On January 15, the House Appropriations
Committee released the draft text of the long-awaited and much-negotiated American
Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009, a supplemental appropriations bill forming
the spending part of an $850 billion economic stimulus package to deal with the
current economic crisis. The $550 billion spending bill, the result of negotiations
between the new 111th Congress and the incoming Obama Administration, will be
paired with another bill of $275 billion in tax provisions. The draft bill will
be debated, amended, and revised by the House and the Senate, with hopes of getting
a final version of the bill to President Obama's desk by the middle of February.
This initial AAAS analysis of the stimulus appropriations bill will be followed
shortly by a full, detailed analysis of the potential impacts of the stimulus
on federal R&D funding on the AAAS R&D web site.
The draft stimulus appropriations bill contains $13.3 billion in R&D
funding, $9.9 billion for the conduct of research and development and $3.4 billion
for R&D facilities and large research equipment, mostly extramural. Adding
in another $2.5 billion in non-R&D but science and technology-related funding
brings total science and technology-related funding in the stimulus to nearly
$16 billion. There is also additional money for higher education construction
and other education spending of interest to academia.
The bill requires
nearly all of the funding to be awarded within 120 days of when the President
signs the bill into law, with staggered deadlines of 30 days for formula funds,
90 days for competitive grants, and 120 days for competitive grants in brand-new
programs, with the intention of spending the funding as quickly as possible to
provide immediate economic stimulus.
But in a nod to concerns about possible
waste and fraud in the enormous appropriations bill, there are extensive accountability
and transparency mandates in the bill, including separate appropriations for agency
inspectors general and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to monitor stimulus
spending, a set-aside within programs for oversight spending, and the establishment
of a new Recovery Act Accountability and Transparency Board to monitor and oversee
all spending. There will also be a recovery.gov web site to provide detailed public
disclosure of stimulus spending.
Key R&D funding agency highlights
of the bill include:
National Science Foundation (NSF) - $3.0 billion
(note: FY 2008 total budget $6.0 billion). There would be $2.5 billion for Research
and Related Activities (R&RA), $100 million for education and human resources
programs, and $400 million for major research equipment and facilities construction.
Within R&RA, $2.0 billion would go to research grants, $300 million to the
Major Research Instrumentation program (FY 08: less than $100 million), and $200
million to the Academic Research Infrastructure program, dormant since FY 1996,
for competitively awarded university laboratory construction grants.
National
Institutes of Health (NIH) - $3.9 billion (FY 08: $29.5 billion). $1.5 billion
would be distributed proportionally among the NIH ICs to fund research, divided
equally between FY 2009 and FY 2010 funding of $750 million each year. There would
be $500 million for intramural construction in the Buildings and Facilities account,
and $1.5 billion for competitively awarded extramural construction grants through
a National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) program that has been dormant
for the last few years. And $400 million would be transferred from the Agency
for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) for 'health care comparative effectiveness
research.'
Department of Energy (DOE) energy programs - The bill
would provide $2.0 billion for energy efficiency and renewable research, development,
demonstration, and deployment projects, of which $800 million is set aside for
biomass (FY 08: $198 million) and $400 million for geothermal energy (FY 08: $20
million).
Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science - There
would be $2.0 billion (FY 08: $4.0 billion) for a mix of extramural basic research,
DOE laboratory research, facilities upgrades and construction, and advanced scientific
computing. Of the total, $400 million would be carved out to start up the ARPA-E
(Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy), authorized in the America COMPETES
Act of 2007 but never appropriated until now.
NASA - $600 million
(FY 08: $17.1 billion). There would be $400 million for Science, of which $250
million would be dedicated solely to earth science climate research missions mentioned
in a 2007 National Academies Decadal Study as requiring extra funds to stay on
track, $150 million for aeronautics research, and $50 million for NASA to recover
from 2008 natural disasters.
NIST - $520 million (FY 08: $737
million). There would be $100 million for NIST lab research, $70 million for the
Technology Innovation Program (formerly the ATP), $30 million for the Manufacturing
Extension Partnership, and $300 million for a competitively awarded extramural
construction grants program that was congressionally initiated a few years ago
but only received $30 million for one year.
DOD - There would
be $350 million for energy-related R&D.
HHS BARDA - There
would be $430 million for advanced biodefense countermeasures R&D for (FY
08: $102 million) in the new Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority
(BARDA).
More details will be available shortly.
The complete
series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates on FY 2009 congressional appropriations
is available on the AAAS R&D web site on the "FY 2009
R&D" page. These updates supplement AAAS
Report XXXIII: Research and Development FY 2009, a comprehensive analysis
of R&D in the proposed federal budget for FY 2009 that was published in April.
Also available is a continually updated table on the status
of FY 2009 appropriations.
- January 15, 2009
 Since
1976, the R&D Budget and Policy Program has been providing timely, comprehensive,
and independent analyses of R&D funding trends in the federal budget as a
service to the science, engineering and policymaking communities.
Through its
Web site and email list, the Program makes available continually updated coverage
of R&D funding trends, ongoing budget debates in Congress and the Executive
Branch, and potential impacts of budget legislation. The Web site also offers
a guide to R&D funding data as well as downloadable copies of its printed
reports. Every spring, the Program hosts the annual AAAS
Forum on Science and Technology Policy (formerly the AAAS Colloquium), the
nation’s premier conference devoted to S&T policy. The next Forum will
be held May 8-9, 2008, in Washington, DC.
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