US congressional leaders announced on 1 May that they reached a final agreement on a fiscal year 2017 appropriations bill that boosts funding for a few science agencies while holding others steady. The bill, which dictates spending through 30 September, stands in stark contrast to a Trump administration proposal that would have imposed deep cuts on federal science.
The omnibus appropriations bill provides for more than $1 trillion in discretionary spending across the federal government. The legislation is the product of more than two years of budget development, consideration, and bipartisan negotiations between the White House, House of Representatives, and Senate. The House is expected to vote on the bill on 3 May, followed by Senate action on 5 May, putting it on track for enactment before the 5 May midnight budget deadline.
Congress largely opted to stay the course and fund the science agencies at levels within or near the ranges approved by the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees last summer. The final legislation affirms what congressional appropriators have signaled in recent weeks: that they essentially disregarded the White House’s request in March for immediate—and in some cases deep—spending cuts to R&D and other nondefense programs.
For example, the White House proposed to completely eliminate the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, which awards competitive grants for high-risk applied energy research. Congress chose to increase ARPA–E’s budget by 5.2%.
| Agency | FY 2017 Omnibus* | FY 2016 Enacted* | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Energy | 30 746 | 29 717 | +3.5% |
| National Nuclear Security Administration | 12 938 | 12 527 | +3.3% |
| Office of Science | 5392 | 5350 | +0.8% |
| NASA | 19 653 | 19 285 | +1.9% |
| National Science Foundation | 7472 | 7464 | +0.1% |
| National Institutes of Health | 34 084 | 32 084 | +6.2% |
| NIST | 954 | 964 | –1.0% |
| National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration | 5675 | 5766 | –1.6% |
| * in millions of dollars | |||
Even as many science agencies received above-average support in the omnibus bill, Congress was constrained by a 2015 budget law that capped the increase in overall discretionary spending to only $3 billion, or 0.3%, above the FY 2016 level. Not every science agency received a funding increase, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NIST are set to experience slight declines in financial support.
Among the science agencies and programs, Department of Defense Science and Technology (defined as the sum of DOD’s basic research, applied research, and advanced technology development accounts), the National Institutes of Health, and NOAA’s research line office will receive major increases of more than 6% above FY 2016 levels. NASA’s science mission directorate and the US Geological Survey would receive more modest boosts of between 2% and 4%. The budgets of the Department of Energy Office of Science and the National Science Foundation would be held about flat, while NIST would experience a 1% decrease.
The omnibus spending agreement arrives seven months into FY 2017, during which time federal agencies have been operating under considerable budget uncertainty and without the authority to start new programs. The last time Congress approved new spending levels was in December 2015.
Congressional leaders nearly completed their appropriations work last December, but the incoming Trump administration asked Congress to hold off on a final deal so it could weigh in. It then offered few specifics until March, when the administration submitted a supplementary budget proposal for FY 2017 and a “skinny budget” with guidelines for 2018. The documents called for immediate cuts across the nondefense discretionary budget to pay for a defense and border-security boost. Congress received the request coolly.
A number of appropriators have recently expressed frustration over how the appropriations cycle dragged on with continuing resolutions since the end of last September. Senior Republican appropriator Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) said it was “a mistake” not to finalize the FY 2017 package when it was nearly ready last fall; Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and others have expressed similar sentiments.
After enactment, Congress will immediately turn to discussions on FY 2018 appropriations, which are already substantially delayed.
This article is adapted from a 2 May post on FYI, which reports on federal science policy with a focus on the physical sciences. Both FYI and Physics Today are published by the American Institute of Physics. William Thomas and Mitch Ambrose contributed reporting.
