House Budget Research Articles

1998 U.S. Federal Budget: House budget authorization includes similar funding, different priorities

In mid‐April, the Science Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives reviewed a set of bills to authorize research funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In a turnabout from the 104th Congress, the committee authorized more spending than was requested by the Clinton Administration for fiscal year 1998 (Eos, February 18). But the committee also expressed its own ideas—some of them conflicting with the President's—about what U.S. science priorities ought to be.

Commerce first?

The Commerce Department is history, according to House Budget Committee Chairman John R. Kasich (R Ohio). Last week, House Republicans unveiled their plan to break apart the department, which is the GOP's first target. To save about $8 billion by the year 2000, according to House Republicans, the proposal would eliminate six of Commerce's larger programs, but spare many of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's programs, which make up about 40% of Commerce's budget. However, the surviving programs would be transferred to other federal departments under “The Department of Commerce Dismantling Act.” The National Weather Service would be transferred to the Department of the Interior. The Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research would be eliminated. Some labs would be privatized, while others would be moved to the Department of the Interior. The NOAA Corps fleet would be sold to the private sector.

GOP BUDGET CUTTING PLANS

Congressional Republicans have made good on their promise to produce a plan to balance the federal budget by 2002. The House plan goes much further than the Senate's in terms of wholesale rearrangement of government. But the effect of both on the chemical community is summed up in six words by one GOP leader: protect fundamental science and end corporate welfare. The House Budget Committee's plan calls for elimination of three Cabinet departments—Commerce, Education, and Energy. The Senate Budget Committee's proposal would eliminate only Commerce. But the department's activities wouldn't really be eliminated by either plan. Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown says plans to do away with his department are ludicrous and don't make sense. He points out that nearly two-thirds of Commerce's functions would be preserved under both plans, including the Patent & Trademark Office, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. The programs to be eliminated, he notes, ...

Curtains for ATP?

The administration's efforts to keep various technology‐transfer programs afloat in the budget process appear to be stalled. House Science Committee chair Robert Walker (R‐Pa.) advised in early April that the Republican agenda for the pending budget process entails zeroing out the Commerce Department's Advanced Technology Program (ATP), which was funded at $431 million in fiscal year 1995. The ATP would lose about $90 million from its FY 95 budget. Although Walker says that the Republican leadership has no intention to dictate to the subcommittees how cuts should be made, they will be held to the “fairly severe caps” established by the House Budget Committee. In other words, Walker says, if ATP stays, something else will have to go in its place. In addition, a bill to rescind about $223 million from the FY 1995 budget of the Technology Reinvestment Project and another $77 million from TRP's FY 1994 budget, which has not been spent, is heading for the president's signature. Yet Walker says while he supports the merits of technology transfer, “the question is do you have to create government programs to get the technology out?”

Budget update: Future is looking gloomier for science

As the wheels of the new Republican‐controlled Congress have been turning, it looks like belts are indeed going to be tighter around U.S. research and development budgets. In mid‐March, the House Budget Committee voted to cut $100 billion over the next five years from federal agency budgets and published guidelines for how this could be done. NASA's Earth Observing System and the U.S. Geological Survey were again mentioned as potential targets and so was the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. If the reduction bill goes the legislative mile, the appropriations committees in each house of Congress will have to figure out where the cuts will fall. Republican and Democratic members of the House Science Committee quickly jumped into the traditional fray with their respective “Views and Estimates” on how science dollars should be doled out for fiscal year 1996. President Clinton has also jumped in the budget‐cutting game with the release last week of a plan to cut $13 billion from four federal agencies over the next 5 years. In the meantime, a rescission bill for FY 1995 has been on the fast track through Congress. Here are some of the latest highlights:

Congressional Science Fellow warns— stand and be counted

The House Republicans' Contract with America has served as a political wake‐up call for many geoscientists. If the recommended budget cuts accompanying the Contract are passed, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Bureau of Mines would be eliminated and the Minerals Management Service would be reduced by 50%.These are just a few of the many cuts being called for by House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich (R‐Ohio). The National Science Foundation (NSF) would see an increase in funding but at a rate fixed below inflation, resulting in an effective decrease in constant dollars. And while the chairman of the newly renamed House Science Committee, Bob Walker (R‐Penn.), has been a vocal supporter of basic research, his committee has warned officials at NSF, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, and the Environmental Protection Agency that they should expect less money and more cuts in the coming year.

Congress moves fast on economic plan

The economy has been the focus of attention during the opening months of the 103rd Congress. Firmly controlled by the Democrats, Congress has responded quickly to President Bill Clinton's call for a stimulus and investment package aimed at speeding economic growth, coupled with spending cuts and tax increases aimed at curbing the growth of the federal deficit. Overall, Clinton wants to cut deficit spending by $473 billion over five years. The House Budget Committee has called for a $510 billion cut, the Senate Budget Committee a $502 billion cut. Even while reducing overall spending, Clinton's program emphasized increased funding for science and technology programs as a spur to economic growth (C&EN, Feb. 22, page 4). Those increases were trimmed back somewhat by both budget committees as Congressional Democrats strove to prove they can cut as well as they can spend. For example, Clinton sought an increase of 10% above baseline—previous-year funding adjusted for inflation—in fiscal ...

Majority Party Leadership and Budget Policymaking in the House of Representatives

Budget policy dominated the congressional agenda during the 1980s. During that same period, the Speaker of the House of Representatives became more involved in formulating the priorities of the majority party, a task traditionally left up to committees. This paper traces the development of the Speaker's role in formulating budget priorities by assessing changes in the Speaker's relationship with the House Budget Committee. The paper identifies the conditions under which the Speaker became a more active participant in budget policymaking and the individual qualities that define each Speaker's style. In particular, I compare the leadership styles of Speakers Thomas P. Tip O'Neill, Jr. (D-Mass.) and James Wright (D-Tex.). Both O'Neill and Wright operated under similar conditions that enhanced the Speaker's role in policymaking: divided government, large deficits, and high levels of party unity. But they exercised different leadership styles, and the differences are based partly on two individual factors: p...

Victim of House Budget Balancing War, SSC Now Faces an Uncertain Fate in Senate

Victim of House Budget Balancing War, SSC Now Faces an Uncertain Fate in Senate

Long-term technology, science strategy urged

The House Committee on Science, Space & Technology, or at least its Democratic members, has taken the opportunity presented by the end of the Cold War to lay out a strategic, long-term vision for civilian science and technology. What the committee is aiming for, says its chairman, Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D.-Calif.), is a coordinated national technology policy to stimulate economic growth and creation of high-technology jobs. Basically, the plan—outlined in the committee's annual report to the House Budget Committee discussing R&D spending during the coming fiscal year (1993)—calls for an orderly, phased, and planned transfer of funding from defense R&D accounts to civilian R&D. These transfers would total about $2 billion in fiscal 1993, and about $14 billion over five years. They would be applied immediately to civilian investments in technology and education designed to enhance U.S. industrial competitiveness. The report calls for funding the $2 billion transfer by denying the $1.1 billion ...

Congress criticizes space science budget

NASA's $15 billion budget request continued to draw fire at recent House and Senate hearings, as well as criticism from the General Accounting Office. Discussing space science funding, legislators seemed particularly concerned about how NASA will fund its $11 billion Earth Observing System in coming years while continuing with the rest of its space science agenda.“NASA is overcommitted relative to likely resources—in short, it is chasing too much program with too few dollars,” GAO's Mark E. Gebicke, director of NASA issues, wrote in a February 19 letter to Richard Durbin (D‐Ill.) of the House Budget Committee.

Adjustment and social costs in Chile during the 1980s

Traditional analysis of adjustment programs tends to underestimate the welfare costs because it assumes that a contraction of nontradable production will close the expenditure-income gap, while the resulting excess supply of tradables will automatically be exported. In Chile, however, tradable output contracted sharply, falling almost two-thirds as much as nontradable output. The conventional analysis also ignores the effect of adjustment on unemployment rates and on real wages. This paper argues that the adjustment measures of the 1980s were regressive even though the government was successful in targeting its expenditures toward the very poor during the period of fiscal retrenchment. Among the regressive adjustment measures were the subsidies to holders of dollar-denominated debt provided by the central bank. In addition, policies to reduce expenditures raised the unemployment rate over 26%, reduced real wages by 20% for almost five years, and reduced health, housing and education budgets by 20% per capita. Finally, the required real devaluation raised the cost of living for the poor.

Congress sets NASA, NSF budgets for 1992

Space Station Freedom emerged a clear winner from the House and Senate conference on September 26, which was Congress's final action of the year on the NASA budget. Selected members from the appropriations committees of both houses ironed out a compromise between the Senate and House budget bills that cover NASA and the National Science Foundation.The conference report, as the compromise is called, followed the general approach of the Senate rather than that of the House in funding NASA for FY 1992. NASA will receive $1.4 billion less than the $15.7 billion requested by the president.

What are megaprojects doing to science?

A House panel recently explored the effect of big projects such as Space Station Freedom and the Superconducting Super Collider on “small science,” as it grappled with the definition of small vs. big science. Much of the discussion zeroed in on the particulars of this year's most controversial megaproject, the space station. Among the witnesses at the July 11 hearing of the House Budget Committee Task Force on Defense, Foreign Policy, and Space was Thomas Donahue, chair of AGU's Committee on Public Affairs.George E. Brown, Jr. (D‐Calif.), temporarily stepping down from his presiding chair over the House Science Committee to testify at the task force's witness table, justified his support for Freedom while acknowledging that “many features [of the space station] that would be good for science have been deferred.” But, he added, “The reasons for the manned space program and for the station have to do with international leadership and technological competitiveness.”

Scientists need political literacy

Scientists need to sharpen their political literacy to promote public and congressional awareness of science policy issues. This was the message of a panel of politically savvy scientists at a recent workshop at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Researchers can maximize their lobbying efforts by targeting critical points of the legislative and federal funding cycles, the panel said, and by understanding the differences between the science and policy processes.Drastic modifications to the federal budget process this year will influence how much funding flows to research and development. A new feature for FY 1991–1993 is caps on federal expenditure in three areas: defense, foreign aid, and domestic “discretionary” spending. (Most of the agencies that fund geophysics fall into the domestic category.) Money cannot now be transferred from one of these areas to another, said Michael L. Telson, analyst for the House Budget Committee, and loopholes will be “very tough to find.” What is more, non‐defense discretionary spending has dropped over a decade from 24% of the budget to the present 15%. Another new requirement is the “pay‐as‐you‐go” system. Under this, a bill that calls for an increase in “entitlement” or other mandatory spending must offset this by higher taxes or by a cut in other spending.

R&D funding feels House budget knife

R&D funding feels House budget knife

Washington Watch

The House passed a budget resolution that includes a $2.2 billion increase for education and training programs. Meanwhile, early in May the Senate approved a budget blueprint for 1988 that would increase spending on education by $1.6 billion. The blueprint is a guide for appropriations committees to follow this summer when they allot money to specific programs, and was revised after several senators, led by Hollings (D-SC) and Danforth (R-MO), pressed Chiles (D-FL), Chair of the Budget Committee, for spending increases in all education programs. Members of the House and Senate budget committees will be meeting to reconcile differences in the blueprints.

Party and Institutional Sanctions in the U. S. House: The Case of Congressman Gramm

The removal of Representative Phil Gramm (D-Tex.) from the House Budget Committee in January 1983 appeared at the time to be a conventional act of party discipline against a member who had been a leader in enacting the economic program of a Republican president. Interviews with 14 members of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee which had nominated Gramm for membership in 1981 and recommended his removal in 1983 suggest that the sanction was more the result of Gramm's violation of House norms than of his breaches of party discipline.

NASA FY1984

The White House budget request for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for fiscal year 1984 contains a number of continuing problems for outside investigators in universities and in the private sector. Nonetheless, the budget climate for NASA seems to be improving. (For more information on the budget for FY 1984, see Eos, February 15, 1983, p. 65, and May 17, 1983, p. 378.)Several new program starts are responsible for the feeling of optimism being sensed in many sectors of the scientific community. These include the Venus Radar Mapper, a shuttle‐tethered satellite to study the earth's upper atmosphere (the tether could be 100 km in length), and the EUVE experiment (Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer).

Do we need competition legislation? The view of an advocate. Interview by John K. Iglehart.

Prologue: The political fortunes of Richard A. Gephardt have been rising rapidly since he won his first congressional election in 1976, a nearly two-to-one victory over a well-known Republican. A practicing attorney for eleven years and a city alderman for five in his native St. Louis before his 1976 victory, Gephardt has gravitated quickly to the power centers on Capitol Hill. As a freshman, he was appointed to the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. As a second-term legislator, he won appointment to the House Budget Committee. And in his latest term, Gephardt was named to the House Democratic leadership as chief of task forces and a member of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, his party's chief political arm in the House. Gephardt's principle policy interests revolve around economics, particularly as the dismal science relates to macropolicy questions, social security and health care. Though respected by his party's leaders, Gephardt is not a conventional Democrat. For example, working c...