As scheduled, the House Appropriations Committee approved yesterday two more bills for FY2020.
The $690-billion Defense measure was approved by a vote of 30 – 22.
The committee adopted by a vote of 31 to 21 the $46-billion Energy and Water bill.
Two more measures– Transportation- Housing and Agriculture– are slated for subcommittee action tomorrow.
This morning, the House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to markup the FY2020 Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) and Interior bills, measures that largely reject the cuts to science and research proposed by the Administration in its budget request.
CJS
NSF
The National Science Foundation (NSF) would be funded at $8.64 billion under this bill, an increase of $561.1 million above the current level and $1.57 billion more than what the Administration proposed.
Within NSF, the Research and Related Activities account would be funded at $7.11 billion, $586.3 million more than the FY2019 level and an increase of $1.44 billion above the request.
The Major Research Equipment, Facilities, and Construction (MREFC) account would see a total of $223.2 million, which was what was requested by the Administration. Within that amount, $46.3 million would be dedicated to the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. The Education and Human Resources account would see an increase of $40.0 million to $950 million, $126.5 million above what the White House requested.
NASA
The bill would fund NASA at a total of $22.31 billion, an increase of $81 million above the current level and $1.30 billion more than what the Administration requested.
The Science Mission Directorate would see an increase of $255.6 million in this bill for a total of $7.16 billion. Of that amount, $2.02 billion would be for Earth Science and $2.71 billion would be for Planetary Science. Astrophysics would see a total of $1.37 billion while $352.6 million would be dedicated to the Webb Telescope.
The bill would allocate $510.7 million to the WFIRST project, which was zeroed out by the Administration.
Space Grant, a part of the STEM Engagement Office, would be funded at $48.0 million.
NOAA
Within NOAA, Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), the primary research arm of the agency, would receive $595.4 million, an increase of $70.3 million above the FY2019 level.
The Climate Research Program would see a total of $186.5 million, an increase of $27.5 million. The Cooperative Institutes and Labs funded through Climate Research is slated for $74.0 million, $13.0 million more the current allocation. Climate research competitive programs would see an $11-million increase to $71.0 million.
The bill proposes to fund Sea Grant at $73.0 million (a $5-million increase) while the Aquaculture line would be funded at $12.0 million.
The report is available here.
Interior
The Interior bill scheduled to be taken up also rejects many of the cuts to research programs proposed by the Administration.
USGS
The Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CASCs) would see an increase of $13.0 million to a total of $38.4 million. Of that increase, $4 million would be designated for the creation of a new CASC in the Midwest.
The bill also proposes to fund the ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system at $19.0 million, with another $6.7 million for additional infrastructure build-out for the system.
The USGS cooperative research units program, slated for elimination by the Administration, would see a $5.6-million increase to a total of $24.0 million.
NEH
The National Endowment for the Humanities, currently funded at $155 million, would see an increase to $167.5 million.
The Interior report is available here.
Next Steps
The full Appropriations Committee is scheduled to mark up the bills later this morning. We’ll report on further developments of relevance.
Ahead of the markup scheduled for tomorrow, the House Appropriations Committee has released the report for the House bill and the report for the Energy and Water bill.
Defense
The Defense bill to be marked up tomorrow would fund the basic and applied research programs in the following manner:
Energy and Water
Not surprisingly, the House draft bill would fund many of the programs and offices of interest to the University of Washington at higher levels than those contained in the President’s budget request (PBR). In most cases, they are higher than the FY2019 levels, including the following:
Office of Science (Total): $6.87 billion ($285 million above FY2019, $1.32 billion above PBR)
ARPA-E: $425 million (+$59.0 million, +$712 million)
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EER&E): $2.65 billion (+$272 million, +$2.31 billion)
Four more FY2020 spending bills are scheduled to be taken up by the full House Appropriations Committee this week.
On Tuesday, the committee is expected to mark up the Defense and Energy and Water Development bills. The committee is scheduled to bring up the Commerce-Justice-Science and Interior measures on Wednesday.
The reports for the bills have not yet been released. We will continue to provide additional details as they become available.
As noted previously, the House Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Bill is scheduled to be marked up on Friday. A copy of the draft bill has just been released. The accompanying report will not become available until after the subcommittee markup, just before the full committee markup, which is most likely to occur sometime next week.
While most details will not be available until next week, we can report the following about the bill:
The markup is scheduled for 9:30 AM EDT tomorrow. It will be webcast here.