Congress and Administration Considering Budgets for Two Fiscal Years

By Steve Pierson posted 04-14-2011 11:07

  
With the president proposing his Fiscal Year 2012 (FY12) budget Monday, February 14, Congress is making its proposals for how to resolve the FY11 budget. Keith Crank and I plan to report the FY12 proposals here in the ASA community:
As a recap on the status of the FY11 budgets, the federal government is operating on a continuing resolution (CR) through April 15. Under the CR, the federal government is (mostly) operating under its FY10 budget. A budget deal appears to be in hand: FY11 Budget Deal: Impacts on Science and Statistical Agency Budgets.

As most know, the House has pledged to roll the FY11 budget back to the FY08 budget levels, creating the potential for huge cuts to science budgets. The House proposed its first round of cuts to reach the FY08 levels. Meanwhile, the president has been highlighting the importance of research investment as part of his broader innovation push.

In the first draft of the House CR for the rest of FY11 -- keeping in mind that conservative Republicans have said the first draft doesn't go far enough -- NIH would stay at its FY10 level and NSF would see a 6% increase over the FY10 budget (because the proposed cuts are relative to the FY11 requested level.) The Department of Energy Office of Science and NIST would see steep cuts: 18% and 14%, respectively.

H.R. 1, the second draft of the House cuts passed February 19 (and that the Senate rejected in early March), contained 5% cuts for NSF and NIH, along with cuts to the Census Bureau and the Energy Information Administration:
As I said in my previous blog on how science will fare in the new congress, "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."

Links to FY11 and FY12 budget developments and related material:
0 comments
181 views

Related Content