FYI Number 55: April 24, 2003

Coalition Recommendations: DOD, DOE, NSF, Science Education

When House and Senate appropriators start writing their funding bills in the next few weeks, they will be working with Administration budget requests for physics-related S&T programs that in many cases provide for increases less than the increase in the consumer price index (see /fyi/2003/053.html .) Alternative funding recommendations to these requests are provided by four coalitions to which AIP and some of its Member Societies belong.

Selections from coalition statements or letters regarding FY 2004 funding for DOD, DOE, Department of Education, and NSF follow.

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: S&T PROGRAMS

AIP belongs to the Coalition for National Security Research (www.cnsr.org), as do the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America. AIP and APS endorsed the coalition's FY 2004 funding statement. The Administration requested $10.2 billion for DOD's S&T programs (6.1, 6.2, 6.3) for FY 2004. Selections from the CNSR FY 2004 statement follows:

CNSR "strongly urges the Administration and Congress to provide a robust and stable investment in the Science and Technology (S&T) programs of the Department of Defense, which play a direct role in protecting and equipping our nation's soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. CNSR urges a renewed commitment to the basic science program and a focus on strengthening the future technical workforce. The coalition recommends an increase in funding to not less than $11.4 billion for the department's core S&T programs in FY 2004.

"CNSR's funding recommendation is in accordance with the Defense Science Board and the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), and is based upon the President's Fiscal Year 2004 request for the Department of Defense. The QDR states: 'To provide the basic research for these capabilities [technological superiority], the QDR calls for a significant increase in funding for S&T programs to a level of three percent of DOD spending per year.'"

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION: MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE EDUCATION

AIP, the Acoustical Society of America, the American Astronomical Society, the American Association of Physics Teachers, and the American Physical Society have (as of today) signed a forthcoming letter to House Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ralph Regula (R-OH) regarding the Department of Education's Math and Science Partnership Program (MPS). The Administration requested $12.5 million for this program for FY 2004. This letter, a selection of which follows, is being sent by the K-12 Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics Education Coalition.

"Improving the teaching and learning of math and science will require a significant investment in teacher training. We believe it is necessary to provide reliable resources to these implementation systems so that our children will be taught by highly-qualified mathematics and science teachers. We urge you and your committee to commit to fully fund the MSPs by the time science assessments are required in the FY 2007. To that end, we urge you to provide $200 million in FY 2004."

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY: OFFICE OF SCIENCE

AIP and the American Physical Society belong to the Energy Sciences Coalition (www.aps.org/public_affairs/issues/esc.html.) Both endorsed the coalition's FY 2004 funding statement. The Administration requested $3.3 billion for DOE's Office of Science for FY 2004. The ESC statement follows:

"The programs and national user facilities run by the DOE Office of Science are vital to the nation's research investment across all disciplines of science. The Energy Sciences Coalition (ESC) therefore encourages the Administration and Congress to strengthen the nation's investment in the Department of Energy's science programs and facilities by providing a minimum of $3.6 billion in funding for the DOE Office of Science in FY 2004."

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

AIP, the American Astronomical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Physical Society, and the Optical Society of America belong to the Coalition for National Science Funding (www.cnsfweb.org) The Administration requested $5.5 billion for FY 2004. A CNSF publication describing the foundation's programs included the following statement:

"The Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF) thanks the Congress and the Administration for acknowledging the importance of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and supports the levels of budgeting outlined in the NSF Authorization Act. This Act, passed by the 107th Congress and signed into law by the President, represents a major milestone for the NSF and for the scientific community, as it authorizes raising the budget of the NSF from its FY 2002 level of approximately $4.8 billion, to the level of $9.8 billion in FY 2007. For FY 2004, the CNSF advocates raising the NSF budget to the authorized level of $6.39 billion."

Richard M. Jones
Media and Government Relations Division
American Institute of Physics
fyi@aip.org
(301) 209-3095

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