Probably nowhere else but in Washington could the outlook for science and technology spending actually brighten as the economy tanks. But with President Barack Obama and Congress under pressure to inject $825 billion into the economy, and do so as quickly as possible, additional federal R&D funding--for energy research in particular--looks to be in the mix.
In his inaugural address, Obama alluded to the key role he wants science and energy to play in the unprecedented federal bid to shore up the economy. "We will restore science to its rightful place," he declared. "We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories."
As PHYSICS TODAY went to press, House appropriators were marking up a $550 billion spending bill that proposes to heap a total of $43.9 billion in new one-time spending upon the Department of Energy, an agency whose budget was less than $24 billion in fiscal year 2008. (DOE, like most federal agencies, continues to operate at FY 2008 levels, awaiting completion of the FY 2009 appropriations bills.) Much of that new spending, though, would go for loan guarantees and grants to state and local government energy programs. Government-wide, the bill proposes $10 billion in additional spending for research, equipment, and scientific facilities, plus a whopping $32 billion to modernize the nation's electric grid and expand the production of renewable energy.
Within DOE, the Office of Science, which doles out 40% of federal funding for basic physical science research, would see its budget jump from just over $4 billion to $5.9 billion. DOE's fossil energy program would get $2.4 billion for carbon capture and storage R&D. Renewable energy and energy-efficiency technologies would see a $2 billion increase, with $1 billion more for grants to support advanced battery development for vehicles.
Moreover, the House bill would provide DOE with $16.4 billion worth of additional loan guarantees to help the private sector finance renewable energy, energy efficiency, and grid modernization projects.
The House measure also calls for a 50% increase at NSF, from its current $6 billion to $9 billion. Most of the new money--$2.5 billion--is proposed for NSF's competitively awarded grants to academic researchers. The new spending will fund 3000 more "highly rated" grants that will create jobs for 12 750 scientists and graduate students, according to the report that accompanies the bill. But $300 million is reserved for competitively awarded grants to help universities acquire major research instrumentation, and $200 million is set aside to pay for a fraction of the estimated $2.6 billion backlog of needed repairs and renovations at university research facilities. An additional $400 million is proposed for NSF's major research equipment and facilities to accelerate construction of large projects such as telescopes.
Considerably smaller yet significant increases are in store for NASA, including $400 million for its basic science programs and a $150 million add-on to the aeronautics research program. NIST would see its budget rise from $600 million to $1.1 billion, including $300 million for a grant program initiated last year for the construction of university research facilities.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has promised to have a bill approved by the full House by mid-February. The Senate is expected to consider similar legislation, though no counterpart to the massive House bill had appeared by press time.
Energy back in style
"From an energy policy perspective, this is about as exciting as the 1970s," said a staffer at the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, referring to the spike in federal funding for alternative energy research in response to that decade's two oil shocks. Spending fell back sharply as soon as oil prices sank, and energy R&D, in inflation-adjusted terms, hasn't neared those levels since. Now, as the 111th Congress gets under way, lawmakers have cleared their calendars to take part in the effort to rescue the US economy.
The chairmen of the House and Senate committees that oversee energy research have said they will push for the creation of a new office at DOE that they believe will accelerate the commercialization of innovative energy technologies. Modeled after the successful Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA-E would fund high-risk technologies that could help the US to reduce its dependence on oil imports while lowering greenhouse gas emissions. In the House, Representative Bart Gordon (D-TN), returning for a second term as chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology, told reporters that ARPA-E would invest in energy technologies the private sector can't afford to touch. Though it was authorized by a law signed by George W. Bush in 2007, the former president ignored the ARPA-E provision. A House-passed appropriations bill for FY 2009 includes $15 million for the new office, but the Senate counterpart has none.
The new entity was one of the recommendations of the influential National Research Council report Rising Above the Gathering Storm, issued in 2005. That report suggested a budget of $300 million for ARPA-E's first year and a ramping up to $1 billion within a few years.
David Kramer
This story will appear in the February 2009 issue of PHYSICS TODAY.
