Continuing Resolution – Flat Funding for Science
FYI has the details on the status of the FY 2009 appropriations. That is to say, there won’t be any. Other than Veterans Affairs, Defense, and Homeland security, the rest of the federal government is flat-funded until March of 2009. There was no plus-up for science as we and many other groups had hoped.
From FYI:
When it became clear that there would be a continuing funding resolution, attempts were made to convince congressional leaders to increase the funding levels for the National Science Foundation, the DOE Office of Science and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. …. These efforts were unsuccessful, as the continuing resolution increased budgets above “flat funding” for only the upcoming census, home energy and weatherization assistance, a key nutrition program, Pell grant tuition assistance, disaster relief, and a loan to auto makers to modernize their factories.
and
This “rate of operation” does not include the additional funding for NASA, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health that was provided in the supplemental appropriations bill enacted in June
That is to say, that while there was increased funding added to science in the war supplemental in June; this will not carry forward into FY 2009 via this continuing resolution.
It also means is a lot of work for the next Congress and next president as potentially both the FY 2008 and FY 2009 budgets will have to dealt with simultaneously early next year.
Update The AAAS has an excellent summary of the status of R&D funding for FY 2008
Tags: appropriations, congress, CR, FY 2008To keep the government operating, lawmakers approved a continuing resolution (CR) extending funding for all programs in unsigned 2009 appropriations bills at 2008 funding levels through March 6. The CR contains final FY 2009 appropriations for the Departments of Defense (DOD), Homeland Security (DHS), and Veterans Affairs (VA); all three receive substantial increases for their R&D portfolios, but other federal agencies in the remaining 9 of the 12 appropriations bills will be operating temporarily at or below 2008 funding levels for several months.
Earlier in the year, congressional appropriators endorsed large increases for the three physical sciences agencies in the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI), increases for human spacecraft development, increases for biomedical research in the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and increases in other parts of the federal research and development (R&D) portfolio. But instead, most federal programs will continue to operate at or below 2008 funding levels for several months into the new fiscal year. In real terms, the federal investment in basic and applied research has already declined since 2004, and under the CR federal funding of research would decline again in 2009 for the fifth year in a row.
