Appropriations Update Part 3: 

Now that the House Appropriations Committee has considered and passed all 12 appropriations bills, the Senate Appropriations Committee has begun considering and passing their appropriations bills in earnest.  Overall, science fared okay in the Senate spending bills we have seen so far, and the drastic cuts proposed in the President’s budget request were nowhere to be seen. Here’s a recap of the Commerce-Justice-Science spending bill for fiscal year 2018 (FY18), which includes funding for NASA, NOAA, and NSF as well as the Energy and Water spending bill, which includes the Department of Energy. 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 

	FY 2016	FY 2017	President’s Budget Request for FY 2018	AGU Request FY 2018	Senate Appropriated Amount for   FY 2018
Overall	$19,285.00	$19,653.30	$19,052.90	$20,480.00	$19,500.00
Science Mission Directorate	$5,589.4	$5,765.90	$5,711.80	$5,900.00	$5,571.80

*Proposed and enacted funding levels in millions 

Thumbs Up 

• NASA’s Heliophysics Division received a 1.47% or $10 million increase in the Senate spending bill. 
• NASA’s Office of Education received $100 million, the same level of funding in FY17, and 10 million more than in the House spending bill. 

Thumbs Down 

• Overall, NASA received a cut of .78% and NASA’s Science Mission Directorate received a more than 3% cut. 
• NASA’s Earth Science Division received flat funding from FY17, while the Planetary Science Division received a more than 12% cut in funding in the Senate spending bill. 

 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 

	FY2016	FY2017	President Budget Request for FY2018	AGU Request for FY2018	Senate Appropriated Amount for FY2018
Overall	$5,773.50	$5,675.00	$4,775.30	$6,100.00	$5,590.29
National Ocean Service (NOS)	$500.10	$521.10	$387.00		$537.12
Fisheries Service (NMFS)	$849.50	$851.54	$821.00		$867.03
Oceanic & Atmospheric Research (OAR)	$461.90	$514.13	$350.00		$518.73
National Weather Service (NWS)	$1,124.15	$1,121.57	$1,059.00		$1,129.28
NESDIS	$2,350.66	$2,203.60	$1,816.00		$2,063.30

*Proposed and enacted funding levels in millions 

Thumbs Up 

• The Senate bill provides increases in funding for several NOAA line offices, including NOS, NMFS, OAR, NWS, Mission Support, and OMAO.  
• The Senate bill also rejects many of the cuts proposed in the President’s budget request. Of note is the restoration of funding to OAR – the Senate provided 48% more funding for OAR than the administration’s request. In fact, OAR received an additional $4.6 million than it did in FY17, supporting NOAA research which spans all line offices.  

Thumbs Down 

• The Senate bill still cuts topline NOAA funding by 1.5%, which is about $85 million below the FY17 level.  

National Science Foundation (NSF) 

	FY 2016	FY 2017	President’s Budget Request for FY 2018	AGU Request for FY 2018	Senate Appropriated Amount for   FY 2018
Overall	$19,285.00	$7,472.22	$6,652.89	$8,000.00	$7,311.08
Research & Related Activities	$5,589.4	$6,033.65	$5,361.65	—	$5,917.80

*Proposed and enacted funding levels in millions 

Thumbs Up 

• The Senate appropriations bill does not include language that would prioritize certain directorates over other. 
• The Senate spending bill provides funding for three Regional Class Research Vessels, one for each coast of the United States, including the Gulf coast. 

Thumbs Down  

• The House spending bill cuts funding for NSF by $161.14 million, which mostly comes from a $115.84 million cut to NSF’s Research and Related Activities account, which includes funding for the Geosciences Directorate.  

Department of Energy 

	FY2016	FY2017	President Budget Request for FY2018	AGU Request for FY2018	Senate Appropriated Amount for FY2018
Overall	$29,717.28	$30,786.01	$28,042.00	—	$31,967.99
Office of Science	$5,350.20	$5,392.00	$4,472.52	$5,560.00	$5,550.00
ARPA-E	$291.00	$306.00	$20.00	$325.00	$330.00

*Proposed and enacted funding levels in millions 

Thumbs Up:  

• The Senate bill would fund the DOE’s Office of Science and the Advanced Research Project Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) at $5.55 billion and $330 million, respectively – record levels for both offices.  These increases are in stark contrast to the drastic cuts in the President’s budget request and the House spending bill,  

Thumbs Down 

• Nearly all research programs received an increase under the Senate bill, except for fusion science and nuclear sciences.