Special report: Budget boosts physical sciences in FY 2008, most other research down

When he sat before the House Committee on Science and Technology in mid-February to detail the administration’s proposed fiscal year 2008 federal research budget, John Marburger, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, opened with the same statement of priorities he has used for the past five years: “Winning the war on terror, securing the homeland, and strengthening the economy remain the president’s top priorities.”

With the US entering the fifth year of war in Iraq and the Democratic Congress engaged in a showdown with the president over the $100 billion supplemental funding authorization for the war, the context for the FY 2008 budget in research and development is that nondefense money is tight, and for every winner, there will be a loser.

”Making choices is difficult, even when budgets are generous, but tight budgets require priorities to be focused and program management to be strengthened,” Marburger concluded in his remarks to the House committee.

One of Bush’s priorities is his American Competitiveness Initiative, which would continue last year’s substantial boost in funding for the physical sciences at the Department of Energy, NSF, and NIST. In addition to the ACI increases, Department of Defense weapons development and NASA’s human spacecraft development would receive significant boosts in funding.

But with the high cost of the war and Bush’s vow to balance the federal budget within five years, almost all other domestic spending would decline, including both civilian and military investment in basic and applied research, which would drop 2% to $55.4 billion. According to analysts with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the latest budget proposal marks the fourth year in a row that basic and applied research would decrease.

Marburger emphasized the positive numbers in presenting the administration’s proposal to the science committee, noting that it contains “a record $142.7 billion,” an increase of $5.5 billion over the FY 2007 budget proposal. He also noted that “nondefense R&D has continued on a significantly upward trajectory” during the Bush presidency, increasing 26.5% in the past seven years.

Representative Bart Gordon (D-TN), who took over the committee chairmanship in the wake of the retirement of Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) and the Democratic victory in last November’s election, was not as upbeat. Gordon said, “The absolute dollars we spend on research and development have been declining as a percentage of our economy. While the budget includes some important funding increases, it lacks the priorities and consistency to ensure our competitiveness now and in the long run.”

Sorting out who benefits and who loses, and by how much, in the budget proposal is more complicated than usual because Congress never fully completed action on the president’s FY 2007 budget proposal. Instead, locked in an impasse between the outgoing Republicans and the incoming Democrats following last November’s election, the new Democratic leadership passed a continuing resolution that funds FY 2007 at FY 2006 levels, with several notable exceptions (see Physics Today, March 2007, page 27 ).

The two sets of numbers have complicated the analysis of the FY 2008 budget request.

Some, but not all, of the science funding that was part of the FY 2007 ACI proposal was included in the continuing resolution. NSF received the full 7.7% increase for research that the administration asked for, but DOE’s Office of Science received a 6% boost, less than the 14% ACI request in the FY 2007 budget proposal. NIST received a 9.6% increase instead of the 20% proposed in the ACI.

The change in Congress from Republican to Democratic control has introduced some uncertainty into the prospects for science in this budget cycle. Although both parties have been strong supporters of the ACI and other high-ticket items such as the $1.4 billion multiagency nanotechnology initiative, there are serious partisan disagreements over funding for alternative-energy, science-education, and climate-change programs. The Democrats are also expected to implement new “paygo” rules that require all new spending to be offset by reductions in current spending.

An early indication of the problems science funding may run into with the new Democratic majority occurred during the battle to include science money for DOE’s Office of Science in the continuing resolution. The office was supposed to get $500 million for research under the continuing resolution, but Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-IN), the new chair of the energy and water appropriations subcommittee, thought the money would be better spent on energy efficiency and renewable energy. Of the $500 million originally promised to the Office of Science by congressional negotiators, only $200 million arrived. The other $300 million went to the programs Visclosky favored.

Another area where the change in leadership may have a noticeable impact is on NSF’s science-education program. For years, over the strong objection of Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), funding for NSF’s math and science partnership program has been cut while funding for a math education program at the Department of Education has been increased. Ehlers has an ally in Gordon, who let Marburger know at the February hearing that restoring NSF education money was a priority.

”For more than 50 years,” Gordon said, NSF “has been successfully implementing K–12 education programs. Over the last four years, NSF K–12 funding has dropped almost 50%, more than $130 million, and the 2008 budget request maintains these cuts.” Given Gordon’s position and the new Democratic majority, money may well flow back into NSF’s education program, but where it would come from is an open question.

Department of energy R&D programs

NASA R&D programs

The FY 2008 budget will likely be negotiated at the same time the Democratic Congress is engaged in a series of showdowns with the administration over nonbudget issues; an overview of the numbers provides a sketch of what the administration is proposing.

• ▸ The proposed federal R&D portfolio would be $142.9 billion (slightly higher than the number Marburger used in his congressional testimony), $2 billion, or 1.4%, above the final FY 2007 funding level. As in past R&D budgets, development would be the big winner because of large increases for Defense Department weapons and NASA’s manned spacecraft. Total development money would reach a record high of $82.8 billion, up 3% from FY 2007.

• ▸ The three research agencies favored under the ACI would receive a second year of increased budgets. NSF R&D would increase 8.3% to $4.9 billion, while DOE’s Office of Science R&D would get a 16% increase to $4.1 billion. NIST laboratories would jump 13% to $420 million. The two other major federal research agencies, DOD and NASA, would see cuts in their research budgets. Defense support of basic and applied research would drop 18% to $5.9 billion, and NASA’s research budget would decrease 0.5% to $3.4 billion. NASA R&D related to the development of new manned space vehicles would increase 11.4% to $12 billion.

• ▸ Other nondefense R&D agencies that are not part of the ACI or NASA’s manned space programs would also decline. Energy R&D would drop 8.9%, Department of Homeland Security R&D would decline 0.8%, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the Department of Commerce would lose 9.5% of its R&D funding.

• ▸ Despite Marburger’s statement to Congress that the US “leads the world in advancing climate science and technology, with expenditures of nearly $29 billion [in climate-related spending] during this administration,” AAAS budget analysts noted in a report that the federal funding for climate-change science programs would decline 7.4% to $1.5 billion, “falling steeply for the fourth year in a row from nearly $2 billion in 2004.”

Those highlights and the following agency summaries set the stage for what promises to be a confrontational year between the administration and a new Democratic Congress.

National Science Foundation. NSF, the third-largest federal supporter of the physical sciences behind DOE and NASA, shares widespread, bipartisan support in the administration and Congress, and its funding reflects that. One of the chosen three agencies in the ACI, NSF would receive an 8.7% boost to its total budget, pushing it up $513 million to $6.4 billion. That would follow a similarly large increase in the FY 2007 continuing resolution. The foundation’s FY 2008 R&D funding would total $4.9 billion, an 8.3% increase of $374 million.

NSF’s research and related activities (R&RA) account, which funds almost all of the foundation’s basic and applied research, would increase 7.7% to $5.1 billion. While most of the directorates would receive 4% to 9% increases for the second year in a row, the office of cyberinfrastructure, spun off last year from the computer and information science and engineering directorate, would increase 9.6% to $200 million. CISE would receive a 9% increase to $547 million.

The mathematical and physical sciences directorate would get an 8.9% increase to $1.3 billion, while the engineering directorate would increase 8.7% to $683 million. Geosciences would increase by 6.3% to $792 million, biological sciences would increase 4.1% to $633 million, and social, behavioral, and economic sciences would be up 3.9% to $222 million.

As part of the R&RA account, the integrative activities account would increase 14.6% to $263 million. That increase comes mostly from a $24 million, 27.2% rise in the major research instrumentation program, which assists university researchers in purchasing equipment that is too expensive to be covered by standard NSF grants.

The major research equipment and facilities construction account would increase 28.2% to $245 million to fund several ongoing projects, including the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the South Pole Station Modernization Project. Although the FY 2007 MREFC budget is essentially flat, NSF hopes to start the Ocean Observatories Initiative, the National Ecological Observatory Network, and the Alaska Region Research Vessel with the current budget and use $33 million from the proposed FY 2008 increase to start work on the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, an upgrade to LIGO.

NSF’s education and human resources (EHR) directorate would receive a 7.5% increase to $751 million, but it would remain 19% below FY 2004 funding levels after sharp cuts in FYs 2005 and 2006 and flat funding in FY 2007. The administration is no longer trying to cut NSF entirely out of the math and science partnership program as it has in recent years, but NSF would only receive $46 million, the same funding it got in FY 2007.

National science foundation R&D programs

At a House appropriations subcommittee hearing in late March, chairman Alan Mollohan (D-WV) told National Science Board chairman Steven Beering that “education was a stepchild in [NSF’s] request.” The National Science Board oversees NSF.

Department of Energy. The DOE’s Office of Science budget would increase from $4.1 billion to $4.4 billion under the FY 2008 proposal, a 16% increase that would make it the biggest winner in science funding among federal agencies. More than 90% of that budget goes to R&D, according to AAAS analysts, and the Office of Science R&D money would increase 15.4% to $4.1 billion. The increase would bring science funding at DOE to its highest level since 1993.

Overall, the DOE R&D portfolio would increase 5.7% to $9.2 billion, driven in large part by the Office of Science increase. Energy R&D would fall 8.9% to $1.4 billion, while the budget for DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration would rise 2.6% to $3.8 billion. The NNSA increase would include $89 million for the Reliable Replacement Warhead, up from $29 million in the FY 2007 budget (see Physics Today, February 2007, page 24 ).

Funding for every science program in the Office of Science would increase for the second year in a row, with fusion research getting a 34% increase, basic energy sciences getting a 5.5% increase, and computing research rising 6.8%.

Department of defense R&D programs

The basic energy sciences (BES) increase to $1.5 billion would include construction funding for the Linac Coherent Light Source and the Advanced Light Source and planning money for the National Synchrotron Light Source II. BES would also fund the Spallation Neutron Source scheduled to open this year, four light sources, and five nanoscale research centers.

The advanced scientific computing research program would increase 20% to $340 million, primarily to increase the high-performance computing capacity at Oak Ridge and Argonne national laboratories. Biological and environmental research would increase 4.2% to $532 million to fund genomics, climate-change modeling, and bioenergy.

The 34% increase to fusion energy sciences would boost that program to $428 million, allowing enough money to fund the $160 million US share of ITER and still provide “cost-of-living” increases in domestic fusion research programs and facilities.

High-energy physics would get a 4.1% increase to $782 million. The budget includes $216.2 million for operations and improvements at Fermilab, $55.8 million for operations and improvements at the SLAC B Factory, and money for programs at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. Nonaccelerator physics would increase by 21%, and advanced technology R&D would increase 17.1% to $183 million.

Nuclear physics would increase 3.8% to $471 million, which includes funding to run the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the engineering and design for the 12-GeV upgrade of the Continuous Electron Beam Facility at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility.

NASA. Described by Gordon as an approaching “train wreck” in a recent House science committee hearing, the NASA budget is heavy on manned space programs and light on science. The FY 2008 request is for a 6.5% increase to $17.3 billion for the space agency, of which $12.6 billion would go for R&D activities. But the entire R&D increase of 7.7% would go to developing manned space vehicles to replace the shuttle and quickening the construction of the International Space Station.

Basic and applied research at NASA would fall 2% to $3.4 billion, and aeronautics research, described by a recent National Research Council report as on “a glide path to irrelevance” due to insufficient funding, would be cut by 20% to $554 million (see Physics Today, September 2006, page 29 ).

The space agency’s science portfolio would increase 2.4%, just at the rate of inflation, to $5.5 billion. But that is down about $1 billion from earlier mission planning proposals from NASA. The space agency has regularly reorganized itself, and for FY 2008 the science programs have been structured around themes–-Earth science, heliophysics, planetary exploration, and astrophysics. All the programs receive increases, allowing work to resume on the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy and development efforts for the James Webb Space Telescope to move forward at a faster pace with the goal of meeting the planned 2013 launch date. The science portfolio also includes $278 million for a 2008 service mission to the Hubble Space Telescope .

Although Earth science funding is up 3.7% to $1.5 billion, past cuts and escalating costs of planned missions have caused widespread concern in the science community. A recent National Academy of Sciences decadal survey noted that the number of Earth-observing sensors on NASA spacecraft could drop by 40% over the next few years if the funding problems aren’t solved.

Department of Defense. At first glance, overall defense R&D spending, while increasing only 1 percent, seems healthy, reaching a record $79 billion. But, virtually all of the R&D increases are going into the “D,” with the “R” suffering significant cuts.

While defense weapons development would increase by 5.4%, or $3.5 billion to a record $68.1 billion, DOD science and technology spending would be cut by 19%, down to $10.8 billion. Science and technology spending includes basic research (classified in the DOD budget as “6.1”), applied research (6.2), and advanced technology development (6.3). Under the budget proposal, basic research funding would drop 8.7% to $1.4 billion. Funding for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which includes basic, applied, and developmental research, would drop 1% to $3.1 billion.

Department of homeland security R&D programs

Department of commerce (NOAA and NIST) R&D programs

University research initiatives, funded in separate programs run through the US Army, Navy, and Air Force, would decline 15% to $246 million. And the defense research science program, funded by the three services and DARPA, would drop 5.9%. Applied research would fall 18% to $4.4 billion.

Medical research programs, which include the DOD’s historically strong funding of cancer research, would be cut by $250 million, or 61%.

The single biggest winner in the defense budget is the Air Force, with an R&D budget that would increase 14.4% to $28.1 billion. The increase is attributed to space and classified weapons development programs, including those related to the Iraq war.

Department of Homeland Security. Although the overall DHS budget would continue its rapid growth to nearly $38 billion, congressional dissatisfaction with the direction of the department’s science and technology directorate in the past two years has forced a restructuring and a decrease in funding. The FY 2008 budget proposal calls for a 0.8% decrease in the department’s R&D programs, which is better than the 23% cut in FY 2007. The R&D money funds both the DHS S&T directorate and the domestic nuclear detection office. The DHS S&T directorate’s FY 2008 budget would drop 7.9% to $656 million, just half of its FY 2006 funding, while the domestic nuclear detection office would receive a 17.4% increase to $320 million in FY 2008.

Charles McQueary, the former undersecretary for science and technology at DHS, resigned in February 2006, soon after White House officials announced they were transferring $315 million out of his division and into the nuclear detection office. Mc-Queary, whose philosophy was to get existing technology off the shelf and into the field as quickly as possible, was at odds with some in the administration and on Capitol Hill who wanted more forward-looking research from the S&T directorate. The directorate was also criticized for its financial management. Jay Cohen, McQueary’s replacement, has begun a reorganization of DHS R&D programs.

NIST and NOAA. As one of the chosen three in ACI, NIST would see its scientific and technical research funding increase 12.8%, up to $420 million. Construction of research facilities would increase 60% to $94 million, primarily for expansion of NIST’s laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, and for improvements to the Center for Neutron Research in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The FY 2008 proposed increases follow similar increases in the last budget cycle and have been widely praised by officials on Capitol Hill and in the scientific community.

But the increases would be offset by cuts in other NIST programs and by cuts in NOAA, the other science organization in the Department of Commerce. NIST would see its Advanced Technology Program eliminated and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP; a non-R&D program) cut by more than half. The administration and some Republicans in Congress have been trying to eliminate the ATP for years on the grounds that it is government intrusion into private enterprise, but the program–-which gives federal grants to small companies developing high-risk advanced technology–-has a good track record and staunch advocates on Capitol Hill. After being slated for elimination in the president’s FY 2007 budget proposal, the program received almost $60 million in the FY 2007 continuing resolution by congressional supporters.

MEP has a similarly rocky budget history, but administration attempts to drastically cut the program’s funds failed last year, and the FY 2008 proposal to cut funding from the current $105 million down to $46 million isn’t expected to fare well in Congress.

NOAA’s budget would fall 2.7% to $3.9 billion, but R&D funding within the agency would fall by 9.5%, or $57 million. The National Weather Service, which is part of NOAA, would receive a 6.5% increase, and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service would go up by 2.7%. The Oceanic and Atmospheric Research division, NOAA’s primary research arm, would lose $11 million, or 2.8%. The National Ocean Service, which protects national marine sanctuaries and oversees ocean and coastal stewardship programs, would be cut by 20%.

NOAA’s education programs, which include $38 million in scholarships and outreach efforts, would be cut to $19 million, a 48% decrease.