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FYI
The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science Policy News
Number 44: April 4, 2003

Senate Appropriations Hearing on National Science Foundation

"One can say that I am beginning to feel like Charlie Brown trying to
kick the football that Lucy is holding," Chairman Christopher Bond
(R-MO) told Administration witnesses at yesterday's hearing on the FY
2004 National Science Foundation request.  Bond and Ranking Minority
Member Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) have had highly visible roles in
advocating a doubling of the foundation's budget.  Both were
displeased that the Bush Administration had requested an increase of
only 3.2% in the NSF budget for next year. Bond predicted that he
would find more money. 

Congress is a very busy place these days, and as a consequence, only
Bond and Mikulski attended this one-hour hearing.  The two senators
will be writing the FY 2004 VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies
appropriation bill, now expected to be out in May.  Several themes
arose at yesterday's hearing.

One, Bond and Mikulski are on the same page in their support of
higher budgets for NSF.  Both used exactly the same words - paltry
and disappointing- in describing the request.  Both said that it was
not an NSF budget, but an Office of Management and Budget budget.
Mikulski: We were "disappointed last year in the NSF budget and we
still are."  There is no discernable difference in the positions of
these two powerful senators on greater NSF funding.

Two, Bond and Mikulski continue to be frustrated at the funding
disparity between NSF and the National Institutes of Health.
Chairman Bond cited the recommendation of a panel of the President's
Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) that funding
for physical sciences and engineering reach a parity with that for
life sciences.  Bond: "...while federal support in life sciences has
increased significantly, the combined share of the funding for the
physical sciences and engineering has not kept pace."  "I am alarmed
by this disparity because the decline in funding for the physical
sciences has put our Nation's capabilities for scientific innovation
at risk."

Three, within the NSF request, the senators identified specific
programs that should be augmented.  Chairman Bond cited the request
for smaller and under represented research institutions,
nanotechnology, and the plant genome program.  Mikulski spoke of the
total amount of money requested for research.  Both cited under
funding of the Tech Talent program. 

Four, Bond still is troubled by certain aspects of NSF's management,
especially  its "management and oversight of its large research
facilities."  He said he was "disappointed" about some of the
findings in the NSF's Inspector General's written testimony.

Five, the foundation's prioritization process for large facility
projects is "also a concern" to Bond. He spoke of  "some
large gaps"
in the description of this process in the budget justification sent
to Congress. In concluding his written remarks, Bond told NSF
Director Rita Colwell "all these accomplishments [over the last five
years] will be overshadowed by the management problems if they remain
unresolved."   It should be noted that at last year's NSF hearing
Bond was visibly frustrated in his remarks about management issues,
and seemed much less so at yesterday's hearing. 

Six, Bond is interested in the independence of the National Science
Board's operations, and was not happy that the Administration had
requested no money for the board in FY 2004.  He expects the
Administration to request supplemental funding for the board.

Seven, it is not unusual for appropriators to be somewhat leery of
authorization bills.  That was not the case at yesterday's hearing.
Bond cited the NSF Authorization Act that puts the foundation on a
track to double its budget, telling OSTP Director John Marburger that
President Bush had signed this legislation.  Bond also said that a
panel of PCAST members, which Marburger co-chairs, had recommended
much higher funding for the physical sciences.  "What happened?,"
asked Bond, adding that the request was inconsistent with both this
law and the PCAST panel's recommendation. Marburger replied that when
the foundation's request was  written the FY 2003 NSF budget had not
been passed.  Bond was not persuaded, saying that the two
appropriations committee reports both contained significant increases
for NSF.  Marburger responded that the foundation's requested
increase was significantly higher than that for other R&D agencies,
and that this boded well for the future.

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Richard M. Jones
Media and Government Relations Division
The American Institute of Physics
fyi{at}aip.org
(301) 209-3094
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