By Ben Harder
Last April, the Bush administration requested that Congress scale back funding for most nonmilitary science. The plan would have slashed the Department of Energy’s research into renewable energy sources and eliminated some research programs at NASA, the Department of Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency (SN: 4/14/01, p. 231: Biomedicine, defense to sidestep budget ax).
Nevertheless, Congress and the President have now agreed on unprecedented rises in funding for research and development (R&D) programs. Bipartisan congressional resistance, the administration’s own assessment of the U.S. energy supply, and changes in national priorities after the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11 turned back the proposed cuts. The new plan drove the total R&D budget to a record high of $103.7 billion, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington, D.C.