US govt research budget for FY2006

On December 30, nearly three months into the federal 2006 fiscal year (FY2006), President Bush signed the final appropriations bills into law.

Although the enacted Research & Development expenditure climbed by 1.7% to $134.8 billion, 97% of this increase goes to only two areas:  defense weapons development and technologies for human space exploration.  Funding for all other federal R&D programs falls an average 2% after adjusting for inflation.  The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has prepared a summary of the R&D budget impacts:

• National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget falls for the first time in 36 years
• National Science Foundation (NSF) budget fell in 2005 but rebounds somewhat in 2006.  New expenses for polar ice-breakers leave NSF with less real money for R&D than any of the last three years.
  
• Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science budget declines
• Department of Defense (DOD)’s basic research funding declines, despite big increases in development funding.  The Defense appropriations bill contained emergency supplements for Gulf Coast reconstruction, avain flu preparedness, and military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.  These necessitated a 1% across-the-board cut elsewhere.
• National Aeronautics and Space Administation (NASA) has a budget of $16.6 billion in FY2006, an increase of 2.5% or $400 million, but $350 million of the increase is earmarked to repair facilities damaged by Hurricane Katrina.  There are big changes in the allocations within an essentially flat NASA budget.  The R&D funding climbs 6.2% or $661 million to reach $11.4 billion.  But the entire increase and more is going to applied research on the next generation of human space vehicles.  The area of Earth Science research, in which Dr. Verter (the webmistress) is employed, has been cut 8.3%