[SWP: I'm updating this 11/16/10 piece by adding links to relevant news stories/releases at the end.]
The November election results are in and the results have intensified the concerns in the scientific community about federal funding of basic research. While only time will tell, here are some guides for the paths NSF and NIH funding may take. Keeping in mind innovation and discovery have no party boundaries, the scientific community must remind returning members of Congress that investment in basic science is critical to American competitiveness and educate the new Members of Congress of the same.
Let me first look at the many factors suggesting flat funding, if not outright cuts to the budget, beyond (or in response to) persistent U.S. budget deficits and a sluggish economy. President Obama pledged early this year to freeze funding at most U.S. agencies for three years and in June directed agencies to develop plans to cut their budgets by 5%.
More recently, House Republicans, through their platform Pledge for America, are saying they will roll back federal agency budgets to fiscal year 2008 (FY08). This has led to the most dire predications, as reported in a NY Times piece entitled, "Money for Scientific Research May Be Scarce With a Republican-Led House," and a AAAS news piece called, "Post-Election Cost-Cutting Could Impact U.S. R&D Funding, AAAS Expert Reports." In the scenario that NSF and NIH were rolled back to FY08 levels, the NYT piece reports, "The National Institutes of Health would lose $2.9 billion, or 9 percent, of its research money. The National Science Foundation would lose more than $1 billion, or almost 19 percent, of its budget." At a time when it is imperative to attract a new generation of Americans to science and engineering, such a cut would be a disastrous signal to send.
Following the AAAS analysis and NYT piece, Nature published an interview ("What do the 2010 election results mean for federal science budgets?") with University of Maryland Professor of Public Policy Allen Schick, in which Schick cites the obstacles to cutting federal spending but stating that budget freezes for science agencies are the optimistic scenario.
Looking at specific members, Congress lost many of its science champions through retirement and electoral defeat, including Congressman Alan Mollohan (D-WV), chair the House panel overseeing NSF’s budget, Congressman Bart Gordon (D-TN), chair of the House Science and Technology Committee, and Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA). We also lost three PhD scientists: Vern Ehlers (R-MI), Bill Foster (D-IL) and Brian Baird (D-WA).
A House Republican effort suggests that social science funding and other merit-based, peer reviewed funding may be at risk in the new Congress. In a video posted on the Majority Whip’s website, Nebraska Congressman Adrian Smith launches the "YouCut Citizen Review," he invites viewers to "identify grants which do not support the hard sciences or which you don’t think are a good use of taxpayer dollars." As examples, he mentions a $750K grant to develop computer models to analyze the on field contributions of soccer players and a $1.2 million grant to model the sound of objects breaking (for use by the video game and movie industries). Both NIH and NSF rely on the peer review processes to critically evaluate fundamental and innovative research.
Let me turn now to some of more encouraging dynamics for how basic research will fare in the next few years. The President's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility released a draft proposal last week list the protection of R&D and education "investments" as a priority. In the President’s press conference the day after the election, he states, "I don’t think we should be cutting back on research and development." Further, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy staff say President Obama remains committed to increasing basic research funding.
Dan Sarewitz in his Nature column ("Double trouble? To throw cash at science is a mistake") predicts NSF will continue to see increased funding because of the past support of Republicans for NSF and because it makes for good politics. As his column title suggests, however, Sarewitz questions whether boosted NSF budgets are good policy at this point.
Picking up on the past support of Republicans that Sarewitz cites, Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) is expected to lead the House Panel in charge of NSF’s budget and he has been a strong support of basic research funding and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. He was one of the champions in the movement fueling President Bush’s American Competitiveness Initiative and the America COMPETES Act.
For NIH, it’s yet to be decided who will the Republican appropriations leaders will be on the House side but the Republican champions of the NIH doubling (1998-2003) are gone. On the Senate side, Senator Mikulski (D-MD) and Senator Harkin (D-IA) will continue chairing the Senate panels in charge of the NSF and NIH budgets, respectively. Mikulski has been very supportive of NSF, but has numerous other interests in her panel’s jurisdiction, including NASA, NIST and NOAA. Harkin has also been supportive of NIH, but his bill has severe constraints.
The first indications of the path taken will happen in the lame duck session of Congress, which begins this week. Congress must take action on the FY11 budget, which may be only to issue another Continuing Resolution (CR) to further extend the FY10 budget into FY11. Whether the Senate acts on the reauthorization of America COMPETES Act in a way to get it signed into law will also be telling.
While waiting to see that path taken, the scientific community—including statisticians—should be active in communicating the importance of NSF and NIH to their elected Members of Congress. The FY11 budgets tentatively approved by House and Senate committees included an 8% increase for NSF and 3% increase for NIH (excluding American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding).
Here are some guides that may be helpful in communicating with Congress:
- This 1996 op-ed piece in the San Jose Mercury News discusses the sometimes obscure value of social science research: "'Absurd' studies of science's puzzles prove their worth."
- The NY Times piece, "Rare Hits and Heaps of Misses to Pay For" discusses why it is important for the federal government to support basic research funding and why’s it’s a difficult venture for the private sector.
- "Retiring Legislators Warn of Pitfalls Facing Science in New Congress," an interview with Congressmen Brian Baird, Alan Mollohan, Bob Inglis, and Sherry Boehler on the topics of explaining the value of research, spending freezes, "negative earmarks," and other topics.
- "Raising above the Gathering Storm revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category Five," discusses the importance of STEM education and investment of basic research.
- Watch also for the online December Amstat News science policy column by Norman R. Augustine, the retired Lockheed Martin CEO and head of the National Academies committee that wrote the "Gathering Storm" reports: http://magazine.amstat.org.
Subsequent updates: