Study: House fattens R&D funds for Defense, Homeland Security

The Defense and Homeland Security departments are the big winners for research and development funds in fiscal 2004 spending bills going through Congress, according to science analysts, but lawmakers appear ready to give other federal agencies little or no funding increases.

In the various appropriations bills, the House would provide $126 billion for R&D funding-an increase of $8.4 billion over fiscal 2003-but 99 percent of the increase would go to three entities: Defense, Homeland Security and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) released those numbers in a new report on Tuesday. The report focuses mostly on the House because it has drafted all 13 annual bills.

AAAS Director Kei Koizumi said that while R&D funding for fiscal 2004 would be a record total, the distribution of funds would be "heavily weighted" toward Defense and Homeland Security at the expense of environmental and technology R&D funding.

The House would boost Defense's R&D funding to another all-time high of $66 billion, a $7.2 billion or 12.3 percent increase, according to the report. Most of the increase of $6.1 billion would go to Defense's weapons-systems development program. The House also voted for a 9.7 percent increase, to $12.3 billion, for science and technology research. R&D funding for Homeland Security would surge by $385 million, or 57.5 percent, to $1.1 billion, the report said.

While the Senate is lagging behind the House in drafting and passing appropriations bills, the chamber is expected to closely follow the House proposals, AAAS said.

For the last five years, NIH has received an annual 15 percent increase in R&D funding, but for fiscal 2004, the House would match President Bush's request for only a 2.7 percent increase. AAAS noted that while R&D spending at NIH would rise "modestly" in percentage terms, the "sheer size" of NIH means that the agency would get a $702 million increase, to $26.9 billion.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) also would fatten its purse, but the increase would fall short of the proposed doubling of foundation funding over five years. The House would provide $4.2 billion for the foundation's R&D initiatives, an increase of 6.2 percent, but the $5.6 billion total NSF budget would be nearly $1 billion short of the $6.6 billion cap authorized in December.

The House backed modest R&D increases for other federal agencies, but the gains would be offset by cuts in other areas, AAAS said.

Energy Department R&D would jump 4.6 percent, to $8.6 billion. NASA, meanwhile, would receive an 0.9 increase in R&D funding, to $11.1 billion, but the funding is pending the investigation of the Columbia space shuttle disaster and a restructuring of NASA's budget.

Departments set to receive cuts in R&D funding include: Agriculture, with a 9.3 percent drop; Transportation, at a 15 percent decrease; and Commerce, which would fall by 21.5 percent. The Commerce cuts would be spread across nearly every departmental R&D program.