NSF & Congress
Hearing Summary: Senate Appropriations Committee Marks up NSF Budget

September 13, 2000

The Senate Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on VA-HUD and Independent Agencies met this morning to mark up their FY 2001 bill, followed by a full Senate Appropriations Committee mark up in the afternoon. The Senate mark would provide NSF with an increase of $400 million over FY 2000, for a total for $4.297 billion. This represents an increase of 10.26%.

Within this increase the Senate provides an additional $287.1 million (+9.7%) for the Research and Related Activities account, for a total of $3.245 billion. This includes:

• $215 million for the Information Technology Research activities (up $125 million from FY 00);
• $75 million for the Biocomplexity initiative (an increase of $25 million );
• $65 million for the Plant Genome Research program (up $6.4 million); and
• $125 million for the Nanoscale Science and Engineering initiative (up $27.7 million).

The Major Research Equipment account is funded at $109.1 million, up $15.6 million from the previous year. This includes $45 million for a new Terascale Computing System, $16.4 million for the Large Hadron Collider, and $6 million for the Millimeter Array.

In the Education and Human Resources Account the Committee provides a total of $765.4 million, up $74.5 million from last year (and $36.4 million above the requested amount). The Partnerships for Innovation is funded at $10 million and EPSCoR at $65 million. The Historically Black Colleges and Universities-Undergraduate Program would receive $12 million (+ $3.6 million). The new Scholarships for Service program--aimed at strengthening the security of the information technology infrastructure--would receive $11.2 million. Programs that emphasize women and persons with disabilities would receive $16.5 million. The Graduate Research Fellowship program would increase to $55.2 million.

The Salaries and Expenses account was increased to $170.89 to include travel expenses that had been incorporated into the research accounts in the budget request. The Office of the Inspector General is funded at the requested level of $6.28 million.