Budget Priorities for 2006

If you wanted to mark the moment the United States decided that it no longer cared to be at the forefront of world science, you might choose February 2005, when the administration presented its proposed FY 2006 budget to an apparently compliant Congress.

The U.S. economy is being battered by sophisticated foreign producers. U.S. students are below world standards in mathematics and science. We face challenges in energy, the environment, security, health care and other areas that can only be met with major innovations. And the scientific community is facing an extraordinary array of challenges, questions, and mysteries. It would seem that this is precisely the time for a renewed national commitment to maintaining U.S. preeminence in science and technology. Yet the funding for science and technology would be cut by more than 3% in constant dollars. The cuts are greater than 4% if the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) "exploration missions" aimed at manned missions to the moon and Mars are not counted.

Research budgets are likely to continue to fall in future years as the Congress struggles to find ways to avoid catastrophic budget deficits without increasing taxes. Details are not available since, in a break with decades of precedent, the administration declined to show any budget detail beyond 2006. But the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) estimates that by FY2009 the National Science Foundation (NSF) budget would decline by 4%, The National Institutes of Health (NIH) by 5.8% and science in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) by 9.5%.

The depth of the cuts for science is masked by two additional factors: (1) sharp increases for presidential "visions" that bear no relation to the priorities of the serious science community, and (2) new security-related research funded in civilian agencies.

Setting Priorities

The budget provides no clear justification for the decision to cut back on research spending. Instead of the 12 pages or so that the budget usually devotes to describing the goals of research in health, energy, and basic science, this year's budget provides only two pages - most of which are devoted to explaining how well research programs are being managed. John Marberger, the President's Science Advisor, asked the House Science Committee to look on the bright side; research budgets were not cut as extensively as other domestic programs therefore the ratio of research to domestic spending has gone up. It's hard to take much comfort from this.

It is true that the budget documents are filled with rhetoric that would seem to point to tough-minded analysis of research priorities that would focus research funds where it would have the greatest potential impact. This year's budget texts are punctuated with terms like "management rigor," "focused, prioritized requirements," "corporate focus," and "spiral transformation." Yet somehow this process results in a budget that cuts funding for energy efficiency research and increases funding for planning a manned flight to Mars. And on the critical point of whether research is a higher value use of federal tax money than say sugar subsidies, the documents are completely silent.

Visions

The President's State of the Union address scarcely mentioned the subject of innovation. The speech mentioned science only twice: once to describe science that will not be supported (stem cells) and once to state that "my budget provides strong funding for leading-edge technology-from hydrogen-fueled cars, to clean coal, to renewable sources such as ethanol."

This presidential "vision" for hydrogen energy does get a $35 million increase- including an $11 million increase in the "nuclear hydrogen initiative." But growth of funding for hydrogen is more than offset by cuts in other energy research. Fossil energy research is cut by nearly 16%, and funding for solar, wind, hydro and geothermal energy research by $4 million. Biomass energy research, which includes ethanol, would be cut by nearly 40%. Energy conservation - including funding for energy efficient automobiles - would be cut nearly $21 million. It's difficult to reconcile these priorities with many recent reviews of priorities in energy research. Most suggest that research in hydrogen should be a part of a balanced portfolio of research and strategies creating incentives for new efficiency and energy supply technologies. But it's hard to find analytical reasons for cutting research in developing efficient vehicles, buildings, and a range of new energy supply technologies in order to fund the hydrogen program - let alone "nuclear hydrogen."

The second presidential "vision" referenced in the budget involves a commitment to return men to the moon and Mars. Strangely this didn't make it into the State of the Union, but it did make it into the budget with a serious amount of money attached. This vision is surprisingly close to the one developed in George H.W. Bush's administration, when Vice President Dan Quayle was instructed to find a new mission for NASA. But this time funding for many critical NASA research programs is being cut to make way for the new vision. It is unthinkable that any group of scholars asked to develop a set of research investments, most likely to yield important results, would have set such priorities. As in the late 1980s, the administration couldn't muster the courage to talk about the astronomical sums actually needed to put a person on Mars. Instead, the budget seems suspiciously consistent with one that would simply maintain the hugely expensive infrastructure of manned space flight.

If nothing else these "visions" put the high-flying rhetoric about sound management to an interesting test. First NASA somehow has been given a core mission that focuses on means and not scientific ends - a curious management objective. And while other research programs are held to tough measures of performance, the manned flight program has been made an investment priority in spite of the fact the program has never come close to meeting its program objectives since the Apollo program. The space shuttle was given a goal of achieving 50 flights a year but the fleet has made only 113 flights in 24 years - and lost 14 astronauts in the process. The space station lumbers along with apparently no apologies for the fact that it has never made a significant scientific achievement. Funding for the Viking and the Hubble rescue mission were eliminated in spite of their stunning record of discovery.

Security

A letter from 758 infectious disease researchers created uproar last month. It complained that the $1.8 billion being spent on biosecurity in NIH each year is unnecessary and diverts funds from higher priority research. I disagree with their contention that biosecurity funds are not needed, and believe that we should be pleased that the funds are being spent by NIH. But there is real reason to be concerned that these new programs mask the fact that traditional civilian research in NIH is being cut. Without the additional biosecurity spending and the goal of doubling the NIH budget would not have been met.

A similar pattern is threatening science at other agencies. It is tautological that the research in agencies such as Agriculture, NSF, EPA, Commerce, and others are cut, if they are asked to increase security-related research without a proportionate increase in funding. Yet that is precisely what is happening. The real cuts in federal domestic research would be much larger if adjusted to reflect the $2.7 billion in homeland security research that non-security agencies are being asked to do.

Looking Forward or Looking Back

The most troubling feature of the disastrous research proposals in this year's budget is that they don't seem to have created much concern. We drive to work in cars designed abroad and eagerly buy inexpensive cell phones using chips designed abroad. Much of this work is based on fundamental research funded by the U.S. over the years. Yet we somehow believe that Americans can continue to enjoy incomes five times higher than the world average without making the investments needed to stay ahead in critical areas of science and technology. It's difficult to avoid a sense that America has somehow shifted from a nation focused on the limitless promise of discovery to a place confident that all important truth has already been revealed.

The cuts in research are not the result of some natural disaster; they are the result of a conscious decision by federal leaders to cut taxes and cut research. The extreme right have made it clear that they want to ensure that taxes are set at levels that will "starve the beast." Apparently they are comfortable that research is part of "the beast" that must be starved.

Sources:

• Federal Science and Technology Budget, Analytical Perspectives, Budget of the United States, 2006 (www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/pdf/spec.pdf) and budgets for individual agencies AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program (www.aaas.org/spp/rd/)
• Shuttle Promise Unfulfilled, Houston Chronicle. 7/21/03 (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/space/2003630)