Senate Completes Work on FY2002 Appropriation for Defense S&T

The way is now clear for Congress to pass the FY 2002 Department of Defense Appropriations Bill. Late Friday night the Senate gave final approval to its version of this bill. Under the Senate legislation, total funding for basic research, applied research, and advanced technology development would increase 8.0% over last year. The House bill cut this amount by 3.5% in its version of the bill.

House and Senate appropriators will now reconcile the two bills. While they would like to complete their work by the end of this week, the very size of this $317 billion bill, and its many budget and policy ramifications, makes this a very optimistic schedule. No defense bill has been conferenced in less than three weeks.

For ease of comparison, the format of this FYI is based upon FYI #142 which outlines the House version of this bill. The Senate numbers are as follows:

Total Basic Research (6.1) funding would increase 3.5%, or $46 million, to $1,363 million.
Total Applied Research (6.2) funding would increase 6.5%, or $239 million, to $3,915 million.
Total Advanced Technology Development (6.3) funding would increase 10.9%, or $436 million, to $4,435 million.
Total S&T (6.1 + 6.2 + 6.3) funding would increase 8.0%, or $721 million, to $9,713 million.

Army Basic Research funding would increase 7.1%, or $15 million, to $225 million.
Army Applied Research funding would increase 0.5%, or $4 million, to $827 million.
Army Advanced Technology Development funding would decline 8.2%, or $67 million, to $748 million.
Total Army S&T funding would decline 2.6%, or $48 million, to $1,800 million.

Navy Basic Research funding would increase 5.6%, or $22 million, to $416 million.
Navy Applied Research funding would increase 11.8%, or $78 million, to $737 million.
Navy Advanced Technology Development funding would decline 6.2%, or $49 million, to $737 million.
Total Navy S&T funding would decline 2.8%, or $51 million, to $1,890 million.

Air Force Basic Research funding would increase 3.8%, or $8 million, to $221 million.
Air Force Applied Research funding would increase 12.6%, or $83 million, to $740 million.
Air Force Advanced Technology Development funding would decline 8.7%, or $51 million, to $536 million.
Total Air Force S&T funding would increase 2.7%, or $40 million, to $1,497 million.

Defense Wide funding provides for programs such as DARPA, and should not be confused with aggregate Department of Defense spending.

Defense Wide Basic Research funding would increase 0.2%, or $1 million, to $501 million.
Defense Wide Applied Research funding would increase 5.1%, or $78 million, to $1,611 million.
Defense Wide Advanced Technology Development funding would increase 3.3%, or $603 million, to $2,414 million.
Total Defense Wide funding would increase 17.7%, or $682 million, to $4,526 million.

Senate Report 107-109 contains numerous “program adjustments” in Title IV under Research, Development, Test and Evaluation. This report can be viewed at http://thomas.loc.gov