Last Friday’s Washington Post carried the prominent headline, “House passes $1.1 trillion spending bill” signaling the hoped-for conclusion of the FY 2015 appropriations process that began on March 4 when the Obama Administration sent its budget request to Congress. Commenting on the request that day, White House Science Advisor John Holdren said the requests for various federal science and technology programs “do better overall than might have been expected,” although he quickly added, “we recognize this budget could be better.”
Holdren’s remarks are appropriate in describing what we know about funding levels for S&T programs in the 1,600 page bill that Congress considered. The cap on the portion of the FY 2015 budget that science programs are funded through (what is known as “discretionary” spending) rose by just 0.2 percent from last year. Congress decided that almost all of that increase would be allocated to defense-related programs, so the amount of new money available for civilian science programs was severely limited.
When Holdren introduced the S&T budget request, he said “The 2015 budget reflects this Administration’s clear-eyed recognition that our Nation’s standing as a global leader today is built largely on a foundation of science and technology.” Thankfully, Members of Congress from both parties agreed, as the outcome for science agencies providing funding for the physicists and other researchers in AIP’s Member Societies was largely favorable. While AIP’s Government Relations staff is still reviewing the bill, the outcomes for FY 2015 science budgets that have been analyzed were in many cases positive:
- Funding for basic research programs in the Department of Defense increased 5.1 percent
- The National Science Foundation’s budget increased 2.4 percent
- NASA’s budget increased 2.1 percent (with science funding increasing 1.8 percent)
- The budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration rose by 1.8 percent
- Funding for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science remained flat
Although funding levels for programs varied, with some prominent winners and losers, the outcome was better than might have been expected – again for what we know so far – when viewed against the overall discretionary budget increase of just 0.2 percent.
AIP’s Government Relations staff is continuing to review the bill for other science and technology agencies of interest to our Member Societies. In all, the budgets for ten agencies are reviewed, with our science policy bulletin, FYI, providing analysis tailored for physical scientists and the STEM education community. See the Government Relations team’s budget page, in the section entitled Latest Congressional Budget Action, for a wrap-up of the FY 2015 outcomes in coming days.