House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) addressed
the University Research Associates' Annual Council of Presidents Meeting
and Policy Forum this morning. Boehlert is a strong
supporter of science, and is characteristically candid in his
remarks. Selections from his speech follow:
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION AUTHORIZATION ACT:
"In December, with some fanfare, the President signed into law
the
bill to put the National Science Foundation on a track to double its
budget over the next five years.
"And that law not only points the way toward more generous funding
across most fields of science and engineering, the law requires NSF
to develop a more transparent process for funding major research
facilities, and it establishes new education programs at both the K-
12 and undergraduate levels to improve math and science education and
to interest more students in those fields.
"It's a landmark measure that few in 2001 thought we could see
through to fruition - truth be told, I had some skepticism myself.
But we worked up until the very last minute - quite literally; it was
the very last bill to pass the House last year at a little after 3
a.m."
"REASONABLY GOOD" S&T BUDGET OUTLOOK:
"The poet Philip Larkin once wrote, 'Always looking to the future,
we
pick up bad habits of anticipation.' It's hard not to have that
sober thought in mind as one prepares to lay out an agenda for the
coming year, with a war looming and our fiscal straits tightening.
"But despite our challenges, and, in some ways because of them,
the
outlook for research and development programs in the coming year
seems reasonably good.
"Now I should hasten to add that I'm making that statement at
a
particularly awkward time. As you are no doubt painfully aware, the
President will release his budget proposal for fiscal 2004 on Monday,
while Congress has yet to complete work on any civilian appropriation
for fiscal 2003."
"In fact, it will be a challenge even figuring out how to read
the
'04 budget proposal because the Administration has had no choice but
to use the President's '03 request as the program baseline. But
those baseline numbers should be hopelessly out of date by the end of
next week, if we can stick to our latest deadline, February 7th, when
the latest Continuing Resolution expires. The latest indications are
that that deadline is now a true goal and real possibility."
"In addition to confounding federal agencies and those who work
with
them, the stalemate over appropriations is a symptom of a larger
breakdown in our lawmaking process. Increasing ideological rigidity
and partisan gamesmanship, along with an electorate that is,
paradoxically, both evenly divided and widely disengaged, have
conspired to make it harder and harder to conduct the mundane but
essential business of Congress. It's hard to predict when this state
of affairs is likely to improve.
"But it's worth noting how science funding has largely stayed
out of
the partisan and ideological crossfire. I certainly could not get
away with claiming to this audience that we are entering another
'golden age' of science funding, particularly in the physical
sciences, but, again, the overall picture is far from bleak.
"The passage of our NSF bill, while not guaranteeing linear growth,
is a sign that both Congress and the Administration have come to
understand that broadly based increases in science spending are
overdue. And while the appropriators are trimming their initial 2003
spending measures, they are trying to keep spending for NSF as high
as possible. Moreover, the rumors about the President's NSF proposal
for 2004 are quite promising - at least in percentage terms, which
may turn out to be the key figure given the faulty baselines."
S&T IMPLICATIONS OF DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY:
"The creation of the Department of Homeland Security could also
presage increased research funding across a wide range of sciences.
"The President's proposal to create the new Department did not
have a
well articulated R&D focus or discrete unit with R&D
responsibilities. That was a conspicuous gap because, as I never
tire of pointing out, the war against terrorism will be won as much
in the laboratory as on the battlefield. But led by the Science
Committee, Congress created a Science and Technology Directorate,
headed by an undersecretary, and including a Homeland Security
Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA).
"And the Administration came around pretty quickly to endorsing
this
R&D structure and has named a top-notch nominee, Chuck McQueary,
who
spent much of his career at Bell Labs, to be the new undersecretary.
I had the pleasure of meeting with Dr. McQueary yesterday.
"It's too early to tell exactly what the new Department's R&D
agenda
will be or the extent to which it will be carried out at federal
laboratories or at universities - although both will play a role.
And, frankly, the Administration has been frustratingly closed-
mouthed so far about how it is making decisions about how to
structure science at the Department, but, one way or another that
will change as the year goes on.
"But what seems beyond a doubt is that the new focus on homeland
security will pump additional money into a wide range of science and
engineering fields and into the Department of Energy, in particular,
while posing questions that will require new, interdisciplinary
solutions."
"POSITIVE SIGNS" FOR THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES:
"There are other positive signs for the physical sciences, as
well.
For example, the Administration continues to highlight nanotechnology
as one of its priority, interagency science initiatives - a wise
decision. The Science Committee is working on legislation we hope to
introduce in the next week or two and report out of Committee in late
March. Our bill would give the initiative a statutory basis and
clearer funding expectations, and strengthen its interagency
coordination and interdisciplinary focus. Our counterparts on the
Senate Commerce Committee are engaged in a similar effort, and the
Administration is interested in seeing a bill signed into law this
year.
"Interestingly, nanotechnology may be one of the few cases where
the
biological aspect of a technology is being relatively underfunded by
the federal government right now. The Department of Energy, the
agency that is usually the focus of this meeting, is a major player
in the nanotechnology field and our bill will only underscore that
further."
LAYING THE GROUNDWORK FOR DOE OFFICE OF SCIENCE:
"But what is the outlook for DOE science as a whole? Well, while
I wouldn't expect any startling increases in funding this year or next,
I think the groundwork is being laid to take a serious look at the long-term
needs of the Office of Science.
"First, the Office now has the magnificent leadership of Ray Orbach
-
- as thoughtful, inspiring and bold a director as one could hope for.
Second, from global climate change to nanotechnology to
supercomputing to homeland security, issues keep arising that bring
the Office to the fore in science policy debates. Third, and perhaps
most significantly, the Department leadership is signaling that it
wants to start focusing on strengthening the Office of Science in
future years. And fourth, the Office of Science should begin to
benefit from the growing awareness in Washington that the physical
sciences are relatively underfunded.
"Last year's ill-fated Energy Bill gave a good indication that
Congress was ready to consider significant increases for the Office
of Science. While the Energy Bill was stymied by major policy
disputes over such issues as electric deregulation and climate
change, the House and Senate on a bipartisan basis did come close to
agreement on an R&D title. In fact, only one issue - whether to
create a new undersecretary - remained in dispute.
"My staff spent many late nights in August and September working
out
the details, and we have reintroduced last year's compromise as a new
bill this year, H.R.238. Our bill contains sizable increases for the
Office of Science, authorizing a budget of $5 billion for fiscal
2007.
"We assume that our measure - after further negotiations - will
be
folded into the Energy Bill that the House hopes to pass this spring,
although no part of that sentence is a 'done deal.'
"And, in fact, a lot more work will have to be done by all of
us in
this room, if those numbers are ever to materialize as cold, hard
cash.
"Some of that work is lobbying, of course: the Office of Science's
work as a whole is not widely known in Congress, and being part of
the Department of Energy doesn't exactly strengthen its case in some
quarters. But some of the work we need to do involves thinking -
hopefully something that's not incompatible with lobbying, in any
event. There are lots of tough questions
that need to be answered before proposals to increase Office of
Science funding can be implemented.
"What would a larger budget be used for? What should the balance
be
between new large-scale facilities and other ways of conducting
science? What should the balance be between participating in
international projects and continuing domestic ones? Which fields
should be emphasized? What should the balance be between funding
federal laboratories and universities? How can we assure that we
have the operating funds to amortize our facility investments more
fully? Do we need a new supercomputing initiative? The questions go
on and on. And they're questions that we'll be pursuing in hearings
this year."
ON BEING SCIENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
"They're the kind of questions I had in mind when I promised in
my
last speech to you to be the scientific community's 'staunchest ally
and fairest critic.' I hope I've lived up to that pledge in my first
term as chairman, and I will continue to endeavor to do so. We have
lots of work to do in these uncertain times."
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