GOVERNMENT & POLICY
Sη INSIGHTS
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BY SUSAN R. MORRISSEY
FUNDING FOR NSF DOWN Some people wonder if 2005 cut in agency's budget is payback for scientists' political activity
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N DECEMBER 2 0 0 2 , PRESIDENT GEORGE
W. Bush signed into law the National Science Foundation Act, an act that supposedly put the agency on course to double its budget by 2007. Two years later, NSF's hopes of seeing any significant budget growth have all but faded as the agency braces for its first budget decrease in almost 10 years. The budget cut is part of the fiscal 2005 omnibus spending bill passed by Congress last November and signed by the President in December. The bill—which combines nine appropriations b i l l s - s e t s NSF's fiscal 2 0 0 5 budget at $5-5 billion, down about $107 million from 2004 and down $277 million from the President's 2005 request. But why would Congress cut the budget of an agency it recendy slated for doubling? One reason is that with the tight budg et constraints currently in place, congressional appropriators have a limited amount of discretionary funds to spread out among all the agencies. In the case of NSF, which falls into the Committee on Appropriations' Subcommittee on Vet erans Affairs, Housing & Urban Develop ment & Independent Agencies (VA-HUD), it must direcdy compete for its slice of the budgetary pie with agencies like the De partment of Veterans Affairs (VA), the En vironmental Protection Agency, and the Na tional Aeronautics & Space Administration. The tight budget aside, some people have expressed a worrisome concern that NSF's budget cut is revenge for the polit ical activity of scientists in the 2004 pres idential election. The concern is that be cause many in the scientific community supported Democratic Sen. John Kerry's failed presidential campaign and because of the outspokenness of scientists against some of the President's policies, all things related to science are on some kind of hit list of the Republican majority At a forum on the impact of the presi
dential election held by the American As sociation for the Advancement of Science in December, this issue was addressed by Robert E. Palmer, who retired as minori ty staff director of the House Science Com mittee at the end of 2004. He said the cut to NSF was impacted by both the tight budget and the scientific community's po litical activism. "I don't think one has to conjure up the conspiracy that there were people in the [omnibus appropriations} conference or
the W h i t e House out to get science," Palmer said. "But when you are in a tight bill, particularly NSF in the VA-HUD bill, people may not be looking to hurt you ac tively, but they're also probably not look ing to help you," he stated. Palmer noted that this impact was evi dent by looking at where the funding went. For instance, he noted that agencies with a more Democratic constituency, such as NSF and EPA, did poorly. On the other hand, he said that agencies that have a wider support base and are more politically im portant, like VAand NASA, did fairly well. Adding to this situation is the fact that science has always been a medium-level pri ority in Congress, Palmer pointed out. For instance, transportation and justice issues have always done better when it comes to funding than science issues. "Unless there's a real political shift of some sort that rais
es the visibility of science, I don't really ex pect that is going to change," he said. One change that may shift the balance is a proposed restructuring of the appro priations subcommittees put forth by House Majority Leader Thomas D. DeLay (R-Texas). In his proposal, agencies with similar functions would be grouped to gether, thus allowing all of the science-re lated agencies to be assigned to the same subcommittee. This would save NSF and NASA from having to compete head-tohead with agencies like VA and HUD. While potentially good for science fund ing, D e L a / s proposal will have a tough time becoming reality, because the reor ganization would cut the number of sub committees from 13 to 10. This reduction would mean that three Congress members in both the House and Senate | would have to give up chairman* ships—power that members of Ε Congress don't relinquish easily Q The likelihood that such a re" organization would occur, howevI er, gained a little momentum this month when Rep. Jerry Lewis (RCalif) was named chair of the full House Appropriations Committee. "We have a historic opportu nity and a unique responsibility to reform the appropriations process and change the culture of the committee," Lewis said in a - - i statement on Jan. 6. "I intend to lead a committee that is dedicat ed to fiscal restraint and committed to be ing an integral part of our Republican lead ership's effort to rein in spending and balance the federal budget." In any case, it appears that the budget will remain very tight for the next fewyears and that finding additional funds for sci ence will be challenging. This doesn't mean, however, that scientists should shy away from being active in politics. Instead, sci entists should become more familiar with how the process works and understand how to sell science to Congress. If scientists can learn to pitch their work in terms their senators and representatives understand—particularly the economic impacts of scientific research—as opposed to the scientific details of individual re search that may not mean a lot on Capitol Hill, the priority of funding for science pro grams just may go up.
Views expressed on this page are those of the author and not necessarily those of ACS. 32
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