Skip to content
News and updates

Category: Environmental Research & Sustainability

Deal Reached on an Infrastructure Package

Posted on

Today the White House announced a deal has been reached with the Administration and a group of bipartisan Senators on the outline of a $1 trillion (including approx. $579 billion new spending) traditional infrastructure package. These priorities include roads, bridges, public transit, electric vehicles, coastal infrastructure, rural broadband access, and supporting IRS tax collection efforts on high earners. The legislation must still be written and pass both chambers.

Calls from within the Democratic caucus for a “human” infrastructure package- addressing paid leave, childcare, housing, and community college, is likely to go through the budget reconciliation process in a similar manner to the American Rescue Plan Act. The President indicated he would want to see both pieces of legislation arrive on his desk together.

Read more here.

Some Budget Details Available

Posted on

As was reported on Friday, the Biden Administration released its detailed budget request late that afternoon.  The government-wide budget documents are now available here.  As agency-specific documents and details become available, we will provide updates.

Initial details about the budget requests for various agencies are provided below.

NSF

NSF as a whole would see a total of $10.12 billion under the Biden Administration proposal, an increase of 19.8 percent.  The funding breaks down in the following manner:

  • Research and Related Activities (R&RA): $8.14 billion ($1.23-billion increase, or 17.8%)
  • Education and Human Resources: $1.29 billion ($319.3-million increase, or 33.0%)
  • Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction: $249.0 million ($8.0-million increase, or 3.3%)

Within R&RA, given the Administration’s emphasis on climate science, it is not surprising that the NSF budget proposal calls for an estimated increase of 19.0% for Geosciences over the FY2021 estimates.

Under the budget proposal, NSF would play a key role in a number of Administration-wide research priority areas.  For example, the budget request calls for significant increases for the agency in the following areas:

  • US Global Change Research Program—46.3%
  • Artificial Intelligence—31.4%
  • Biotechnology and Clean Energy—both would see increases of 31.7%
  • Quantum—23.8%
  • Microelectronics/ semiconductors—56.7%

The entire set of NSF budget documents is available here:  https://www.nsf.gov/about/budget/fy2022/toc.jsp.

 

NASA

NASA also released its detailed budget documents on Friday, which are available here.

Overall, NASA is slated for $24.8 billion, an increase of $1.53 billion, or 6.57 percent, over the current funding level.

The President budget request calls for funding the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) at $7.93 billion, $630.6 million (8.6%) above the FY2021 level.  Within SMD, the Administration proposal breaks down in the following manner:

  • Planetary Science: $3.20 billion
  • Earth Science: $2.25 billion
  • Astrophysics: $1.40 billion
  • Heliophysics: $796.7 million
  • Webb Space Telescope: $175.4 million
  • Biological and physical sciences: $109.1 million

The Aeronautics Directorate would be funded at $914.8 million while Space Technology would see $1.43 billion under the budget proposal.

The Office of STEM Engagement, which supports the Space Grant program, would see an increase of $20 million to $147.0 million.  The requested amount allow Space Grant to increase by $6 million in FY2022.

A set of facts sheets about the different missions areas is available here.

 

NOAA

While the detailed budget documents are not yet available, a press release that highlights some of the key themes of the agency budget notes that NOAA would see an increase of $1.5 billion in its discretionary budget, an increase of 27.3 percent, taking the total to $7.0 billion.

A key driver of the increase is the renewed focus on climate change and the budget proposal calls for an additional investment of $855 million in activities related to the issue.

Detailed documents are expected in the coming days.

 

Department of Education

Unveiled in previous proposals, the Education Department (ED) budget request details a number of the Biden Administration’s key higher education priorities.  ED proposes to boost a number of programs aimed at Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), including those funded through Title III of the Higher Education Act.  The Administration is asking $4.6 billion to eliminate tuition at MSIs for families with incomes below $125,000 per year.  The budget also seeks $14.3 billion for a federal-state partnership to make community colleges tuition free.

The maximum Pell Grant award would be increased by $1,875 to $8,370.  The SEOG and Federal Work Study programs would be level-funded at $880 million and $1.19 billion, respectively.  At the same time, TRIO and GEAR UP would see increases of $200.8 million and $40 million, respectively; as a result, TRIO would be funded at $1.3 billion and GEAR UP would be funded at $408 million.

Title VI international education programs and GAANN would be level funded at $78 million and $23.5 million, respectively, while the Institute for Education Sciences would receive an increase of $95 million, or 14.8 percent, to $737.5 million.

ED’s budget documents are available here.

 

NIH

The budget request seeks $51.93 billion for NIH.  This includes a proposal to increase the base budget by $2.5 billion while seeking $6.5 billion to create a new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Health (ARPA-H).

Topline information about the Department of Health and Human Services, of which NIH is a part, is available here.

We will provide further details about the NIH budget after additional analysis.

 

USGS

Under the Biden Administration’s budget proposal, USGS is expected to play a significant role in the government’s efforts to address climate change.  While the agency would seen an increase of $326.9 million over the FY2021 funding level to a total of $1.6 billion, $205.0 million of the increase would be directed to investments in climate science research.

Among the new investments would be $42.5 million for Climate Science Adaptation Science Centers (CASCs) as well as tribal climate science activities.  In fact, the budget for the CASC program would more than double under the budget request, going from $41.3 million to $84.4 million.  The USGS would also contribute $60.0 million to the newly proposed Advanced Research Projects Agency-Climate (ARPA-C).

The Cooperative Research Unit program would see a modest increase of $0.5 million.

The ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system—which is now capable of sending our public alerts along the entire West Coast—would be level-funded at $25.7 million under the Biden Budget.

Initial information about the UGSS budget proposal is available  here.

 

Other agencies/ Additional details

Again, the Office of Federal Relations will continue to provide updates as more details become available and after further analysis.

 

 

Candidates to Run NOAA, DOE Office of Science Nominated

Posted on

To coincide with Earth Day, the Biden Administration announced  yesterday 12 nominations for key climate and infrastructure positions.  Included among the dozen were those for NOAA Administrator and Director of the Office of Science at the Department of Energy.

NOAA veteran and current Oregon State University faculty member Rick Spinrad has been nominated to lead NOAA.  Asmeret Berhe, a faculty member and administrator at UC Merced, has been tapped to head the DOE Office of Science.

The official announcement from the White House is available here.

Biden Releases Infrastructure Proposal

Posted on

As anticipated, the Biden Administration released today an initial set of documents related to its much-discussed “infrastructure plan” earlier today.

The proposal  released today addresses both physical infrastructure and as well as “human” infrastructure issues, such as workforce development.  A second set of proposals, designed to target needs in the areas of education and healthcare, is expected to the released later this spring.

Examples of areas of interest to UW and higher education include the following:

  • $180 billion in new R&D spending
  • $50 billion for new NSF Technology directorate for work in new fields like:
    • semiconductors and advanced computing; advanced energy, biotech
  • $50 billion for semiconductor research and manufacturing
  • $30 billion for R&D/ innovation opportunities in rural communities
  • $40 billion for research infrastructure, including “brick-and-mortar” facilities and computing capabilities and networks
    • To be funded through agencies across the government
    • 50% would be reserved for MSI, and would create a new Climate Lab at an HBCU
  • $12 billion for community college facilities and technology, to be funded through states
  • $100 billion for broadband
  • $35 billion in clean technology and clean energy research / innovations, including:
    • Creating ARPA-C
    • $15 billion for R&D in climate priority demonstration projects, in fields like:
      • Utility-scale energy storage, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, advanced nuclear, rare earth element separations, floating offshore wind, biofuel/bioproducts, quantum computing, and electric vehicles
  • $10 billion in R&D investments for MSIs
  • $15 billion to create up to 200 centers of excellence at MSIs to serve as research incubators for grad fellowships and other opportunities
  • $20 billion regional innovation hubs to create at least 10 hubs to, further among other goals, link urban and rural communities
  • $14 billion for NIST to connect government, academia, and industry to address future competitiveness needs

Examples of other elements of the proposal include:

  • $621 billion in transportation infrastructure projects, such as:
    • $115 billion for bridges, highways, roads, and main streets
    • $85 billion for public transit
    • $80 billion for passenger and freight rail
    • $174 billion for the electric vehicle market and infrastructure
    • $25 billion for airports
    • $25 billion for regional projects that are too big to be financed by a single entity
    • $17 billion for waterways, ports, ferries
    • $20 billion to connect communities physically cut off from economic opportunities

Pay-fors

  • The plan proposes to change a number of tax provisions and seeks to raise $2 trillion over 15 years.

The White House fact sheet on the proposal is available here.

The release of the proposal is just the first step in the process of trying to push through and fund a set of infrastructure plans.  How Congress chooses to engage with and respond to the the Biden requests remain to the be seen.  Office of Federal Relations will continue to provide additional details about the proposal as they become available.

Haaland Confirmed as Interior Secretary

Posted on

Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico was confirmed last evening as Secretary of Interior. With her confirmation, she becomes the first Native American to serve as Cabinet Secretary.

Read more about her, her confirmation, and some of the challenges she faces in her new role here, here, and here.  She is expected to be sworn in on Wednesday.