The Senate Appropriations Committee has made available the details of the spending bills it cleared yesterday.
The text of the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill is available here and a copy of the report is available here.
The committee has also posted the Interior spending measure and the accompanying report.
With respect to what is in the bills, the Senate CJS legislation would:
- Fund the National Science Foundation at $8.32 billion, an increase of $242 million above the current level.
- Within NSF, the Research and Related Activities Account would receive $6.77 billion, an increase of approximately $250 million above current levels.
- Activities funded through the Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction Account would be funded at $253 million, which is $42.5 million below the current level. The committee funds the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope at the Administration-requested level.
- Education and Human Resources would see a total of $937 million under this bill.
- Fund NASA at $22.75 billion, $1.25 billion above the FY2019 level.
- The Science Mission Directorate would be funded at $6.91 billion.
- Within Science, the bill proposes to fund the various accounts in the following manner:
- Earth Science: $1.945 billion
- Planetary Science: $2.631 billion
- Astrophysics: $1.171 billion
- $445.7 million for WFIRST
- Heliophysics: $735.0 million
- Aeronautics: $725.0 million
- Space Technology: $926.9 million
- STEM Engagement: $112.0 million
- Space Grant: $47.0 million
- Within Science, the bill proposes to fund the various accounts in the following manner:
- The Science Mission Directorate would be funded at $6.91 billion.
The Interior Appropriations Bill also funds a number of agencies, programs, and accounts of interest to UW as well. For example, the committee-approved bill would fund the National Endowment for the Humanities at $157.0 million, $2 million above the current level.
In addition, the bill also funds, among other agencies and programs, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
Within USGS, the report includes the following language with respect to the Climate Adaptation Science Centers:
The new Climate Adaption Science Center sub activity receives $44,488,000. The recommendation includes funding to maintain the fiscal year 2019 levels for the Centers. It is the Committee’s expectation that funding will be distributed according to the allocation methodology in previous years ensuring all Centers remain open and at current levels.
It also contains the following text with respect to the early earthquake warning system:
Natural Hazards.—The bill includes $170,838,000 for Natural Hazards programs. Within the Earthquake Hazards program, the Committee continues to support the multitude of regional earthquake initiatives, but is concerned about the budget structure for each network as it relates to operations, maintenance, and infrastructure; therefore, the Committee directs the Survey to report back within 90 days after enactment of this act with a breakdown of funding between the operations, maintenance, and infrastructure expenditures in 2018 and 2019 along with recommendations on how to better structure the funding for these initiatives. This recommendation provides funding to ensure all the regional networks receive 2019 base funding level for operations and maintenance, including earthquake early warning and the Central and Eastern USNetwork [CEUSN]. Within these amounts, the Committee directs that regional networks which recently acquired the USArray stations from the National Science Foundation receive $3,000,000 for the operations and maintenance as these networks work to incorporate and use all Earthscope data. On top of base operations and maintenance for each network, the recommendation includes $17,500,000 for equipment and infrastructure costs. The Committee is also concerned that the updates to the national seismic hazard maps do not consistently include all 50 States and directs the Survey to update these maps for all 50 States, not just the lower 48, and provides $2,000,000 for this effort.
The Committee is concerned about the lack of knowledge and real time instrumentation available for the Cascadia subduction zone; therefore, the Committee encourages the continued development of a system for Cascadia that will help prepare for and mitigate the negative human and economic impacts of a major seismic event.
The Cooperative Research Units, also funded by the USGS, would receive $18.4 million next year, the same amount as this year.
We will provide further details as the process moves forward.