Special report: Obama’s 2011 budget proposes one more year of growth for science and technology

With the release of the fiscal year 2011 budget request to Congress on 1 February, President Obama completed his first full budget cycle and his first chance to fully flesh out his policy proposals for science and technology (S&T). At the time of his inauguration in January 2009, federal agencies had already submitted their budget requests to the White House, and opportunities for major course changes were limited. But the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) presented the new president with an unprecedented opportunity to channel billions of extra dollars into his R&D priorities. By far the biggest recipient of stimulus R&D funding—more than $21 billion—were the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) clean energy development programs (see the ARRA table on page 31).

The ARRA windfall makes year-to-year comparisons problematic at best in the budgets of key S&T funding agencies. While the ARRA surge will continue to be felt for months and in some cases years to come, the act’s idiosyncrasies require that all stimulus money be obligated before 1 October 2010 (see Physics Today, January 2010, page 18 ). When the flood of ARRA money begins to ebb, S&T can be expected to enter an austere environment, as Obama and Congress turn their attention to deficit reduction. Obama has proposed freezing nondefense discretionary spending, a category that includes nearly all nonmilitary R&D, at FY 2011 levels. John Holdren, Obama’s science adviser and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, admitted that some agencies will confront a “falling off the cliff” phenomenon as ARRA funds start to dry up and budget belt-tightening begins. At a briefing on the budget’s release date, he said that agencies are staggering the timing of grants and have used some ARRA monies to make enduring investments in upgrading laboratory facilities and equipment.

But at least for next year, the White House has decided that increased support for S&T is warranted and has requested $66 billion for civilian research—topping this year’s mark by nearly 6%. The basic and applied research programs—defense and non-defense—would receive $61.6 billion, a $3.3 billion increase, or 5.6% above current levels. “The president understands that more than ever before, science holds the key to the prosperity of our nation, the security of our people, and the richness of our lives,” said Holdren.

Offsetting those increases is $3.5 billion in proposed cuts to Department of Defense R&D programs, a reduction of 4.4% from FY 2010. The $77.5 billion Obama has requested for Pentagon R&D (a figure that includes medical research not reported in the table) is a reduction of $3.3 billion, or 3.9%, from the current-year spending. All the cuts would be taken from weapons systems development programs that are moving toward procurement; DOD’s basic and applied research programs would grow by 2.3% next year, to $6.5 billion, after excluding the congressional earmarks that were added to the current year’s appropriation. And the nuclear weapons and nonproliferation R&D programs at DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would swell 12%, reversing years of steady declines.

Borrowing from Bush

With his request, Obama has embraced an effort initiated by his predecessor to double the budgets of three agencies that supply most of the federal support for basic research in the physical sciences—namely, NSF, DOE’s Office of Science, and NIST’s core research program. The $13.3 billion sought for those three agencies in FY 2011 represents growth of $824 million, or 6.6%, from the current-year level, and White House projections show the agencies reaching $19.5 billion in 2017—double their 2006 levels.

Department of Energy R&D programs

Department of Homeland Security R&D programs

NASA R&D programs

Department of Defense R&D programs

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act R&D funding

NSF R&D programs

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

Obama’s budget, however, also proposes to terminate a signature R&D program of George W. Bush’s, NASA’s Constellation program, which has been working to develop the rockets and the vehicle required to send US astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit and ferry them back and forth to the International Space Station (ISS). The budget proposal also seals the fate of the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Both of those programs have consumed billions of taxpayer dollars and were unlikely to succeed without billions more invested.

Obama also has parted ways with Bush on budget treatment for the National Institutes of Health. Upon the 2003 completion of a five-year budget-doubling campaign started by his predecessor, no further increases for NIH were provided through the remainder of Bush’s presidency. Obama has proposed an increase of $1 billion, or 3.2%, which would take the biomedical research behemoth’s FY 2011 budget to $32.2 billion, just under half of the total federal funding for non-defense R&D.

Not surprisingly, given Obama’s pledges to take on the threat posed by global warming, FY 2011 spending for the interagency US Global Change Research Program would leap next year by 21%, or $439 million, to $2.6 billion. The Department of Commerce’s climate research programs, primarily at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), would rise $77 million, or 21%, to $437 million. NASA’s component of the climate program would jump 20%, to $1.3 billion, as the result of a directive from Obama for that agency to accelerate its development of new satellites that were named as Earth science priorities by the National Research Council. Government-wide funding for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education at K-12 levels is proposed to surge 40%, or $300 million, reaching the $1 billion mark. Counting college-level programs, the total STEM education spending would increase by less than 1%, to $3.7 billion. NSF, with the largest STEM education portfolio, would receive $1.2 billion for those programs next year, an increase of 2.3%.

Following are some highlights for the agencies that supply the bulk of federal funding for physical sciences research.

Department of Energy. Funding for DOE’s R&D programs would swell 8.2%, to $12.5 billion. The Office of Science, which supports DOE’s non-defense basic research programs, would increase by 4.4%, to $5.1 billion. The 2011 budget proposes $34 million to establish a fourth “energy innovation hub” that will focus on batteries and energy storage. Each of the existing hubs—in advanced reactors, production of fuels from sunlight, and energy-efficient building designs—would get $24.3 million next year. Between six and eight new energy frontier research centers would be added to the existing suite of 46 EFRCs housed at universities, national laboratories, and other institutions around the country. The applied research programs that work to accelerate the adoption of renewable and other carbon-free energy sources would be boosted by 5%, to $2.4 billion. Still, funding for energy efficiency, renewable energy, fossil energy, and electricity delivery and reliability will plunge from the levels they attained with ARRA.

Nuclear energy R&D would grow 4.7%, to $824 million, as DOE continues to explore how to handle nuclear waste. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has appointed a commission to propose solutions, but the administration has made clear that its decision to shut down the Yucca Mountain repository is final. Testifying before the House Science and Technology Committee in February, Holdren argued that the $10 billion spent to study the site was not wasted, since much has been learned about the challenges of selecting a suitable repository location.

An attention-grabber in the request for DOE is the $357 million, 12.1% rise slated for R&D at the NNSA, the semi-autonomous agency that operates the nuclear weapons, nonproliferation, and naval reactors programs. Vice President Joe Biden, who announced the increase in a Wall Street Journal oped published in late January, said the addition is part of a five-year, $5 billion investment in NNSA that is “long overdue.” The FY 2011 request was released as the administration put the finishing touches on the first comprehensive review of US nuclear weapons policy since 2002.

The budget gives evidence that the NNSA made its case that ensuring the reliability and safety of the aging stockpile will require ongoing expenditures in the scientific programs of the nuclear weapons laboratories. Also receiving a substantial boost—10.8%, to $352 million—is R&D to develop new methods to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons and fissile materials abroad and for the verification of international arms control agreements.

The DOE request proposes $300 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, a new office that awards competitive grants to support high-risk R&D projects that could result in breakthrough energy technologies. Although less than the $389 million ARPA-E received in ARRA funds, the 2011 request would be the first significant appropriation for the entity since its establishment by law in 2007.

Department of Defense. Obama’s budget includes an increase of 6.7%, to $2 billion, for basic research. That small slice of DOD’s mammoth $76.7 billion R&D program provides 85% of all federal support to universities for mechanical engineering, 65% of the total for electrical engineering, 33% of ocean sciences, and 27% of computer sciences support, according to the Task Force on American Innovation, a coalition of businesses, trade associations, scientific societies, and universities.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency would receive a 3.7% increase, to $3.1 billion. The budget request for DARPA contains no mention of a five-year, $1 billion plan to revitalize US manufacturing, a plan that DARPA director Regina Dugan described in January to a meeting of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Dugan told PCAST her idea is to replicate in other US manufacturing sectors a model that had helped the US semiconductor industry to recover from near extinction by foreign competition. That model involved separating semiconductor design companies from manufacturing companies.

NASA. In a major overhaul of NASA’s human space exploration program, the administration proposes to scrap the $3.8 billion project known as Constellation, which has been developing spacecraft to replace the space shuttles and provide transport to the Moon or other destinations. Constellation funding would be redirected to a new design, development, and production initiative to be carried out in the private sector under NASA supervision. The Bush administration had said that new launch capabilities could be readied for human flight by 2015, but a blue-ribbon review committee last fall said both that timetable and Bush’s goal of sending astronauts back to the Moon by 2020 were infeasible. Obama’s revamp would provide $500 million next year and a total of $6 billion over five years to spur the commercial development of manned spaceflight vehicles. The budget would also provide $312 million next year as incentives for NASA’s existing commercial cargo providers.

Shuttering Constellation will be a tough sell on Capitol Hill, as Holdren confirmed when he defended the scheme before lawmakers. Holdren told the House Science and Technology Committee in late February that the plan equates to “changing the acquisition model” to one in which NASA pays commercial contractors to provide transportation services. He reminded lawmakers that the agency had, since its inception, relied on contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp. He noted that former Lockheed CEO Norman Augustine, who chaired last year’s review committee, had endorsed the Obama plan. But congressional critics—including some who represent districts with large NASA workforces, and others who are upset by NASA’s dependence on Russia to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS until new US capabilities are developed—complain that Constellation’s demise will leave the space program without a clear destination. Bush’s desire to return humans to the Moon was largely meant to provide the agency with a goal. Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA), ranking minority member of the Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over NASA, hotly told Holdren that Obama’s blueprint “leaves a program worthy of a lesser nation than the United States” and warned that it will be tantamount to “guaranteeing that the Chinese, Russians, and others will be closing the exploration gap.”

Retirement of the remaining three space shuttles by the end of 2010 will free up more than $2 billion for use elsewhere in the agency. With its 2011 request, the administration has committed to keep the ISS in operation through at least 2020. Assembly of the ISS, which by some estimates has cost the US and its international partners $100 billion, is due for completion this year. Lacking a change in policy, NASA’s official plan calls for the ISS to be de-orbited in 2016. Partner nations of ISS are hoping to keep it going until 2028.

Obama’s budget proposes an increase of $463 million for the ISS program in 2011 and $2 billion in additional support over the next four years. Upgrades to the station’s ground support and onboard systems will aim to fully utilize its research capabilities, improve its operation, and demonstrate new technologies being developed by other NASA programs. The FY 2011 budget includes a new line item for space technology. Funded at $572 million, the program is to address the technological obstacles to long-term spaceflight, and feature an enhanced technology transfer component to push the commercialization of NASA inventions.

Two of NASA’s four basic science programs are in store for big increases next year. Earth science, benefiting from the administration’s focus on climate change, would swell nearly 27%. Planetary science would jump nearly 11%, but heliophysics research would rise only modestly, and astrophysics would decline 2.5%. Aeronautics research would increase 14.3%, to $580 million.

NSF. Now in its 61st year, NSF is in line for an 8% increase in FY 2011. The $7.4 billion proposal would keep the agency on track to attain the administration’s goal for a 10-year doubling of its budget by 2017. Still, NSF clearly won’t be able to sustain the ARRA-fueled spending of the past year and a half. NSF used the bulk of its $2.4 billion in stimulus money to make 4599 competitively awarded grants from its backlog of highly ranked proposals. That’s about half the number of awards it makes with regular appropriations. Outgoing NSF director Arden Bement said the ARRA-funded grants are providing jobs for 6762 investigators, including 2352 first-time awardees.

Describing NSF as the “tip of the spear in the nation’s science and engineering research and education enterprise,” Bement told reporters that NSF will increase emphasis on alternative energy and energy efficiency research. A portfolio of programs called “science, engineering, and education for sustainability,” to be funded at $766 million, will seek integrated approaches to increase US energy independence, enhance environmental stewardship, and reduce energy use and carbon intensity, while also generating economic growth. In a partnership with DOE, NSF plans to initiate a new $19 million program, dubbed Re-Energyse (regaining our energy science and engineering edge), to train as many as 8500 scientists and engineers and thousands more technicians by 2015 for careers in clean energy.

Nearly 50% of the federal funding for academic research in the physical sciences and 82% of universities’ research funding in computer sciences comes from NSF. The FY 2011 budget proposes doubling to $70 million the agency’s “science and engineering beyond Moore’s Law” program, which seeks alternatives to silicon chip technology, and would also further Obama’s commitment to triple the number of new NSF graduate research fellowships to 3000 by 2013 by adding $158 million.

Also included in the budget request is $12 million for a new “innovation ecosystem” program to foster increased commercialization of inventions that originate in academia. It’s proposed as a component of the agency’s “partnerships for innovation” program, which seeks collaborations among universities, state and local governments, companies, and nonprofit organizations for developing the people, tools, and infrastructure needed to connect new scientific discoveries with practical uses. Funding for PFI would more than double next year, to $19 million.

NOAA and NIST. One of two Commerce Department S&T agencies, NOAA is to receive $1.1 billion for a newly named Joint Polar Satellite System next year. The restructured program proposes a new division of labor among NOAA, NASA, and DOD. The project, originally estimated to cost $6.5 billion in 2002, has ballooned to $13.9 billion and is five years behind schedule, despite a 2006 restructuring. NIST, also part of the Commerce Department, would receive $709 million, a 6.9% increase, in FY 2011 for its scientific and technical research services activities and for the construction of research facilities—the two portions of NIST whose funding Obama has pledged to double by 2017. NIST’s Technology Innovation Program, formerly the Advanced Technology Program, would receive $80 million in FY 2011, a $5 million increase from this year.