COMPUTING RESEARCH POLICY BLOG

It appears House and Senate appropriators have reached a final agreement on the “continuing resolution” for FY 2007 and it looks like good news for federal science agencies. For weeks now we (and the other members of the science community) have been concerned that FY 2007 appropriations debacle would freeze agencies like NSF, NIST, and DOE’s Office of Science at FY 2006 levels, postponing planned increases to the agencies called for in the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative and approved by the full House and the Senate Appropriations Committee. However, in a joint continuing resolution filed last night, the House and Senate Appropriations Committee chairs agreed to exempt NSF, NIST, and DOE Office of Science (and NIH additionally) from the CR and provide increases to each agency’s FY 2007 budget.
While the agencies won’t receive the full amounts they requested as part of ACI, each agency should receive significantly more than they received in FY 2006. Under the agreement, NSF’s research accounts would receive a 6 7.7 percent increase, slightly below the 7.8 percent matching the increase called for in the ACI, but $335 million more than FY 2006.* NIST would receive $50 million in additional funding for its core research budget. DOE Office of Science would see $200 million more than FY 06, plus the elimination of $127.8 million in earmarks that would then be available for competitive research. And NIH, while not officially part of the ACI and expecting flat-funding in FY 07, would see an increase of $619.5 million — which, according to the appropriations committee, would “support an additional 500 research project grants, 1,500 first time investigators, and expand funding for high risk and high-impact research.”
Given where we thought we might be as a result of the CR, this is great news. The agreement was announced by both House Appropriations Chair David Obey (D-WI) and Senate Appropriations Chair Robert Byrd (D-WV), so it’s a good bet that the bill will pass in its current form. The House will vote on the CR on Wednesday and the Senate will take it up soon after.
This is a big win for the science community. Protecting these increases for the federal investment in science in a resolution that cut more than 60 other domestic programs below FY 2006 levels sends a powerful signal that basic research is a national priority. Science was one of just a few priorities protected by Congressional Democrats in the bill — it joins federal highway programs, veteran’s health care, the FBI and local law enforcement, and Pell grant funding. The science community — along with its partners in industry — weighed in heavily in support of ACI funding, and its clear that advocacy had the desired effect. So thanks to all of you who joined with CRA as part of the Computing Research Advocacy Network to help make the case for science. It’s clear your voices were heard!
We’ll have more details as this bill moves towards final passage. Then it’s on to FY 2008, which just might be off to a good start.
Update: (5:50 pm, 1/31/07) — The House easily passed the measure today, unamended, by a vote of 286-140. The Senate should take up the resolution next week.
Update: (4:22 pm, 2/8/07) — * a closer look at the numbers actually in the resolution show that it only specifically calls out NSF’s R&RA account, increasing it $335 million over FY 2006 to $4.7 billion (matching the Administration’s request). It appears the remainder of NSF’s accounts aren’t addressed in the resolution and so they’ll stay at FY 06 levels.
The Senate is considering the resolution today. The Senate Democrats have apparently blocked any amendments to the resolution from Republicans (using some of the Senate’s arcane procedural techniques), so it’s likely it will pass in its current form.

In contrast to last year’s State of the Union address by the President, this year’s speech didn’t feature much in the way of competitiveness or themes. While we’ve gotten many assurances from the White House in recent weeks that the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative — introduced with great fanfare last year and currently mired in the debacle which has become the FY 07 Appropriations process — is still a priority for the Administration and will continue in the FY 08 budget, in the wake of Tuesday’s State of the Union I thought I’d just check in again and make sure things hadn’t changed. Fortunately, they haven’t. Here’s the word from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (posted with permission):

Me: I notice the ACI didn’t recieve much mention in the President’s SOTU. Is ACI still a priority for the Administration? Will we see the commitment continue in FY 08?
OSTP: The SOTU was focused this year to a limited number of topics (mostly new of course), but I can assure you we’re still fully committed to its success.  FYI, below is a response to a similar question that Dr. Marburger shared with a reporter earlier this week.  I suspect we’ll have more details to share between now and the budget release so I’ll keep you posted.�
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The President remains fully committed to the success of the American Competitiveness Initiative and the Administration looks forward to Year Two of the ACI and working with the 110th Congress to achieve the President’s vision for innovation.�
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Individually, the House and Senate funded Year One of the President’s proposal to increase basic research in the physical sciences.  However, to remain on track to meet the President’s goal of doubling funding for these key research agencies over 10 years, Congress now needs to complete full funding for Year One of the Initiative (FY07).

The White House also indicated it plans to continue working to see ACI addressed in whatever final resolution Congress comes up with for FY 07 appropriations. News on that front is that the House plans to take up the CR next week, but as of this writing, there’s still no final decision on what will make the cut and what won’t. By pledging to “eliminate earmarks” in the CR, appropriators will free up somewhere on the order of $17 billion to $33 billion in funding to apply to agencies for FY 07. But that range demonstrates the difficulties the decision-makers are facing — gaining consensus on what constitutes an earmark in this case is fraught with political landmines. As a result, there is even talk at the moment of yet again extending the CR for a short duration past the Feb 15th deadline to give appropriators more time to negotiate a CR that will extend the balance of the fiscal year.
As always, as we learn more detail, we’ll pass it on….