Special Report: Bush R&D Budget Remains Focused on War, Terrorism, and Security in FY 2005; Civilian R&D Funding Flat

Whether it was a moment of sympathy or condescension wasn’t clear, but the tone of the budget hearing before the House Committee on Science was set when Representative Bart Gordon leaned into his microphone and told the Bush administration’s chief scientist, “I recognize you are just a messenger doing the best you can with what you have.”

The “messenger” was Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Marburger, and Gordon was making clear before Marburger uttered a word that the science committee wasn’t happy with the administration’s proposed fiscal year 2005 science and technology budget. “Dr Marburger will tell us today that this budget proposes to spend more on R&D than any budget in history. That is technically true, but the biggest part of this R&D increase is for weapons development, which does very little for the broader economy.”

National Science Foundation R&D Programs

Tennessee Democrat Gordon’s views were shared by Republican Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), who said it would be “impossible to view this as a good budget for science.” Before the 11 February hearing, Boehlert, playing off a quote from a Bush budget document that described science as a horse that must be fed, said, “After a few years of spending at the levels proposed … science would be an emaciated, old, grey mare, unable to produce any new ideas or young scientists.”

As has been the case with the previous two administration budget proposals, the FY 2005 proposal focuses heavily on war, terrorism, and homeland security. The federal deficit, projected to hit $521 billion this year, provides additional context for the numbers and caused Bush to promise to hold nondefense domestic discretionary spending to just a 0.5% increase. Like the previous budgets, FY 2005 would see record spending for defense and homeland security R&D, but most other R&D spending would remain flat or decline.

Budget negotiations, marked by the tight constraints on discretionary spending, are also being conducted under the shadow of the cost of the war in Iraq. The budget’s high deficits and tight spending goals do not include what is expected to be a request from the administration late in 2004 for tens of billions of dollars to continue financing the war.

A bipartisan background document written by staff of the House Committee on Science before the 11 February hearing identifies several areas of congressional concern in the budget proposal:

Marburger was undeterred by the skeptical reception he received from members of the House Committee on Science. “The president’s FY 2005 budget request commits 13.5% of total discretionary outlays to R&D, the highest level in 37 years,” he said. “Not since 1968 during the Apollo program have we seen an investment of this magnitude in research and development. Of this amount, the budget commits 5.7% of total discretionary outlays to nondefense R&D, the third highest level in 25 years.”

In his written statement to the committee, Marburger made his case for the physical sciences, noting that the budget proposal “provides $1.1 billion for the mathematical and physical sciences” at NSF and “proposes significant increases for the priority areas of nanotechnology (up 20% to $305 million) and cyberinfrastructure (up 12% to $399 million).”

While noting that the Department of Energy’s Office of Science would see a $52 million decrease in funding from the amount Congress enacted for FY 2004, Marburger said the science office would actually receive an $88 million increase if congressional mandates passed last year were subtracted. He also cited $53 million in proposed funding for nanometrology research at NIST.

“I believe this is a good budget for science and technology,” Marburger concluded. “This administration is committed to strong science and technology as a foundation for national security and economic strength.”

Democratic proposals

About a month after the science committee testimony from Marburger, NSF Director Colwell, DOE’s Office of Science Director Ray Orbach, and others, the Democratic members of the science committee issued their recommendations for the FY 2005 R&D budget. The first recommendation calls for a 5% increase in R&D spending for all federal science- and energy-related R&D programs. The second calls for reallocating the proposed NASA budget away from the administration’s Moon/Mars initiative and toward NASA’s existing programs. The third calls for maintaining and strengthening the NIST Manufacturing Extension Program (MEP) and Advanced Technology Program (ATP).

Both the MEP and ATP programs, designed to help small high-tech manufacturers, have been targets of many Republicans who believe the federal government should not pick winners and losers in the private marketplace. The administration once again proposes to eliminate ATP and fund MEP at $39 million, well below last year’s budget of $106 million. The science committee, including its Republican members, has been successful in keeping the programs alive and said it will once again push to keep them funded.

On the Senate side of the Capitol, Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), in a speech on the Senate floor, said the proposed elimination of ATP is “a particularly egregious step in the wrong direction.” He noted that the administration’s budget documents praise ATP as a “merit-based, rigorously competitive, cost-shared partnership program” that has been successful. Bingaman concluded by saying, “The president’s rationale is, ‘ATP is a great program. It helps our competitiveness. It is well run and effective. Therefore, we are going to kill it.”’

NASA R&D Programs

During the first two weeks of March, budget committees on Capitol Hill were already reflecting congressional concern about the administration’s lackluster funding for basic science. In one budget committee, the administration’s proposal to cut DOE’s Office of Science by 2% was being replaced with a 1.1% increase of $38 million over FY 2004. The numbers will shift and the arguments will continue throughout the year as science proponents fight to increase non-defense R&D spending despite a huge deficit and a war-oriented budget. The following agency highlights indicate some areas of contention:

National Science Foundation. For several decades, NSF has received fairly steady budget increases and has been regarded as one of the best-supported science agencies. When the science community became concerned that NSF funding was being left in the wake of a five-year plan that doubled the National Institutes of Health budget, Congress responded with the National Science Foundation Authorization Act of 2002. The bill, intended to double the NSF budget by 2007, was passed and signed by President Bush. But with the mounting deficits and war-focused budget, it is clear that the doubling won’t happen.

Department of Energy R&D Programs

The FY 2005 budget proposal for NSF is $5.7 billion, a 3% increase from FY 2004. That leaves NSF $1.7 billion short of where it needs to be to reach the $9.8 billion doubling target by 2007. According to an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) analysis of future funding projections, NSF won’t come close to reaching the doubling goal and may actually see its funding decline in the next few years.

Preliminary projections for the NSF budget contained in the FY 2005 budget documents indicate that in FY 2006, the NSF budget will fall to $5.6 billion. “After adjusting for expected inflation,” the AAAS analysis says, “the five-year Bush budget would leave NSF’s R&D investments 5% below this year’s funding level in 2009.”

NSF Director Colwell, who, just before appearing at the 11 February science committee hearing, announced that she was resigning from the foundation on 21 February, was pragmatic in describing the FY 2005 budget. “In light of the significant challenges that face the nation in security, defense, and the economy, NSF has, relatively speaking, fared well,” she said. “We are pleased to be able to anticipate an increase of three percent when many agencies are looking at budget cuts.”

NSF’s research and related activities (R&RA) account, which funds most of the foundation’s research, would receive a 4.7% increase to $4.5 billion. Several of the research directorates—mathematical and physical sciences, biological sciences, computer and information science and engineering, and geosciences—would increase by 2.2%. The social, behavioral, and economic sciences directorate would receive a 10.3% increase. Aportion of the R&RA increase is due to a transfer of $80 million in Math and Science Partnerships money into the account from NSF’s education and human resources programs.

Funding for the foundation’s participation in the multiagency nanoscale science and engineering initiative would jump 20% to $305 million. Most of the funding would be split between two NSF directorates—engineering and mathematical and physical sciences.

The education and human resources programs at NSF would drop $168 million to $771 million, reflecting in part the shift of the Math and Science Partnerships program money to R&RA. There is also $10 million less proposed for the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).

The major research equipment and facilities construction account would increase from $155 million to $213 million. That money would cover three proposed new starts: the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON); the Scientific Ocean Drilling Vessel, a state-of-the-art drilling ship that would take core samples from the ocean floor; and the Rare Symmetry Violating Processes (RSVP), which will look for the particles and processes that explain the predominance of matter in the observable universe.

Department of Energy . When budgets are tight and funding is flat, as is the case with DOE’s Office of Science, how the numbers are interpreted becomes important. In presenting his budget numbers to Congress, Office of Science Director Orbach tried hard to cast the fifth straight year of near flat funding in the best possible light. “The Office of Science FY 2005 budget request is $3.432 billion, a $68,451,000 decrease over the FY 2004 appropriations levels,” Orbach said in his written testimony to the science committee. “When $140,762,000 for FY 2004 Congressionally directed projects is set aside, there is an increase of $72,311,000 in FY 2005. When compared to the FY 2004 comparable President’s Request, the FY 2005 request increases $104,855,000, or 3.2 percent.”

Overall, the administration proposes increasing DOE funding by 1.2% to $24.3 billion. R&D funding would increase 1.3% to $8.9 billion. That entire increase, according to a AAAS analysis, would go to the Radioactive waste management program for a tripling of R&D activities related to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal site.

Orbach detailed the funding and priorities for several major areas within his office. Advanced scientific computing research would receive a 1% increase to $204 million. The request includes $38 million for the next-generation computer architecture program and money for enhancing the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC). DOE also would receive $8.5 million for a new “atomic to macroscopic mathematics” research effort to “break through the current barriers in our understanding of complex physical processes.”

Basic energy sciences would get a 5.5% increase to $1064 million. That includes $209 million dedicated to nanoscale science. Orbach said the money would be used in part to support the design and construction of four DOE nanoscale science research centers. The request also includes $80.5 million for construction, and $33.1 million for operation of the Spallation Neutron Source being built at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Another $50 million is for the design and “long lead procurement” of the Linac Coherent Light Source, an x-ray laser light source being developed at SLAC. The hydrogen fuel initiative would receive $29 million.

High-energy physics would receive a 0.5% increase to $737 million. “The highest priority in HEP is the operations, upgrades, and infrastructure for the two major … user facilities at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and [SLAC] to maximize the scientific data generated,” Orbach said.

Fusion energy sciences is dominated by the US’s rejoining ITER (the international thermonuclear reactor). Overall, fusion energy support would increase to $264 million, up 0.6%. Funding for ITER-related work would increase from $8 million to $38 million. “About $31 million of that amount would be for experiments on our tokamak facilities and for component R&D in our laboratories and universities … which is focused on ITER’s specific needs,” Orbach said.

Nuclear physics would increase 2.9% to $401 million. The highest priority, Orbach said, is “exploiting the unique discovery potentials of the facilities at the RHIC [Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider] at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) … at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility.”

Biological and environmental research would drop from $590 million to $502 million, nearly a 15% decline. Much of that decline reflects the elimination of $141 million in congressional earmarks in FY 2004. The budget also cuts the science laboratories infrastructure account by 46% to $29 million. Science committee members have expressed concern about DOE plans to cut infrastructure funding and, instead, allow private contractors to build new facilities that would then be leased by the agency.

NASA. After years of stagnant or declining budgets, NASA would receive a 5.6% budget increase to $16.2 billion. This comes as the agency starts an ambitious schedule to phase out the space shuttle and International Space Station (ISS), return to the Moon by 2020, and send humans to Mars by 2032. This new vision, announced by Bush shortly before NASA released its 2005 budget, followed months of discussion between NASA and White House officials. A nine-member presidential commission, headed by Edward C. Aldridge, the former US Air Force secretary, will report in June on the long-term implications of the administration’s vision for NASA.

Department of Defense R&D Programs

The fundamental goal of the space agency’s budget proposal, NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe said at a press conference, is to advance US scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space exploration program. Without a defining mission, NASA’s budget would have drastically declined over the coming decade, he added.

As part of this new vision, the agency is undergoing a major financial and operational reorganization as more than $11 billion of NASA’s projected $86 billion budget over the next five years will be reallocated to the administration’s new goals. A new enterprise, the Office of Exploration Systems (OES), has been created from elements of the offices of aerospace technology, space flight enterprises, and space science to develop research and technology for human exploration. Over the next six years, OES will work closely with space science to launch two robot missions to the Moon and five missions to Mars.

To keep costs under control, many current programs are being reevaluated to see if they should be terminated early. The first major scientific casualty may be the Hubble Space Telescope (see Physics Today, March 2004, page 29 ). In the human spaceflight division, the space shuttle is scheduled to retire in 2010 after completing the ISS. Russian Soyuz spacecraft will be used to carry crews to and from the ISS until the US sharply curtails its involvement with the ISS around 2015, five years earlier than planned. Science experiments planned for the ISS will be cut back.

The billion-dollar space launch initiative program for building a replacement shuttle would be canceled and the funds transferred to develop a crew exploration vehicle as the new workhorse of the manned space fleet. NASA hopes the craft will be operational by 2014. The CEV program will be based in OES.

The Moon/Mars program could result in “collateral damage to certain NASA science programs that are not judged as being essential for the exploration initiative,” said Lennard A. Fisk, chairman of the space studies board of the National Academy of Sciences. For example, the funding schedule for projects such as LISA (the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) and the Constellation-X mission is being stretched out to accommodate the Moon/Mars program. Fisk said that he worries that the demarcation between the science disciplines, with some in space science and others in exploration systems, is not a good concept, but applauds OES for having an integrated program in which human and robotic exploration can each play an appropriate role.

Earth science enterprise is one of the NASA divisions that would see its budget drop. The ESE budget would decline 8%, partly because of the completion of the first phase of the Earth Observing System. Earth science also receives a higher proportion of congressional earmarks than any other NASA division, and more than $300 million earmarked from last year’s budget has been eliminated from the administration’s request.

All the new resources are redirected toward space exploration. “Overall, the space science budget over the next four years rises 41% [2005–09]. That’s incredibly good news when the average federal budget increase was less than 1%,” said Ed Weiler, NASA’s associate administrator for space science.

However, it is uncertain that these time scales and funds will remain constant, as the budget estimate for returning the shuttle to flight has jumped from $400 million to more than $1 billion in the past few months, and the shuttle’s next flight has been moved back a year to March 2005, at the earliest. On 4 March, the Senate Budget Committee voted to trim about $600 million from the NASA budget. The committee, said Representative Don Nickles (R-OK), the chairman, “supports the president’s vision for exploration and discovery [but] the current budget situation necessitates slower implementation.”

Department of Defense. President Bush recently described himself as a “war president,” and the administration’s DOD budget proposal clearly reflects that. The DOD would see its overall FY 2005 R&D budget increase 6% to a record high of $69.9 billion. That $4 billion increase would go entirely into weapons systems, as have the multibillion-dollar increases in each of the past four years.

Most of the money would go to the missile defense system. The Missile Defense Agency would see a 20% increase in funding to $9.1 billion. When other DOD missile defense monies are included, the entire program would be funded at $10.2 billion and would increase from current funding of $9 billion.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency would see its R&D funding increase 9.1% to $3.1 billion. DARPA focuses primarily on technology development and has a broad research portfolio that covers everything from new materials and battlefield tactical technology to sensors and guidance systems.

Although the weapons and battle technology funding would increase, basic and applied research, known respectively as 6.1 and 6.2 funding in Pentagon parlance, would fall dramatically. Basic research would decrease 5.3% to $1.3 billion, while applied research would decline 12.3% to $3.9 billion. The DOD’s science and technology category, which includes general research, medical research, and early technology development, would fall 15.5% to $10.6 billion.

Department of Homeland Security. Founded by the Homeland Security Act of 2002, DHS has quickly grown into the seventh largest federal source of R&D funds, with an R&D budget of slightly less than $1.1 billion in FY 2004. That budget would increase 15.5% in FY 2005 to slightly more than $1.2 billion. Reflecting the administration’s concern over the war on terrorism, the overall DHS budget would increase 9.9% to $40.2 billion.

The Directorate of Science and Technology would fund 81% of the R&D in DHS, or $987 million out of the $1.2 billion R&D budget. The early emphasis at the DS&T has been on developing antiterrorism technology that can be used quickly. Indeed, 79% of the FY 2004 budget has gone to that development, with another 10% going to construction of laboratories. Just 11% has gone to basic and applied research. That is expected to change in FY 2005, when basic and applied research funds may double to $431 million.

Biological countermeasures would receive a big boost in FY 2005, up from $285 million to $407 million. Much of the new money would go to a biosurveillance program intended to provide biological detection systems in major US cities. The program, carried out in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Department of Agriculture, is focusing on faster, more accurate biological sensors.

National Institute of Standards and Technology R&D Programs

Department of Homeland Security R&D Programs

NIST and NOAA. Both NIST and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which account for most of the R&D within the Department of Commerce, face budget cuts in the FY 2005 budget proposal. Exactly how the budget plays out at NIST depends on how Congress counters the administration’s effort to kill the ATP. Under the FY 2005 proposal, if the $171 million ATP is eliminated, there would be a 30% boost in NIST’s intramural research funding.

But if FY 2004 is a guide, congressional efforts to save the ATP could hurt NIST R&D. Last year, Congress rescued the ATP by taking money from the intramural account. The resulting 10% loss of funds has caused NIST to consider layoffs and early retirement options for some of its scientists. If the ATP is zeroed out and the MEP is cut dramatically, the resulting 30% increase in intramural research funding would be spent as follows: $26 million for instrumentation for the new Advanced Measurement Laboratory, $8 million for improvements at the NIST Center for Neutron Research, $16 million for advanced measurement science, $19 million for homeland security work, and $16 million in advanced manufacturing R&D.

NOAA’s R&D budget would decline 3.3% to $611 million. The oceanic and atmospheric research division would fall by nearly 11%. Most of the decline comes from elimination of congressional earmarks. NOAA’s climate research program would increase from $170 million to $183 million. Weather and air quality research, as well as the National Sea Grant College program, would take serious hits.