
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), left, speaks with Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) at a committee meeting in 2018. Leahy and Shelby are the top two appropriators in the Senate.
(Image credit – Office of Sen. Leahy)
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), left, speaks with Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) at a committee meeting in 2018. Leahy and Shelby are the top two appropriators in the Senate.
(Image credit – Office of Sen. Leahy)
Yesterday, Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee finished releasing
Detailed figures from the Senate and House proposals are available in FYI’s Federal Science Budget Tracker
The release of the Senate bills brings some additional clarity to the outlook for science funding, which is currently frozen near its fiscal year 2021 level
Senate Republicans generally supported
“The bills continue the Democrats’ trend of reckless domestic spending while shortchanging investments in our national defense. Senate Democrats’ bills provide an increase in non-defense spending of nearly 14% over the last fiscal year, while providing a 5% increase for spending on our national defense,” Shelby remarked in a statement
Given the lack of progress on the negotiations, Shelby has predicted
Even between House and Senate Democrats, there are points of disagreement that will have to be resolved. For instance, appropriators in the Senate seek to increase funding for early-stage defense R&D, whereas the House and Biden administration have proposed cuts. Conversely, proposed increases on the Senate side for the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy and U.S. Geological Survey are considerably smaller than the ones proposed in the House.
However, those disagreements pale in comparison to the ones currently preventing Democrats from passing the bipartisan infrastructure spending bill
The special spending bills have also been proposed as vehicles for funding some major new initiatives, such as a new NSF directorate focused on technology, an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, and a technology demonstration office at DOE. Yet, regardless of the outcome of the current negotiations among Democrats, those efforts are poised to move ahead as funding to launch them is included in both the House’s and Senate’s ordinary appropriations proposals as well.
FYI has already published bulletins analyzing the proposals for the DOE Office of Science