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News and updates

News and updates

Additional Support Will Be Needed For DOD S&T Programs Going Forward

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As noted previously, the House Appropriations Committee approved the FY2022 Defense spending bill earlier this week. The detailed report for the bill is available here.

At this point, for the most part, the bill would fund basic and applied research programs at levels below the current level.  The committee-approved bill would fund basic (“6.1”) and applied (“6.2”) research programs in the following manner:

  • Overall 6.1 research:  $2.44 billion, a decrease of $230.0 million (8.6%)
  • Overall 6.2 research:  $5.92 billion, a decrease of $521.8 million (8.1%)

Army

  • 6.1:  $535.7 million, a decrease of $55.8 million (9.4%)
  • 6.2:  $1.15 billion, a decrease of $375.1 million (24.6%)

Navy

  • 6.1:  $632.3 million, a decrease of $21.6 million (3.3%)
  • 6.2:  $1.08 billion, a decrease of $101.0 million (8.5%)

Air Force

  • 6.1:  $490.7 million, a decrease of $46.6 million (8.7%)
  • 6.2:  $1.41 billion, a decrease of $150.6 million (9.6%)

Defense-wide

  • 6.1:  $782.7 million, a decrease of $106.0 million (11.9%)
  • 6.2:  $2.09 billion, an increase of $131.0 million (6.7%)

DARPA (Total)

  • $3.48 billion, a decrease of $16.8 million (0.5%)

Historically, the Senate has been more generous with respect to DOD Science and Technology programs.  We will continue to provide updates on the Defense funding bill as the process moves forward.

Various Science Agencies and Programs Slated for Increases in House CJS Bill

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According to the report that accompanies the CJS bill scheduled to be marked up by the full Appropriations Committee in the House tomorrow, the current version of the legislation would provide increases to various science and research agencies and program of interest to UW.

NSF

The current version of the legislation proposes to increase the NSF by $1.15 billion to a total of $9.63 billion.

Within the NSF budget, the bill would fund the Research and Related Activities account at $7.7 billion, an increase of $786.0 million.  At the same time, it also calls for an increase of $306.3 million for the Education and Human Resources account for a total of $1.27 billion.

NASA

NASA is slated for $25.04 billion under the bill, an increase of $1.77 billion.

As part of the overall NASA budget, the Science Mission Directorate would see an increase of $668.5 million for a total of $7.97 billion.

Within the $147 million proposed for the Office of STEM Engagement, $60 million would be allocated to the Space Grant program, which is currently funded at $51 million.

NOAA

As part of the overall proposed budget of $6.46 billion for NOAA, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), NOAA’s research arm, is slated for $684.5 million.  For comparison, OAR received $570.6 million this year.

While there does not appear to be any explicit funding allocated to the Administration’s request for an “ARPA-C”, the Climate Research program within OAR would see a $71-million increase, for a total of $253 million.

Sea Grant would see a $10-million increase to $85 million, with the increase dedicated to a coastal resiliency initiative.

The Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) would be funded at $50 million, an increase of $9 million.

Like on other bills of interest, we will continue to provide additional updates.

House Bill Includes Increases for NIH, Student Aid and Higher Education

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The House Labor-HHS report includes increases for a number of agencies, programs, and accounts of great interest to both UW and the broader higher education community.  These include, for example, the following–

NIH

The bill calls for $49.4 billion for NIH, an increase of $6.5 billion above the current level.  Of the proposed $6.5-billion increase, $3.5 billion would be for the base NIH budget and $3 billion would be for the creation of ARPA-Health (ARPA-H), a new proposal from the Biden Administration.  The report states that ARPA-H should be a distinct entity within the NIH structure.

Student Aid/ Higher Education

  • Pell Grant

The House bill would increase the Pell Grant maximum to $6,895 from the current maximum of $6,495.

  • International education programs (Title VI)

Under the House bill, the collection of international education programs would see an increase of 19.2% and would be funded at $93.2 million.  Currently, these programs are funded at $78.2 million.

  • FWS/SEOG/ TRIO/ GEAR UP/ GAANN

Federal Work Study would be increased by 20.5% to $1.43 billion while TRIO would see an increase of 18.2% to $1.3 billion.  In addition, GEAR UP would be increased by 10.9% to $408 million.  On the graduate education side, the bill proposes to support GAANN at $25.5 million, an increase of 8.5% (this program has not seen an increase in several years).

  • IES

The committee proposes to fund the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) at $762.5 million, nearly a 19% increase.

Policy provisions

In addition to funding various programs and agencies, the bill would also allow DACA-eligible students to become Pell-eligible.

We will provide updates on this bill as the legislative process continues to move forward.

 

House Committee Approves Defense Bill, More Action Scheduled for Later This Week

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The full House Appropriations Committee cleared the FY2022 Defense spending bill yesterday by a party-line vote of 33-23.  Among other efforts, the legislation funds Pentagon-supported basic and applied research programs .  The detailed committee report that outlines the individual accounts in bill is available here.

The committee is scheduled to take up additional measures of interest to UW later this week, with the Labor-HHS-Education and Commerce-Justice-Science bills slated to be marked up tomorrow and the Energy and Water Development legislation on deck for Friday.

Earlier today, the committee released the reports for the Labor-HHS-Education bill and the CJS bill and we will provide additional details about all of these bills after further analysis.  The Energy and Water Development report is not yet available.

 

 

Appropriations Process Kicks Into Gear

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With six more bills scheduled for at least subcommittee action this week, the annual appropriations process for FY2022 has kicked into gear. This week’s activities follow those that took place the last week of June.  This means that all 12 spending bills will have moved through at least the subcommittee process by the end of this week.

The following pieces of legislation are scheduled for subcommittee action this week:

On Tuesday, the full Appropriations Committee is scheduled to take up the Defense and Homeland Security bills.  The committee is currently scheduled to mark up the E&W and THUD bills on Friday.

The following bills have already cleared the full committee:

The Legislative Branch and Financial Services bills are still awaiting full committee action.

We will provide details as they become available.