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House Subcommittee Recommends 8 Percent Increase for NSF

In FY2007, the National Science Foundation will receive an increase of $439 million, or 8 percent under the recommendation approved June 14 by the House Science, State, Justice and Commerce Subcommittee on Appropriations. This increase to $6 billion is at the level of the NSF budget request.

Here are the preliminary details on the subcommittee recommendations that were available at the time of ASPB News publication:

For NSF Research and Related Activities: The increase is $334.5 million, to $4,665,950,000. The bill language will include the language from the House Science Committee bills on new authority to receive donations for prize authority.

Education and Human Resources will receive an increase of $35.74 million over the current year and $16.2 million above the NSF request to total $832,432,000 in FY2007.

The full Committee on Appropriations is scheduled to mark up the bill next week. The bill is expected to be on the House floor the week of June 26.

If the subcommittee’s recommendation is eventually enacted, it will mark a welcome turnaround for NSF funding. Last year, the administration had been planning to include research programs along with other nonsecurity, domestic programs as areas to address to cut the annual budget deficit in half over five years. The president’s proposal this year for the American Competitiveness Initiative reverses that trend and would double research funding for NSF, DOE, the Office of Science, and NIST over 10 years.

The subcommittee’s recommendation for NSF is for the same amount as requested in the president’s American Competitiveness Initiative.