NSF Loses Out in Appropriations Bill
Peter Harsha, the Director of Government Affairs for the Computing Research Association, is reporting on his blog today that the possibly-final FY08 appropriations bill severely cuts back on the budget increases that were previously proposed for NSF and NIST.
In a nutshell, the earlier appropriations proposals were roughly in line with the Administration’s American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI), calling for a doubling of the NSF, NIST, and DOE Office of Science budgets over the next 10 years. This translated into an appropriations bill calling for about a 10.5% budget increase for NSF for FY08. Unfortunately, when the overall appropriations bill came in$23B over the President’s cap amount, the threat of a veto caused the Congress to do some cutting. To say the least, it is extremely disappointing that Congress opted to cut science funding, despite the bipartisan support for the ACI, in order to preserve a number of other budget increases and earmarks.
The budget process is not over yet, but according to Harsha, this is a very, very serious setback. It now appears that the final appropriations bill will show a decrease in the NSF budget for FY08, after adjusting for inflation.
Argh. A link to Peter Harsha’s computing research policy blog can be found on the blogroll of this page. Peter’s analysis of the defense appropriations bill can also be found there.
Peter Lee @ December 17, 2007