Yesterday the House VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies
Appropriations Subcommittee drafted their FY 2002
appropriations bill. The National Science Foundation budget
would increase 9.4% over the current year under this
legislation.

The committee report language has not been released, but some
of the numbers have been made available. The below figures
represent the percentage increase in the House appropriations
bill over the current NSF budget:

The total National Science Foundation budget would increase
9.4%

The Research and Related Activities budget would increase
8.7%.

Within this budget, the Mathematical and Physics Sciences
budget would increase 9.0%.

Within this budget, the Geosciences budget would increase
9.0%.

Within this budget, the Engineering budget would increase
8.9%.

Within this budget, the Polar Programs budget would increase
9.4%.

The Major Research Equipment budget would increase 11.3%.

The Education and Human Resources budget would increase 12.8%.

House Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman James Walsh (R-NY)
and Ranking Minority Member Alan Mollohan (D-WV) were
operating under a very tight allocation this year. At the May
hearing on the NSF budget, Walsh called it an “absolute
priority” that more money be provided than the 1.3% increase
that President Bush had requested. These appropriations
numbers reflect a statement that Mollohan made at this hearing
when he said, “this committee makes independent decisions
about the budget.” “We are looking forward to making some
changes,” Walsh said at the conclusion of that hearing.

Senate appropriations subcommittee chairman Barbara Mikulski
(D-MD) and Ranking Minority Member Christopher “Kit” Bond (R-
MO) will have an opportunity to make their own changes to the
administration’s request when they meet next Tuesday (July 17)
to draft their own version of this bill. “We went to double
the NSF budget over the next five years,” Mikulski said at
last month’s Senate hearing on the NSF budget. With a
subcommittee allocation that is only marginally better than
that given the House subcommittee, finding the money for the
15% increase that would be needed to keep the foundation’s
budget on the doubling track may prove, as Mikulski said,
“very hard.” The action taken yesterday by Walsh and Mollohan
and their colleagues is most significant. Within a week, the
general parameters of the National Science Foundation’s budget
for FY 2002 should be known.

Numbers on the NASA portion of this bill are not yet
available. These numbers, and report language on both NSF and
NASA will appear in future issues of FYI as they become
available.

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Richard M . Jones

Public Information Division

The American Institute of Physics

fyi@aip.org

(301) 209-3095

http://www.aip.org/gov

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