Appropriations Update; Senate Appropriators Take Up VA/HUD Bill

Now that Senators and Representatives have returned from their July 4 recess, the pace has picked up markedly on the 13 appropriations bills for fiscal year 1997. The bills need to be approved by both chambers and signed into law by the beginning of the 1997 fiscal year on October 1. If no agreement is reached, Congress will once again have to fall back on using continuing resolutions - as it did repeatedly in the past year - to keep government programs running until their funding bills are finalized.

Already this week, appropriators in the House have marked up the funding bills for Energy and Water Development (which funds most of DOE) and Commerce (which funds NIST). In the Senate, the VA/HUD bill, which funds NSF and NASA, has been passed by both the VA/HUD Appropriations Subcommittee and the full Senate Appropriations Committee in the space of two days. The Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee has also marked up the funding bill for DOE, without waiting for the House to pass its version. Further details will be provided as they become available.

Below are the known details of recent Senate action on the NASA and NSF portions of the VA/HUD bill. Reports indicate that both agencies fared better here than in the House, in part because the House approved a 0.4 percent across-the-board reduction to all programs except veterans’ (see FYIs #102-104.)

NASA: It is reported that the Senate VA/HUD Appropriations Subcommittee provided $13.7 billion for the space agency, compared to $13.55 billion in the version passed by the House, and $13.8 billion as requested by the President. The Science, Aeronautics and Technology (SA&T) account, which includes space and earth science, would receive $5.8 billion, compared to the House-passed amount of $5.6 billion and a request of $5.9 billion. Within the SA&T account, the Senate subcommittee would provide more for NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth than did the House, giving it $1.3 billion compared to the House’s $1.2 billion. Both amounts are below the President’s requested level of $1.4 billion for Mission to Planet Earth.

NSF: The Senate subcommittee would fund NSF at $3,270 million for FY 1997, compared to the House mark of $3,240 million and a request of $3,325 million. The Research and Related Activities (R&RA) account would receive $2,432 million, compared to the House mark of $2,421 million and a request of $2,472 million. Education and Human Resources (E&HR) would receive $619 million, equal to the request and higher than the House’s $610 million. The Senate subcommittee would provide $80 million for Major Research Equipment, as would the House. The request was $95 million. Salaries and Expenses would receive $134 million, equal to the request and $9 million greater than the House’s mark of $125 million. As did the House, the Senate subcommittee accepted the Administration’s plan to zero out the Academic Research Infrastructure account and instead provide $50 million for instrumentation from within the R&RA account.

More recent news accounts indicate that in action by the full Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday, an additional $5 million was added to NSF’s E&HR account for the EPSCoR program, raising the NSF total to $3,275 million.