From the Hill – Summer 2014
Details of administration’s proposed FY2015 budget
Officially released March 4, President Obama’s FY2015 budget makes clear the challenges for R&D support currently posed by the Budget Control Act spending caps. With hardly any additional room available in the discretionary budget above FY 2014 levels, and with three-quarters of the post-sequester spending reductions still in place overall, many agency R&D budgets remain essentially constant. Some R&D areas such as climate research and support for fundamental science that have been featured in past budgets did not make much fiscal headway in this year’s request. Nevertheless, the administration has managed to shift some additional funding to select programs such as renewable energy and energy efficiency, advanced manufacturing, and technology for infrastructure and transportation.
An added twist, however, is the inclusion of $5.3 billion in additional R&D spending above and beyond the current discretionary caps that is part of what the administration calls the Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative (OGSI). This extra funding would make a significant difference for science and innovation funding throughout government. Congress, however, has shown little interest in embracing it.
Without the OGSI the president’s proposed FY2015 budget includes a small reduction in R&D funding in constant dollars. Current AAAS estimates place R&D in the president’s request at $136.5 billion (see Table 1). This represents a 0.7% increase above FY 2014 levels but is actually a slight decrease when the 1.7% inflation rate is considered. It also represents a 3.8% increase above FY 2013 post-sequester funding levels, but with inflation the total R&D budget is almost unchanged from FY 2013.
The Department of Defense (DOD) R&D is proposed at $70.8 billion or 0.3% above FY 2014 levels. This is due to boosts in R&D at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) that offsets cuts in other DOD R&D programs. Nondefense R&D is proposed at $65.7 billion, a 1.2% increase above FY 2014 levels.
Total research funding, which includes basic and applied research, would fall to $65.9 billion, a cut of $1.1 billion or 1.7% below FY 2014 levels, and only about 1.1% above FY 2013 post-sequester levels after inflation. This is in large part due to cuts in defense and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) research activities, though some NASA research has also been reclassified as development, which pushes the number lower without necessarily reflecting a change in the actual work.
Conversely, development activities would increase by $2.1 billion or 3.2%, due to increases in these activities at DOD, NASA, and the Department of Energy (DOE).
The $56-billion OGSI initiative would include $6.3 billion for R&D, which would mean a 4.6% increase from FY2014.
R&D spending should be understood in the larger context of the federal budget. The discretionary spending (everything except Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security) share of the budget has shrunk to 30.4% and is projected to reach 24.6% in 2019. R&D outlays as a share of the budget would drop to 3.4%, a 50-year low.
Under the president’s proposal only a few agency R&D budgets, including those at DOE, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Department of Transportation (DOT), stay ahead of inflation, but many will be above sequester levels, and total R&D requests increased more than the average for discretionary spending.
TABLE 1. R&D in the FY 2015 budget by agency (budget authority in millions of dollars)
Source: OMB R&D data, agency budget justifications, and agency budget documents. Does not include Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative funding (see Table II-20). Note: The projected GDP inflation rate between FY 2014 and FY 2015 is 1.7 percent. All figures are rounded to the nearest million. Changes calculated from unrounded figures.
At DOE, the energy efficiency, renewable energy, and grid technology programs are marked for significant increases, as is the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E); the Office of Science is essentially the same; and nuclear and fossil energy technology programs are reduced.
The proposed budget includes an increase of more than 20% for NASA’s Space Technology Directorate, which seeks rapid public-private technology development. Cuts are proposed in development funding for the next-generation crew vehicle and launch system.
Department of Agriculture extramural research would receive a large increase even as the agency’s intramural research funding is trimmed, though significantly more funding for both is contained within the OGSI.
The DOD science & technology budget, which includes basic and applied research, advanced technology development, and medical research funded through the Defense Health Program, would be cut by $1.4 billion or 10.3% below FY 2014 levels. A 57.8% cut in medical research is proposed, but Congress is likely to restore much of this funding, as it has in the past. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is slated for a small increase.
The National Institute of Health (NIH) would continue on a downward course. The president’s request would leave the NIH budget about $4.1 billion in constant dollars or 12.5% below the FY 2004 peak. Some of the few areas seeing increased funding at NIH would include translational science, neuroscience and the BRAIN Initiative, and mental health. The additional OGSI funding would nearly, but not quite, return the NIH budget to pre-sequestration levels.
The apparently large cut in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) R&D funding is primarily explained by the reduction in funding for construction of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, a Biosafety Level 4 facility in Kansas. Other DHS R&D activities would be cut a little, and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office would receive a funding increase.
One bright note in this constrained fiscal environment is that R&D spending fared better than average in the discretionary budget, Looking ahead, there is much more cause for concern. Unless Congress takes action, the overall discretionary budget will return to sequester levels in FY2016 and remain there for the rest of the decade.
In brief
- On April 24, the National Science Board issued a statement articulating concerns over some portions of the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology Act (FIRST Act; H.R. 4186) which would reauthorize funding for NSF, among other things. The board expressed its “greatest” concern that “the bill’s specification of budget allocations to each NSF Directorate would significantly impede NSF’s flexibility to deploy its funds to support the best ideas in fulfillment of its mission.”
- On April 28, the House passed the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 994; also known as the DATA Act), sending the bill to President Obama for signature. The bill seeks to improve the “availability, accuracy, and usefulness” of federal spending information by setting standards for reporting government spending on contracts, grants, etc. The legislation would also require that the Office of Management and Budget develop a two-year pilot program to evaluate reporting by recipients of federal grants and contracts and to reduce duplicative reporting requirements.
- On April 22, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to uphold the state of Michigan’s ban on using race as a factor in admissions for higher education institutions. In a 6-2 ruling, the Court determined that it is not in violation of the U.S. Constitution for states to prohibit public colleges and universities from using forms of racial preferences in admissions. In his opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy stated: “This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved. It is about who may resolve it. There is no authority in the Constitution of the United States or in this court’s precedents for the judiciary to set aside Michigan laws that commit this policy determination to the voters.”
- On March 27, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced legislation on forensic science. The Criminal Justice and Forensic Science Reform Act (S. 2177) “promotes national accreditation and certification standards and stronger oversight for forensic labs and practitioners, as well as the development of best practices and a national forensic science research strategy.” The bill would create an Office of Forensic Science within the Office of the Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice and would also require that the office coordinate with NIST. It would require that forensic science personnel who work in laboratories that receive federal funding be certified in their fields and that all forensic science labs that receive federal funding be accredited according to standards set by a Forensic Science Board.