Administration FY 2000 Request for S&T
OSTP Director Neal Lane began his briefing yesterday by calling this another "tough year," comments echoed by OMB Associate Director Elgie Holstein. The spending cap had made it a "tremendously difficult year" Holstein said, adding that the budget surplus was not touched in preparing the budget. Both Lane and Holstein spelled-out some of the administration's S&T priorities in the FY 2000 budget, including research in the following areas: information technology, environment, global change, national security, biomedical, and space. Also mentioned was the proposal to extend the R&D tax credit for another year.
A host of cabinet officers and agency heads each spent a few minutes praising the administration's request and outlining their budgets. Information technology research was a consistent theme in all of the presentations. Lane wrapped-up the formal presentations by noting that there was some bad news, with the over-all R&D budget down by 1%, owing largely to reductions in defense research spending. Civilian research is now over half the R&D budget, a goal which this administration has long pursued. The administration has retained the idea of a "research fund," this year adding to the fund defense 6.1 and 6.2 spending.
The following are some over-all calculations about the R&D portion of the request, expressed as the percent changed from 1999 to 2000, taken from the administration's budget documents. As Holstein commented at yesterday's briefing, "what you see is a result of the constraints."
Total R&D funding: Down 1%
Civilian R&D funding: Up 3%
Defense R&D funding: Down 5%
R&D support to universities: Up 2%
Merit (peer) reviewed R&D programs: Up 3%
Total basic research: Up 4%
Civilian basic research: Up 4%
Defense basic research: Down 1%
Total applied research: essentially flat
Civilian applied research: essentially flat
Defense applied research: Up 1%
Total R&D facilities funding: Down 8%
Civilian R&D facilities funding: Down 9%
Defense R&D facilities funding: Down 8%
Department of Transportation R&D: Up 38%
Department of Interior R&D: Up 14%
National Science Foundation R&D: Up 8%
Department of Commerce R&D: Up 8%
Department of Energy R&D: Up 3%
NASA R&D: Up 1%
Department of Defense R&D: Down 6%
National Institutes of Health: Up 2%
Climate Change Technology Initiative: Up 34%
Advanced Technology Program: Up 18%
High Performance Computing and Communications (Does not include
IT2): Up 11%
Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles: Up 10%
International Space Station: Up 8%
U.S. Global Change Research Program: Up 6%
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Percent increase in over-all FY 2000 government spending under
cap: Up 2.2%
Dec. 1997 to Dec. 1998 Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all Urban
Consumers: Up 1.6%
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Upcoming issues of FYI will provide data on FY 2000 budget items of interest to the physics and astronomy community.
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Richard M. Jones
Public Information Division
American Institute of Physics
fyi@aip.org
(301) 209-3095
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