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William Seger

(10,779 posts)
Sun Feb 11, 2018, 12:02 PM Feb 2018

Some good news for science in the spending bill?

4 questions about the new U.S. budget deal and science

A two-year spending package, passed by Congress in the wee hours of February 9 and signed into law by President Trump hours later, could add to the coffers of U.S. science agencies.

The bipartisan deal raises the caps on defense and nondefense discretionary spending by nearly $300 billion overall. Nondefense discretionary spending gets a $63 billion boost in fiscal year 2018, and another $68 billion in FY 2019 (the spending year that starts October 1, 2018). Here’s why that could be good for science: Almost all research agencies, including NASA, EPA, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, fall under this nondefense category. (Defense agencies also do a chunk of scientific research.) But there is a big but. It’s still unclear how any funds will be divvied up among individual agencies and programs. (Early word is that NIH is in line for a $2 billion increase over the two years.)

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Trump’s FY 2019 budget proposal, expected to be released next week, will signal his priorities. But the real details of who gets what — including what science will get federal funding support — will come as Congress works on an omnibus appropriations bill, expected in late March.
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