Special report: Bush budget boosts funding for physical sciences in FY 2007; NSF, DOE, and NIST would all do well

When he gaveled the House Committee on Science to order in mid-February to listen to Bush administration officials testify about the proposed fiscal year 2007 science budget, Representative Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) began by saying, “It’s a rare thing to think of a budget hearing as a time of celebration, but I think that that’s how we should view this morning’s proceedings.” With a budget that proposes big increases for three science research agencies—the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, NSF, and NIST—those advocating more spending on basic research were indeed celebrating.

A few days before sending his budget proposal to Congress, President Bush announced his “American Competitiveness Initiative,” saying he was committing $5.9 billion in FY 2007 to “increase investments in research and development, strengthen education, and encourage entrepreneurship.” As part of the initiative, he promised to double federal spending on basic research over 10 years and announced the big boosts to the three research agencies.

The size of the increases for the favored three—14% for the Office of Science, 8.3% for NSF, and 18% for NIST laboratories—caught even well-connected science advocates in Washington by surprise, but the president’s sudden enthusiasm for basic research did not come out of the blue. In October 2005, the “Gathering Storm” report was released by the National Academy of Sciences, and before that about a dozen other studies indicated that US science education and basic research were in trouble. The administration began to pay attention when the reports cast the problem in economic and national security terms.

“The nation’s leaders in industry and higher education have been calling for such an investment because they see it as a must if the US is to retain its competitive edge,” Boehlert said at the hearing. “One might say there has been a gathering storm of lobbying on this subject, and an increasing number of leaders have issued thundering statements about the need to rethink our research and education and energy policies.”

While Boehlert was pleased, he was also cautious. He was concerned about the lack of administration funding for education programs at NSF, he said, and noted that the annual attempt by the White House to kill or dramatically scale back the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) and the Manufacturing Extension Program (MEP) at NIST “ain’t gonna fly.” He concluded by saying, “We’re not going to declare victory and go home. Rather, we need to think of it this way: We’ve won the battle, now it’s time to win the war.”

The FY 2007 budget is good for physics and most of the physical sciences. But an analysis done by the Democratic staff of the science committee noted that “the devil is in the details” when one looks more broadly at the budget. “Specifically, NASA and NIH funding would remain essentially flat, and [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] R&D for oceanic and atmospheric research would decline by 8%,” the staff report says. Although NIST laboratories would receive an 18% increase, the institute’s “overall research funding would decrease by 23%.”

“In short,” the report concludes, “science that is not part of the president’s American Competitiveness Initiative is cut in order to balance the increases at NSF, NIST and DOE. So what one hand giveth, the other taketh away. This budget appears to cut science to fund science.”

If this budget proposal follows the patterns of the past few years, Congress will reshuffle the money to make sure some of its favored programs receive decent funding. Because of the enormous budget deficit, plus spending on Iraq and the war on terrorism, there is very little new money in the budget. To reorder science funding to reflect their priorities, not the administration’s, members of Congress may also be forced to cut science to fund science.

National science foundation R&D programs

And the number underlying the administration’s proposal for basic and applied research, even given the big boosts for NSF, NIST, and DOE, is an overall decrease of 3.4%, according to analysts with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The decrease marks the third year in a row that basic and applied research funding would drop. An overview of the numbers provides a sketch of what the administration is proposing.

• ▸ The proposed FY 2007 R&D portfolio would increase $2.6 billion, or 1.9%, to $137.0 billion. That is just short of the projected 2.2% increase in inflation, meaning that in real terms the “total federal R&D portfolio would decline for the first time since 1996 after flattening out the last few years,” according to AAAS analysts. Development would be the clear winner in the R&D equation, with increases for weapons development at DOD and space vehicles at NASA dominating the funding picture.

• ▸ Although NSF, NIST, and DOE do well, other nondefense R&D would see flat funding or cuts. NIH, after watching its budget double over the five-year period that ended in 2005, would see its funding remain at FY 2006 levels of $28.6 billion. The Environmental Protection Agency’s R&D budget would fall 7.2% to $557 million, while NOAA’s budget at the Department of Commerce would drop 6.3% to $578 million. The R&D budget in the US Geological Survey falls 4.7% to $532 million. In the Department of Homeland Security, the R&D portfolio would decrease 10.3%.

• ▸ Defense R&D would do well, with a proposed overall increase of 2.2%, just at the rate of inflation. DOD weapons systems development would increase by 7% to a new high of $62.9 billion, according to the AAAS, but there would be cuts in the three DOD categories of basic research, applied research, and technology development.

Department of energy R&D programs

AGS, Alternating Gradient Synchrotron. ANL, Argonne National Laboratory. ATLAS, a Torroidal LHC Apparatus. BNL, Brookhaven National Laboratory. HRIBF, Hollifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility. LANL, Los Alamos National Laboratory. LBNL, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. ORNL, Oak Ridge National Laboratory. RHIC, Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. SNL, Sandia National Laboratories. TJNAF, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility.

• ▸ Multi-agency R&D initiatives continue, but with essentially flat funding. The National Nanotechnology Initiative would drop 1.8% to $1.3 billion, primarily because DOD has removed congressionally mandated FY 2006 earmarked programs from its FY 2007 request. (The “earmarks” dispute between the administration and Congress remains contentious, with both branches of government insisting they have the authority to set spending priorities in the federal budget. When congressional representatives don’t like the administration’s budget choices, they often earmark money specifically for a favored program.) The networking and information technology R&D initiative would increase by 2.4% to $3.1 billion. The climate-change science program would increase by 0.2% after decreasing significantly in FY 2006 because of cuts in NASA’s space-based environmental observations program.

• ▸ Federal research investments are decreasing as a share of the US economy, even as other countries are increasing their science investments. This growing imbalance was noted in the NAS “Gathering Storm” report, and the AAAS noted that after exceeding 1% in recent years, the ratio of federal research investments to gross domestic product “is in free fall” down to its projected FY 2007 level of 0.4%. The European Union has set a goal of having government research investments reach 3% of GDP by 2010, and both China and South Korea are boosting their government research spending by 10% annually.

The science budget must wend its way through more than 20 House and Senate committees, and while it clearly has a higher priority than in past years, the budget that comes out of Congress near the end of the year will look significantly different from the way it does now. Both Republicans and Democrats on the House science committee have issued detailed reports on what they like and don’t like in the president’s proposal. Most of their concerns are with specific programs in individual agencies. Those concerns, and the following agency highlights, set the parameters for the budget battles that will take place during the next few months.

National Science Foundation. NSF is the third-largest federal supporter of physical science research, behind DOE and NASA, and is the second-largest source of funds for R&D at colleges and universities, behind NIH. For the physical sciences and engineering, according to AAAS, NSF funds more than 40% of university-based research.

NSF would see its overall R&D increase 8.3% to $4.5 billion after several years of flat funding. Physical sciences research would jump 6% to $1.2 billion, and most of the foundation’s research directorates would see increases of between 5% and 9%.

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 $4.7 billion. While most of the directorates get the 5% to 9% increases, the new office of cyberinfrastructure, created out of the computer and information science and engineering directorate, would increase 44% to $182 million. The office of polar programs, which provides support to and funds research at both the North and South Poles, would receive $438 million, an increase of 12.5%. In FY 2007, however, NSF is supposed to pay the US Coast Guard $57 million as part of a transfer of icebreaking responsibilities to NSF from the Coast Guard.

The major research equipment and facilities construction account (MREFC) would increase 26.0%, or $50 million, to $240 million. In FY 2007, money would allow the funding of eight projects, two of them new starts. Construction of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, EarthScope, IceCube, and the Scientific Ocean Drilling Vessel would continue. The National Ecological Observatory Network would receive construction funding, and the South Pole Station Modernization project would resume after being halted because of a lack of money. The new starts would be the Alaska Region Research Vessel, a $56 million replacement for the current arctic research vessel; and the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a $14 million project to build an integrated ocean-observing network.

NSF’s major research instrumentation account would receive $90 million, an increase of $1.6 million. The funding is for competitively awarded research instrumentation grants to institutions for equipment that would be too costly to be funded through standard NSF research awards. NSF’s total investment in R&D facilities and equipment would be $437 million, up $80 million from current funding.

The education and human resources program at NSF would receive a 2.5% increase to $816 million, still well below the $945 million the programs had in 2004. Much of the loss of funding is due to an administration effort to end NSF’s participation in the math and science partnership (MSP) program with the Department of Education. Over the objections of Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-MI) and others, the administration has been trying to move the program entirely to the education department.

Department of Energy. The biggest winner in the president’s competitiveness agenda is the DOE’s Office of Science. The office would see its R&D budget increase 14.4% to $3.8 billion. Every program in the office would increase by at least 8%, with the nuclear physics program that has been chronically underfunded receiving a 23.7% boost. There would be a 36% increase for computing research, a 25% increase for basic energy sciences, and a 31% increase for life-sciences research. Although the science budget is up significantly, the total DOE budget remains flat at $23.6 billion. According to the AAAS, much of the money to fund the science increases would come from a shift of nearly $1 billion in projected savings from completed environmental cleanups in Colorado, Ohio, and elsewhere. Within the energy R&D programs and DOE, increases in renewable energy programs for solar power, biomass energy, and hydrogen would be offset by cuts in fossil energy R&D and conservation programs. Overall, energy R&D funding would decrease by 4.8% to $1.3 billion.

NASA R&D programs

Department of defense R&D programs

High-energy physics would receive an 8.1% increase to $775 million, a sum that would allow operating times to be sustained at Fermilab, SLAC, and other facilities. It would also allow an increase in support for the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, and double the DOE contribution to $60 million for the development of the International Linear Collider. The US contribution to the ITER international fusion project would increase from $19 million to $60 million, and would maintain funding for the domestic fusion programs at current levels. The basic energy science program at DOE would get a 25% increase to $1.4 billion. The largest increase within that budget would be $171 million, including $71 million for operation of the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. There would also be construction money for the Linac Coherent Light Source in California, and increased funding for DOE’s five nanoscale research facilities. Basic hydrogen research would get $50 million, a $17 million increase.

DOE’s defense R&D would drop 2.1% to $4.0 billion. The weapons activities programs, which fund stockpile stewardship science, would receive $6.4 billion. About half of that money is for R&D. DOE has requested $28 million for FY 2007 for the reliable replacement warhead project, a five-year, $98 million project begun in 2005 as an alternative to the robust nuclear earth penetrator program.

NASA. When NASA administrator Michael Griffin appeared before the House science committee in February to explain NASA’s 2007 budget, Rep. Boehlert quickly let him know the space agency’s budget would be a tough sell on Capitol Hill. “This budget is bad for space science, worse for Earth science, perhaps worse still for aeronautics,” said Boehlert. NASA would receive $16.8 billion in FY 2007, a 1% increase over the FY 2006 budget and less than the rate of inflation.

When the Moon–Mars program was announced by Bush two years ago, NASA produced a five-year budget plan to achieve the president’s goal. The plan included increases for many of the space agency’s science and research programs. In his testimony before the House committee, however, Griffin said that plan is no longer financially viable and instead by 2010 the NASA science budget will be cut by $3.1 billion, or 17%, compared to projections the agency made in its FY 2006 budget request.

The FY 2007 proposal requests a 1.5% increase to $5.3 billion for science programs, but the increase masks funding shifts away from basic science. Some research, such as biological research on the International Space Station (ISS), has been eliminated or, in the case of Earth science, drastically scaled back. NASA’s cosmology program, “Beyond Einstein,” is under review.

Under the FY 2007 proposal, no space science missions would be launched between 2009 and 2012. On the delayed list is the Space Interferometry Mission, designed to map stars with unprecedented accuracy and search for planets slightly larger than Earth; and the James Webb Space Telescope , which requires a doubling of its $4.5 billion budget if the project is to be completed.

On the canceled or deferred list are the 1.8-meter outrigger telescopes designed to bolster the twin 10-meter Keck telescopes in Hawaii; the Terrestrial Planet Finding project; the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, intended to search for gravitational waves; Constellation-X, which would study black holes; and two Mars missions, the Mars Sample Return Mission and the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter. The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, a 2.5-meter infrared telescope built into a Boeing 747 plane, is being reviewed because it is behind schedule and has no funding in the 2007 budget.

Department of homeland security R&D programs

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

The biggest cuts would affect aeronautics and space operations, which include the space shuttle and most activities related to the International Space Station. Aeronautics research was cut 18% to $724 million, while the space operations budget was cut 9.2% to $6.2 billion. Exploration systems, which includes research and development for the Crew Exploration Vehicle, the shuttle replacement, and spacecraft missions to Mars, would increase 30% to $4 billion.

“NASA simply cannot afford to do everything that our many constituencies would like us to do,” said Griffin in his testimony. “We must set priorities, and we must adjust our spending to match those priorities.”

Department of Defense. Defense R&D spending would reach record highs in the FY 2007 budget proposal with an increase of 2.2% to $74.1 billion. As has been the case through much of the Bush administration, the defense R&D increase would go entirely to weapons development programs; funding of basic and applied research would decline sharply. Overall, DOD science and technology funding, which includes funding for basic and applied research, technology development, and medical research, would drop $2.6 billion, or 18.6%.

Basic research would fall 3.3% to $1.4 billion, and applied research would drop 13.4% to $4.5 billion. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, however, would see its budget increase 10.6% to $3.3 billion. The missile defense agency, which was cut in FY 2006, would rebound with a 21.2% increase to $9.3 billion.

Department of Homeland Security. The overall DHS budget continues to grow, with a 6.6% increase to $35.4 billion proposed for FY 2007, but the department’s R&D funding would drop for the first time. The R&D portfolio would shrink by 10.3%, and because the department is continuing its focus on getting technology into the field to fight terrorism, basic and applied research could drop by 20%, according to AAAS analysts.

Trying to sort out the overall state of research at DHS is complicated by a reshuffling of programs. Coast Guard R&D is in DHS, but is kept separate from the rest of the department’s research accounts. The Transportation Security Administration moved to the DHS science and technology directorate last year, bringing with it $95 million. But in FY 2007 the radiological and nuclear countermeasures research portfolio would leave the directorate and go to a new domestic nuclear detection office program.

Biological countermeasures would receive $337 million, a decrease of 10.4%, but it would remain as DHS’s largest research program. One of the larger initiatives, the “counter MANPADS” program to develop a defensive system for commercial airliners against shoulder-fired rockets, would drop from $109 million to $5 million, which would mark the end of the development phase and the beginning of the prototype deployment.

NIST and NOAA. Research at NIST laboratories, like funding for DOE’s Office of Science, was one of the programs chosen by the administration to receive a big increase as part of the competitiveness initiative. “Intramural research”—the research at NIST’s core laboratories—would increase 18% to $383 million. Construction funding for NIST facilities, something that has been on the institute’s wish list for a long time, would increase 42% to $68 million. That includes $12 million for construction expenses at the NIST Center for Neutron Research in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and $10 million for much-needed maintenance on NIST’s laboratory facilities in Boulder, Colorado. Much of the money for increasing NIST research is offset by cuts in the ATP and MEP programs.

NOAA would see its budget cut by 6.3% to $578 million, most of that from the elimination of congressional earmarks. The National Weather Service would get a 4% increase to $881.9 million, and the oceanic and atmospheric research program would see an 8.2% cut.