First Indications of NSF Appropriations Bill for FY 1995

At a two-hour closed meeting yesterday of the House VA, HUD, Independent Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, members marked-up their bill for FY 1995 spending. Reports indicate that the bill provides the National Science Foundation an FY 1995 budget of $3.106 billion, a cut of $92.846 million. Official figures will not be released until the week of June 20, when the full House Appropriations Committee meets to approve the subcommittee’s bill. (See FYI #83 for NASA figures.)

NSF requested $3.2 billion for FY 1995, which was an increase of 6.0%, or $182.2 million. The subcommittee more than halved this requested increase by approving an additional $88.3 million over current spending.

The Clinton Administration requested $2.349 billion for the Research and Related Activities account. This was reduced by $131 million to a new figure of $2.216 billion, a 2.5% increase over the current year. Under the subcommittee’s bill, $65.9 million is to be taken as a general reduction. An additional $33 million was cut from the Global Climate Change initiative and $29 million from the High Performance Computing initiative. Both of these programs are favorites of Vice President Gore, so it is unlikely that these cuts will stand in the final bill.

The Subcommittee increased the Education and Human Resources account by 3% over this year, as the administration requested. Spending would increase from a current level of $569.6 million to $586 million. The largest increases are for EPSCoR (+$5.0 million), advanced technology education and outreach community college grants (+5.0 million), and a new Graduate Traineeship Program Class (+$4.0 million.)

The Academic Research Infrastructure account, following recent historical precedent, again saw a sizeable increase from the request of $55 million to $100 million.

The full House is expected to vote on this bill around June 27. It is thought that the Senate VA, HUD, Independent Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee will mark-up its version of the bill the week of July 11. As it now stands, this subcommittee has less over-all money to work with, so the NSF budget in the House bill may well represent the upper limit.

Future issues of FYI will provide the text of the House Appropriations Committee report accompanying this bill for selected portions of the NSF budget.