Upcoming Senate Vote on Defense S&T

Within the next few weeks, senators will have the opportunity to vote in support of increased spending for the Defense Science and Technology Program. This move is being made to counteract projections for essentially flat S&T funding (after adjusting for inflation) through the year 2003.

While many perceive the defense budget as cash-flush, it is actually under heavy pressure as policy makers struggle with issues ranging from present day procurement to long-range S&T spending. Though most Members of Congress recognize the value of defense S&T, it is given lower priority by those advocating a more aggressive procurement policy. One manifestation of this is flat funding for DOD’s 6.1 (basic research) budget for the current year as compared to last year. Last fall, House appropriators, opposing their Senate counterparts and both the House and Senate authorizing committees, voted to keep 6.1 funding for this year flat. They prevailed in the final budget. FY 1998 purchasing power for 6.1 is the lowest in 20 years, while 6.2 purchasing power is the lowest in 13 years.

Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Rick Santorum (R-PA), and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) want to reserve this trend through a bill introduced a few weeks ago. S. 2081, the National Defense Science and Technology Investment Act of 1998, seeks a 16% increase in the Defense Science and Technology budget by the year 2008. Rather than listing exact spending goals, it states that “For each year from fiscal year 2000 until fiscal year 2008, it shall be an objective of the Secretary of Defense to increase the Defense Science and Technology Program budget by no less than 2.0 percent over inflation greater than the previous fiscal year’s budget request.”Similar language encourages the Secretary of Energy to do likewise for nonproliferation science and technology activities.

The senators want to encourage the Defense Department to ask for more in their future budget requests, while demonstrating strong support for S&T (6.1, 6.2, 6.3) as Congress works on the FY 1999 request. Note that language in the bill highlights the relationship of the S&T program to university research.

Passage of this legislation is the first of a series of steps that must occur to increase the S&T budget. Rather than attempting to get this bill through on its own, the senators will package the essential parts of S. 2081 and attempt to amend the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 1999 when it is considered on the Senate floor. The amendment could be handled in two ways. There is a possibility that it might be included with a number of other amendments introduced by Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC) that should win approval. However, Thurmond, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, voted against a provision much like S. 2081 when the committee wrote the authorization bill last month. Thurmond contends that the S&T budget should not be given special treatment.

The other approach is that Bingaman, Santorum, and Lieberman will offer their amendment by itself. Yesterday, they sent other senators a “Dear Colleague” letter announcing their intention to offer this amendment. They write that “Much of the technology that gave the United States a quick victory with so few casualties in Desert Storm came from DoD’s research of the 1960s and 1970s. If we are to be ready for the military challenges of the next century, we must invest in a vigorous program of defense research today.”

The three senators have an important supporter: Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) favors their amendment. That might be enough. Key to increasing the odds for passage of this amendment is increasing its visibility and bolstering its rationale. Supporters of a larger Defense Science and Technology Program budget should contact their senators and request them to cosponsor S. 2081, and/or vote for the Bingaman/Santorum/Lieberman amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 1999. Examples of how physics research has made possible important defense systems can be viewed in AIP’s Physics Success Story on national defense at http://www.aip.org/success/ Contact fyi@aip.org if you would like hard copies suitable for mailing.

The Senate will act on the defense authorization act in the near future.