NSF Facing Possible $75 Million Loss; LHC Negotiations

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION:

Before the end of the month, the National Science Foundation’s budget for the current fiscal year should be settled. At stake is $75 million in additional funding.

Congress and the Clinton Administration have yet to agree on five appropriations bills for the current fiscal year, now half over. Twelve stopgap bills have been passed to keep all of the federal government going with, in some cases, reduced, and sometimes interrupted, funding. The current stopgap bill, containing money for NSF, NASA, and NIST, runs through April 24. While everyone in Washington is tired of thinking and working on FY 1996 funding, disagreements between Republicans, within Congress, and between Congress and the administration could prevent passage of final FY 1996 appropriations. These differences are over both funding levels and policy.

What if this bill, H.R. 3019, the Omnibus Fiscal 1996 Appropriations bill, is not signed into law? One alternative is to pass a straight-forward bill simply extending the deadline to September 30, the end of this fiscal year. If that happens, NSF will lose $75 million that it would have received through the omnibus bill. In this bill, $35 million in previous NSF cuts would be returned, as well as an additional $40 million that would be provided for Research and Related Activities spending.

If an omnibus bill is not signed, efforts might be made to provide full year funding for NSF, as was done earlier this year for the National Institutes of Health. This was sought, but ultimately rejected by some members of the House leadership, when NIH funding was passed. Following that action, Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-MI) and 87 of his colleagues sent a letter to House Appropriations Chairman Robert Livingston (R-LA) and VA/HUD appropriations subcommittee chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) urging “full-year funding for the NSF as soon as possible” (see FYIs #18 and 19.) That letter was dated February 2.

LARGE HADRON COLLIDER:

FYIs #61 and #62 discussed U.S. - CERN negotiations regarding the proposed Large Hadron Collider. Both Department of Energy and National Science Foundation officials are participating in negotiations with CERN officials. The possible U.S. LHC contribution of around $530 million includes a projected $80 million from NSF. The cited Drell report recommendation for DOE’s FY 1997 High Energy Physics program was not adjusted for subsequent inflation, nor was the over-all U.S. contribution for the LHC mentioned by the Drell report so adjusted.