Administration FY 2000 Request for S&T

The Clinton Administration’s FY 2000 request for science and technology reflects the budget environment: some accounts are up, others are fairly flat, and some have taken hits. It is a mixed bag for FY 2000.

OSTP Director Neal Lane began his briefing yesterday by calling this another “tough year,” comments echoed by OMB Associate Director Elgie Holstein. The spending cap had made it a “tremendously difficult year” Holstein said, adding that the budget surplus was not touched in preparing the budget. Both Lane and Holstein spelled-out some of the administration’s S&T priorities in the FY 2000 budget, including research in the following areas: information technology, environment, global change, national security, biomedical, and space. Also mentioned was the proposal to extend the R&D tax credit for another year.

A host of cabinet officers and agency heads each spent a few minutes praising the administration’s request and outlining their budgets. Information technology research was a consistent theme in all of the presentations. Lane wrapped-up the formal presentations by noting that there was some bad news, with the over-all R&D budget down by 1%, owing largely to reductions in defense research spending. Civilian research is now over half the R&D budget, a goal which this administration has long pursued. The administration has retained the idea of a “research fund,” this year adding to the fund defense 6.1 and 6.2 spending.

The following are some over-all calculations about the R&D portion of the request, expressed as the percent changed from 1999 to 2000, taken from the administration’s budget documents. As Holstein commented at yesterday’s briefing, “what you see is a result of the constraints.”

Total R&D funding: Down 1%
Civilian R&D funding: Up 3%
Defense R&D funding: Down 5%

R&D support to universities: Up 2%
Merit (peer) reviewed R&D programs: Up 3%
Total basic research: Up 4%
Civilian basic research: Up 4%
Defense basic research: Down 1%

Total applied research: essentially flat
Civilian applied research: essentially flat
Defense applied research: Up 1%

Total R&D facilities funding: Down 8%
Civilian R&D facilities funding: Down 9%
Defense R&D facilities funding: Down 8%

Department of Transportation R&D: Up 38%
Department of Interior R&D: Up 14%
National Science Foundation R&D: Up 8%
Department of Commerce R&D: Up 8%
Department of Energy R&D: Up 3%
NASA R&D: Up 1%
Department of Defense R&D: Down 6%

National Institutes of Health: Up 2%

Climate Change Technology Initiative: Up 34%
Advanced Technology Program: Up 18%
High Performance Computing and Communications (Does not include IT2): Up 11%
Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles: Up 10%
International Space Station: Up 8%
U.S. Global Change Research Program: Up 6%

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Percent increase in over-all FY 2000 government spending under cap: Up 2.2%
Dec. 1997 to Dec. 1998 Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all Urban Consumers: Up 1.6%
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Upcoming issues of FYI will provide data on FY 2000 budget items of interest to the physics and astronomy community.