NEWS: Administration’s Proposed Budget for FY2009 Fairly Good for Science and Technology

February 8, 2008

This is Budget Week in Washington. Each year, on the first Monday in February, the President presents Congress with his budget proposal for the following year and in the days following, various Executive Branch agencies hold public briefings to discuss the details. This year, interest has been higher than might be expected for the last year of a Presidential term. The America COMPETES Act, passed last August with overwhelming bipartisan majorities and signed into law, authorized major investments in research funding and science and math education and is arguably the most important science legislation in about 20 years. But, when appropriations for civilian agencies were finally settled in December, most of the expected funding increases for S&T had disappeared, victims of other priorities for both the President and Congress.

The President’s budget therefore provided welcome news that he is again proposing to fund most of the initiates authorized in the America COMPETES Act. Ignoring earmarks in FY2008 appropriations, DoD basic and applied research (6.1 and 6.2) would increase by 15.7% and 2.0 % respectively. The DoE Office of Science funding would grow by 22.7%, though DoE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Account would decline 18.3%. NSF funding would increase 13% and NIST internal research would increase 22.2%.

Various interest groups are busily sorting through the budget documents for more details. Good analyses can be found on the APS and AAAS web sites.