Latest news on US science budget

[StatGuy2000]

Hi everyone!

I was wondering if any of you here on PF have heard any news related to the US federal science budget (whether through the NSF, the DOE, etc.). I was curious to see what are some of the research areas that the Biden administration would be promoting, as I haven't heard any news or announcements in this area.

 

[Vanadium 50]

You can see the President's Budget Request here https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/ I would say that it is not particularly friendly to the physical sciences.

The Congressional marks are not out yet. In the US, by the Constitution, all bills dealing with money must start in the House. The PBR is just that, a request.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

The House and Senate are currently working on reconciling different bills that aim to increase NSF funding:

The House on Monday passed two bipartisan bills aimed at bolstering research and development programs in the United States, setting up a battle with the Senate over how best to invest in scientific innovation to strengthen American competitiveness.

The bills are the House’s answer to the sprawling Endless Frontier Act that the Senate overwhelmingly passed this month, which would sink unprecedented federal investments into a slew of emerging technologies in a bid to compete with China. But lawmakers who drafted the House measures took a different approach, calling for a doubling of funding over the next five years for traditional research initiatives at the National Science Foundation and a 7 percent increase for the Energy Department’s Office of Science.

The contrast reflected concerns among House lawmakers that the Senate bill placed an outsize and overly prescriptive focus on developing nascent technologies and on replicating Beijing’s aggressive moves to gain industrial dominance. Instead, the lawmakers argued, the United States should pour more resources into its own proven research and development abilities.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/28/us/politics/house-science-research-bills.html

See also:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/house-science-panel-firms-its-plan-expand-nsf
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01559-x

Also, in the PBR mentioned above, Biden proposed creating a new agency modeled on DARPA to fund biomedical research, which he calls ARPA-H (Advanced Research Projecets Agency - Health):

The Biden administration today began to flesh out a proposal for a new agency—modeled on the military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)—that would seek to speed the development of medical treatments by funding risky, innovative projects. The agency, dubbed ARPA-Health (ARPA-H), would be housed at the National Institutes of Health and have a 2022 budget of $6.5 billion, according to a White House spending request released today.

Few other details about ARPA-H have been released, except that it would initially focus on cancer and diseases “such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s.” Advocates who have been pushing for the new agency welcomed the announcement, but some were dismayed that ARPA-H will not be a stand-alone agency within the Department of Health and Human Services.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/04/biden-wants-65-billion-new-health-agency-speed-treatments

Here's essentially an OpEd published in Science from officials within the NIH and the president's administration advocating for ARPA-H: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/06/22/science.abj8547

 

[Vanadium 50]

The bills are the House’s answer to the sprawling Endless Frontier Act that the Senate overwhelmingly passed this month, which would sink unprecedented federal investments into a slew of emerging technologies in a bid to compete with China. But lawmakers who drafted the House measures took a different approach, calling for a doubling of funding over the next five years for traditional research initiatives at the National Science Foundation and a 7 percent increase for the Energy Department’s Office of Science.

None of these make a whit of difference. The only thing that matters are the appropriation bills. These other bills are there so Members of Congress can tell "the folks back home" that they are in favor of something even if they don't appropriate any money for it.

The President issues the PBR, usually in February. The nest step is the House and Senate marks - essentially what each house of Congress thinks should be the budget. Months pass going back and forth between OMB, the House and Senate, and ultimately a bill is put together that (in theory) everyone can live with. It's then put to vote - straight up or down, no amendments - in the House and then the Senate. Hopefully it's passed in both and then the President signs it.

There are multiple failure modes, but that's how it's supposed to work. AFIAK, we have neither mark yet.

 

[StatGuy2000]

None of these make a whit of difference. The only thing that matters are the appropriation bills. These other bills are there so Members of Congress can tell "the folks back home" that they are in favor of something even if they don't appropriate any money for it.

The President issues the PBR, usually in February. The nest step is the House and Senate marks - essentially what each house of Congress thinks should be the budget. Months pass going back and forth between OMB, the House and Senate, and ultimately a bill is put together that (in theory) everyone can live with. It's then put to vote - straight up or down, no amendments - in the House and then the Senate. Hopefully it's passed in both and then the President signs it.

There are multiple failure modes, but that's how it's supposed to work. AFIAK, we have neither mark yet.

I'm curious as a follow-up to the reply from @Vanadium 50 in this thread if there had been any further news from the Biden administration regarding any finalized bills related to science funding. I've heard very little news on this.