Omnibus spending bill falls short on funding basic research

WASHINGTON – Congressman Vernon J. Ehlers (R-MI) issued the following statement regarding federal funding for basic research and innovation passed this week in the Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008:

“In a year full of rancor and limited cooperation, one issue rose above the others and found strong support from the President, Congress and American people: the critical role of innovation in U.S. global competitiveness. The broad support of that concept culminated in the historic passage of the America COMPETES Act, which was signed into law in August. The Act recognized the responsibility of the federal government to support basic scientific research and education conducted across the federal agencies, and the integral relationship between federal research and our nation’s economic competitiveness. It also directly responded to the recommendations of an esteemed National Academies report, which called for doubling the federal budget for long-term basic research in fewer than 10 years.

“Therefore, I am gravely disappointed with the funding levels provided for the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Office of Science at the Department of Energy (DOE) in the Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008.  This bill fell dramatically short. Though modest increases were provided for NSF, NIST and the Office of Science, these increases essentially evaporate when Congressionally-directed funds, rescissions and inflation are considered. In light of the strong support requested by the President in his budget proposal, and the additional increases provided by both houses of Congress in their separate appropriations bills, the final numbers were an unanticipated blow. The original intent was to double the budgets of these agencies starting with the baseline of enacted funding from fiscal year 2006. Two years later, we are not even close to starting on that pathway. Furthermore, there is no way to sugarcoat the funding level for science and math education at the NSF, which has dropped to the lowest it has been since 2000 and a full twenty percent below the amount authorized in the COMPETES Act.

            “The scientific agencies and community are scrambling to understand the impacts of the omnibus funding. It is already apparent that several Department of Energy projects and facilities may immediately have to be shut down. It may be years until the real impacts emerge as the repercussions of these funding decisions are felt in our international scientific stature as well as the career decisions of students considering teaching or other science-related fields. We are eating our technological “seed corn” and subsequently sacrificing the pipeline for future discovery and economic development. Despite the research community’s best efforts to explain to Members of Congress why these pressing problems can only be solved by consistent basic research, innovation remains a low priority for those who hold the purse strings.

            “I realize that many, many programs did not receive the funding that was hoped for in this bill. Difficult decisions were necessary and ultimately some programs had to be reduced below House or Senate-passed levels more than others. Unfortunately, this year’s budget showed that fundamental science and innovation are not a high priority to the Congress. I will continue to work with my colleagues to change this position. The adopted budget is untenable for our nation, if we are to maintain any hope of providing world leadership in science and technology and remaining economically competitive. “