Big boost in science funding authorized by Congress

Just 22 months after Norman Augustine sat before a congressional committee to urge support for the recommendations in the landmark report Rising Above the Gathering Storm , the retired CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp was working the phones from his car as he zipped from meeting to meeting in Washington, DC. Congress was about to vote on the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science (COMPETES) Act, which would authorize funding for science programs in almost every federal agency at levels higher than even advocates for science had thought possible.

Augustine, who was chair of the National Academy of Sciences committee that issued the Gathering Storm report (see Physics Today, December 2005, page 25 ), was talking mostly to reluctant Republicans who were worried about voting for legislation that allocated $21 billion more in domestic spending than President Bush had requested. Although almost everyone on the Hill was willing to support science funding increases called for in the administration’s American Competitiveness Initiative, fiscal conservatives in Congress were reluctant to authorize a research budget that over the next seven years could be more than $30 billion above the spending envisioned by the administration.

Representative Ralph Hall (R-TX), the ranking member of the House Committee on Science and Technology, was concerned about $300 million authorized to establish the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, an office in the Department of Energy (DOE) that would focus on high-risk energy-research projects. Other legislators were concerned about expanded science education programs and some 20 other science initiatives the administration had complained about in a letter to Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

On 2 August, after the intense last-minute lobbying by Augustine and a host of other science advocates, the House passed the COMPETES Act 367 to 57, a veto-proof majority. The Senate also approved the legislation over-whelmingly, and it was sent to President Bush. On 9 August, despite earlier threats to veto the legislation, Bush signed it into law.

Although the legislation gives substantial amounts of money to almost every field of science, rejoicing in the science community should be tempered, Augustine said. “I sent out a note this morning [the day the House passed the act] congratulating all of the people who worked on it. The first line of the note said, ‘Congratulations.’ The second line of the note said, ‘Now, about the FY 09 budget, let’s get to work.’

“This is just one step in a many-year undertaking,” he said. “We’ve got to maintain this year after year after year. As a mathematician would say, it’s necessary but not sufficient.” Augustine’s fear, shared by many in the science community, is that next year Congress will move on to other priorities and science funding will slip. “It’s hard to sustain things,” Augustine said.

Augustine’s other fear is that although the COMPETES Act authorizes billions of dollars for science, it doesn’t actually appropriate. That process, done by House and Senate appropriations committees, will come in September when Congress returns from its summer recess.

That is also the fear of Stanley Williams, director of quantum science research at Hewlett-Packard. Williams has been outspoken for several years about what he sees as the decline in American science, both in education and federal research funding. “People like me have been trying to point out that there really is a problem,” he said. “At the Washington, DC, level, what often happens is [politicians] nod their heads sagely, and then a piece of legislation is passed, and the funding doesn’t come through, and the problem isn’t solved. You go back, and they say they’ve already dealt with that problem.”

Williams points to legislation, passed by Congress and signed by Bush in 2002, that authorized a doubling of the NSF budget over five years. The money was never appropriated by Congress, and Bush’s later budget proposals fell far short of meeting the doubling goal.

The COMPETES Act puts NSF on the path for doubling its budget in seven years. But Williams is skeptical. “We attempted that doubling five years ago, got a bill passed, and then nothing happened,” Williams said. “It was essentially feel-good legislation, but to actually accomplish anything, the money has to be appropriated.”

John Marburger, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, was pleased that the COMPETES Act included most of the programs Bush had called for in the ACI, but he was not pleased by the billions of dollars in extra funding contained in the bill. Indeed, the day before Congress approved the COMPETES Act, Marburger said the bill was “over the top” and could face a presidential veto. Marburger said the ACI “is more focused and tries to prioritize science funding within the constraints of the budget.”

The Gathering Storm report, he said, listed many things that needed to be done to strengthen science in the US, “but it was done without too much regard for the realities of the budget.” And Marburger echoed both Augustine and Williams in noting the difference between authorization and appropriations.

“I like it that Congress is so positive about getting money to science and science education,” Marburger said. “It’s really a good thing. But I know that when the appropriations bills come through and the dust settles, there won’t be enough money to fund everything.”

An analysis of the COMPETES Act by the American Association for the Advancement of Science shows that Congress funded the large increases the administration proposed in its FY 2008 budget for the physical sciences, then went further and authorized more money for every major nondefense R&D funding agency in the federal government. Many of those increases replaced funding cuts proposed by the administration. According to an overview prepared by the House’s science and technology committee staff, if the COMPETES Act is fully funded, it will do the following:

• ▸ Keep research budgets at NSF, NIST, and DOE’s Office of Science on a path to double over the next seven years.

• ▸ Provide $43.3 billion for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics research and education programs across the federal government over the next three fiscal years.

• ▸ Increase funding to NASA’s aeronautics program, which a National Research Council report recently said was in serious trouble because of a shrinking budget (see Physics Today, September 2006, page 29 ).

• ▸ Convert NIST’s Advanced Technology Program into the new Technology Innovation Program and authorize almost $400 million in funding over the next three years.

• ▸ Create new K–12 science and technology education programs at DOE and authorize $150 million to fund them.

• ▸ Give large increases to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with climate change and ocean-related research receiving significant boosts.

While the White House is expected to pressure congressional appropriators throughout September to significantly scale back the money for the COMPETES Act, Augustine will likely be working the phones again, trying to make sure the appropriations match the authorizations.

“We can afford this,” Augustine said. “We can afford two times as much as a country if we think it is important. Whether it is this amount, or 50% more, or 100% more, we can afford it. That is not an issue in my mind.”