FY06 – Selected Agency and Program Budget Highlights
Homeland Security
After several years of double-digit budget increases, investment in the Department of Homeland Security’s R&D programs would slow dramatically—with Congress raising the budget less than 2 percent for FY 06. There is some shifting of investment within the DHS R&D portfolio; high priority research and technologies—such as radiological, nuclear, and chemical countermeasures—are slated for a healthy boost, at the expense of other areas, such as threat and vulnerability assessment, standards development, rapid prototyping, and cyber security which would suffer significant cuts. Biological countermeasures remain the top DHS priority, based on high funding levels. In other FY 06 highlights:
- DHS proposes to complete its consolidation of all its R&D activities into the department’s science and technology directorate.
- Congressional appropriators have approved more than $3 billion for supporting state and local first responders. This includes hundreds of millions of dollars for formula grants, firefighter grants, state and local law enforcement terrorism prevention grants, first responder training, port security, and rail and transit security. A new Presidential Directive calls for targeting funding based on threat and risk.
National Science Foundation
The campaign to double the NSF budget by FY 07 is being pushed to the back burner by the new budget realities created by the events of September 11th and the war in Iraq. After an FY 05 decline, the House would provide $5.65 billion—slightly more than last year and a small increase above the President’s request—and the Senate an even smaller addition. At these funding levels, research grants would be squeezed.
The House, the Senate, and the Administration would deliver a hard blow to NSF’s education and training programs. For example, the President proposed $737 million for these programs, down from $841 million in FY 05 (on top of a similar sized cut the year before). The House would provide $807 million, and the Senate $747 million.
National Institutes of Health
It appears the steam is running out on favorable treatment for the National Institutes of Health. The House has allocated $28 billion for NIH—a mere 0.5 increase, a slow down from the 3 percent increase in FY 05. The Senate provides $29 billion ($900 million over the President’s request). This would be the first time in more than two decades that the NIH budget would fail to keep pace with inflation.
NASA
The Congress likes the President’s new vision for missions to the moon and Mars, rewarding NASA with more than a 7 percent increase for R&D (to more than $16 billion). The FY 06 funding: includes $3.1 billion for space exploration, restores the aeronautics research program to the enacted levels of $906 million, and provides $40 million over the President’s request to partially restore funding for NASA’s science programs.
Hydrogen Fuel Initiative
The President’s Hydrogen Fuel Initiative and related vehicle program have drawn strong
support from both the House and the Senate. The President
proposed spending $1.7 billion over five years on his Hydrogen Fuel Initiative and the FreedomCar partnership focused on developing technologies needed to produce, store, and distribute hydrogen for fuel-cell vehicles, and technologies that will lead to those
vehicles. For FY 06, the President proposed $260 million for the
Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, and $100 million for FreedomCar
and vehicle technologies — increases over FY 05 for all elements
of the program. House and Senate appropriations would fully fund the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative and FreedomCar.
TechVision21 Inside View: While these funds are focused on R&D, technology development and validation, the President’s hydrogen program will have to address issues that go beyond R&D. For example, given the low demand for fuel cell vehicles, investment in developing hydrogen delivery infrastructure is too risky right now for the private sector. And as fuel cells move onto production vehicles, new safety and insurance codes and standards will need to be developed.
Nanotechnology
The President requested slightly over $1 billion for the
National Nanotechnology Initiative (NII). Because program
funding for the NII is spread across a number of Federal agencies,
the total Congressional appropriation for this initiative will not be tallied for some time. Eleven Federal agencies fund
nanotechnology R&D under the NII, and another 11 participate in coordination. Recent agency additions to the NII include the
Patent and Trademark Office, and the Consumer Product Safety
Commission — a signal that the NII is beginning to think about commercialization activities.
Department of Commerce
The battle in Washington over the Advanced Technology
Program and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership
continues. For the fourth time, the Bush (II) Administration has sought to shut down the Advanced Technology Program (ATP), an
industry-led, cost-shared emerging technology development grant program. And, once again, the House goes along with the President’s wishes, appropriating no funds for ATP. However, the Senate—believing that ATP’s economic benefits justify the
investment—would fund ATP at $140 million. Within that amount, the Senate recommends that $60 million be used to fund new awards. Last year, the budget was cut so severely that ATP was unable to award any new grants.
In FY 04, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) was on life support, its budget slashed down to $39 million, but Congress resuscitated the program with an FY 05 budget of $108 million. Now, the House and Senate are united in their
support—to the tune of $106 million—for the popular MEP centers, a program that has been targeted by the Administration for major reductions, including a two-thirds cut back to $46 million for FY 06. Such a steep reduction would mean more tough times for the MEP centers.
For more information on any of these Administration initiatives,
and how they may affect your organization, please contact
us at info@techvision21.com or
(202) 263-0168.
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