News.com has the story on a new report by NSF’sScience Resources Statistics group that shows more than one-fifth of U.S. science and engineering workers do not have a bachelor’s degree.
The percentage without degrees is even higher in computer and math science fields, with approximately 40 percent of workers without a four-year degree.
I haven’t thought too deeply about what it means, but here’s an idea to chew on. There’s an interesting juxtaposition between the relatively high percent of non-degreed comp sci and mathematics workers (40 percent) vs. a much lower percentage in the life sciences (10 percent). To me, this suggests two things. One, that there are plenty of opportunities in computer science and mathematics fields for workers without four-year degrees, and two, that the life sciences may be dealing with a surplus of degreed workers. If the percentage of degreed workers is so much higher in the life sciences, it implies that a higher percentage of lower-tier jobs (entry level and slightly above) are going to degreed workers as well.
What would be interesting to see is the salary data for those positions and how they compare to the lower-tier jobs on the IT side. Does an associate-degreed worker with a certification in an IT field earn about the same as a degreed med-tech? My guess would be that the IT worker makes at least as much, but I don’t have that data handy. Let me see if I can dig them up.
At the same time, it’s also worth noting that no other S&E field is projected to grow as much or as fast as IT-related fields over the next 8 years (2002-12). And most of those new jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics will require a Bachelor’s degree or better.
Apologies for the slow pace of updates recently. Things are a bit slow around DC this time of year. Congress is in recess for the month of August so that the Members can head home to their respective districts for primaries and lots of campaigning. They’ll be back September 7th, hoping to “wrap up” work in October so they can get back to their districts for those last hectic weeks of campaigning before the November 2nd elections. Chances are, however, that they won’t accomplish their primary legislative goal — passing the 12 (of 13 total) appropriations bills still outstanding before the start of the new fiscal year October 1st. In fact, it’s likely that they’ll be back in town after the election in “lame duck” session to wrap things up. And, if I was a betting man, I’d wager that they still won’t get the appropriations bills done and will punt to the next Congress in January.
The delay was preordained once Congress failed to pass a joint Budget Resolution earlier this year. Not having a Congressionally approved budget resolution to set the spending caps for the appropriators means that any appropriations bill coming to the floor of either chamber could get “larded up” with amendments for favorite causes and the congressional leadership will be unable to oppose them using a “budget process” argument. Each amendment would force lawmakers to take a stand and vote up or down on some program — not the sort of thing the leadership wants to have happen in a tough election year. So, the easiest solution for the leadership (on both sides of the aisle) is just avoid the issue altogether — bundle the bills together into one giant “omnibus bill” and save it for a time when the costs are lower.
That noted, the House Appropriations Committee has already moved far enough along on one bill especially important to our community to generate concern. As we’ve coveredpreviously, the VA-HUD-Independent Agencies appropriations bill approved by the committee just prior to the recess includes some significant cuts to NSF and NASA. Under the bill, NSF would lose $111 million in current funding in FY 2005, a decrease of 2.0 percent. This is a far cry from the 15 percent increase for FY 2005 authorized by Congress and approved by the President as part of the NSF Authorization Act of 2002.
In response, members of CRA’s Computing Research Advocacy Network (CRAN) have been contacting their Representatives and Senators urging them to reject the cuts and instead fund NSF at the level approved in the NSF Authorization Act. If you’re already a CRAN member, you should have already received the “CRAN Alert” with all the information, background, sample letters and contact information to help make the case for NSF. Even if you’re not a CRAN member, I’d urge you to use the information to contact your own Senators and Representative, and join the network!
I’ll be providing further details on our efforts and the bill’s progress as it moves forward. But please take the time to contact your representatives in Congress. A strong show of support from the community is crucial in our efforts to reverse these cuts….
That sense of isolation and inadequacy is one reason the number of women earning computer science degrees in this country has plummeted over the past two decades–with women dropping from 37 percent to 28 percent of graduates–at the very moment their presence in other scientific and engineering disciplines has soared. “You look at the national statistics,” says Rick Rashid, senior vice president of research at Microsoft, “and you just have to be appalled.”
Until recently, many in the high-tech industry shrugged off that female brain drain. They could fill top information-technology slots from abroad or American doctoral programs, where foreign nationals still snag half the Ph.D.’s. But suddenly homeland security issues and visa hurdles have clogged that foreign pipeline. And countries like India are luring their U.S.-educated citizens back home to their own burgeoning Silicon Valleys.
Faced with forecasts of a looming brainpower shortage–and the retirement of those baby boomers who are the industry’s pioneers–many leading U.S. players fear the country could lose its competitive edge. “Over the next seven years, our hiring needs are going to be huge,” says Wayne Johnson, executive director of HP’s university relations worldwide. “If you don’t have half the U.S. population participating, you have a tremendous gap in filling these needs. What we’re doing here is creating a disadvantage for ourselves as a nation.”
ZDNet covers the drop in tech-related doctoral degrees in an article today that quotes CRA Board Chair Jim Foley. The article cites some reasons for the current downturn in doctoral degrees, including declining interest in the sciences among Americans, a temporary shift in the labor markets, and financial disincentives to pursue science and engineering doctorates. It also quotes folks like Foley, Intel’s Craig Barrett, and Wayne Johnson of HP Labs, noting the importance of the doctoral degree to American innovation.
The article also quotes Ron Hira, now a professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, as casting some doubt on the seriousness of the problem:
[Hira] suspects anxiety over science and engineering doctorates is a diversion from the offshoring trend of shifting work overseas. “There’s a perception we’re in a competitive crisis,” he said. “The competitive and innovation (argument) has been introduced by companies that want to take offshore outsourcing off the table.”
I’m not sure that’s the case. While it may be true that the general concern about S&E degrees might be overstated, that is not the case with IT-related degrees. Projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that over the next 10 years, no science occupation, and indeed, no other “professional and related” occupation will grow as fast (and few occupations will add as many new workers) as IT-related occupations. Here’s a chart produced by John Sargent, a senior policy advisor at the Department of Commerce, that illustrates the point:
Even factoring the trend towards outsourcing into their models, BLS still projects the U.S. will add 1.6 million new jobs in IT-related fields — the vast majority of these requiring a bachelor’s degree or higher. Degree production is well short of that pace….
[A full set of Sargent’s slides on the US S&E Workforce and Offshoring is available here.]
Gates touts computer science
By Todd Bishop
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Does the U.S. computer-science industry need a Sputnik moment?
It wouldn’t hurt, Bill Gates said yesterday, answering a question from a university researcher about declining computer-science enrollment and concerns over funding for science and math programs. The Microsoft Corp. chairman said it might take a big technological advance somewhere else in the world to direct the attention of the nation’s leaders to the issue in the same way that the Soviet Union’s 1957 Sputnik launch accelerated development of the U.S. space program.
“It’s not like when you see presidential debates you hear them talk about the number of engineering degrees being received in the United States,” Gates said. He cited the possible need for a “crisis moment” that brings attention to the issue.
“You shouldn’t discount the value of a good alien invasion,” quipped Rick Rashid, the senior vice president in charge of Microsoft Research. Often that’s the way it works in science-fiction novels, Rashid explained.
The Washington Post’s Rob Pegoraro has an interesting article on the sorry state of affairs we’ve now reached as a result of the Federal government’s “broadcast flag” requirement. Tivo would like to add a new feature to their digital video recorders, but faces a strenuous objection from the National Football League, which fears for its, uh, stadium business. Here’s a few choice bits…but go read the whole thing:
TiVo vs. the Broadcast Flag Wavers
By Rob Pegoraro
The Washington Post
Sunday, August 1, 2004; Page F06
TiVo, the company that makes the digital-video-recorder boxes that inspire such strange idolatry among their users, is in a weird spot. It’s asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to add a new feature — the option for a TiVo user to send recorded digital TV programs via the Internet to nine other people.
Huh? Permission? Doesn’t the government’s involvement in consumer electronics stop with making sure that a gadget doesn’t jam your neighbor’s reception or electrocute you? Since when do the feds get to vote on product designs?
The answer is, since last November, when the FCC voted to require manufacturers to support the “broadcast flag” system by July 1 of next year. This convoluted mechanism aims to stop full-quality copies of digital broadcasts from circulating on the Internet.
And the real crux of the issue:
The MPAA and the NFL phrase their objections as reasonable attempts to err on the side of caution. “We’re asking them to just wait awhile, let’s think it out more thoroughly,” Attaway said.
But if a programmer or an engineer with a bright idea has to go to Washington, hat in hand and lawyers in tow, to request permission to sell a better product — and is then told “just wait awhile” — we are on our way to suffocating innovation in this country.
The President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee’s (PITAC) Subcommittee on Cyber Security met today “town hall” style at the GOVSEC conference here in DC today to hear from ITAA head Harris Miller, Joel Birnbaum, head of the CSTB study on “Improving Cyber Security Research in the US“, and to take public input as it continues its work towards producing a report on the current state of Federal cyber security R&D.
I was pleased to hear Miller’s enthusiastic endorsement of the Federal role in supporting long-term IT R&D (and cyber security R&D). One of my perpetual frustrations in dealing with the lobbying arms of the various IT companies is that they recognize the importance of federal funding for basic research, but don’t often incorporate that message very prominently in their own lobbying efforts. I think Miller and ITAA are an exception to that as they’ve been very involved in a number of efforts to see federal research efforts increased — their work on the Cyber Security R&D Authorization Act of 2002 was very important in getting it enacted, for example. Miller made the point that industry does devote a lot of effort to R&D, but it’s almost all focused on the “D” — development — side. The research that underpins all that “D”, he said, takes place primarily in universities.
Joel Birnbaum gave a short summary of the work he expects his committee to focus on in the coming months. He says the committee, which held its first series of meetings this week, is comprised of a remarkably diverse set of academics and industrial researchers — and “not just computer scientists” (though there appear to be quite a few of those…and that’s a good thing). The committee will look 5-10 years out, assume computers are pervasive and critical, and try to understand the threat models, economics, and other impediments to their “vision of the way life could be.”
CRA submitted written testimony (pdf, 284kb) to the committee, citing our concerns about the current state of cyber security research, particularly with research efforts at the Department of Homeland Security and DARPA. In a nutshell, we’re concerned that the federal effort is under-funded and poorly balanced between short and long-term efforts. Additionally we are concerned that current law has a chilling effect on some research efforts in cyber security, and that current agency policies at odds with the basic research practice appear to be driving university-based researchers away from research funded by critical mission agencies.
But get the full scoop here.
Matthew Swibel covers federal funding for supercomputing today in Forbes (and quotes CRA). U.S. Plays Supercomputer Catch-up.
(I usually don’t link to the print version of articles, but Forbes is using some sort of ad displaying script that isn’t playing nicely with my Safari browser on the Mac…)
The San Jose Mercury News’Dan Gillmor has an interesting piece on DARPA’s “Strong Angel II“, a program aimed at developing techniques for “critical information management within austere environments.” From the article:
KONA, HAWAII – They were soldiers and sailors, doctors and relief workers, technologists and managers. Over the course of a few days, they transformed a barren lava bed into a cutting-edge test bed of communications and collaboration.
Their overarching goal, in a project dubbed “Strong Angel II” (http://strongangel.telascience.org) was humanitarian: to help create a way for military and civilian disaster-relief people to deal more efficiently with each other — and with the people who need assistance — in the turmoil that follows catastrophes.
I’ve managed to get my hands on the as yet unreleased committee report for the House VA-HUD-Independent Agencies appropriations bill, which contains some additional detail about the nature of the cuts planned for NSF in FY 2005 (first covered here).
The committee has included some accounting changes in addition to the cuts proposed, which makes it a little tricky to compare the committee recommended levels to the FY 2004 appropriation and the President’s FY 2005 request. First, the committee moved $26.0 million in “administrative costs” that were included in the R&RA FY 2004 budget to the Salaries and Expenses (S&E) budget line. The committee also decided to leave the President’s Math and Science Partnerships program ($80 million) in the Education and Human Resources directorate (EHR) rather than move them to the R&RA account, as proposed in the President’s budget. As a result, the adjusted level for R&RA would be $4.152 billion for FY 2005, $73.7 million below the comparable FY 2004 level and $194.3 million below the comparable FY 2005 budget request.
To reach that level, the appropriators targeted three new programs: the Workforce for the 21st Century program ($20 million), the proposed new class of Science and Technology Centers ($30 million), and the proposed Innovation Fund ($5 million). The remaining $18.7 million in cuts will have to come from existing programs in R&RA — a cut of less than half of one percent to existing programs. Not good at all, but a little better than it first appeared.
Additionally, the committee included some language supporting continued research to “further productivity growth in the information economy.”
From within the Engineering, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorates and the National Nanotechnology Initiative, the Committee remains concerned that researchers are reaching the physical limits of current complementary metal oxide semiconductor process technology and that this will have significant implications for continued productivity growth in the information economy. The Committee commends NSF’s examination of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors and its initiation of the Silicon Nanoelectronics and Beyond program and encourages NSF to consider increasing research support, where feasible, through this program.
The Committee doesn’t provide directorate by directorate breakouts for its funding recommendations, instead it takes NSF to task for not providing its FY 2005 budget justification in the form the committee requested (not detailed enough). The Committee directs NSF to submit a revised plan within 30 days of the enactment of the bill that
addresses the Foundation’s highest priority research requirements. In developing this plan, the Foundation is urged to be sensitive to maintaining the proper balance between the goal of stimulating interdisciplinary research and the need to maintain robust single-issue research in the core disciplines.
Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction would see an increase of $53.2 million over FY 2004, but $5 million less than the President’s budget request. Included in the increase is an extra $9.5 million for the IceCube Neutrino Detector Observatory, which the committee calls and “acceleration of the funding profile” to enable certain economies in the overall project cost, and a transfer of $12 million for the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) to the R&RA account, reflecting the recommendation of the NRC’s recent review of the project that it wasn’t yet ready for MREFC status.
The Appropriations Committee is expected to approve the bill by voice vote on Friday, but it will likely be some time before the bill reaches the House floor. Congress goes on “recess” next week through August.
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Forty Percent of Comp Sci and Math Workers Lack 4-year Degrees, Reports NSF
/In: People /by Peter HarshaNews.com has the story on a new report by NSF’s Science Resources Statistics group that shows more than one-fifth of U.S. science and engineering workers do not have a bachelor’s degree.
The percentage without degrees is even higher in computer and math science fields, with approximately 40 percent of workers without a four-year degree.
I haven’t thought too deeply about what it means, but here’s an idea to chew on. There’s an interesting juxtaposition between the relatively high percent of non-degreed comp sci and mathematics workers (40 percent) vs. a much lower percentage in the life sciences (10 percent). To me, this suggests two things. One, that there are plenty of opportunities in computer science and mathematics fields for workers without four-year degrees, and two, that the life sciences may be dealing with a surplus of degreed workers. If the percentage of degreed workers is so much higher in the life sciences, it implies that a higher percentage of lower-tier jobs (entry level and slightly above) are going to degreed workers as well.
What would be interesting to see is the salary data for those positions and how they compare to the lower-tier jobs on the IT side. Does an associate-degreed worker with a certification in an IT field earn about the same as a degreed med-tech? My guess would be that the IT worker makes at least as much, but I don’t have that data handy. Let me see if I can dig them up.
At the same time, it’s also worth noting that no other S&E field is projected to grow as much or as fast as IT-related fields over the next 8 years (2002-12). And most of those new jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics will require a Bachelor’s degree or better.
NSF Funding: Get Involved!
/In: Funding /by Peter HarshaApologies for the slow pace of updates recently. Things are a bit slow around DC this time of year. Congress is in recess for the month of August so that the Members can head home to their respective districts for primaries and lots of campaigning. They’ll be back September 7th, hoping to “wrap up” work in October so they can get back to their districts for those last hectic weeks of campaigning before the November 2nd elections. Chances are, however, that they won’t accomplish their primary legislative goal — passing the 12 (of 13 total) appropriations bills still outstanding before the start of the new fiscal year October 1st. In fact, it’s likely that they’ll be back in town after the election in “lame duck” session to wrap things up. And, if I was a betting man, I’d wager that they still won’t get the appropriations bills done and will punt to the next Congress in January.
The delay was preordained once Congress failed to pass a joint Budget Resolution earlier this year. Not having a Congressionally approved budget resolution to set the spending caps for the appropriators means that any appropriations bill coming to the floor of either chamber could get “larded up” with amendments for favorite causes and the congressional leadership will be unable to oppose them using a “budget process” argument. Each amendment would force lawmakers to take a stand and vote up or down on some program — not the sort of thing the leadership wants to have happen in a tough election year. So, the easiest solution for the leadership (on both sides of the aisle) is just avoid the issue altogether — bundle the bills together into one giant “omnibus bill” and save it for a time when the costs are lower.
That noted, the House Appropriations Committee has already moved far enough along on one bill especially important to our community to generate concern. As we’ve covered previously, the VA-HUD-Independent Agencies appropriations bill approved by the committee just prior to the recess includes some significant cuts to NSF and NASA. Under the bill, NSF would lose $111 million in current funding in FY 2005, a decrease of 2.0 percent. This is a far cry from the 15 percent increase for FY 2005 authorized by Congress and approved by the President as part of the NSF Authorization Act of 2002.
In response, members of CRA’s Computing Research Advocacy Network (CRAN) have been contacting their Representatives and Senators urging them to reject the cuts and instead fund NSF at the level approved in the NSF Authorization Act. If you’re already a CRAN member, you should have already received the “CRAN Alert” with all the information, background, sample letters and contact information to help make the case for NSF. Even if you’re not a CRAN member, I’d urge you to use the information to contact your own Senators and Representative, and join the network!
I’ll be providing further details on our efforts and the bill’s progress as it moves forward. But please take the time to contact your representatives in Congress. A strong show of support from the community is crucial in our efforts to reverse these cuts….
Tech Firms Want More Female Computer Whizzes
/In: Policy /by Peter HarshaGreat article in US News and World Report on the “corporate wake up call” regarding the participation of women in computer science. CRA’s Jan Cuny (and CRA’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W)) gets a nice mention. Here’s a sample:
Read the whole article here.
Brain Drain in Tech’s Future?
/In: CRA, People /by Peter HarshaZDNet covers the drop in tech-related doctoral degrees in an article today that quotes CRA Board Chair Jim Foley. The article cites some reasons for the current downturn in doctoral degrees, including declining interest in the sciences among Americans, a temporary shift in the labor markets, and financial disincentives to pursue science and engineering doctorates. It also quotes folks like Foley, Intel’s Craig Barrett, and Wayne Johnson of HP Labs, noting the importance of the doctoral degree to American innovation.
The article also quotes Ron Hira, now a professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, as casting some doubt on the seriousness of the problem:
I’m not sure that’s the case. While it may be true that the general concern about S&E degrees might be overstated, that is not the case with IT-related degrees. Projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that over the next 10 years, no science occupation, and indeed, no other “professional and related” occupation will grow as fast (and few occupations will add as many new workers) as IT-related occupations. Here’s a chart produced by John Sargent, a senior policy advisor at the Department of Commerce, that illustrates the point:
Even factoring the trend towards outsourcing into their models, BLS still projects the U.S. will add 1.6 million new jobs in IT-related fields — the vast majority of these requiring a bachelor’s degree or higher. Degree production is well short of that pace….
[A full set of Sargent’s slides on the US S&E Workforce and Offshoring is available here.]
Does Computer Science Need a Sputnik Moment?
/In: People /by Peter HarshaInteresting article from the Seattle Post Intelligencer today on discussions at CRA member Microsoft Research’s Faculty Summit about declining computer science enrollments.
Here’s a bit:
Read it all.
Update: C|Net has more.
Permission to Innovate
/In: Policy /by Peter HarshaThe Washington Post’s Rob Pegoraro has an interesting article on the sorry state of affairs we’ve now reached as a result of the Federal government’s “broadcast flag” requirement. Tivo would like to add a new feature to their digital video recorders, but faces a strenuous objection from the National Football League, which fears for its, uh, stadium business. Here’s a few choice bits…but go read the whole thing:
And the real crux of the issue:
PITAC Cyber Security Subcommittee “Town Hall” Highlights
/In: CRA, Policy /by Peter HarshaThe President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee’s (PITAC) Subcommittee on Cyber Security met today “town hall” style at the GOVSEC conference here in DC today to hear from ITAA head Harris Miller, Joel Birnbaum, head of the CSTB study on “Improving Cyber Security Research in the US“, and to take public input as it continues its work towards producing a report on the current state of Federal cyber security R&D.
I was pleased to hear Miller’s enthusiastic endorsement of the Federal role in supporting long-term IT R&D (and cyber security R&D). One of my perpetual frustrations in dealing with the lobbying arms of the various IT companies is that they recognize the importance of federal funding for basic research, but don’t often incorporate that message very prominently in their own lobbying efforts. I think Miller and ITAA are an exception to that as they’ve been very involved in a number of efforts to see federal research efforts increased — their work on the Cyber Security R&D Authorization Act of 2002 was very important in getting it enacted, for example. Miller made the point that industry does devote a lot of effort to R&D, but it’s almost all focused on the “D” — development — side. The research that underpins all that “D”, he said, takes place primarily in universities.
Joel Birnbaum gave a short summary of the work he expects his committee to focus on in the coming months. He says the committee, which held its first series of meetings this week, is comprised of a remarkably diverse set of academics and industrial researchers — and “not just computer scientists” (though there appear to be quite a few of those…and that’s a good thing). The committee will look 5-10 years out, assume computers are pervasive and critical, and try to understand the threat models, economics, and other impediments to their “vision of the way life could be.”
CRA submitted written testimony (pdf, 284kb) to the committee, citing our concerns about the current state of cyber security research, particularly with research efforts at the Department of Homeland Security and DARPA. In a nutshell, we’re concerned that the federal effort is under-funded and poorly balanced between short and long-term efforts. Additionally we are concerned that current law has a chilling effect on some research efforts in cyber security, and that current agency policies at odds with the basic research practice appear to be driving university-based researchers away from research funded by critical mission agencies.
But get the full scoop here.
Forbes on Supercomputing
/In: Funding /by Peter HarshaMatthew Swibel covers federal funding for supercomputing today in Forbes (and quotes CRA).
U.S. Plays Supercomputer Catch-up.
(I usually don’t link to the print version of articles, but Forbes is using some sort of ad displaying script that isn’t playing nicely with my Safari browser on the Mac…)
DARPA’s Strong Angel II
/In: Research /by Peter HarshaThe San Jose Mercury News’ Dan Gillmor has an interesting piece on DARPA’s “Strong Angel II“, a program aimed at developing techniques for “critical information management within austere environments.” From the article:
Read the rest here.
More Detail on NSF Cuts in House Approps Bill
/In: Funding /by Peter HarshaI’ve managed to get my hands on the as yet unreleased committee report for the House VA-HUD-Independent Agencies appropriations bill, which contains some additional detail about the nature of the cuts planned for NSF in FY 2005 (first covered here).
The committee has included some accounting changes in addition to the cuts proposed, which makes it a little tricky to compare the committee recommended levels to the FY 2004 appropriation and the President’s FY 2005 request. First, the committee moved $26.0 million in “administrative costs” that were included in the R&RA FY 2004 budget to the Salaries and Expenses (S&E) budget line. The committee also decided to leave the President’s Math and Science Partnerships program ($80 million) in the Education and Human Resources directorate (EHR) rather than move them to the R&RA account, as proposed in the President’s budget. As a result, the adjusted level for R&RA would be $4.152 billion for FY 2005, $73.7 million below the comparable FY 2004 level and $194.3 million below the comparable FY 2005 budget request.
To reach that level, the appropriators targeted three new programs: the Workforce for the 21st Century program ($20 million), the proposed new class of Science and Technology Centers ($30 million), and the proposed Innovation Fund ($5 million). The remaining $18.7 million in cuts will have to come from existing programs in R&RA — a cut of less than half of one percent to existing programs. Not good at all, but a little better than it first appeared.
Additionally, the committee included some language supporting continued research to “further productivity growth in the information economy.”
The Committee doesn’t provide directorate by directorate breakouts for its funding recommendations, instead it takes NSF to task for not providing its FY 2005 budget justification in the form the committee requested (not detailed enough). The Committee directs NSF to submit a revised plan within 30 days of the enactment of the bill that
Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction would see an increase of $53.2 million over FY 2004, but $5 million less than the President’s budget request. Included in the increase is an extra $9.5 million for the IceCube Neutrino Detector Observatory, which the committee calls and “acceleration of the funding profile” to enable certain economies in the overall project cost, and a transfer of $12 million for the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) to the R&RA account, reflecting the recommendation of the NRC’s recent review of the project that it wasn’t yet ready for MREFC status.
The Appropriations Committee is expected to approve the bill by voice vote on Friday, but it will likely be some time before the bill reaches the House floor. Congress goes on “recess” next week through August.