AAS Public Policy Blog

The House, Senate, and White House came to an agreement on federal spending for FY 2011 two hours before a possible government shutdown on the night of 8 April 2011.  With negotiations completed, the House and Senate voted overnight to pass a stopgap measure to fund the government through Thursday, 14 April, preventing a break in the dissemination of federal funds.  Democrats and Republicans agreed to pass a continuing resolution (CR) with the negotiated spending cuts that will fund the government through 30 September 2011 and send it to the President by Thursday.

Although a government shutdown was averted there are still repercussions in federal support for the sciences and scientific research.

Overall, the CR totals $1.049 trillion in funding, which is a reduction of $78.5 billion from the FY2011 President’s budget request and $37.6 below FY2010 levels.  The cuts include $12 billion already cut in the previous three CR and $28 billion in new cuts.  These cuts affect the areas where the field of astronomy and astrophysics receives most of its federal support.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) will be funded at $6.9 billion. This is a decrease of $551 million from the FY2011 budget request and $53 million below FY2010 enacted levels.

NASA will be funded at $18.5 billion, a reduction of $515 million below the FY2011 budget request.  The level for NASA Science Mission Directorate shall be $4.9 billion, a decrease of $61 million from the FY2011 request and an increase of $447 million over the FY2010 enacted levels.

The Senate Committee on Appropriations issued a press release stating that the CR, “Preserves [a] NASA portfolio balanced among science, aeronautics, technology and human space flight investments, holding NASA’s feet to the fire to build the Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle and the heavy lift Space Launch System.” [01]

The CR also has a statement prohibiting NASA and the Office of Science and Technology Policy to engage in activities with China.

SEC. 1340. (a) None of the funds made available by this division may be used for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or the Office of Science and Technology Policy to develop, design, plan, promulgate, implement, or execute a bilateral policy, program, order, or contract of any kind to participate, collaborate, or coordinate bilaterally in any way with China or any Chinese-owned company unless such activities are specifically authorized by a law enacted after the date of enactment of this division.

(b) The limitation in subsection (a) shall also apply to any funds used to effectuate the hosting of official Chinese visitors at facilities belonging to or utilized by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. [02]

This provision may be a congressional response to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden’s controversial trip to China.

An article in Nature at the time of the trip on October 13, 2010, quotes a 12 October letter to President Obama from Representative John Culberson (R-TX) states: “I do not believe it is appropriate for the Administrator to meet with any Chinese officials until Congress is fully briefed on the nature and scope of Mr. Bolden’s trip.” [03]

The Department of Energy Office of Science receives $4.9 billion, a reduction of $252 million below the FY2011 budget request and $35 million below FY2010 enacted levels.

More details will be posted on the AAS Public Policy Blog at blog.aas.org.

You can view the full text of the legislation at: http://rules.house.gov/Media/file/PDF1121/FloorText/FINAL2011xml.pdf

Both the House and Senate have released summaries of the legislation at: House http://appropriations.house.gov/files/41211SummaryFinalFY2011CR.pdf http://appropriations.house.gov/files/41211ProgramCutsListFinalFY2011CR.pdf

Senate http://appropriations.senate.gov/news.cfm

[01] http://appropriations.senate.gov/news.cfm?method=news.download&id=c3d65ae0-0208-4309-9f4b-cdc5f7aac364

[02] p. 216-217 of http://rules.house.gov/Media/file/PDF1121/FloorText/FINAL2011xml.pdf

[03] http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2010/10/nasaadministratorschina_visi.html

AIP’s latest FYI breaks down the NASA budget numbers released last week. An excerpt:

• Science : Down 0.6 percent, or $26 million from $4.503 billion to $4.477 billion.
• Earth Science:Up 1.8 percent, or $25 million from $1.38 billion to $1.405 billion.
• Planetary Science:Up 1.5 percent, or $20 million from $1.326 billion to $1.346 billion.
• Astrophysics:Down 7 percent, or $85 million from $1.206 billion to $1.121 billion.
• Heliophysics:Up 2.3 percent, or $13.4 million from $591.6 million to $605 million
.

Update – In addition, the transcript (PDF link) from the Science conference call is online. Dr. Ed Weiler and several SMD associate administrators answer questions from the media in the transcript.

Update II The SMD budget out-years are summarized in this table:

Live streaming of two relevant FY 2010 budget presentations are today. First up, at 12:30PM EDT is the OSTP R&D budget presentation, which will summarize R&D spending throughout the federal government. You can listen live via the AAAS site. Officials from NSF, NOAA, and NASA will be present.

NASA has their own 2:30PM EDT press event, followed by several conference calls with the divisions. Audio of the conference call will be here. The press event will be shown on NASA TV

You can also view the NASA media advisory which contains details on the budget rollout. At 1:30PM ET, the budget documents will be available at the NASA budget web site

Update

NASA budget documents are now online:

• Science Overview
• Astrophysics
• Heliophysics
• Planetary Science
• Earth Science

Large amounts of domestic spending, including new veterans’ benefits and money for science, passed the Senate today by a large margin of 75-22. You can read the text of the amendment as it relates to science funding here.

Democrats in the Senate planned to first try to pass a large package of domestic spending, and then if that failed, a smaller amendment geared only toward expanded education benefits for veterans. However, with the larger amendment passing, the second, more focused one was not considered.

The bill now goes back to the House, which failed to pass war funding supplemental but did pass some domestic spending.. Despite numerous searches of roll call votes and amendments, I can’t seem to find the text of the domestic spending amendment the House passed (and is mentioned in the Washington Post article.)

We’ll see how the House responds and if the House can muster a veto-proof margin for any supplemental it passes in finality. A coalition of Republicans against domestic spending, and Democrats against funding the war could mean that the House could not override a supplemental veto.

The AAAS takes a look at the science funding in the domestic spending in the Senate’s version of the supplemental funding bill.

There’s also an AP story on the Senate’s version.

Unlike the House Supplemental which I posted about yesterday, the Senate bill contains $1.2 billion for science programs From the AIP’s FYI newsletter:

Yesterday afternoon the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its version of a bill to provide $193 billion in additional funding for war-fighting costs and other programs. Under this Supplemental Appropriations Bill, a total of $1.2 billion would be allocated for spending this year by NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the National Institutes of Health.

Some numbers, from the FYI newsletter:

• $200 Million for NASA (for space shuttle, manned spaceflight, etc.)
• $200 Million for NSF
• $100 Million for DOE
• $400 Million for NIH

The $1.2 billion number is mentioned in this press release (PDF link). The gory details, which I haven’t had a chance to look at yet, are in this summary of the actual bill language (also a PDF), or even more fun reading, the actual amendment text (PDF).

Where this goes, as far as being passed, or having to be negotiated with the House, all in the face of a veto from the White House, is still up in the air for now.

Macroscopic issues dominated today’s votes on the War supplemental bill. Near as I can tell from looking over the bill text (there are 5 versions listed there, so it’s a bit confusing), there is no science money in the House version. The supplemental bypassed the appropriations committees. The major points concern funding new Veterans Benefits, unemployment benefits, and how to pay for them.

Science funding is clearly not on the radar for any of the major decision-makers in this complicated supplemental / war funding process. Amidst all this, the Bush administration has issued veto threats over additional domestic spending in the bill.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said the the war supplemental funding bill will come up before the Senate next Wednesday. From the Politico:

“We know there is enough money to fund the troops for a considerable period after the Memorial Day recess,” Reid said. “We want to get [the bill] done. And we’ll do our best to get that done, but we’re not going to be pushed into doing something we don’t think is appropriate.”

Meanwhile, the White House has been threatening to veto bills that add additional domestic spending.

Meanwhile, White House budget director Jim Nussle weighed in Thursday with renewed veto threats against rival House and Senate Iraq funding bills, saying the add-ons for veterans and an extension of unemployment benefits were unacceptable. “To just pile them into the troop funding bill because the troop funding bill is necessary is a cynical process that the president has already been very clear about — the fact that he would veto,” Nussle told The Associated Press.

Additionally, certain “blue dog” Democrats are also opposing additional spending in the supplemental, if it’s not paid for with tax increases or other cuts.

In this environment, hoped-for science funding in the supplemental is not looking particularly likely. We’ll see what happens when the bills make it to the floor in the coming week.