House Republicans are bringing the fifth spending measure to the House floor this year. Late Wednesday, the House began consideration of the $55.3 billion FY16 Transportation-HUD bill. Debate is expected to continue Thursday. Final votes for the week are expected in the afternoon. Rail safety dominated the floor debate Wednesday, as it has for the Transportation-HUD bill since the deadly derailment of an Amtrak train near Philadelphia on May 12. Amtrak accounts saw some modest boosts, though Thursday’s amendment votes will give House members a chance to cut funding for the railroad service.
Category: Appropriations
House Passes CJS
Today, the House of Representatives passed HR 2578, the FY16 Commerce, Justice, Science bill by a vote of 242–183. Twelve Democrats voted for and ten Republicans voted against the $51.4 billion measure. The legislation had a host of amendments ranging from Cuba, bullets, immigration, to marijuana.
Unfortunately, no amendments were offered on some of the most concerning provisions to the research community, mainly the cuts to NSF’s Geosciences (GEO) and Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) directorates. Overall, the legislation appropriates $7.3 billion for NSF, which is $50 million or a 0.7 percent increase over FY15. The bill appropriates $5.9 billion for the Research and Related Activities account which is an increase of $50 million, or 0.8 percent above the FY15 level. Both the Education and Human Resources ($866 million) and Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction ($200 million) Directorates are flat funded.
While avoiding specific funding levels by directorate, the House Committee Report language directs NSF to allocate no less than 70% of research and related activity funding to Biological Sciences, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, Engineering, and Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering. Moreover. Further, the language also directs NSF to allocate no less than FY15 levels for the: Office of International Science and Engineering; Integrative Activities; and U.S. Arctic Commission. The results of this direction would significant cut to the two directorates not explicitly named: GEO and SBE. This language would force NSF to cut over $250 million. The combined current budget for these two directorates is $1,576.6 million; the FY 2016 budget in the House bill is $256.7 million or 16.3 percent less. In FY15, the GEO budget $1.3 billion and the SBE budget $272 million.
These cuts reflects similar assaults on these directorates from the House’s recently passed America COMPETES legislation.
In the May 14th Science Insider article, House CJS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Culberson (R-TX) indicated the rationale behind such a cut was that geosciences is not a “pure science.” Clearly there is strong communication between the two committees.
Unfortunately, there are additional report language concerns. the report language also directs the NSF to develop guidelines and present a plan to the committee within 180 days of enactment to ensure that research conducted by NSF grantees is replicable. At this time, the community does not fully know the implications, if any, such language could have on the research conducted at U.S. universities.
Amendments of note:
- The House narrowly defeated an amendment (213 to 214) from Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-CT) that would have increased funding for Industrial Technology Servicese (ITS). ITS consists of 3 programs, including the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership. The amendment would have increased funding for ITS by $11 million and reduced funding for buildings and facilities of the federal prison system by $31M.
- An amendment from Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX), which would have reduced funding for the science mission directorate by $103M, and directed $67M to the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and exploration. Rep. Babin decided not to offer the amendment.
- An amendment offered by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) that would reduce funds in the bill by 1 percent across-the-board excepting the FBI and specified accounts for the Department of Justice. The Blackburn amendment failed by a vote of 168-257.
- An amendment offered by Reps. Bill Foster (D-IL) and Scott Garrett (R-NJ) that would prohibit the use of funds to fund any Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) program within NSF or NASA. The Foster-Garrett amendment failed by a vote of 195-232.
Here is a list of all the amendments that passed.
In addition, the White House has issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing the passage of the House legislation.
Attention on FY16 CJS now turns to the Senate.
House to Consider CJS
The House Rules will meet today to approve a rule for consideration of the FY2016 CJS Appropriations bill (H.R. 2578). The House will begin consideration of the bill beginning tomorrow at noon and possibly continuing through Thursday.
As has been previously mentioned, the cuts to the measure and the report language accompanying the legislation have raised some concerns. The White House has also expressed concerns on the bill.
Here is a AAAS article on the winners and losers of the House bill.
OMB Letter of Concern to House Appropriators about FY16 CJS
As this process gets ever more interesting, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Sean Donovan sent a letter to House Appropriations Committee’s Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) and Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-NY) about the draft FY16 CJS Appropriations bill. The letter expressed strong concern on the funding levels for science and innovation due to the adherence of the committee to the Sequestration framework levels. The Committee is expected to mark up the bill this morning.
The letter says in part:
“Its shortsighted funding cuts undermine both fiscal responsibility and economic competitiveness, since they would prevent investments that both reduce future costs to taxpayers and inform business decision making, improve weather forecasting, support business expansion into new markets, and spur development of innovative technologies.”
FY16 House DOD and Senate E&W Appropriations Bills Released
House and Senate appropriators are in full swing working on the FY16 appropriations measures.
House Appropriators released of a FY16 Defense appropriations measure that totals $578.6 billion. The bill, which the Subcommittee on Defense will mark up Wednesday, includes $88.4 billion for so-called Overseas Contingency Operations account.
In total, the bill provides $578.6 billion in discretionary funding, an increase of $24.4 billion above the fiscal year 2015 enacted level and $800 million above the President’s request. This includes $88.4 billion in Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) funding for war efforts and related costs, which is within the level assumed in the House and Senate budget conference agreement.
The bill contains $67.9 billion – $66.2 billion in base funding and $1.7 billion in GWOT funding – for research, development, testing, and evaluation of new defense technologies. This is $4 billion above the fiscal year 2015 level, and will help to advance the safety and success of current and future military operations and prepare our nation to meet a broad range of future security threats.
Specifically, this funding will support research and development of: the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter; the GPS III operational control and space segments; the new Air Force bomber program; a next-generation JSTARS aircraft; the RQ-4 Triton Unmanned Aerial Vehicle; the Navy’s Future Unmanned Carrier-based Strike System, the Ohio-class submarine replacement; Stryker lethality; the Israeli Cooperative Programs; and other important research and development activities.
A total of $88.4 billion in war-related OCO funds is $37.4 billion more than Obama requested for this same bill and represents an admitted ploy to appease Republican hawks while keeping within the BCA caps. This distribution seems in line with an effort to try to target the surplus OCO funds toward training and equipment costs that can at least be linked to the actual war operations overseas. Such maneuvers were a strong point of contention during the NDAA consideration and warranted a veto threat.
Senate Appropriators in the Senate Energy-Water Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday approved a $35.4 billion FY 2016 spending bill that sets annual funding levels for the Energy Department, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation and other agencies.
The bill would raise funding some $1.2 billion over current levels, effectively matching the increase approved in the version approved by the House Appropriations Committee on April 22. Unlike the House appropriations bill, however, the Senate subcommittee draft puts off debate on the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada that has been blocked for years by Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.