Anxiety Over What Spending Cuts Might Mean For Science Funding In 2011
With Republicans now controlling the U.S. House of Representatives, we can’t help but note the deepening anxiety in the scientific community over what the GOP’s promises of spending cuts might mean for the federal funding of science in 2011.
Though there was once hope for a $750 million increase in funding for the National Institutes of Health in 2011, for the time-being spending for the NIH is frozen at 2010 levels through March 4, thanks to a continuing resolution passed by the Congress in late December.
While some are keeping fingers crossed that the NIH budget in 2011 will stay at 2010 levels, there’s growing fear that even that may be a stretch, since the Republicans say they’ll stick to their guns on their promise to slash non-defense discretionary spending to levels seen in 2008.
Then there’s Representative Ralph Hall (R-Texas), the House Committee on Science and Technology’s new chairman, and the issue of what the passage of the America COMPETES Act of 2010 will and won’t mean for science funding in the years to come.
Hall raised a bit of a stink when the House went to vote on the America COMPETES Act of 2010, which reauthorizes spending for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the National Science Foundation. It also endorses a 10-year doubling of these institutes over the next decade and spells out how the NSF is to train the next generation of scientists. The bill passed the House on Dec. 21 and was signed into law by President Barack Obama on Tuesday.
A team of reporters over at Nature News writes that Hall’s big beef with the reauthorization of America COMPETES had to do with the fact “he would rather scrutinize and vote on each science programme funded by the bill than give agencies … a wholesale increase.”
Even as President Barack Obama ran through a list of other achievements made during the lame duck session ahead of the holiday, ScienceInsider’s Eli Kintisch writes he was notably quiet about the passage of the bill. “That omission may signal trouble, as passage of the act doesn’t guarantee its funding,” writes Brandon Keim of Wired Science. “In January and February, Congress will decide how much money will actually be spent on it,” he writes.
Science’s Jeffery Mervis writes about how unlike the first COMPETES Act, which was backed by President George W. Bush and Democratic leaders alike in 2007, the reauthorization of the COMPETES Act “quickly became partisan, with Democrats calling it he best way to ensure long-term economic prosperity and Republicans complaining its cost would stifle job creation rather than encourage it.”
Republican’s haven’t exactly been quiet about their skepticism over the funding of some NSF projects. Last month, targeted the federal dollars going to NSF in the inaugural YouCut Citizen Review which asked Americans to weigh in on NSF grants they judged to be “wasteful or … don’t think are a good use of taxpayer dollars.”
“Full funding of the COMPETES Act is among the most important things that Congress can do to ensure America’s continued leadership in the decades ahead, “John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote of the reauthorization of the COMPETES Act on the White House blog.
“As the Chairman of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, I look forward to working with my Committee to provide effective oversight, eliminate wasteful spending, and help ensure America’s leadership in innovation,” Hall wrote in a statement marking the convening of the 112th Congress. “Advancements in science and technology will create jobs, keep the U.S. at the forefront of innovation, drive economic growth and give Americans a greater standard of living.”
“How will it be possible to invest more in research when many are calling for cutbacks?,” Nature News asked outgoing Chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.). “It’s going to be a challenge. We’re seeing a little increase in the public-sector research dollars and we’re seeing a decrease in private-sector funding. In the rest of the world many are trying to do both: their private and public sectors are investing more. We’re going to have to rally the private sector, the universities and everyone who cares about this to show its importance.”
One more thing, Gordon noted, when asked about tips for his successor: “Try to maintain the civility that allowed us to work together [in the past]. I tried to bring the Republicans in early to make them a part of the process. It made our bills better, and because of that we were able to go to the floor with a unified effort and pass legislation in a bipartisan manner — and if you want legislation to continue here, it needs to be bipartisan.”
