AIP FYI #44: Senate Appropriations Hearing on NSF

“One can say that I am beginning to feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick
the football that Lucy is holding,” Chairman Christopher Bond (R-MO) told
Administration witnesses at yesterday’s hearing on the FY 2004 National
Science Foundation request. Bond and Ranking Minority Member Barbara
Mikulski (D-MD) have had highly visible roles in advocating a doubling of
the foundation’s budget. Both were displeased that the Bush Administration
had requested an increase of only 3.2% in the NSF budget for next year.
Bond predicted that he would find more money.

Congress is a very busy place these days, and as a consequence, only Bond
and Mikulski attended this one-hour hearing. The two senators will be
writing the FY 2004 VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies appropriation bill,
now expected to be out in May. Several themes arose at yesterday’s
hearing.

One, Bond and Mikulski are on the same page in their support of higher
budgets for NSF. Both used exactly the same words – paltry and
disappointing- in describing the request. Both said that it was not an NSF
budget, but an Office of Management and Budget budget. Mikulski: We were
“disappointed last year in the NSF budget and we still are.” There is no
discernable difference in the positions of these two powerful senators on
greater NSF funding.

Two, Bond and Mikulski continue to be frustrated at the funding disparity
between NSF and the National Institutes of Health. Chairman Bond cited the
recommendation of a panel of the President ‘s Council of Advisors on Science
and Technology (PCAST) that funding for physical sciences and engineering
reach a parity with that for life sciences. Bond: “…while federal support
in life sciences has increased significantly, the combined share of the
funding for the physical sciences and engineering has not kept pace.” “I am
alarmed by this disparity because the decline in funding for the physical
sciences has put our Nation’s capabilities for scientific innovation at
risk.”

Three, within the NSF request, the senators identified specific programs
that should be augmented. Chairman Bond cited the request for smaller and
under represented research institutions, nanotechnology, and the plant
genome program. Mikulski spoke of the total amount of money requested for
research. Both cited under funding of the Tech Talent program.

Four, Bond still is troubled by certain aspects of NSF’s management,
especially its “management and oversight of its large research facilities.”
He said he was “disappointed” about some of the findings in the NSF’s
Inspector General’s written testimony.

Five, the foundation’s prioritization process for large facility projects
is “also a concern” to Bond. He spoke of “some large gaps” in the
description of this process in the budget justification sent to Congress.
In concluding his written remarks, Bond told NSF Director Rita Colwell “all
these accomplishments [over the last five years] will be overshadowed by the
management problems if they remain unresolved.” It should be noted that at
last year’s NSF hearing Bond was visibly frustrated in his remarks about
management issues, and seemed much less so at yesterday’s hearing.

Six, Bond is interested in the independence of the National Science Board’s
operations, and was not happy that the Administration had requested no money
for the board in FY 2004. He expects the Administration to request
supplemental funding for the board.

Seven, it is not unusual for appropriators to be somewhat leery of
authorization bills. That was not the case at yesterday’s hearing. Bond
cited the NSF Authorization Act that puts the foundation on a track to
double its budget, telling OSTP Director John Marburger that President Bush
had signed this legislation. Bond also said that a panel of PCAST members,
which Marburger co-chairs, had recommended much higher funding for the
physical sciences. “What happened?,” asked Bond, adding that the request
was inconsistent with both this law and the PCAST panel’s recommendation.
Marburger replied that when the foundation’s request was written the FY
2003 NSF budget had not been passed. Bond was not persuaded, saying that
the two appropriations committee reports both contained significant
increases for NSF. Marburger responded that the foundation’s requested
increase was significantly higher than that for other R&D agencies, and that
this boded well for the future.

Richard M. Jones

Media and Government Relations Division

The American Institute of Physics

fyi@aip.org

(301) 209-3094