GOVERNMENT
The Die Is Cast:'96Budgets Cut For Most Federal Agencies That Fund Research • Only NIH receives a budget increase in Senate-approved '96 budgets; overall support for reseach falls 5% Janice R. Long, C&EN Washington ow that the Senate has completed its work on fiscal 1996 appropriations bills, there's no longer any doubt that the federal agencies that support research will have less to spend in the coming year than they did in the past year. In many cases, the Senate provided even less money than the House (C&EN, Aug. 7, page 23). Even the Department of Defense's r e search, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) budget is on a downward path. The Senate provided $32.2 billion for RDT&E programs in fiscal 1996. Thaf s a cut of 9% from fiscal 1995 funding, 6% less than the Administration wanted to spend, and 1% less than the House provided for the same programs. Defense basic research, which the Administration wanted to cut just a bit, takes a real hit under the Senate budget plan, falling 25% to $917 million. The Senate zeroed out funding for in-house independent laboratory research conducted by Army and Navy scientists and cut $23 million from the Army's $62.7 million budget request for its university and industry research centers program. However, it added $595 million to the budget request for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, providing it with a total of $3.0 billion. The Appropriations Committee says it is committed to providing adequate resources to "facilitate the deployment of an operational national missile defense system at the earliest possible time, that can fully protect all 50 states." Hardest hit in the budget-cutting frenzy are the Environmental Protection
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Agency and the Department of Commerce. In EPA's case, the Appropriations Committee "seized the opportunity" provided by Congress' decision to balance the federal budget by 2002 to "probe deeply into the structure and management of EPA." The committee points out that "the critical mission served by EPA requires substantial direct funding, and through its regulatory authorities, imposes an enormous financial burden on all Americans." What the committee decided to do was cut the agency's total budget 22% to $5.7 billion and recommend a new focus in EPA on improving the quality of the science used to support regulatory decision-making. To this end, the committee did away with the research and development account in favor of a new science and technology account. This new account is to fund all EPA science and technology activities including personnel costs, laboratory costs, and all activities formerly funded in the research and development account—primarily extramural research. According to the committee, this new account structure will provide the agency with more flexibility in determining where and how to make budgetary reductions. And those decisions will have to be made. The $500 million provided by the Senate for the science and technology account is 7% less than EPA spent on R&D in fiscal 1995. However, the unkindest cut of all was reserved for Commerce's science and technology programs. If the department survives in its current form, the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) will look a lot like the old National Bureau of Standards. Under the Senate appropriations bill, NIST's technology outreach programs will be eliminated. As a result, its budget falls 54% to $323 million. But that's better than what happens to the Office of Technology Administration—which is not just cut back, it's gone. The National Aeronautics & Space Administration is another agency that
will have to make do with less in fiscal 1996. The Senate set its funding at $13.8 billion, 4% less than its previous funding level and 3% less than the budget request, but 1% more than the House provided. Funding for NASA science and research programs takes an even bigger hit in the Senate appropriations bill, down 9% to $5.3 billion. However, the committee provided the full $1.8 billion requested for continuing work on the space station. The Department of Energy's energy supply R&D budget is also heading south. Its Senate-approved funding is $2.9 billion, 11% less than last year's budget and 20% less than the Administration requested. Funding for basic energy science is actually up 6% to $792 million, with funding for materials sciences up 33% to $367 million and funding for chemical sciences up 21% to $198 million. These funding levels are in line with ones approved by the House. However, funding for DOE's university and science education programs is cut by more than half to $40 million by the Senate. The House provided no money at all for that account. Nor did the House provide money for DOE's laboratory technology transfer programs in fiscal 1996. The Senate cut funding for this program by almost 60% to $25 million. The Senate Appropriations Committee recommends that DOE determine which of its cooperative research and development agreements (CRADAs) with industry are the most promising and complete them during fiscal 1996. The Senate also has taken a slice—albeit a small one—out of the National Science Foundation's budget, paring it back 1% to $3.2 billion. The research and related activities budget is up 2% or $49 million to $2.3 billion in the Senate bill. Thaf s $40 million more than the House allowed. Noting that NSF currently manages a multitude of centers—including the science and technology centers, engineering research centers, supercomputing centers, and materials research
Senate's fiscal 1996 R&D budget is 5% below last year $ Millions
1995
1996 % difference, Administration Senate appropriation- % change request appropriation request 1995-96
a
Defense RDT&Eb Operational systems development Engineering & manufacturing development Advanced development Management support Exploratory development Demonstration & validation Basic research
$35,515 10,188 8,930
$34,332 10,213 8,759
$32,206 10,590 8,599
4,339 3,436 3,070 4,325 1,227
3,796 3,305 2,816 4,229 1,214
3,371 3,113 2,836 2,780 917
-11 -6 1 -34 -24
-22 -9 -8 -36 -25
NASA Human space flight Science, aeronautics & technology Mission support Other
14,377 5,515 5,891 2,555 416
14,260 5,510 6,007 2,726 17
13,798 5,961 5,338 2,484 15
-3 8 -11 -9 -12
-A 8 -9 -3 -96
NIH National Institutes General Medical Sciences National Center for Research Resources National Center for Genome Research Other
11,296 10,287 905 349
11,764 10,654 934 376
11,598 10,497 924 372
-1 -1 -1 -1
3 2 2 7
153 507
168 566
166 563
-1 -1
8 11
Energy Environmental restoration & waste management Energy supply R&D Basic energy sciences Materials sciences Chemical sciences Biological & environmental research Fossil Conservation Solar & renewables Nuclear Fusion Environment, safety & health Nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship General science & research
11,638 5,938
13,233 7,010
11,368 6,171
-14 -12
-2 4
3,247 747 276 164 445 424 433 388 293 373 144 1,469
3,598 811 348 182 432 436 580 423 383 366 167 1,607
2,878 792 367 198 429 380 365 284 275 225 128 1,348
-20 -2 5 9 -1 -13 -37 -33 -28 -39 -23 -16
-11 6 33 21 -4 -10 -16 -27 -6 -40 -11 -8
984
1,018
971
-5
-1
NSF Research & related activities Education & human resources Academic research infrastructure Major research equipment Other
3,229 2,245 606 250 126 133
3,360 2,454 599 100 70 137
3,200 2,294 599 100 70 137
-5 -7 0 0
USDA research Agricultural Research Service Cooperative research & education activities Forest research
1,384 758 432
1,376 740 432
1,332 737 418
-3 -0 -3
-4 -3 -3
194
204
177
-13
-9
Commerce science & technology NOAAc Oceanic & atmospheric research NIST
2,860 1,912 240 700
3,405 2,097 271 1,023
2,420 1,867 230 323
-29 -11 -15 -68
-15 -2 -4 ^54
8
14
0
-100
-100
EPA R&D
539
546
500
-8
-7
TOTAL
$80,838
$82,276
$76,422
-7%
-5%
Technology administration
-6% 4 -2
-9% 4 -4
-1 2 -1 -60 0 - 4 4 0 3^
a Includes rescissions signed into law July 27. b Research, development, test, and evaluation, c National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. Source: Senate Appropriations Committee reports
centers—the Senate Appropriations Committee is calling for an independent review of their management. The committee wants the review to examine methods used for evaluating performance, discontinuing weak centers, and encouraging centers to seek financial independence where appropriate. The Senate also took a fairly small slice out of the research programs run by the Department of Agriculture. Funding for them is down 4% overall to $1.3 billion. The only agency to buck the downward funding trend in fiscal 1996 was the National Institutes of Health. The Senate Appropriations Committee came up with a 3% increase to $11.6 billion for NIH. The House provided a 6% increase to $11.9 billion for the agency, which dominates the civilian side of the federal research budget. Under the Senate bill, funding for AIDS-related research is up 4% to $1.4 billion. However, the House, working under the the belief that NIH should allocate its funding solely on the basis of scientific opportunity, did not earmark a specific dollar amount for AIDS research, leaving it up to the NIH director to decide how much should be spent on the disease. The Senate Appropriations Committee, like its House counterpart, warned NIH that "improvements and greater efficiencies need to be made to the administrative structure and management of its research enterprise. In an era of declining discretionary resources, it is essential that NIH further streamline its administrative structure in order to maximize the use of limited federal research funds." House-Senate conferees are now working out differences between their versions of the appropriations bill. Rarely do programs emerge from conference with more money than they had going in. So the final shape of the fiscal 1996 budget is definitely less, not more. However, when all these budget decisions will go into effect is an open question. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) has threatened not to send any more of the 13 appropriations bills to the president for his signature until just before the continuing resolution under which the government is now operating expires in mid-November. Clinton, for his part, says he will veto at leastfiveof the bills. The stalemate may continue into the next calendar year. • OCTOBER 23,1995 C&EN
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