Here are the highlights from the omnibus spending bill passed by the House today:
**NSF**:“SEC. 20916. Notwithstanding section 101, the level for ‘National Science Foundation, Research and Related Activities’ shall be $4,665,950,000, of which not to exceed $485,000,000 shall remain available until expended for Polar research and operations support, and for reimbursement to other Federal agencies for operational and science support and logistical and other related activities for the United States Antarctic Program: Provided, That from funds provided under this section, such sums as are necessary shall be available for the procurement of polar icebreaking services: Provided further, That the National Science Foundation shall reimburse the Coast Guard according to the existing memorandum of agreement.”
**DOE OFFICE OF SCIENCE**:‘Department of Energy, Science’, $3,796,393,000;
What does all this mean? Well, the FY2006 budgets for NSF and DOE were $4,387.5 million and $3,596.4 million, respectively (c.f. “http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.2862.enr:”:http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.2862.enr: and “http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app07.html”:http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app07.html). For NSF this is a 6.4% increase, while for DOE science this is a 5.6% increase. According to the language of the Senate Report on DOE science funding from last year (when we were still optimistic), the Senate recommended $4,241.1 million in funding for the office of science. That would have been an 18% increase for the office.
This is a SAD improvement, but at least it’s a step up rather than a step down. I guess the question now is: what will the offices within Science do with an allocation lower than their budget planning anticipated?
You can find the bill here: “http://www.rules.house.gov/110/text/110th_hjres20.pdf”:http://www.rules.house.gov/110/text/110th_hjres20.pdf
