SSTI Federal Budget Special Issue
Budget Overview
Each year, SSTI provides Digest readers with a comprehensive review of technology-based economic development spending in the the president's federal budget request. The year's edition includes proposed FY13 spending on R&D, STEM education, manufacturing, broadband, small business support, technology transfer, entrepreneurship, innovation workforce initiatives and more. The full report is available for download in pdf format (561 kb).
President Barack Obama's FY13 budget request
includes few major changes from FY12 due to the spending cap agreed
upon in the Budget Control Act. Funding for most, but not all,
TBED-related programs would maintain nearly level funding. The
White House is accentuating the budget's
generous support for advanced manufacturing, clean energy and STEM
education, and again is asking that the R&D tax credit be made
permanent.
Comparisons to the previous year's funding
level are made against the FY12 budget as enacted, unless otherwise
noted.
Entrepreneurship, Regional Innovation and Capital
Access
Funding for Economic Development Administration programs would
be $182 million (17.3 percent decrease) under the proposed budget.
A new initiative, Regional Innovation Strategies, would
receive $25 million to encourage regional clusters and innovation
and to administer the i6 and Jobs Accelerator Challenges.
Funding for EDA's other TBED-related grant
programs includes:
- Economic Adjustment Assistance — $65.2 million (17 percent
increase)
- Partnership Planning — $27 million (6.9 percent decrease)
- Trade Adjustment Assistance — $15.8 million (0.3 percent
decrease)
- Technical Assistance — $12 million (3.9 percent decrease)
- Research and Evaluation — $1.5 million (2.4 percent
decrease)
The Small Business Administration's (SBA)
Regional Innovation Clusters program, which supports a
number of public-private partnerships to promote development in
tech-based industries across the country, would receive $3.4
million (30 percent decrease).
The Department of Treasury's New Markets
Tax Credit program would be allocated $7 billion in credit
authority to help attract private sector capital to low-income
communities. A portion of these credits would be reserved for a
Manufacturing Communities Tax Credit, which would focus on
investment in communities affected by military base closures or
mass layoffs.
The budget would make up to $16 billion available in Section
7(a) loan guarantees through SBA, including $13.7 billion in
term loans and $2.3 billion in revolving lines of credit. The two
SBA Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) programs associated
with the Startup America initiative both would have $200 million in
debentures to assist high-potential companies. This includes the
Impact Investment Fund, which provides a match for private
investment capital in underserved communities, and the Early
Stage Innovation Fund, which matches private investment capital
for early stage seed funds.
Manufacturing
The administration has emphasized the importance of advanced
manufacturing in the proposed budget, claiming $2.2 billion in
support for manufacturing research and development. This figure
includes, among other investments:
- DOE Office of Energy Efficiency Advanced Manufacturing program
- $290 million (150.9 percent increase over the former Industrial
Partnerships program)
- NSF Advanced Manufacturing program - $148.9 million (35.5
percent increase)
- NIST Advanced Manufacturing Consortia program - $21 million
(new program)
In addition, the budget would provide $1 billion for a new
National Network for Manufacturing Innovation, administered
as a collaboration among NIST, NSF and the Departments of Defense
and Energy. The effort would support manufacturing technology
commercialization and support local manufacturing ecosystems.
The Hollings Manufacturing Extension Program (MEP) would
receive $128 million, a 2.3 percent decrease that would not affect
MEP Center Renewals in FY13.
Science and Technology
The budget would provide only minimal increases for the federal
government's key science agencies. A
release from the Office of Science and Technology Policy notes
that the budget includes $140.8 billion for research and
development across all agencies, almost the same as FY12. While the
White House is still committed to the goal of doubling the budgets
of the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy (DOE)
Office of Science, and National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) laboratories over the next decade, the budget
increases requested for those agencies in FY13 fall short of the
seven percent needed to achieve that goal.
While funding essentially would stay level for the major science
agencies, several smaller research agencies would receive
significant increases. NIST Scientific and Technical Research and
Services would receive an $81 million increase for new initiatives,
including $45 million for advanced manufacturing research. ARPA-E
would receive an additional $75 million to increase its
research on transportation systems, stationary power and clean
energy. The Department of Agriculture's (USDA)
Agriculture and Food Research Initiative would expand its renewable
energy and nutrition studies.
Research agency highlights include:
- National Institutes of Health — $30.7 billion (>0.1 percent
increase from FY12 estimated)
- National Science Foundation — $7.4 billion (4.8 percent
increase from FY12 estimated)
- DOE Office of Science — $5 billion (2.4 percent increase)
- NASA Science — $4.9 billion (3.2 percent decrease)
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — $2.8 billion
(negligible increase)
- Environmental Protection Agency Science and Technology — $807.2
million (1.7 percent increase)
- NASA Space Technology — $699 million (21.8 percent
increase)
- NIST Scientific and Technical Research and Services — $648
million (14.3 percent increase)
- DHS Research, Development and Innovation — $478 million
(79.8 percent increase)
- Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy — $350 million (27.3
percent increase)
- USDA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative — $325 million
(23.1 percent increase)
Funding for multi-agency initiatives includes:
- Networking and Information Technology Research and Development
- $3.8 billion (1.8 percent increase)
- U.S. Global Change Research Program - $2.6 billion (5.6 percent
increase)
- National Nanotechtechnology Initiative - $1.8 billion (4.1
percent increase)
STEM Education
The new Effective Teaching and Learning: STEM program
would replace the Department of Education's (ED)
current Mathematics and Science Partnerships program. Within the
program's $149.7 million allocation, $80 million
would be used for STEM teacher and leader training and professional
development in support of the president's goal
of preparing 100,000 STEM teachers over the next decade. Another
$30 million in ED funding, together with $30 million from the
National Science Foundation boost government efforts to support
STEM education.
The budget includes funding for the Community College to
Career Fund, a three-year, $8 billion collaboration between the
Departments of Labor (DOL) and Education (ED). The initiative would
support state and community college partnerships with businesses
that deliver training in emerging fields such as healthcare, clean
energy and advanced manufacturing. Grants from this fund would help
expand training and internships in local, high-need areas and
launch a nationwide, online entrepreneurship course. In FY13, both
DOL and ED would contribute $1.3 billion to the effort.
A detailed write-up in a special pdf report on the FY13 budget proposal can be downloaded here. Agencies included in the report are:
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