LegiStorm

Summary:

Congress completed action on the FY2014 regular appropriations bills with enactment of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014 (P.L. 113-76), in January 2014. The act contains the 12 regular appropriations bills that fund federal departments and agencies and provide funding for most research and development (R&D) supported by the federal government. Prior to enactment of P.L. 113-76, FY2014 funding was provided by two continuing resolutions (P.L. 113-46 and P.L. 113-73). Where possible, CRS has identified and included in this report R&D funding in P.L. 113-76 for agencies and programs. For accounts that include funding for both R&D and non-R&D activities, CRS generally relies on agency reporting of how much is spent on R&D activities. This report will be updated as agencies make this information available. President Obamas budget request for FY2014 included $142.773 billion for research and development (R&D), a $1.861 billion (1.3%) increase from the FY2012 actual funding level of $140.912 billion. Both historically and in the Presidents request, funding for R&D has been highly concentrated in a few departments. Under President Obamas request, seven federal agencies would have received 95.3% of total federal R&D funding, with the Department of Defense (47.8%) and the Department of Health and Human Services (22.4%, primarily for the National Institutes of Health) alone accounting for more than 70% of total federal R&D funding. Among the largest changes proposed in the Presidents request, the R&D budget of the Department of Defense would have fallen by $4.625 billion (6.3%) from its FY2012 level, while R&D funding for the Department of Commerces National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) would have increased by $1.428 billion. The NIST growth was attributable to proposed increases in funding for its core research laboratories and the establishment of a National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) with $1 billion in mandatory funding. As envisioned, the NNMI would seek to promote the development of manufacturing technologies with broad applications. P.L. 113-76 does not address the Administrations proposal for National Network of Manufacturing Institutes (NNMI). President Obama requested increases in the R&D budgets of NIST, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energys Office of Science. These accounts were targeted for doubling over 7 years, from their FY2006 levels, by the America COMPETES Act, and over 10 years by the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010. The FY2014 request broke with President Obamas earlier budgets, which explicitly stated the goal of doubling funding for these accounts over their FY2006 aggregate level. Instead the Office of Science and Technology Policy asserted that the FY2014 request maintains the Presidents commitment to increase funding for research at these three science agencies. The Presidents FY2014 request set a pace that would have resulted in doubling of the FY2006 level over a period of more than 17 years. FY2014 funding for these accounts provided by P.L. 113-6 sets a doubling pace of more than 20 years. The Presidents request continued support for three multi-agency R&D initiatives in FY2014, proposing $1.704 billion for the National Nanotechnology Initiative, a reduction of $159 million (8.6%) over FY2012, due primarily to reductions in NNI funding at DOD and NSF; $3.968 billion for the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development program, an increase of $159 million (4.2%) over FY2012; and $2.652 billion for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, an increase of $151 million (6.0%) over FY2012. In recent years, Congress has used a variety of mechanisms to complete the annual appropriations process after the start of the fiscal year. This may affect agencies execution of their R&D budgets, including delaying or canceling some planned R&D and equipment acquisition.