Most Federal Science Money Flat or Falling as Bush Favors Medical and Defense R&D in Fiscal 2002

Millie Dresselhaus spent her last day as the director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science waiting for that phone call from the transition team for President George W. Bush. She had only been on the job for a handful of months, yet she had spent many hours on Capitol Hill talking about her vision of the US leading the world with robust, well-funded science programs. She liked her government job.

“I told them [Bush officials] that I would stay and help until my successor was chosen, and that I would help with the preparation of the budget,” Dresselhaus said recently. “The phone call never came,” she said, so she packed her bags and headed back to her physics lab at MIT, taking her vision of the future with her.

When Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham stepped to the podium in a DOE auditorium on 9 April to provide an overview of his agency’s funding under the Bush FY 2002 budget proposal, it was clear that a different view had indeed come to Washington. Last year the Office of Science received an impressive 14% increase, almost making the 15% figure that Dresselhaus had set as an annual target. This year, the budget calls for the office to receive only a 0.1% increase, up from $3.155 billion to $3.160 billion. And that is the general scenario for funding of most of the sciences, with the exception of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) programs, in Bush’s FY 2002 budget.

“It’s pretty grim for just about every research agency,” Dresselhaus said from her MIT office in early May. Science at DOE has suffered for a decade, she said, but last year’s healthy increase marked “the first year of real recovery.” Now, with new leaders in Washington, there is once again a “gap in knowledge and understanding” about the need for a broad, balanced science program, she said. Others say it is a matter of priorities. Most important to Bush is the $1.3 trillion to $1.6 trillion tax cut he and Congress have been fighting about.

So how bad is Bush’s budget proposal for science? While the budget calls for a total increase in R&D of 6.1% over the FY 2001 budget, or a record $96.5 billion, the funding increases are so heavily weighted toward NIH and the Department of Defense (DOD) that 6 of the 11 largest agencies that fund R&D would actually see their R&D money decline. According to budget analysis by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), if the whopping 13.6% increase in NIH funding (for a total budget of $22.4 billion) is excluded, then all other nondefense spending drops by 3%, to $24.7 billion. And while the proposed budget increases basic research by 6%, to a record $23.3 billion, most of that is due to the 12.4% increase proposed for basic research at NIH. Take away NIH, and basic research funding declines by 1%, or $10.4 billion. So much for the “balanced portfolio” theme that has been central to science funding discussions in Washington for the past few budget cycles.

For most R&D agencies other than NIH and the DOD, the budget word from the White House is, at best, “flat.” Without taking inflation into account, funding for NSF is up only 1.3%, with research and related activities at NSF down 0.5%, and physics down 2.1%. Members of the House Science Committee were concerned enough by the science cuts indicated in Bush’s March “budget blueprint” report (see Physics Today, April 2001, page 29) that they issued their own Views and Estimates report commenting on the dearth of science money. The committee, chaired by Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), described the proposed NSF increase as “minuscule.” At recent budget hearings, Boehlert said that NSF stands for “Not Sufficient Funds.”

NASA did better than NSF, but not by much. Funding for the space agency is up 1.8%, but with a significant shift of money away from Earth science (down 13.9%) to help fund space science (up 5.7%). NIST, part of the Commerce Department, is down 18.4%, most of that due to the minimal funding of the Advanced Technology Program (ATP), which is down 91.1%. The ATP program, which provides government funding to companies developing promising new technology, has long been a whipping boy for Republicans, who view it as corporate welfare. The program is “under review” by the Bush administration, and likely won’t survive much longer. Funding for the other science and research arm of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), would drop 2%.

The Department of Interior’s lead science agency, the US Geological Survey, also didn’t fare well. R&D funding for USGS would fall 10.7%, to $491 million. The hardest hit of the USGS divisions would be Water Resources, down 25.5%, due mainly to reductions in the National Water-Quality Assessment Program. The USGS has powerful defenders such as Senators Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Conrad Burns (R-MT), who are challenging the cuts. Rep. James Moran (D-VA) accused Bush of taking a “slash-and-burn” approach to USGS funding.

A wild card that remained in the budget discussions in early May was the DOD, which underwent a top-to-bottom review of spending priorities that wasn’t expected to be completed until this month. As a result, the DOD didn’t submit a full 2002 budget. Instead, its request consisted mostly of numbers from FY 2001 plus inflation, with an additional “special request” of $2.6 billion. Budget watchers believe much of that money will go to a national missile defense program (see story on page 31). That alone pushes the DOD R&D request up by 8.5%

Everyone from D. Allan Bromley, the White House science adviser for President George H. W. Bush, to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich assailed the budget proposal for the damage it could do to basic science. “The proposed cuts to scientific research are a self-defeating policy,” Bromley wrote in the New York Times (Op-Ed, 9 March 2001). He concluded his piece with what has become the catch phrase for those pushing for more science funding on Capitol Hill: “No science, no surplus. It’s that simple.”

Gingrich, the Republican icon of fiscal restraint, recently told a House committee, “I think it was clearly not correct for the long-term security of this country to not increase the basic science funding in the budget. …” President Bill Clinton’s science adviser, Neal Lane, was less polite than Gingrich, calling Bush’s budget proposals for science, “stark and frightening.” Lane, now at Rice University, wrote in the Houston Chronicle that, “in order to make room for a huge tax cut, the administration proposes major cutbacks in investments in the basic science and technology that have provided Americans with the highest paying jobs and greatest prosperity of any time in our nation’s history.”

At this time last year there was concern in the physics community about how well science funding was doing on Capitol Hill, but the playing field was much different. Republicans were cutting President Clinton’s R&D budget, which Lane was touting as “historic” in its scope. The concern then was the budget caps, but everyone involved knew that, as pressure mounted toward the end of summer, the caps would be broken and money would flow. The caps predictably vanished and, due in part to the large surplus, total federal R&D spending topped $90 billion.

But with Clinton gone, and President Bush and the Congress moving toward a consensus on a tax cut of at least $1.35 trillion, there isn’t nearly as much “surplus” money to fund discretionary federal programs. Bush called for discretionary spending to be held to 4%, and Congress hasn’t been inclined to raise that ceiling by more than a percent or two. With the entire increase going to Bush’s priorities—the DOD, NIH, and the Department of Education—there simply isn’t much money left for increasing other programs.

It is clear from early reactions to the science allocations that money for at least some programs will likely increase, but because this is Bush’s first budget, no one on Capitol Hill is sure how the process will play out. Several days before President Bush released the full budget, the Senate passed a resolution that included an amendment offered by Sen. Christopher Bond (R-MO), adding $1.44 billion beyond Bush’s proposal for funding NSF, NASA, and DOE. The amendment would boost DOE’s money by $469 million, and divide the remainder between the two other agencies. Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM), the powerful chairman of the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee that funds DOE, was a cosponsor of the amendment.

On the House side, Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) tried and failed in late March to add more science money to the House Budget Committee spending plan. “I’m really concerned about research and development in general,” Holt said in a recent interview about the budget proposal. “It makes me question whether anyone in the Bush administration has learned the lesson that R&D pays off economically. They can’t see beyond their fixation with tax cuts.” Holt and Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-MI) are the two physicists in Congress.

With discretionary spending held to 4% or 5% growth, staff members of science committees in both the House and Senate say it will be a long, tough summer for science as appropriators spread a dwindling amount of money around a lot of programs. The appropriations subcommittees will make the final determination of who gets what. Those who want increased nondefense science funding at DOE, for example, will have to battle proponents of other projects. Nuclear weapons/stockpile stewardship advocates want more, as do supporters of renewable and nuclear energy programs.

The following are some of the budget highlights:

National Science Foundation. After being the centerpiece of Clinton’s FY 2001 science budget with a record increase of about 13% last year, the main new task for NSF this year will be supporting Bush’s Math and Science Partnerships program. NSF would receive $200 million for the program, but $110 million of that amount is money that would be redirected from the foundation’s existing Education and Human Resources program. The budget also provides $8 million to increase stipends for graduate research fellowships and related research programs from $18 000 to $20 500 per academic year.

NSF Director Rita Colwell, who has been careful not to criticize the Bush budget, recently told a congressional committee that, in addition to the education funding, the foundation’s priorities are biocomplexity and the environment (up 6%), information technology research (up 5%), nanoscale science and engineering (up 16%), and learning for the 21st century (up 3.3%). The physics research budget would decline 5.3%, from $131.6 million to $124.7 million. The facilities budget would increase by 5.3%, to allow “effective use” of Michigan State University’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory’s ion beam upgrade project, and to increase operating support for LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory). The foundation’s astronomical sciences division budget would increase 5.1%, with the bulk going to facilities support for the Gemini observatories and a handful of other projects. NSF’s funding of the ATLAS and CMS detectors for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN would be $16.9 million. NSF and DOE both contribute funds for the US work on the LHC.

Department of Energy. Despite being perceived as a dysfunctional department unable to maintain security in the weapons labs, the department last year received a 12.5% increase, with science-related R&D going up 14%. Under Bush’s budget, overall R&D would fall 4.5%, with the leaderless Office of Science getting its 0.1% increase. A bright spot in the funding is the Spallation Neutron Source, which would receive a $13 million increase, bringing its funding up to more than $270 million.

In the budget document sent to Capitol Hill, President Bush called for high-energy physics (HEP) funding that is overstated by $5 million. To maintain fusion energy sciences at $248.5 million, $5 million is being shifted from HEP and an additional $5 million is coming from other science accounts. The amended HEP budget would increase 0.6%, or $4.1 million, from $712 million to $716.1 million. James Decker, the Office of Science acting director, said the DOE’s magnetic fusion energy program for 2002 includes “basic research in plasma science in partnership with NSF, plasma containment research, and investigation of tokamak alternatives, along with continued operation of DIII-D, Alcator C-Mod, and the National Spherical Torus Experiment.”

With money so tight at DOE, officials were forced to make hard choices to keep two key physics programs on track. Fermilab’s Tevatron, believed to be able to reach the luminosity needed to find the Higgs boson, got “what it needed,” a DOE official said. DOE requested a budget increase from $289.5 million in FY 2001 to $314.8 million this year for Fermilab’s HEP account. The B Factory at SLAC is expected to shed light on the preponderance of matter over antimatter if progressive small upgrades are made. SLAC’s high-energy physics budget request is up slightly, from $158.6 million in FY 2001, to $164.3 million this year, enough to keep the B Factory running. To give the money to these programs, the smaller labs and the university programs were cut back by between 4% and 5%.

DOE scientists are also concerned that the flat funding for nuclear physics will mean that several programs, such as Brookhaven National Lab’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), will only be able to operate at about 60% of capacity. Construction of the controversial National Ignition Facility, funded under DOE’s defense programs, would continue with a 24% increase to $245 million.

One of the more contentious aspects of the Bush budget is the cuts in energy R&D, including a 30.8% decrease in solar and renewable energy research, a 29.4% decline in nuclear energy research, and a 28.3% cut in energy conservation research. Even fossil energy R&D declines 25.3%. Cuts in these research fields, because of their implications for long-range federal energy policy, are attracting both a great deal of attention and demands for increased funding on Capitol Hill. That could make it less likely that extra funding for physics-related programs will be available.

NASA. In testimony before Congress, NASA administrator Daniel Goldin described his agency’s proposed FY 2002 budget, with its 1.8% increase, as “solid and businesslike.” That translates specifically to an increase in spending on missions to Mars, at the cost of the Pluto–Kuiper Express and Solar Probe missions. Goldin is calling for a 7.3% boost, to $2.4 billion for aerospace technology, about 75% of which will go to the space launch initiative to develop technologies for the next generation of reusable launch vehicles.

The budget contains $2.1 billion for the International Space Station, and Goldin said that to curtail cost growth projections of $4 billion by 2006, he was scaling back the station by canceling the propulsion and habitation modules, as well as the crew return vehicle. The loss of the habitation module is expected to reduce the already limited amount of science to be done on the space station. The entire program is undergoing review and a significantly scaled-down station might result.

Earth science takes a big hit, losing 11.7% in funding compared to FY 2001. Goldin said the Earth Observing System has been so good at gathering data that his agency is “taking a pause as we absorb the wealth of data being returned from the first set of EOS satellites.” Goldin said he was “proud” of the budget, but noted that it was “essential that the Congress fully fund this budget.”

NIST. Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, who oversees NIST, announced the 18.3% cut in the institute’s budget by saying Bush had put “first things first.” The president focused on “the people’s priorities,” Evans said, “starting with a fair, responsible, and much needed tax cut.” Translated into money, that means NIST’s budget would be down to $487.5 million from the FY 2001 funding of $597 million. Most of the NIST cut, as noted earlier, comes with the proposed 91.9% cut in the ATP program.

The NIST laboratories would fare relatively well under the proposal, with a request of $336.9 million, an increase of $35.2 million, or 11.7%, over FY 2001. The labs are responsible, according to an agency fact sheet, for providing industry and the science community with “measurement capabilities, standards, evaluated reference data, and methods.”

NOAA. While NOAA would see a 2% decline in its overall budget, the $60.8 million decrease, to $3.15 billion, “reflects the elimination of most congressionally mandated earmarks” from FY 2001, according to agency documents. NOAA’s National Ocean Service (NOS) division, responsible for marine mapping and management of coastal zone environments, would see a 33% decrease from $593.6 million to $394.6 million. Of that decrease, $150 million would come from the fund that helps repair damage associated with oil extraction.

The Oceanic and Atmospheric Research division (OAR), NOAA’s primary research agency, would get $340 million, a 3% decrease from last year. About $28 million of the decrease comes from the elimination of congressional mandates such as a marine facilities construction project at the University of New Hampshire (down $13 million), and an aquatic ecosystems project in West Virginia (down $4.3 million). But OAR would receive an increase of $13 million for its climate observations program, and $10 million more for its ocean exploration initiative. The biggest winner within NOAA is the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NEDIS), which provides launch, operation, data collection, and storage for polar orbiting and geostationary environmental satellites. The NEDIS budget would increase 15%, to $738 million. When the congressional earmarks are removed, the overall R&D budget actually increases by about 6.4%.