Update on Continuing Resolution of US Budget

I wrote earlier on the predicament that US science funding is in for the fiscal year 2007, due to Congress action (or inaction) by adopting the 2006 budget. I also copied the letter from the American Physical Society that gave the link to write to various US congress representatives to highlight the harm it would do to science, and physics in particular, if this is adopted till the end of the current fiscal year.

This is now a positive development on this matter. It appears that the US Congress is ready to pass a resolution adopting the 2007 budget for science funding. This means that many of the alloted money for the DOE and NSF could be restored.

House Joint Resolution 20, which will be taken up tomorrow by the full House, gives NSF a $334 million increase in its $4.3 billion research account, the full 7.7% boost requested under ACI. DOE's $3.6 billion Office of Science would increase by only $200 million rather than the $505 million requested. But the legislation wipes out some $130 million in congressional earmarks in 2006 and gives office head Raymond Orbach the right to add that amount to DOE research programs. Likewise, NIST research would grow by $60 million (the administration requested a $104 million jump) because the legislation frees up $137 million in earmarks.

However, pay attention also to this part of the report:

Last month, the new Democratic majority in Congress said it planned to extend that rule for the remaining 8 months of FY2007, with minimal adjustments to deal with pressing problems caused by a year-long budget freeze.

That's when the scientific community went to work. Professional and academic organizations joined other science advocates in pushing for research spending to be considered a national priority. They urged legislators to support a 2007 budget proposal by President George W. Bush, called the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) (ScienceNOW, 26 September 2006:), that called for a nearly $1 billion increase in the research budgets at NSF, DOE's Office of Science, and NIST in 2007 as part of a 10-year doubling, and to find additional money for NIH, which was scheduled for a 1% reduction.

So, if you had participated in this, and had written to your representatives, I would like to sent my sincere thanks! While we are not out of the woods yet (and I'll wait till this is signed by the president to start celebrating), it does mean that many of the programs and projects that were slated either to be cut, suspended, or even totally eliminated, might survive after all. Science in the US would have had a huge hole to dig itself out of if this didn't change.

So again, thank you, people. Way to go!

Zz.