Federal S&T Spending Levels Off After Declining

The final appropriation for federal science and technology (FS&T) for FY 1997 is $43.4 billion, a slight increase (0.7 percent) over the FY 1996 appropriation, according to a new report by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

The budget is 5.0 percent less than it was in FY 1994, and would be 9.7 percent less than in FY 1994 if the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was not included. Overall, only two of ten major science and technology agencies and departments, the National Science Foundation and HHS, have more FS&T funding in FY 1997 than they had in FY 1994.

NAS considers that "part of the federal R&D budget that is devoted each year to expanding fundamental knowledge and creating new technologies" as the FS&T budget. It does not include, for example, the part of federal R&D devoted to the production engineering, testing and evaluation, and upgrading of large weapons and related systems.

FS&T appropriations by agency for FY 1997 is:

HHS $12,998,000,000 Defense 7,816,000,000 Energy 5,426,000,000 NSF 2,424,000,000 Agriculture 1,543,000,000 Others 1,114,000,000 Commerce 1,004,000,000 Transportation 626,000,000 EPA 593,000,000 Interior 573,000,000 TOTAL $43,380,000,000