Research agencies would get boost from president's proposed budget: most increases rely on already approved stimulus money.

The Obama administration rolled out new details on May 7 about its blueprint for federal spending for fiscal year 2010. And no matter how you cut it, science comes out a big winner. The current proposal is to spend $147.6 billion on research and development during the fiscal year beginning October 1--$555 million more than Congress enacted for the current fiscal year.

This spending would be supplemented by the already approved American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the economic-stimulus package. It directs the government to pump $20 billion into R&D, money to be spent between now and the end of fiscal year 2010, said White House science adviser John Holdren at a press briefing held at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's offices in Washington, D.C. Most of this bonus is being directed into research rather than development.

For instance, the stimulus directs that the National Institutes of Health spend $10 billion on biomedical research and laboratory upgrades or construction. The boost provides another $1 billion to be shared between NIH and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality on studies that compare either the effectiveness of different treatments or the effectiveness of one treatment for different populations.

The National Science Foundation, the Energy Department's Office of Science and the National Institute of Standards and Technology together received $5.2 billion from the stimulus package alone. This funding keeps these three agencies on track for a 10-year doubling of their budgets by 2016, Holdren said.

Bottom line: "We in the science and technology community have done better than just about any other constituencies in the budget," Holdren said. But, he added, "We think that's good for the country, not just good for us."

Many science-policy wonks and bud get watchers have become almost giddy with what they've seen happening in Washington this year. If Congress approves the president's spending plan, NASA, for instance, would get a 10 percent increase next year.

This increase for NASA would include $225.4 million more for space exploration studies and $59.5 million for aeronautics programs. The science budget would lose $4.8 million. These changes are independent of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

"It is an unprecedented year," says Albert Teich, director of Science & Policy Programs for AAAS. "There's also been a dramatic shift in research priorities" from those espoused bythe Bush White House. Obama is backing climate research, green energy, physical science and engineering research, biomedical studies, and science and math training from prekindergarten through graduate school.

Without the stimulus supplement, spending remains fairly flat from this year to the next for NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, notes Stacie Propst of Research! America, based in Alexandria, Va. For NIH, next year's projected spending without the stimulus is $30.8 billion, only slightly more than was appropriated for the current year. The increase does not keep up with inflation, so it appears that the administration is using the stimulus funding as a bridge to next year, she says.

"We're concerned," she says, because if baseline budgets don't climb dramatically by 2011, when the stimulus money disappears, "there's going to be drop-off in all of the jobs that the Recovery Act saved."

Teich agrees. The president has said that he plans to begin paying back the deficit as soon as the economy picks up, and the stimulus was sold as a one-shot investment, Teich notes. "So I think we're going to face some very difficult times in coming years--2011 and 2012."

Federal research and development funding
Fiscal year 2010 budget by agency (in millions of dollars)

                               FY 2010   Change from   Allocation from
Agency                        proposed       FY 2009      Recovery Act

Department of Defense           79,687         -2.4%               300
National Institutes of          30,184          1.5%            10,400
  Health
NASA                            11,439         10.0%               925
Department of Energy.           10,740          1.1%             2,846
National Science Foundation      5,312          9.4%             2,900
Department of Agriculture        2,272         -6.2%                76
NOAA                               644         -8.0%                 1
NIST                               637         15.8%               410
U.S. Geological Survey             649          6.2%                74
EPA                                619          6.7%                 0
Remaining R&D *                  5,437           9.6%               703

* Includes departments of Transportation, Veterans Affairs, Education,
Homeland Security, Interior (excluding USGS), Commerce (excluding NOAA
and NIST), Health and Human Services (excluding NIH), and others.
Percent change is not adjusted for inflation.