The changing political climate for US science

Recently, I was invited to share some thoughts about US science policy and research funding at a conference inaugurating Rice University’s Quantum Materials Center. One of the attendees suggested that other researchers might be interested in what I had to say. With that in mind, I offer the following thoughts. They are my own views and do not necessarily represent opinions of any organization or other individuals.

The American Physical Society’s office of public affairs under Mike Lubell’s leadership ably informs society membership about the federal landscape, and assists with Washington contacts. If you’re an APS member, I encourage you to consult the office on a regular basis and participate in their efforts to keep Congress and the Administration informed.

The first, perhaps most obvious, reflection about Washington is that the 114th Congress of the United States is Republican-controlled, including the chairs of all committees. That control reflects the current membership: the House (247 Republicans and 188 Democrats; a gain of 13 Republicans) and Senate (54 Republicans, 44 Democrats, and two Independents; a gain of 9 Republicans). In the Senate, minority staff members have become majority staff members and vice versa. Many staffers have been relocated or are looking for jobs.

A second point is that after much theater, we finally have a budget—such as it is—for the fiscal year 2015 that started 1 October 2014 and that will fund most of the federal government through 30 September 2015. At $1.1 trillion (discretionary spending), it is tight. It’s called CRomnibus. Essentially, it is an omnibus bill except for a continuing resolution (CR) for the Department of Homeland Security, which funds the agency through February. Total spending for FY2015, which includes nondiscretionary funds (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, interest on the national debt, and a few other mandatory items) is estimated to be about $3.9 trillion.

The bill is better than the alternative: that is, dribbles of funding from month to month through successive CRs. Still, there’s little good news, aside from small increases relative to FY14 for a few research agencies (NSF up 2%, NIH up 0.5%, DOE science flat). The budget process is a mess. One slight benefit to this budget is that, whereas Congress cut back on President Obama’s priorities in R&D—for example, DOE’s energy efficiency and renewables and ARPA-E—it didn’t deeply slash those programs.

Finally, the President’s FY2016 budget request is very good news for scientific research and most other public services the federal government delivers. While it has drawn predictable criticism from Republicans in Congress, it challenges both parties to find a path that eliminates the sequester and raises or eliminates the caps.

We are in tough, intensely partisan times and will be for the foreseeable future. Yet research in most fields of science and engineering is not likely to be a target for partisan squabbling. Social sciences are the exception. These fields have come under attack from conservatives, and the pressure is likely to continue. As physical scientists, our message needs to be that all fields of science are important and that expert peer review, managed by the federal agencies, is the demonstrated best way to make grant funding decisions.

Previous experiences

Looking back, I can say that we’ve had tough political times before. I was at NSF, when the election of 1994 shifted the leadership of both the House and Senate from Democratic to Republican Control. Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House. During the snowy winter of 1995–96, the President and Congress could not agree on a budget, so the federal government shut down for a total of 26 days. President Clinton was re-elected in 1996 and impeached by the House of Representatives in December 1998 (a few months after I had moved from NSF to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy). The Senate acquitted him in January 1999.

The impeachment was a terrible time for the White House, Congress, and the country. Nevertheless, the Clinton Administration achieved a number of important things over the next two years, as federal budget deficits were replaced by surpluses. Most federal research agencies experienced budget increases. The FY2001 NSF budget that President Clinton sent to Congress (in February 2000) included almost twice the largest dollar amount ever seen by this agency.

Congress agreed with most of that increase. It also approved the President’s request for the National Nanotechnology Initiative, which in recent years has been funded at about $1.5 billion a year. The five-year budget doubling of NIH—a priority of Republican Congressman John Porter, Chairman of the powerful Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education—started in 1998 and was competed in 2003.

So, even in tough political times, progress is possible with a Republican Congress and Democratic President.

I hope we will begin to see some signs of cooperation in 2015 and future years. But there are some unique aspects of today’s situation in Washington—such as a recent history of large deficits due to several wars and a deep recession, failure to address projected long-term growth of entitlements (most of the non-discretionary budget), and polarization within the Republican party—that makes compromise difficult.

Several of us science policy folks have spent time in the halls of Congress in recent months to draw attention to science policy in general and research funding in particular. I encourage you to do the same, whenever your time allows.

A bipartisan message

Norman Augustine and I co-chaired a study for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, so we’re using the report, Restoring the Foundation: The Vital Role of Research in Preserving the American Dream (rolled out in September) as a vehicle to collar members of Congress. Since Norm is a Republican and I’m a Democrat, we work hard to deliver a bipartisan message. Many members of Congress who were in office when the National Academies’ influential NRC report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm of 2007 (and its update ), appreciate the resonance of our recent report with arguments made in the Gathering Storm report. But that number is not large.

I’ll share with you some of the feedback in these meetings with members and staff. Since several of our recommendations have to do with research funding, our discussions involve budget issues.

There is some good news. People don’t laugh when we talk about increased research funding. There is bipartisan support for basic research on both sides of the aisles and even a few champions for science in both the House and Senate Their support is usually based on the well-established connections between research and innovation and economic competitiveness.

But there are also some hurdles. The discretionary caps (signed into law in 2011) are in the way of making much progress. Many Democrats and some Republicans want to raise the caps. I sense support in the Senate, but the House will have to lead that effort, and it’s not a “House of harmony.” We foresee not only more theater, but also fireworks.

The science community is not asleep. An aggressive lobbying effort is under way to increase NIH funding, and get it back on a sustainable track after over a decade of flat, or worse, budgets. We should support that effort and encourage similar efforts for all research agency budgets. Recall that NIH is in a different appropriations bill from NSF, DOE, NASA, NIST and other agencies that fund the physical sciences. The President can make some priority tradeoffs in his budget request. But once the President’s budget reaches Congress, it is taken apart along subcommittee jurisdictional lines, so NIH dollars are not traded off with NSF or DOE dollars.

A speculation and a plea

The current climate will alter, but not quickly. Somehow the caps will be increased, though not necessarily this year, or next. And agency research budgets will start to show modest growth.

But in the long term, the picture is not pretty. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that under current law nondiscretionary spending will increase between FY2013 and 2024 by 80%, while discretionary spending (which includes all research and almost everything else the government does) will increase by 15%. By 2039, discretionary spending as a percentage of GDP is projected to fall from 11% (the US historical average) to 7%. It’s clear that science has a big problem to face, and at a time when the overall American political process is in disarray.

If science is to thrive—and perhaps even survive—in the US, it will have to be a higher priority than at most times in history, perhaps with the exception of World War II and the early years of the Cold War, including the Apollo program. That prioritization will happen only if those organizations and individuals who consider science and technology to be vital to the nation’s future have a larger and more politically influential voice in American domestic policy.

Physics has great stories to tell: from the most entrancing mysteries of the universe and their deep connections with elementary particle physics, to new materials that will revolutionize technologies, to unprecedented understanding of the biological processes that control ourselves and life around us. It’s time to tell these stories, again and again, to whomever will listen, using the means that best convey the message.

While APS and some other professional science societies are influential, through studies, reports, and personal interactions with officials in the Administration and members of Congress, I have the sense that by working together the whole can be bigger than the parts. Indeed, the efforts already in place to do just that must be amplified.

We might note, for example, the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF), Energy Sciences Coalition (ESC), Coalition for National Security Research (CNSR) and The Task Force on American Innovation (TFAI). Since TFAI is led by industry, it is likely to have a stronger voice in some quarters. In addition to industrial members, TFAI also includes professional societies such as APS, American Chemical Society, American Meteorological Society, and Materials Research Society, as well as the Association of American Universities, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and a number of individual universities. In addition, a new organization, ScienceCounts, is in the process of being established, with the objective of conveying science impacts to the public. These efforts should all be encouraged and expanded.

What is currently missing from science policy is a mechanism to keep all the excellent policy analysis and recommendations of those nongovernment organizations current, accessible to all stakeholders, and presented in a form that can generate action when the political time is right. For that reason, in the American Academy of Arts and Science report mentioned above, the committee recommended that the National Academies, AAAS, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences offer to convene representatives of such organizations to explore the idea of a task force focused on science and technology policy issues and public outreach.

Whatever the science community judges to be the best approaches, I believe that we will need a much larger voice for science. Other interested communities, (such as defense, transportation, and health), have decades of experience and will be in fierce competition for a diminishing portion of the discretionary budget pie. If US science is to avoid being squeezed, transformational change is needed, and that will have to come from actions taken outside of government, with researchers and organizations working together in unprecedented ways. This effort will need to include much stronger partnerships with industry and visible political support by high-profile corporate CEOs and Boards.

In the end, what is most important is what you do every day in your labs, classrooms, and offices. The quality of the research you do and the students you graduate from the nation’s universities is paramount. But for those of you who have the time and inclination, I urge you to become involved in the larger national effort. The public affairs teams of whatever society you belong to will have good advice on how to make a difference.

Neal Lane currently serves as Senior Fellow in Science and Technology Policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston, Texas. As of 1 January 2015, he holds the title Malcolm Gillis University Professor Emeritus. He served in the Clinton Administration as NSF Director from 1993 to 98 and in the White House as science adviser to the President and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy from 1998 to 2001.