SSTI Digest

When one looks beyond the first few pages of many sections of the agencies’ fiscal year 2008 budget request summaries, the mental concept of a television rerun appears. As SSTI staff pored through the budget this week, several found ourselves saying, “Didn’t we read the same thing last year?”

In many cases, we did. And why not? Congress failed to consider most of the president’s budget proposals for FY 2007 when the same political party ruled the executive and legislative branches, so why not float the ideas again when power is split? Could they fare any worse than FY07 when so few budget priorities have emerged?

Now some will say hold on. That could be a little too harsh an assessment of what’s going on in FY07. There are a few highlights this budget go-around:

In fiscal year 2008, President Bush proposes $11.42 billion total to support the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) across the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy’s Office of Science (DOE SC), and the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology laboratories (NIST). This reflects an overall funding increase of $764 million, or 7.2 percent, above his proposed 2007 ACI Research Budget of $10.66 billion.



As a centerpiece of ACI, the president plans to double, over 10 years, investment in innovation-enabling research across the three federal agencies:

In this year’s State of the Union Address, President Bush announced that his FY 2008 budget request would contain funding to support research to eliminate the projected growth of automobile carbon dioxide emission within 10 years. The key agency in the president’s effort is the Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), which would receive $1.54 billion under the proposed FY08 budget. While stating the area was a priority in the address, the current request is approximately $109 million less than the FY07 request (6.5 percent decrease). Most of the decrease is explained by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as being a result of NASA no longer considering its Ground Network and Research Range a part of CCSP.

 

The Administration request of $89 billion for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) budget is predicated on passage of the Administration’s version of the 2007 Farm Bill proposals. As designed, the Administration's 2007 farm bill proposals would spend approximately $10 billion less than the 2002 farm bill spent over the past five years, according to the USDA press release.



Approximately three-fourths of annual USDA budget outlays are for mandatory spending programs such as nutrition assistance, conservation, export promotion and farm commodity programs. The remaining balance of nearly $22 billion is for discretionary spending, which includes all USDA research and TBED-related programs.

The Administration's FY 2008 discretionary budget request for the Department of Commerce (DOC) is $6.55 billion, a decrease in discretionary spending of $76 million from the FY06 appropriation. The department’s full-time equivalent staff would increase by 4,700 people between FY06 and FY08.

 

Funding for every DOC program or office supporting state and local TBED and traditional economic development programs would be cut deeply or proposed for elimination.

 

The Economic Development Administration (EDA), the agency charged with promoting regional economic development in distressed communities, would receive $202.8 million. The FY06 appropriation was $280.4 million. The cut would be entirely absorbed in the amount of funds available for grants to communities. FY08 EDA grant funds would decrease by 32 percent over the FY06 appropriation. EDA administrative expenses and staff size, however, would increase by 10 percent and 9 percent, respectively.

The Administration’s FY 2008 budget request for the Department of Defense (DoD) totals $481.4 billion, an 11.3 percent increase over FY07. [Note: DoD’s FY07 appropriations bill was one of only two passed before the current fiscal year began. As a result, SSTI is able to provide comparisons between the FY08 request and the FY07 appropriations. Variance between FY08 request and FY07 appropriations is provided in parentheses.]

 

Science and technology in the department does not share the rapid rate of growth, though. As has been the case in every presidential budget proposal since FY02, the Administration’s FY08 request for DoD basic, applied and advanced technology development is less than the prior year appropriation. All stages of R&D are expecting cuts in this year’s budget: the request for basic research has fallen to $1.43 billion (8 percent decrease), applied research has been cut to $4.36 billion (18.6 percent decrease), and the request for advanced technology development has been reduced even more sharply to $4.99 billion (22.4 percent decrease).

 

According to the U.S. Department of Education (ED), federal funding represents only 8.9 percent of America’s spending on elementary and secondary education during the 2006-07 school year. That share in FY 2008 would be $56 billion according to the Administration’s budget request for the agency.



As in previous requests, the Administration’s FY08 budget request strives to eliminate a large number of programs, replacing many with a consolidated, but smaller, block grant program. Many of the 44 programs slated for termination address specific fields of study or population groups (e.g., economics education, mentally ill). The largest program on the chopping block, at $770 million, is for Federal Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants, which provides need-based grant aid to eligible undergraduate students to help reduce financial barriers to postsecondary education.



The FY08 education budget includes specialized funding toward several K-12 math and science programs: