AAS Public Policy Blog

The President has released his Administration’s budget request for FY 2011. Science has fared well despite the spending freeze proposed by the President on all non-discretionary spending. This budget request asks for a 5.9% increase in non-defense R&D spending (an increase of $3.7B for a total of $66B). The country’s total R&D budget request for FY 2011 is $147.7B once the defense R&D funding is included. This is an increase of $343M or 0.2% over the enacted FY 2010 level. There is also significant investment in programs to foster the next generation of S&T workers, both at the NSF, DOE and the Department of Education.

The breakdown for the agencies relevant to the astronomy community is as follows:

NSF: The NSF request is for $7.4B, an increase of 8% over 2010 levels.  The Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate (MPS), which houses the Astronomical Sciences (AST) within NSF, receives a 4.3% increase and AST receives a 2.5% increase to $251.77M.

Of the facilities supported by MPS, the AST facilities have done very well getting a majority of the funding increases. The requests and the percent increase over FY2010 estimates are: ATST – $2M, ALMA – $23.5M (33.8%), Gemini – 1$19.58M (2.5%), IceCube – $2.5M (16.3%) and LIGO – $30.30 (6.3%).

The Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) program sees a 16.4% increase to $158.24M while the Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) sees a 6.5% increase to $209.16M. There is also an additional investment of $103M to realign and consolidate existing programs to broaden participation by under-represented groups in the S&T workforce.

NASA: The biggest change at NASA is of course a new vision for the manned space flight program. NASA’s total budget request is for $19B with $5B for the Science Mission Directorate. The biggest increase within SMD goes to Earth Science in line with the Administration’s focus on renewed investment in global climate change research.

Planetary Science sees a small increase, targeted to identify and catalog Near Earth Objects. Some really good news for planetary science is that the Plutonium-238 production restart is called out prominently. Members might recall that the Administration had requested $30M in funds in the last budget for the Pu-238 production restart required to power missions to explore other planets in the solar system. Congress had zeroed out the request citing inadequate detail. This request reopens the dialogue. Heliophysics sees a small increase as well of roughly $13M. Astrophysics funding declines over 2010 levels by 2.5% (~$27M). The good news for the astronomy community is that new money has been requested to fund the increased investment in earth science and space science was not cut to fund that increase.

DOE: The Office of Science at DOE receives a 4.4% ($217.7M) increase for a total of $5.1B. The High Energy Physics program, which supports astronomical programs such as Fermi, receives a 2.3% increase for a total of $829M. Fusion energy sciences are down 10.8% to $380M. Of some interest to our community might be that the U.S. ITER project sees a decrease of $55M compared to FY 2010 levels. This is a reflection of the pace of construction and W.F. Brinkman, the Office of Science Director, is quoted as saying that the DOE was not willing to provide money for ITER until it had solved some underlying problems and the funding reduction was intended to “send a message.”

The President’s budget request reflects the priorities of the Administration. It is very supportive of science, including curiosity-based science, but has focused its big investments in climate change research, renewable energy sources, and STEM education.  There is also a substantial investment in technology development at NASA. We must now engage Congress about the role astronomy plays in the national agenda and what our community can contribute to the nation. Everyone is awaiting the report from the Decadal Survey to set funding priorities for astrophysics. But we need to start talking to lawmakers now about the role of astronomy in the innovation agenda.

Useful links for further information:

NSF budget page: http://www.nsf.gov/about/budget/fy2011/index.jsp

NASA budget page: http://www.nasa.gov/news/budget/index.html

DOE budget page: http://www.energy.gov/about/budget.htm

AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program page: http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/fy2011/

OMB: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Overview/

Its astronomy advisory committee meeting time in DC.  The Astrophysics Subcommittee of the NASA Advisory Council held its meeting on Oct. 8-9.  And the Congressionally Chartered AAAC held its meeting last week (Oct. 15-16).  You can see presentations from the AAAC meeting here.

It was interesting to see the process of how federal agencies like NASA, NSF, and DOE get advice from the community.  Everyone is waiting with bated breath for the Astro2010 Decadal Survey before making too many new plans for Astrophysics.  In addition to various mission updates (Fermi is performing fabulously! so is Kepler), there was an interesting discussion about whether to start a new line of named postdoctoral fellowships (like Hubble, Einstein, Sagan) for technology/instrumentation.  Its also clear that inter-agency cooperation (NASA, NSF, DOE) will be the way of the future.  There was even talk of whether this would be the last US decadal survey because it would be a global effort from next time.  We’ll have to wait and see on that one.

On a policy matter – Congress just passed the FY10 Energy and Water Appropriations bill and sent it to the Prez for his signature.  Why do we care?  Because this provides funding for DOE and DOE needs to re-start the production of Pu-238 in order to produce RTGs (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators) to explore the solar system.  It made it into the Administration’s budget request this year – but Congress zeroed out the request saying they want more details.  So we’ll have to make sure it gets funded next year!  (If you are interested in this issue, see the NRC report.)

I attended the final open meeting of the Astro2010 Survey Committee this morning.  This is the top-level committee chaired by Roger Blandford that will consider and synthesize the input provided by the Science Frontiers Panels, the Program Prioritization Panels and the various working groups.

Representatives from the 3 major funding agencies (NASA, NSF, DOE) were there to present their answers to questions that had been posed to them.  A loud and clear message that came through was that funds are pretty tight and they are looking to the Decadal Survey Report to provide guidance on prioritizing investments in the coming decade.  NASA Astrophysics in particular expects to have about $4B total for new missions over the 2013-2023 timeframe.  Any augmentations to the R&D budget, extensions to older missions etc. will all have to come out of this $4B pot.  It was also interesting to hear that the stimulus money allowed NSF’s success rate for grants to go up from 21% to 36% this year, but this is unlikely to be sustained in coming years.

Kevin Marvel (AAS) and Kate Kirby (APS) presented the professional societies’ perspectives.  The ground based community was represented by Tony Readhead (Caltech) and Tim Beers (Michigan State Univ.).  Kevin made a strong case for the committee to own this report for the entire decade and not stop after some initial outreach for the final report.

Stay tuned!  In the meantime, you can get more info on Astro2010 at the NRC website.

The Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee met last week at the NSF headquarters in Virginia. The committee received a wide variety of presentations focused mainly on projects that involve inter-agency cooperation. Other topics included NSF facility planning and the decadal survey.

Those presentation slides (in PDF form) are available for download at the AAAC meeting page, and the all topics are listed below:

Meeting Presentations

• NASA/DOE Joint Programs — Jon Morse and Dennis Kovar
• DOE/NSF Joint Programs — Craig Foltz
• DOE/NSF Point Programs (Cont.) — Dennis Kovar
• DOE/NSF Point Programs (Cont.) — Joe Dehmer
• NSF/NASA Joint Programs — Craig Foltz and Jon Morse
• NSF Polar Programs — Vladimir Papitashvili
• Decadal Survey Update — Roger Blandford
• NSF Large Facilities — Mark Coles
• MPS Facilities Plan — Wayne Van Citters

The House appropriations committee has posted links to a summary and Bill text in two parts.

The press release / summary confirms the House science numbers prevailed:

Science

• $1 billion total for NASA.
• $3 billion total for National Science Foundation (NSF).
• $2 billion total for Science at the Department of Energy including $400 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy (ARPA-E). >
• $830 million total for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).

Votes are possible today in the House. Congressional leadership has indicated they want President Obama to be able to sign the bill by President’s Day on Monday.

Several summaries are circulating today on the stimulus bill – these reports, out of the Speaker’s office, indicate Science did quite well. Specifically:

• Provides $3 billion for the National Science Foundation, for basic research in fundamental science and engineering – which spurs discovery and innovation.
• Provides $1.6 billion for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which funds research in such areas as climate science, biofuels, high-energy physics, nuclear physics and fusion energy sciences – areas crucial to our energy future.
• Provides $400 million for the Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to support high-risk, high-payoff research into energy sources and energy efficiency in collaboration with industry.
• Provides $8.5 billion for NIH, including expanding good jobs in biomedical research to study diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer, and heart disease.
• Provides $1 billion for NASA, including $400 million to put more scientists to work doing climate change research.
• Provides $1.5 billion for NIH to renovate university research facilities and help them compete for biomedical research grants.

However, as of 3ET, there seems to be a delay in an official release of the final bill, so it may be just a bit early to know if these numbers are final.

Also, Reps. Holt and Eshoo argue for that science spending is stimulus today in The Hill. Representative Holt is one of three Ph.D. physicists in the House.

A Senate press release details the Science money in the stimulus bill.

The NSF receives less than in the House version, NASA receives more (but the more for Constellation and Aeronautics, science gets $100 million less than the House version) . A House/Senate conference committee to reconcile the two bills is likely.

• National Science Foundation (NSF) Research: $1.2 billion total for NSF including: $1 billion to help America compete globally; $150 million for scientific infrastructure; and $50 million for competitive grants to improve the quality of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education.

• National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA): $1.3 billion total for NASA including: $450 million for Earth science missions to provide critical data about the Earth’s resources and climate; $200 million to enable research and testing of environmentally responsible aircraft and for verification and validation methods for complex aerospace systems and software; $450 million to reduce the gap in time that the U.S. does not have a vehicle to access the International Space Station; and $200 million for repair, upgrade and construction at NASA facilities.

• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): $1 billion total for NOAA, including $645 million to construct and repair NOAA facilities, equipment and vessels to reduce the Nation’s coastal charting backlog, upgrade supercomputer infrastructure for climate research, and restore critical habitat around the Nation.

• National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST): $475 million total for NIST including: $307 million for renovation of NIST facilities and new laboratories using green technologies; $168 million for scientific and technical research at NIST to strengthen the agency’s IT infrastructure; provide additional NIST research fellowships; provide substantial funding for advanced research and measurement equipment and supplies; increase external grants for NIST-related research.

• The Department of Energy’s Science program sees $330 million for laboratory infrastructure and construction.

Updated Twice Below with Links to Full Bill Text and Committee Report

A new Senate Press Release (PDF file) has more details on the Senate stimulus money that relates to science:

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• National Science Foundation (NSF) Research: $1.4 billion total for NSF including: $1 billion to help America compete globally; $350 million for scientific infrastructure; and $50 million for competitive grants to improve the quality of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education.

• National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA): $1.5 billion total for NASA including: $500 million for Earth science missions to provide critical data about the Earth’s resources and climate; $250 million to enable research and testing of environmentally responsible aircraft and for verification and validation methods for complex aerospace systems and software; $500 million to reduce the gap in time that the U.S. does not have a vehicle to access the International Space Station; and $250 million for repair, upgrade and construction at NASA facilities.

• The Department of Energy’s Science program sees $430 million for laboratory infrastructure, for construction, and for advanced computing development.

Update The full bill text is available

Interestingly, the bill text does not specify that the NASA science money goes to earth science. It simply says:

For an additional amount for ‘‘Science’’, $500,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2010.

Unlike the House bill which says:

For an additional amount for ‘‘Science’’, $400,000,000, of which not less than $250,000,000 shall be solely for accelerating the development of the tier 1 set of Earth science climate research missions recommended by the National Academies Decadal Survey.

Still, I say it’s near certain that when these two bills are reconciled, the money will be flagged for earth science that was mentioned in the Senate press release.

Update II

The committee report is out which both summarizes the spending and gives justification. The AIP’s latest FYI gives a nice summary of the science money therein.

A couple of interesting snippets:

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

The Committee recommends a total of $1,502,000,000 for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration [NASA]. NASA is one of the Nation’s premier innovation agencies. Funding recommended for NASA is estimated to create over 10,000 jobs, including 8,000 high-tech jobs.

NASA is directed to report to the Committees on Appropriations with the intended allocation of these funds no later than 60 days after enactment of this act.

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

The Committee recommends a total of $1,402,000,000 for the National Science Foundation [NSF]. This funding is critical to support valuable investments for America’s competitiveness in research and technology, and is expected to create an estimated 25,000 jobs. NSF is directed to provide a spend plan no later than 60 days after enactment of this act detailing the proposed use of these funds.