AAS Public Policy Blog

A variety of PDFs are reports are available covering the House Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science subcommittee bill. There is the full appropriations committee summary, the statement from Rep. Mollohan on the markup of the bill, a summary table of the appropriations.

Much of the detail, however, is in the committee report. The entire report can be viewed as a PDF from the Government Printing Office, complete with numerous tables. It’s also available on the Library of Congress site as a web page – here is the section on NASA science for example.

FYI does their usual, excellent job in discussing the NSF report language. The NSF mark is below the President’s request, a 6.9% increase over FY ’09 instead of a 8.5% increase.

The biggest notable event is that NASA space exploration receives a significant cut over the request – to quote Chairman Mollohan:

The recommendation, however, acknowledges that the Administration has established a blue ribbon panel, led by Dr. Norm Augustine, to review the current vision for human space flight. Funds are provided in the bill to continue investments in human space flight at the same level as provided in fiscal year 2009. Reductions from the budget request should not be viewed as a diminution of my support or that of the Subcommittee in NASA’s human space flight activities. Rather, the deferral is taken without prejudice; it is a pause, a time-out, to allow the President to establish his vision for human space exploration and to commit to realistic future funding levels to realize this vision.

The deferral amounts to a change of 212.3 million less than the request in Exploration. Also, a new budget line was created for the “Construction of Facilities” and some internal budget shifting occurs out of Cross-Agency support.

None of those budgetary changes effect NASA Science or the comparison of NASA science numbers to the request. Science sees a slight increase over the president’s request – $18.9 million more than requested. The details are from the above-linked Science section of the committee report, which you can see below. Read more »

A variety of scientific societies testified in person to the Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations subcommittee last week. You can view their written testimony on the House Appropriations committee website. Additional printed testimony has been submitted by a variety of societies, including the AAS, and I anticipate will be available at some time in the near future.

The FY 2009 Omnibus appropriations bill passed the House quickly yesterday. The latest FYI describes the NASA spending.

Total NASA:

The FY 2008 enacted budget was $17,401.9 million.

The Bush Administration’s FY 2009 request was $17,614.2 million.

The omnibus bill recommends $17,782.4 million. This is an increase of $380.5 million or 2.2 percent over FY 2008.

Science: The FY 2008 budget was $4706.2 million.

The Bush Administration’s FY 2009 request was $4,441.5 million.

The omnibus bill recommends $4,503.0 million. This is a decline of $203.2 million or 4.3 percent.

I have broken down the science numbers (numbers in thousands)

Planetary Science

• FY 2008 – $1,247,500
• Bush FY 2009 Request – $1,334,200
• Omnibus – $1,326,866

Astrophysics

• FY 2008 – $1,337,500
• Bush FY 2009 Request -$1,162,500
• Omnibus – $1,201,104

Heliophysics

• FY 2008 – $840,900
• Bush FY 2009 Request $577,300
• Omnibus – $606,363

Earth Science

• FY 2008 – $1,280,300
• Bush FY 2009 Request – $1,367,500
• Omnibus – $1,439,584

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.

The Senate has name the following members to the House-Senate conference committee that will negotiate with the House the final version of the stimulus bill. They are:

Harry Reid (D-NV), Dan Inouye (D-HI), Max Baucus (D-MT), Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Thad Cochran (R-MS)

For some background reading on Conference committees check out this document from the Congressional Research Service.

Update House members too: David Obey (D-WI-07), Charlie Rangel (D-NY-15), Henry Waxman (D-CA-30), Jerry Lewis (R-CA-41), and Dave Camp (R-MI-04).

Update II The AAAS has some details on the R&D money in the stimulus bill.

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.

Based on this list, it would seem that the NSF survived in the stimulus; though it’s been reduced to $1.2 billion from $1.4 billion. The House number was $3 billion. Assuming the Senate version passes and this list is accurate, it’ll take a conference committee to hammer out the differences in the House and Senate bills, as well as input from the White House.