NSF Congressional Highlight
NSF Senate Appropriations Mark-up

July 19, 2001

The Senate VA-HUD and Independent Agencies Appropriations subcommittee marked up the FY 02 appropriations bill Thursday morning, to be followed by a full committee mark-up in the afternoon. Noting that their subcommittee allocation prevented them from providing the $600 million that they felt was needed to keep NSF on a doubling track, Senators Mikulski and Bond provided the agency with a 5.6% increase over last year's budget. Funding for NSF accounts is listed in the table below:

FY 2002 National Science Foundation
Appropriations Table

FY 2002 National Science Foundation Appropriations Table	Current Plan	Request	House Committee Mark	Senate Committee Mark	House % Change from Current Plan	Senate % Change from Current Plan
Total	4426.1	4472.5	4840.1	4672.52	9.354%	5.567%
R&RA	3350.0	3326.9	3642.3	3514.48	8.725%	4.910%
MRE	121.6	96.3	135.3	108.83	11.266%	-10.500%
BIO	485.4	483.1	529.0		8.982%
CISE	477.9	470.4	521.0		9.019%
ENG	430.8	431.0	469.0		8.867%
GEO	562.2	558.5	613.0		9.036%
MPS	850.8	863.6	927.0		8.956%
SBE	164.4	163.2	179.0		8.881%
OPP	273.3	276.6	299.0		9.404%
IA	97.7	80.6	106.0		8.495%
EHR	785.6	872.4	886.0	872.41	12.780%	11.050%
S&E	160.89	170.04	170.04	170.04	5.687%	5.687%
IG	6.27	6.76	6.76	6.76	7.815%	7.815%

RRA-Research and Related Activities
MRE - Major Research Equipment
BIO - Biological Sciences
CISE- Computer and Information Science and Engineering
ENG - Engineering
GEO - Geosciences
MPS - Mathematics and Physical Sciences
SBE - Science, Behavioral and Economic Sciences
OPP - Polar Research Programs
IA - Integrative Activities
EHR - Education and Human Resources
S&E - Salaries and Expenses
IG - Office of Inspector General

Report language in the Senate bill provides for a number of changes from the budget request, including:

+ $75 million for disciplinary research;
+ $25 million for nanoscale science and engineering (request $173.7 million);
+ $25 million for information technology research (request $215.53 million);
+ $10 million for plant genome research (request $ 65.0 million);
+ $5 million for mathematics initiative (request $20.0 million);
+ $25 million for major research instrumentation (request $50.0 million);
+ $10 million for regional innovation clusters (not in request);
+ $12.5 million to offset increased fuel costs for user facilities affected by increased fuel costs.

The committee also added $10 million to maintain the Homestake mine site in Lead, South Dakota, pending a full report on the feasibility of developing the site as a possible deep underground laboratory for physics, geosciences, and extreme biology.

In the Major Research Equipment account the committee added $12.5 million for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope.

The Education and Human Resources account was provided the requested $86.78 million increase, for a total of $872.41 million. Within that account $130 million is identified for the President's Mathematics and Science Partnership Initiative, to be augmented with $60 million from the H-1B visa Nonimmigrant Petitioner receipts.

The EPSCoR activity was increased by $10 million to $85 million and $5 million was added to the Partnerships for Innovation program, bringing it to $15 million. $20 million from the EHR account is specified for a new undergraduate workforce initiative to increase the number of degree recipients in science and engineering.

The Graduate Education program is increased by $15 million (to $110.5 million), reflecting the committees agreement that graduate stipends need to be increased if we are to reverse declining graduate school enrollments. An additional $8 million was targeted to stimulated competitive research in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and the HBCU Undergraduate Program was increased by $2 million (to $16 million).

See also:

• NSF & Congress Archive