass in its current form.
ACI not in SOTU, but Administration “still fully committed”
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY07 Appropriations, FY08 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaIn contrast to last year’s State of the Union address by the President, this year’s speech didn’t feature much in the way of competitiveness or themes. While we’ve gotten many assurances from the White House in recent weeks that the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative — introduced with great fanfare last year and currently mired in the debacle which has become the FY 07 Appropriations process — is still a priority for the Administration and will continue in the FY 08 budget, in the wake of Tuesday’s State of the Union I thought I’d just check in again and make sure things hadn’t changed. Fortunately, they haven’t. Here’s the word from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (posted with permission):
The White House also indicated it plans to continue working to see ACI addressed in whatever final resolution Congress comes up with for FY 07 appropriations. News on that front is that the House plans to take up the CR next week, but as of this writing, there’s still no final decision on what will make the cut and what won’t. By pledging to “eliminate earmarks” in the CR, appropriators will free up somewhere on the order of $17 billion to $33 billion in funding to apply to agencies for FY 07. But that range demonstrates the difficulties the decision-makers are facing — gaining consensus on what constitutes an earmark in this case is fraught with political landmines. As a result, there is even talk at the moment of yet again extending the CR for a short duration past the Feb 15th deadline to give appropriators more time to negotiate a CR that will extend the balance of the fiscal year.
As always, as we learn more detail, we’ll pass it on….
House Science Subommittee Chairs Announced
/In: Misc., People, Policy /by MelissaNorrThe House Committee on Science and Technology has announced its membership and subcommittee chairs for the 110th Congress. The committee membership includes 24 Democrats and 20 Republicans with one vacancy on the minority membership. The subcommittee structure is slightly different with this Congress in that the some subcommittee names have been changed to more accurately reflect their jurisdictions and a Subcommittee on Investigation and Oversight has been added. The complete list of committee members as well as the subcommittees memberships is available here.
Subcommittee on Energy & Environment
Chairman Nick Lampson (D-TX)
Ranking Member Bob Inglis (R-SC)
Subcommittee on Technology & Innovation
Chairman David Wu (D-OR)
Ranking Member Phil Gingrey (R-GA)
Subcommittee on Research & Science Education
Chairman Brian Baird (D-WA)
Ranking Member Vern Ehlers (R-MI)
Subcommittee on Space & Aeronautics
Chairman Mark Udall (D-CO)
Ranking Member Ken Calvert (R-CA)
Subcommittee on Investigations & Oversight
Chairman Brad Miller (D-NC)
Ranking Member F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI)
Speaker’s Speech Emphasizes Innovation
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY07 Appropriations, Policy /by MelissaNorrSpeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, along with Majority Leader Harry Reid, gave the State of Our Union speech last week at the National Press Club. Pelosi’s portion of the speech covered many topics including innovation. Highlights:
We hope this means that basic science research agencies like NSF will receive the President’s proposed increases for the FY07 budget in the forthcoming CR and further increases in future budgets.
The full text of the speech can be found here.
CR Impacts on NSF
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY07 Appropriations /by MelissaNorrNSF has released some data on the impact of a “continuing resolution” on the agency for FY 2007, something we have discussed previously in this space. It confirms essentially what we expected: programs will have reduced funding for FY 2007 or be put on hold and award rates and award size will decline signficantly. Some examples:
Dr. Arden Bement, Director of NSF, posted a letter regarding the CR impacts online. The letter states:
Stay tuned and we will update you on the CR status and impacts to agencies as we learn more.
Computing Community Weighs in on Continuing Resolution
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, CRA, Funding, FY07 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaAs we’ve previously noted, the potential adoption of a “continuing resolution” to freeze funding at federal agencies at FY 2006 (or lower) levels through FY 2007 has the potential to cause major disruptions at federal science agencies and imperil the increases for science called for in the American Competitiveness Initiative.
In response, the leading organizations of the computing community have joined together to call on the Democratic leadership to preserve in any continuing resolution the hard-won increases for science already approved by the full House and the Senate Appropriations committee:
As an aside, regardless of the success of this effort (we understand there’s not a whole lot of wiggle-room in the CR for anything beyond providing increases in veteran’s benefits), the fact that the wide-breadth of the computing community — from the research side, to the practitioner side, to the corporate community — joined together with one voice is worthy of note and certainly bodes well for future efforts.
Keep an eye here for all the details of the CR as they emerge….
Gingrich/Gordon OpEd on Basic Research, Security and Competitiveness
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY07 Appropriations, FY08 Appropriations, R&D in the Press /by Peter HarshaToday’s Washington Times features an OpEd from two champions of science from opposite sides of the aisle: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the new Chair of the House Committee on Science and Technology, Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN). The piece was motivated by the recent Task Force on the Future of American Innovation report, (covered previously) which calls for a strong federal investment in fundamental research in order to help preserve the Nation’s economic leadership and ensure our continued security. Gingrich participated in the roll-out event for the Benchmarks report and was quite eloquent on the national security implications of basic research, themes he and Gordon return to in this OpEd:
The piece is very well-timed, given the current deliberations on the stalled FY 2007 Appropriations process and the President’s forthcoming State of the Union Address. Its bipartisan authorship highlights the bipartisan support for fundamental research in Congress. With a flood of new Members of Congress in Washington, and “old” Members with new positions of responsibility, this is a drum that will need continuous beating in the coming months…as we try to make up for the painful stumbles late after a year of fantastic progress.
Read the whole piece.
Congressional Letter on CR and NSF Funding
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY07 Appropriations, Research /by MelissaNorrRep. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN), and Rep. Rush Holt (R-NJ) are the impetus behind a Dear Colleague letter to Chairman David Obey (D-WI) and Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) of the Appropriations Committee regarding NSF funding in the FY2007 CR that will be delivered tomorrow. It currently has 14 co-signers. The letter makes all the points about NSF funding that CRA and the rest of the science research community have been making since the first CR for FY2007. Some highlights:
CRA has sent letters to the leadership in both chambers and to the chairmen of both Appropriations Committees supporting increased funding for NSF in the CR. There is still time for all of you to weigh in with your members regarding funding levels as we have suggested here previously.
Update: As of January 16th, there are 78 signatures on the Congressional Dear Colleague. For the list of co-signers click the link at the bottom of the post.
Update 2: Sen. Joseph Lieberman has begun a similar effort in the Senate with a letter to Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Sen. Richard Shelby, the chair and ranking member, respectively, of the Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. Highlights:
As of this morning, the Senate letter had 8 co-signers.
Read more →
NYT Article on Impact of CR on Science
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY07 Appropriations, R&D in the Press /by MelissaNorrThe Sunday New York Times featured an article on the impact of the continuing resolution on science research. The article starts:
It touches on a number of agencies, programs, and labs that are hurting and facing possible discontinuation. Regarding NSF it states:
A number of quotes are included but one that sums up the thoughts of most of the community is from Mike Lubell at the American Physical Society, a fellow member of the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation.