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Details of Senate CJS, Interior Bills Available

Many more details contained in the Senate Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) and Interior Appropriations Bills are now available.  Both were approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday.

CJS Bill

The detailed report accompanying the bill is available here.

With respect to the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Senate committee-passed bill would fund the agency as a whole at $8.07 billion and the individual directorates in the following manner:

  • Research and Related Activities– $6.56 billion ($6.33 billion in FY2018)
  • Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction– $249.3 million, including full funding for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope ($182.8 million in FY2018)
  • Education and Human Resources– $915.0 million ($902.0 million in FY2018)

The bill would fund NASA at $21.3 billion.  The agency is currently funded at $20.7 billion.

  • NASA Science would receive a total of $6.40 billion.  That amount would be divided up in the following manner:
    • Earth Science:  $1.93 billion
    • Planetary Science:  $2.20 billion
    • Astrophysics:  $1.24 billion, including $352 for WFIRST
    • Webb Telescope:  $304.6 million
    • Heliophysics:  $720.0 million
  • Office of Education— The bill proposes to restructure the current Office of Education to a new Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Opportunities account.  As part of the new account, the Space Grant Program would be funded at $44 million.

Within NOAA, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) would receive $508.3 million.  As part of OAR, the Climate Research Cooperative Institutes would be funded at $61.0 million.  The Competitive Research line within the Climate Research Program would be funded at $60 million.

The committee showed its support for the Sea Grant Program by allocating a $6-million increase for it.

The Integrated Ocean Observing System would be funded at $37.0 million under this bill.

Interior Bill

A number of agencies and programs of interest are also funded by the Interior Bill.  A copy of the report that details the directives regarding the spending levels in it is available here.

A program funded through the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Cooperative Research Units would see a modest increase in the Senate bill.  The committee also included the following observation and directive about the program:

Committee notes that USGS Cooperative Research Units [CRU] have served as a cooperative network with Interior partners to improve and increase youth involvement in science and resources management. The Committee recognizes the value of these programs in building the workforce of tomorrow and strongly encourages the Survey to develop a plan and address open research positions at research institutions and fill open positions at CRUs as quickly as practicable to support the educational pipeline.

The Earthquake Early Warning system, also funded through the USGS, would be supported at $12.9 million in FY2019 while the Climate Adaptation Science Centers would be level-funded at $25.3 million.