President Bush’s proposed budget, released February 4, for fiscal year 2009 calls for a 3.3% increase in the federal R&D investment to $145.4 billion. Federal support of basic and applied R&D would drop 0.5% to $57.1 billion, with a 3.1% increase in basic research spending to $29.3 billion and a 4.0% decrease in applied research spending to $27.8 million. Federal nondefense R&D funding would increase 2.7% to $60.9 billion, faster than the expected inflation rate of 2.0%. Mr. Bush’s support of the American Competitiveness Initiative (see IBO 2/28/06, 2/15/07) allocates much of federal backing to three agencies. The Department of Energy’s (DOE) budget would rise 8.4% to $10.6 billion. Within the DOE, the Office of Science’s research budget would increase 16.7% to $4.3 billion and Energy R&D would escalate 4.1% to $2.4 billion. The National Science Foundation’s R&D budget would increase 15.5% to $5.2 billion, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s research budget would increase 6.1% to $545 million. To offset increases, the Department of Agriculture’s R&D budget would fall 15.5% to $2.0 billion. The National Institutes of Health’s budget would remain flat, while the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget would be reduced by 1.3% to $550 million.

Source: American Association for the Advancement of Science