House Votes on FY06 Defense S&T Appropriations

As the House passed its version of the fiscal year 2006 defense appropriations bill last Monday, "Little R, Big D" once again may describe the country's R&D priorities for the largest component of the federal budget.

H.R. 2863 reduces overall funding for defense science and technology (spending categories 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3, respectively, referring to basic research, applied research and advanced technology development) to $13.04 billion -- 0.6 percent from the FY05 appropriations level but 23.9 percent higher than the Administration's request. Much of the $2.5 billion in restored funding, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), is in the form of Congressional earmarks.

Nevertheless, actual spending for basic research (6.1) for the entire department would decrease by 4 percent from the FY05 appropriations. Applied research (6.2) would increase by 4.2 percent, and advanced technology development would be reduced 3.3 percent, AAAS reports.

All of the later stages of defense research, development, testing and evaluation - the 6.5 through 6.7 spending categories - have spending increases ranging from 3.1 percent for operational systems development (6.7) to 11.2 percent for systems development and demonstration (6.5). Advanced Component Development (6.4) is the only category the House cut deeper than the president, authorizing 5.8 percent less funding for FY06 than FY05.

Deciphering the budget by service and agency, AAAS reports basic research will decline from FY05 appropriations in all three major services: a 10.8 percent cut in the Army, 8.2 percent in the Air Force, and 11.2 percent for the Navy. For the defense agencies, on the other hand, basic research climbs 9.3 percent.

Spending for applied research grows to 8.5 percent for the Air Force, 8.2 percent in the defense agencies and 6.1 percent in the Army. Navy applied research drops by 13.2 percent in the House version of the budget.

One defense program element of interest to many Digest readers is the University Research Initiative. The AAAS summary states funding for the URI "would fall 8 percent to $271 million despite House additions to the request in the form of earmarks."

The AAAS summary is available at: http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/

H.R. 2863 is available at: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app06.html