The Money People

Three weeks from now Congress starts work on the federal budget. Although all 435 Members of the House of Representatives and all 100 Senators will eventually vote on the FY 1998 appropriations bills, a much smaller group of representatives and senators initially shapes the budgets of agencies such as NSF, DOE, NASA, DOD, and NIST. These very powerful people are the members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, and their staffs.

The appropriations process formally begins after President Clinton sends his FY 1998 budget request to Congress on February 6. Initial attention will focus on the congressional budget resolution, which is a spending and taxing blueprint. While there are spending targets in the House, Senate and final versions of this resolution, the heavy lifting of deciding how much money to provide each program is done by the appropriations subcommittees.

After a series of hearings and private meetings, the House subcommittees will send their appropriations bills to the full committee and then the House floor. Senate appropriators, who have yet to be officially named to their subcommittees, follow the same process. This fall, the House and Senate appropriators will negotiate the final version of the bill sent to the President.

The members of the appropriations subcommittees respond to a variety of forces as they craft their bills. Of great importance are constituent and interest group letters, calls, and meetings to educate and emphasize to Members the importance a program, and its local, state, and national implications. Members and their staffs stress the need of having a large stack of mail to point to as they defend a program to their colleagues. In speeches to scientific gatherings, agency officials ask for citizen help to support their official efforts.

There is both good and bad news about the budget outlook. This week, Senate Republicans reportedly plan to introduce a measure calling for the doubling of federal research dollars. During a recent meeting between the President and his old and new cabinet, the importance of technology was emphasized.

Yet, larger attempts to balance the budget by 2002 seem very difficult. A preliminary Republican staff plan calls for freezing over-all discretionary spending (from which science budgets are funded.) Achieving this would probably require elimination of some programs and Cabinet departments.

Key players in this year’s appropriations process have changed. There will be new secretaries for the Energy, Commerce, and Defense Departments. The chairman of the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, Joseph McDade (R-PA), is new to the subcommittee. Other changes could occur in the Senate.

Throughout the year, a relatively small handful of people will make important decisions about federal support for physics programs. These are the people that departmental and agency officials, interest groups, and constituents will be communicating with in the coming months. Their names can be found in the following FYIs.