PoliSci: Inflation cuts research budget

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Federal funding for basic research will hold steady, which means it will be cut by inflation, under the Bush administration's proposed budget for fiscal year 2006.

The White House figures, released Monday, add some funds and cut some for a net change -- if one actually does the math -- of less than one-thousandth of 1 percent in the budget proposed for fundamental research at the civilian agencies.

Basic research is part of $132.3 billion proposed for federally funded research and development. The record-setting number is an increase of $773 million over the R&D spending for FY 2005.

A good deal of the R&D money is for more outcome-oriented defense-related work and development programs, however. Though valuable, this generally not the sort of open-ended "poking around in things" that leads to fundamental discoveries. That sort of activity is supported primarily by civilian agencies, with the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy providing the largest share. NASA also is responsible for a large portion of the basic research budget, though its share often takes the form of large projects.

Information provided by the White House showed an increase of $28 million in actual dollars for civilian science and technology spending. That $28 million is being added to last year's budget of $55.3 billion for fundamental research -- a tiny but positive change.

The problem is inflation, while still very low -- 3.3 percent last year, according to the Department of Labor -- so, over all, basic research lost ground in terms of real spending power.

The NSF was one agency that got a boost -- on paper anyway. It received a total of $5.605 billion, an increase of $132 million or 2.4 percent over last year. Taking inflation into account, though, it turns out to be roughly a 1 percent cut.

Not all of the increase is going to new research, either. Part of the budget increase was a program transfer slated to pay for overhead. The Coast Guard transferred to NSF its budget for three ice breakers used primarily to keep the lifeline open to the foundation's research facilities in Antarctica. The ice breakers are valuable, but this means the real increase for new research at NSF was closer to $84 million.

The small increase -- and real-dollar decrease -- will be felt at the lab level.

"The not-so-good news," Arden Bement, NSF's director, told reporters Monday, is the foundation expects to fund only about 20 percent of the proposals it receives this year. During the 1990s, NSF funded around 30 percent. Bement blamed it on an increasing number of proposals, which is no doubt true, but there also was less money back then and one wonders what a careful analysis would reveal.

The NSF increase was neatly offset by a cut of $137 million to science programs at the Department of Energy. Every other DOE science program took hits, too, with renewable energy research getting cut by $26 million (7 percent), electricity distribution by $17 million (17 percent), nuclear energy by $4 million (1 percent), conservation by $20 million (3 percent) and fossil fuels by $81 million (14 percent).

Even the National Institutes of Health, which has received substantial increases for the past five years, eked out a proposed increase of only $163 million or 1 percent for FY 2006. Its planned increase for next year is paltry compared to that of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

NIST, part of the Department of Commerce, is slated to receive an increase of $34 million for its intramural laboratories. The request, if granted by Congress, would give the program a total of $485 million next year, an 8 percent increase.

The White House also decided -- again -- to zero out NIST's Advance Technology Program. Only time will tell if Congress -- also again -- will put the money back. Also hit was the department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, from which the White House proposed to cut $43 million or 11 percent.

Research programs at the Department of the Interior squeaked by with only a $1 million cut, and the Agriculture Department limped out of the budget process with a loss of $200 million for its research programs compared to last year. That outcome might not be quite as grim as it could have been, because most of those cuts came from block grants and not peer-reviewed research, said Martin Apple, president of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents.

Despite the inflation-driven downward trend, the truth is it could have been worse. It is a tight budget year with the tax cuts and the war in Iraq eating a hole in the nation's pocketbook. Last year, the Office of Management and Budget had predicted greater cuts.

John Marburger, director of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, looked a bit relieved just before the budget briefing on Monday.

"It's actually pretty good," he told United Press International. "There is an actual increase in non-defense Science and Technology."

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E-mail ddivis@upi.com