President Proposes Increasing Science Agency Budgets

On February 1, President Obama sent his budget request to Congress for the fiscal year that begins October 1, 2010. Although the President announced prior to the release that he planned to hold nondefense discretionary funding flat, he requested an increase for all the science agencies for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2010. In explanatory documents, he indicated that he considers research a priority. He intends to keep NSF, DOE Office of Science, and NIST on the path to doubling their budgets by 2017, and has requested increases of 8%, 4.4% and 7.3% respectively.

The President also has requested a 3.2% increase for NIH, which is equal to the projected annual Biomedical Research and Development Price Index (BRDPI) for 2011. The BRDPI is the biomedical research equivalent of the consumer price index and measures how much NIH expenditures would need to increase to maintain NIH-funded research activity at the previous year’s level. Despite the 3.2% requested increase, NIH funding will still be significantly lower than in 2010 if the stimulus spending of $10 billion is included. NIH Director Francis Collins said that the drop off in funding from the stimulus in 2011 “still keeps him up at night.”

The House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees and full committees have been considering appropriation bills throughout the summer. Once approved by the full committees, the bills must be passed by the full House or Senate.  Once both bodies have completed a bill, a conference committee is put together to iron out difference, and a compromise bill is sent back to both the House and the Senate for a vote. If approved, this bill then goes to the President for his signature.

The President’s request, House and Senate numbers, and the status of each bill for science agencies related to biophysics are below.

FY 2011 Appropriations Science Agencies (in billions)