Government
House defeats move to cut NSF budget Winn amendment would have chopped $70 million from the funding provided for research; appropriations bill will face tougher time in Senate The House has soundly defeated an attempt to cut the National Science Foundation's research budget. The action came on an amendment offered by Rep. Larry Winn Jr. (R.Kan.) to the NSF appropriations bill that would have brought the foundation's total budget back in line with the Administration's request of more than $1.03 billion. Winn, the ranking minority member of the House Committee on Science & Technology, earlier had masterminded the removal of NSF's budget from the omnibus budget reconciliation bill to allow it to be subjected to an individual vote on the House floor (C&EN, July 6, page 5). Because he wanted to leave intact the $35 million that the Appropriations Committee had provided for NSF's science education programs and $3.5 million added to the budget request for international programs, Winn's amendment would have cut $70 million from the funding provid-
ed for research and related activities. In proposing his amendment, Winn said he wanted to emphasize that his amendment was not antiscience or antitechnology. In fact, he pointed out, in the past he has been a consistent supporter of NSF, and even if the NSF budget were cut $70 million that still would leave an $11 million increase over fiscal 1981 levies. "Compared to what has happened to other federal agencies, this seems like a healthy increase," Winn says. Rep. Edwin Forsythe (R.-N.J.), another science committee member, supported the Winn amendment saying, "This amendment would do no irreparable harm to any NSF p r o g r a m . . . . At worst, this reduction would mean a slight belt tightening at NSF or that some programs may not grow so rapidly as they would like." However, the full House did not buy these arguments and rejected the Winn amendment by a vote of 264 to 152. Only seven of the science committee's 17 Republicans voted for the amendment, and none of the three Republicans on the appropriations subcommittee that handles NSF's budget voted for it. As passed by the House, H.R. 4034, formally known as the HUD-Independent Agencies appropriations bill, would provide more than $1.10 billion for NSF in fiscal 1982, a figure that is
House raises research budget requests $ Millions
NASA R&D Research and program management Construction of facilities EPA Salaries and expenses Abatement, control, and compliance R&D Buildings and facilities
1 NSF Research and related activities Science and engineering education Special foreign currency program TOTAL 14
C&EN Aug. 3, 1981
1982 House appropriation
Administration request
1981 appropriation
$6133.9 4938.1 1100.0
$6122.2 4903.1 1114.3
$5522.7 4336.3 1071.4
95.8
104.8
115.0
1201.5 583.7 422.5 191.2 4.1
1191.4 582.8 413.9 190.6 4.1
1351.0 553.7 540.2 253.0 4.1
1103.5 1065.0 35.0
1033.5 1020.1 9.9
1022.4 946.7 70.7
3.5 $8438.9
3.5 $8347.1
5.0 $7896.1
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7% over the Administration's request and 8% over fiscal 1981 funding levels. The total for research and related activities is $1.07 billion, $44.9 million more than requested and 12% more than 1981 funding. The Appropriations Committee in its report on the bill directed that the $44.9 million increase be allocated, at NSF's direction, to the highest-priority progams within the biological, behavioral, and social sciences; scientific, technological, and international affairs directorates; and to cross-directorate programs. NSF's science education programs also were particularly hard hit by the budget revisions. The Administration proposed a funding level of $9.9 million in fiscal 1982 and a phaseout altogether thereafter. However, the House approved a funding level of $35 million, which is still 50% less than education received in fiscal 1981. Appropriations for research at two other agencies, the National Aeronautics & Space Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, also are included in H.R. 4034. NASA would fare quite well. Its research budget had been scheduled for a 13% increase by the Administration and it would get a 14% increase to $4.9 billion. However, the budget request for research and program management would be cut $14.3 million to $1.1 billion and that for construction of facilities cut $9 million to $96 million. However, the House pretty much went along with the Administration on EPA's budget, adding only $10 million to the budget of $1.19 billion for an 11% decrease. Of that $10 million, $8.6 million was added to the $414 million request for EPA's abatement, control, and compliance programs, which still would mean a decrease of 22%. EPA's R&D budget request got a $600,000 increase to a little more than $191 million, but that still represents a 24% decrease from 1981 funding levels. The appropriations bill still must be acted upon by the Senate and it is highly unlikely that that Republican stronghold will approve all the increases that the House did, although it may well make further decreases. So the final budgets for the three agencies are still far from settled. D
