Proposed FY 2013 federal budget would stall nonmandated spending overall, but science and tech would climb
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Research into climate change and advanced manufacturing will see substantially increased federal support next year if President Obama gets his way, as will education in the STEM fields ? science, technology, education and mathematics. The president?s budget blueprint for fiscal year 2013, unveiled February 13, calls for slight increases across most research spending categories. In some areas, the recommended spending boosts would vastly outpace inflation.
Proposed spending on research and development generally, both civilian and defense, would total $140.8 billion for fiscal year 2013. That?s virtually the same as this year?s $138.9 billion after accounting for estimated inflation of 1.4 percent. (All subsequent funding changes have been adjusted to account for this projected inflation.) But the nondefense portion of that total would rise nearly $3.1 billion to $64.9 billion, a net increase of 3.5 percent.
?This budget follows similar priorities of previous Obama budgets,? says veteran budget analyst Albert Teich, who until his retirement in December had been director of science and policy programs with the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. ?And they?re worthy priorities,? he adds. ?Obama has been as good a friend of science and technology as we?ve ever seen in the White House.?
But the president faces a hostile Congress and a very constrained fiscal environment. Teich predicts that various aspects of the president?s 2013 spending plan will have a difficult ? if not impossible ? time surviving the hatchets of congressional budget cutters. ?The bigger fights will probably be where they?ve been in the past,? he says: energy research and climate change.
The president slated some programs for dramatic increases. The multiagency global change research program would increase more than 4 percent, funding climate research at agencies including NASA (at $1.47 billion), the Energy Department (at $230 million) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (at roughly $340 million).
During a press briefing, White House science adviser John Holdren emphasized the president?s commitment to revitalizing the nation?s manufacturing enterprise. The Obama administration wants to turn around years of flagging investments by directing $2.2 billion in federal dollars into this area ? a whopping 17.6 increase over FY 2012 spending.
?As soon as the administration focused on innovation, the role that R&D plays in promoting economic growth and prosperity, it immediately became clear we were eventually going to be talking about manufacturing,? noted Patrick Gallagher, director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md. With more than two-thirds of all engineers outside universities and the federal government employed by manufacturing-based firms, this sector ?supports the lion?s share of private sector investments in research and development,? he noted.
Found in: Science & Society
Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/338453/title/Despite_lean_times,_Obama_wants_R+D_hikes
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