The Senate Appropriations Committee made some progress yesterday but hurdles still remain in the FY2020 appropriations process.
In a bipartisan manner, the committee reported out the Energy and Water Development bill by a unanimous vote of 31 – 0. Bipartisan support for the bill was expected. For the most part, research programs supported by the bill saw increases. These include:
- Science (total): $7.215 billion, an increase of $630.0 million above FY2019 level
- Within Science:
- Advanced Science Computing Research: $1.03 billion, an increase of $93.5 million
- Basic Energy Sciences: $2.33 billion, an increase of $159.0 million
- Biological and Environmental Research: $770.0 million, an increase of $65.0 million
- Fusion: $570.0 million in total (increase of $62.4 million) BUT $375.6 million for research, which represents a CUT of $56.4 million below the current level
- High Energy Physics: $1.07 billion, an increase of $85.0 million
- Nuclear Physics: $736.0 million, a $46.0-million increase
- ARPA-E: $428.0 million, an increase of $62.0 million
A copy of the committee report is available here and a copy of the bill text is available here.
At the same time, the committee’s proceedings on the defense bill and the allocations of funding for the 12 individual bills, or the “302(b)s”, were much more controversial and partisan. Unlike the Energy bill, the defense measure was approved on a party-line vote of 16-15. Much of conflict between the two sides was over the Trump Administration’s attempt to divert Pentagon funds to build the wall. The future of this bill remains to be seen.
In terms of the actual contents of the bill, the legislation would fund overall basic research, or “6.1” research, at $2.63 billion, an increase of more than $98 million over current levels. Applied research, or “6.2” research, would be funded at $5.98 billion, a decrease of $92.7 million.
Broken down further, 6.1 and 6.2 programs would be funded in the following manner:
- Army 6.1: $577.0 million, an increase of $70.1 million
- Army 6.2: $1.21 billion, an decrease of $377.1 million
- Navy 6.1: $682.5 million, a $2.6-million increase
- Navy 6.2: $1.12 billion, an increase of $149.9 million
- Air Force 6.1: $579.8 million, an increase of $18.4 million
- Air Force 6.2: $1.63 billion, an increase of $146.3 million
- Defense-Wide 6.1: $788.6 million, a $7.2-million increase
- Defense-Wide 6.2: $1.977 billion, an $11.8-million decrease
The text of the legislation is available here and the report that accompanies the bill is available here.
Committee Democrats also raised objections to the 302(b) allocations unveiled by the chairman on Tuesday and they offered a counter proposal. The Democratic alternative was also defeated 16-15. The dispute over the allocations could also complicate the appropriations process going forward in the Senate. At this point, three more subcommittees– Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, Transportation-Housing and Urban Development, and Financial Services– are scheduled to take up their respective bills next week.
With the new fiscal year scheduled to start October 1 and with none of the 12 funding bills signed into law, it is evident that some version of a continuing resolution will be needed to keep the government funded at least on a temporary basis.