LegiStorm

Summary:

President Obama's budget request for FY2015 included $135.352 billion for research and development (R&D), a $1.670 billion (1.2%) increase from the FY2014 level of $133.682 billion. Funding for R&D is concentrated in a few departments and agencies. Under President Obama's FY2015 budget request, seven federal agencies would have received 95.4% of total federal R&D funding, with the Department of Defense (DOD, 47.6%) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS, 23.0%) accounting for more than two-thirds of all federal R&D funding. In addition to the FY2015 base budget request, the President proposed an Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative (OGSI) that sought, together with funding for other purposes, $5.3 billion for R&D at certain agencies, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, $2.515 billion), National Institutes of Health ($970 million), NASA ($874 million), National Science Foundation (NSF, $552 million), Department of Agriculture ($277 million), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ($180 million). Of the NIST funding, $2.4 billion would have supported the establishment of a National Network for Manufacturing Innovation. The R&D budgets of NIST, NSF, and the DOE Office of Science were targeted for doubling over 7 years, from their FY2006 levels, by the America COMPETES Act, and over 11 years by the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010. Although the President's FY2015 budget requested increases for these accounts, it departed, as did the FY2014 request, from earlier Obama and Bush Administration budgets that explicitly stated the doubling goal. The President's FY2015 request continued support for three multi-agency R&D initiatives, as it proposed $1.537 billion for the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), $3.786 billion for the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program, and $2.501 billion for the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). The request also proposed approximately $200 million in FY2015 for a Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) initiative, as well as funding for the Materials Genome Initiative and the National Robotics Initiative. Congress completed appropriations action for most federal agencies through enactment of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015 (P.L. 113-235), which was signed into law on December 16, 2014. The measure provides FY2015 appropriations for agencies covered by 11 regular appropriations bills, and provides continuing appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security through February 27, 2015. Appropriations made under this act providing R&D funding for federal agencies are discussed throughout this report where it is possible to identify the levels of R&D funding; some appropriations accounts include both R&D and non-R&D funding and the final level of R&D funding will not be known until agencies with such accounts identify how these funds will be allocated. Previously, Congress provided FY2015 appropriations to federal agencies through a series of continuing resolutions. In recent years, continuing resolutions and sequestration have resulted in the annual appropriations process being completed after the start of the fiscal year. This can affect agencies' execution of their R&D budgets, including the delay or cancellation of planned R&D activities and acquisition of R&D-related equipment.