Bush Budget Funds NASA, Cuts EPA

Wired

By Luke O'Brien
Feb, 05, 2007

WASHINGTON -- President Bush unveiled his $2.9 trillion budget request for next year Monday, beefing up spending for NASA while cutting back environmental protection and several science research programs.

With more than $140 billion set aside for research and development, the proposal is a mixed bag for scientists and engineers around the country. It was greeted by Congress with everything from tempered enthusiasm to outright derision.

Leading Democrats criticized the White House for the uneven approach. "The president once again is using a 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' approach," said House Science and Technology Committee chairman Bart Gordon (D-Tennessee) in a statement Monday.

Among other complaints, Gordon noted that the budget request increases overall funding at the National Science Foundation to $6.4 billion, but cuts funding for K-12 math and science educational programs run by the foundation.

Other agencies face a similar discrepancy. The White House is asking for $17.3 billion dollars for NASA, an increase of more than $1 billion. But much of that money will be directed toward manned space exploration, which diverts funds from other research initiatives.

Some of the president's plans for space exploration include: spending $1 billion to design and develop Orion, "a crewed spacecraft that will return humans to the moon"; doling out $436 million over three years in award money to private developers to build spaceships that will resupply the International Space Station; and spending $345 million to create the Mars Science Laboratory to "increase our knowledge of the Martian environment and test technologies that may assist human exploration."

In his State of the Union address last January, Bush promised to tackle the more terrestrial problem of U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The president proposed a range of clean fuel technologies. His budget request follows suit, asking for around $640 million to develop solar power, biofuels and hydrogen power. But the request also asks for $385 million to burn more coal, one of the dirtiest sources of energy.

"This is a bag of snakes," said Marchant Wentworth, the legislative representative for clean energy for the Union of Concerned Scientists. According to Wentworth, the budget request doesn't do enough to tap into solar, wind and hydropower.

"We already know how to make clean, renewable energy," Wentworth said. "But the research and development of any renewable technology has to go hand in hand with its market development. That's one of the things that's lacking" in the budget request.

Wentworth said he would have preferred to see the administration ask for a renewable energy standard to force public utilities to ramp up their use of clean energy.

Some agencies were happier than others Monday. Although the White House proposed to cut overall funding for the National Institute of Standards and Technology by 4 percent to $640.7 million, the institute received a big boost to its nanotechnology programs, prompting its director, William Jeffrey, to declare Monday a "great day" in a press briefing.

Other initiatives in the budget request called for protecting the nation's fisheries through market-based approaches, improved weather satellites and hurricane prediction, and an "ocean action" plan that would provide $80 million to advance ocean science and research. The White House wants to cut Environmental Protection Agency funding again and has also requested more than $865 million to develop better bomb-sniffing technologies, and $463 million for the US-VISIT program to tighten border security and roll out biometric devices.