IP: - Senate NSF Bill

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

FYI
The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science Policy News
Number 95: July 24, 1997


Senate Appropriations Recommendations on NSF


Senate passage of H.R. 2158, the VA, HUD, Independent Agencies
Appropriations Bill, on Tuesday, sets the stage for members of
the House and Senate appropriations committees to write a final
bill.  There are important budgetary and program issues to be
resolved concerning the National Science Foundation.  (See FYIs
#90 and 91 for House Appropriations Committee report language
regarding NSF, and FYI #92 for further budget details.)  The
following are selections from the Senate Appropriations Committee
report on NSF:


RESEARCH AND RELATED ACTIVITIES: The Senate figure is $13 million
less than the House at $2.524 billion.  The Senate report
language differs significantly from that of the House, and will
have to be reconciled.  For instance, while the House report
"strongly supports" NSF's Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence
initiative, the Senate report states: "the Committee also
believes that the agency must have a plan for the investment of
nearly $500,000,000 for the two new initiatives [KDI and life in
extreme environments.]  Therefore, the Committee will not make
the new funding for these two initiatives available until the
agency submits appropriate milestones and guideposts, to be
accomplished in fiscal year 1998, and against which the agency
can be measured in determining funding for fiscal year 1999."


The Senate report strongly supports a program that the House was
silent on: "The Committee, therefore, directs the National
Science Foundation to accelerate the mapping of Arabidopsis and
to move beyond the work it currently supports [through an
interagency working group] toward more economically important
plant genome projects such as corn, wheat, rice and soybeans." 
The Senate directs NSF to provide $40 million "to support a
competitive, merit-based initiative, which may include one or
more university-based research centers" for  plant genome
research.


The Senate report also wants a study of how pending changes (due
10/1/97) in the proposal review criteria will affect the type of
research that NSF supports, one year after their implementation. 
The committee wants NSF to go back to providing, in its future
budget requests "valuable information on interdisciplinary
research and education initiatives of broad national interest." 
Regarding the phase out of two supercomputer centers, the
senators stated, "The transition should take into account the
needs of the users and also the appropriate transition period and
costs.  Absent an agreement between NSF and the centers, the
Committee may be compelled to provide guidance to the agency
concerning what constitutes an appropriate transition."


"The Committee strongly supports the next generation Internet
initiative, and stresses the importance of equal access to the
Internet for students, teachers, and researchers in the rural
areas of this country," states the Senate report.  NSF is to
prepare a report by the end of this year on how EPSCoR states
participate in current computing and communications programs. 
Also having the support of the Senate committee is the
Directorate for Social,Behavioral, and Economic Sciences, which
was once under fire from former House Science Committee Chairman
Bob Walker.  The committee also wants NSF to work with "NASA and
other agencies to develop complementary programs" to "understand
the origin and evolution of galaxies and planetary systems, and
the origin and distribution of life in the galaxies."


MAJOR RESEARCH EQUIPMENT: The committee provided the full LIGO
request.  It disagrees with House appropriators, who want to
forward-fund the South Pole Station work.  Instead, the senators
would provide $25 million this year, and $90 million over the
next four years (which is the same amount of up-front money the
House allocated.)  The two committees agree to give $4 million to
the Gemini project, although from different NSF budget components
-- the Senate taking it from the millimeter array project.  The
Senate also recommends providing NSF with $25 million to procure
an incoherent scatter radar for polar and ionospheric research if
the radar is collocated with an existing Defense Department
facility. Finally, the Senate report instructs NSF to provide the
appropriations committee with regular status reports on "each
ongoing large-scale construction or acquisition effort with an
estimated cost of $10,000,000 or more."


EDUCATION AND HUMAN RESOURCES: The Senate budget is $7 million
below that of the House at $625 million.  The Senate report
touches on three programs.  While providing the request of $20
million for the new Integrative Graduate Education and Research
Training Program, the senators expressed concern about "the lack
of evaluation of previous traineeship programs," and wants NSF to
prepare a report on problems, correction actions, and funding
criteria.  The Senate committee gave the full request for EPSCoR,
but also expressed concern about changes in how funding is to be
distributed.  A report is to be prepared.  Finally, "the
Committee expects NSF funding of $6,000,000 for an
underrepresented populations undergraduate reform initiative to
increase the numbers of underrepresented populations in
mathematics, engineering, and the biological, computer, and
physical sciences through grants to historically black colleges
and universities."  NSF's other program directorates are to match
this money.




A date has not been set for the conference committee to resolve
these differences.  Congress goes on a month-long vacation at the
end of July.  This bill is supposed to be passed and signed by
the President by October 1, the start of the new fiscal year.


###############
Richard M. Jones
Public Information Division
American Institute of Physics
fyi () aip org
(301) 209-3095
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