Outlook on Additional NSF Funding Uncertain
The outlook is uncertain for the additional $207 million which the Clinton Administration has requested for spending THIS YEAR - 1993 - by the National Science Foundation. This money, part of the $16.3 billion supplemental bill (H.R. 1335) to stimulate the economy, is stalled in the Senate.
After a series of votes, the Senate agreed to recess until the week of April 19 while Senate leaders and the administration work on strategies and compromises. To close off debate on H.R. 1335, four additional votes are needed by the bill’s supporters, who are trying to break solid Republican opposition to the legislation. Both sides are predicting that it will be difficult to secure the four votes.
If efforts to break the filibuster and pass the current version of H.R. 1335 fail, the next step will be drafting new legislation more acceptable on both sides of the aisle. Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kansas) has suggested that he would be willing to support a bill half the size of the current version, including money for unemployment benefits, highways, summer jobs, child immunization programs, mass transit, airports, and other projects. Whether this version includes money for NSF is unknown, since Dole did not put his proposal on the table in discussions with Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-Maine.) Mitchell has declined to specify what spending he would be willing to cut or delay. Dole is also asking for assurances that any cuts agreed to in the Senate would not be subject to further House action.
In looking ahead to what a new version of H.R. 1335 might cut, a review of congressional debates since March 10 on the administration’s budget package indicates that there has been some criticism of NSF. In the House, two representatives cited NSF, one mentioning “seemingly irrelevant studies by the National Science Foundation,” another saying that jobs created by the NSF would, by his figuring, cost $86,000 each. In the Senate, John Chafee (R-R.I.), mentioned $197 million for NSF strategic research initiatives as an example of what he earlier termed were “overweighted items that certainly are not of an emergency nature.” Senator Don Nickles (R-OK), cited NSF in a list of proposed spending which he said was indicative that “this deficit stimulus package is not an emergency.”
During the heated Senate debate, SSC supporters should note, Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert C. Byrd (D-WVA) offered to support an amendment which would restrict spending on the SSC. Byrd called the SSC “this monstrosity,” continuing, “I say let us put a stop to it now.”
The $207 million which NSF would receive in H.R. 1335 would be applied, former NSF Director Walter Massey stated, to fully fund NSF’s original request for five strategic research initiatives, and provide $85 million for what he termed “curiosity-driven research activities” (see FYI #25 for category breakdowns.) NSF’s requested increase for the next fiscal year for all of its activities is $240 million.
(NOTE: Additional information on NSF’s fiscal year 1994 budget request for Education & Human Resources and Geosciences will be provided in future issues of FYI.)
