University officials expressed mixed reactions to President Clinton's proposed fiscal 1999 budget, which makes spending on science and technology research a top priority, but could mean reductions in some federal funding for Cornell and many other land-grant universities.
The president's budget proposal also provides a total of $51 million, or an increase of 4 percent, in student aid, and extends and expands Section 127, employer-provided educational assistance.
Clinton's $1.73 trillion budget, unveiled Feb. 2, includes a proposed "Research Fund for America" that would support a wide range of nondefense science and technology activities. The fund allocates a total of $14.47 billion for university-based research, an increase of $838 million, or 6.1 percent, over fiscal 1998.
However, the budget proposal could mean a reduction in federal base funding for cooperative extension and agricultural experiment station activities for the first time in nine years.
In the area of student aid, the president's budget would increase the maximum Pell Grant by $100 to $3,100, and would increase campus-based work-study funding by $70 million, to $900 million.
It also proposes creation of a new $37.5 million program, the National Need Graduate Fellowships program, which would "reward excellence and support financial opportunity through fellowships to outstanding students studying in areas of critical national need." The new program would require institutions to recruit students from underrepresented groups.
Clinton proposed expanding the availability of employer-provided tax-free educational assistance to graduate courses, through 2001. Currently the tax-free benefit is available only for undergraduate courses. He also would extend the benefit for undergraduate courses an additional year, through 2001.
"The president's budget has some excellent news
for research," said Norman R. Scott, Cornell's vice
president for research and advanced studies. "Of particular
significance to Cornell is the fact that the National Institutes
of Health is targeted for an 8 percent increase and the
National Science Foundation for a 12 percent increase. Because
80 percent of our federal support is from NIH and NSF
(about equal), increases in these agencies, plus our typically
high success ratio for proposals submitted to these
agencies, should bode reasonably well for our strong science faculty.
"Increases of 25 percent in the basic energy sciences in the Department of Energy and 7 percent for basic research in the Department of Defense also are welcome signs for our faculty," he said.
And, Scott added, the president has proposed a 23 percent increase for the National Endowment for the Humanities, for a total of $136 million, and a 39 percent increase for the National Endowment for the Arts, for a total of $136 million. "Both increases are important to our faculty in the arts, humanities and social sciences," he said.
In addition to the increases for NSF and NIH, the president's proposal provides significant increases for research and development programs in other federal agencies, including a 10.8 percent increase for Department of Energy and a 9.4 percent increase for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Clinton's budget would give the NSF its largest dollar increase ever -- about $344 million, or 10 percent -- bringing its total allocation to $3.8 billion.
At the same time, the president proposed a 3 percent reduction in overall NASA spending for fiscal 1999, and a 1 percent reduction in Department of Defense research and development spending.
Clinton's proposal includes a total of $31 billion for the new Research Fund for America in fiscal 1999, an 8 percent increase over fiscal 1998 for programs included in the fund. By the fifth year of the five-year plan for the fund, proposed annual allocations would total $38 billion, a 32 percent increase over fiscal 1998.
Clinton proposed that the fund would be financed, "in part, through receipts from tobacco legislation and savings in mandatory programs." The mandatory programs are not spelled out.
Unfortunately, these dramatic increases were not
uniformly distributed across the entire research community.
The president's proposed Agriculture Department budget
was somewhat disappointing, said Daryl Lund, the Ronald
P. Lynch Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
"We're pleased that there's not an overall cut in the parts of the USDA budget that affect us," Lund said. "The difficulty is it has been redistributed and there's a proposed decrease in base funding, with an equivalent increase in competitive funding. That affects our base funding, but clearly our faculty are successful in the competitive arena. That's not exactly what we wanted, but it is something we can live with.
"I am a bit disappointed that while research in science and technology is huge on the radar screen in Washington these days for agencies like the NSF and NIH, the corresponding research budget in USDA, which addresses major public issues such as food production and the environment, has not been the focus of similar interest and funding increases," Lund said.
If the budget is approved, federal base (Smith-Lever Act) spending on extension services at land grant universities would decline about $10 million, to $258 million. Cornell received $12.3 million in Smith-Lever funds for 1998.
In addition, federal base (Hatch Act) research dollars, which help support agricultural experiment stations, like Cornell's in Geneva and in Ithaca, would decline about $15 million, to $154 million. Cornell received $5.4 million in Hatch funds for 1998.
Funding for land grant agricultural teaching programs would remain unchanged from last year.
In other funding categories, the proposed budget for agricultural research and extension is not nearly so bleak. The president asked for funding increases for USDA's national research initiative (NRI, which supports competitive research proposed by faculty), and called for significant increases for research and extension efforts in some national priority areas, such as Integrated Pest Management and food safety.
Apart from agricultural funding, the budget also lists a cut of about $6 million for the National Sea Grant College Program's $56 million budget and termination of the Regional Climate Center Program, including funds for Cornell's Northeast Regional Climate Center.
The agencies and programs covered by the Research Fund for America, and their projected funding, includes the following, among others:
·NASA: Space Science, Earth Science, Advanced Space Transportation Technology and Aeronautics Research and Technology; $5.24 billion in fiscal 2003, 9 percent above fiscal 1998.
·Global Climate Change Initiative: The research initiative includes programs in the Environmental Protection Agency and departments of Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture and Commerce; $1.41 billion in 2003, 73 percent above 1998 levels.
·National Science Foundation: The agency's entire budget; $4.18 billion in 2003, an increase of 24 percent.
·Department of Commerce: Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology programs except the Manufacturing Extension Partnership; $940 million in 2003, 12 percent above fiscal 1998.
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