[R&D Budget] AAAS R&D Budget Update - Dec 22

[Patrick Clemins]

FY 2011 Appropriations: Continuing Resolution Through March 4, 2011
Congress passed the Continuing Appropriations and Surface
Transportation Extensions Act, 2011 (H.R.3082) (
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:hr3082: ) on December 21,
just hours before the third continuing resolution (CR) of the FY 2011
appropriations cycle expired. This appropriations cycle has been
particularly dynamic with the House passing an over 150 page year-long
CR earlier in December only to have it replaced by a nearly 2000-page
omnibus bill in the Senate which was pulled from consideration during
floor debate when Republican support for the bill evaporated after an
intense lobbying effort by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
to his Republican colleagues. A short-term extension of federal funding
at FY 2010 levels sets up a face-off in the new Congress between the
newly elected House Republican majority which is pushing for $100
billion in discretionary cuts and the Democrat-led Senate early in
2011.
 
Summaries of Congressional action on the FY 2011 Budget and funding
tables are posted at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/fy2011/.
 
Congress Passes America COMPETES Reauthorization
As part of a flurry of Congressional activity at the end of the
lame-duck session, Congress passed the America COMPETES Reauthorization
Act of 2010 (H.R.5116) (
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:hr5116: ). The scope of the
final bill was scaled down from the original House bill passed back at
the end of May to ease its passage in the lame-duck session, but it
still contains a significant amount of policy guidance relating to
innovation, workforce development, and education. The bill also
reaffirms the 10-year budget doubling track of the Department of
Energy's Office of Science, the National Institute of Standards and
Technology, and the National Science Foundation. A authorization of
appropriations funding table and charts are available at
http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/COMPETES/.
 
Congress Passes Defense Authorization for FY 2011
Congress passed the Ike Skelton National Defense Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 2011 (H.R.6523) (
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:hr6523: ) this morning. The
bill is similar to the Defense authorization bill that passed the House
(H.R.5136 ( http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:hr5136: )) back
in May with some controversial provisions removed to expedite its
passage. The bill authorizes $10.1 billion for Army Research,
Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E), $17.9 billion for Navy RDT&E,
$27.3 billion for Air Force RDT&E, and $21.3 billion for Defense-wide
RDT&E for a total of $76.6 billion, just short of the $76.8 billion in
the President's FY 2011 budget request.
 

Post Election Outlook for R&D Funding
While reining in the deficit is a priority for both Democrats and
Republicans, both parties have different plans on how to do so. However,
both parties agree that reduced government spending will be part of that
plan, and with that reduced government spending, federal support for R&D
will likely be subject to some of the cost-cutting measures. The
bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (
http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/ ) listed investment in "high-value
research" as one of its guiding principles, while Ralph Hall (R-TX), the
new chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee has promised
to increase oversight on R&D programs. This could add up to cuts for
specific R&D programs while the overall R&D investment is spared the
worst of the budget decreases.  See http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/#election
for more detailed analysis.
 
Fiscal Plan Recommendations and R&D Funding
The President's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform
( http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/ ) failed to get the required 14 votes
to force a Senate vote on its fiscal plan, but 11 of the 18 commission
members, a majority, did express their support for the final report, far
more than many anticipated. The 66-page report titled, The Moment of
Truth (
http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/sites/fiscalcommission.gov/files/documents/TheMomentofTruth12_1_2010.pdf
), recommends a combination of tax restructuring, discretionary spending
cuts, and adjustments to mandatory programs to save nearly $4 trillion
through 2020 and reduce the yearly federal deficit to 2.3% of Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) by 2015, exceeding the President's goal of 3% of
GDP. While the President's debt commission report may be the most widely
publicized set of recommendations to reduce the national debt, a number
of other fiscal plans to curb the federal deficit have been released
previously and many of these plans contain similar recommendations. What
do all these recommendations mean for the federal R&D enterprise? See
http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/#fiscalPlans for an analysis of the various
recommendations included in these fiscal plans.
 
R&D Tax Credit Extended
The R&D tax credit was extended to December 31, 2011 as part of the Tax
Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of
2010 (H.R.4853) ( http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:hr4853:
). The President has proposed a permanent and increased tax credit (
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/fact_sheet_re-credit_9-8-10.pdf
), but that will have to wait until the next Congress.
 
R&D Budget and Policy Program's Twitter Feed
Stay on top of the FY 2011 / FY 2012 budget process with Twitter
updates from the AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program. The new Twitter
feed will not replace this email list, but it does offer more frequent
updates.  Follow the R&D Budget and Policy Program now at
http://twitter.com/AAAS_RDBudget/ so you can be alerted when Congress
acts on the FY 2011 budget and receive details about the President's FY
2012 budget request when it's released the first Monday in February.
 

Patrick J. Clemins
Director, R&D Budget and Policy Program
American Association for the Advancement of Science
1200 New York Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20005
T: +1 202 326 6607
E: pclemins at aaas.org
W: http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/
 
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