US President Obama has submitted his 2015 budget request, totaling $3.9 trillion, to Congress. Agencies funding scientific research did not fare well, with increases insufficient to offset inflation in most cases. The requested $30.4 billion budget for the NIH’s is only a 0.7% increase. However, the NIH’s spending for the BRAIN initiative (see IBO 4/15/13) would increase 150% to $100 million, and the budget for the National Center for Advancing Translational Science’s Cures Acceleration Network would triple to $30 million. The NIH’s Common Fund would increase 1.1% to $583 million. The NSF’s budget would increase by only 1.0% to $7.3 billion. Funding for the DOE’s Office of Science would rise only 0.9% to $5.1 billion, with the budget for its high-energy physics program declining 6.6% to $744 million. The request for the USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative was $325 million, up 2.8%.

Source: Science