The budget battle of 2011 has barely begun but the opening salvos are echoing loudly across the US capitol – in some cases, signaling the potential for major cuts to labs and regulatory agencies.
Following up on a proposed budget target released last week by the US House of Representatives’ Budget Committee, the House Appropriations Committee today released a partial list of spending measures aimed at meeting that target by reducing expenditures on government funded agencies and programs, including several related to science and technology.
The proposed cuts amount to over $74 billion from the 2011 budget request put forward by President Barack Obama one year ago. It falls short of the $100 billion Republicans pledged to cut during last fall’s mid term election campaign. House Republican leaders now say they are limited in how much more they can cut from a budget that has less than seven months to go (the US government’s 2011 fiscal year ends on September 30).
Some of the cuts appear worse on the page than they may be in practice. Because the previous Congress was unable to pass a 2011 budget, agencies are currently operating under a continuing resolution (CR) that directs them to spend money at 2010 levels. In some cases – including NASA and the National Institutes of Health – the proposed cuts amount to maintaining that 2010 status quo.
In other cases, the cuts would mean a significant and drastic downsizing of current budgets.
Among the hardest hit is the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science, which funds a broad range of research from particle physics to applied energy science. The Committee says it aims to slice a whopping $1.1 billion from the $5.12 billion requested for the Office of Science in the 2011 budget.
“It’s devastating,” says Pat Clemins, a science policy expert with the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington. “It definitely will affect the ability of DOE to fill the discovery pipeline”
Other agencies targeted for major cuts include the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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