The budget proposal that US President Barack Obama released on Wednesday would boost funds for major science and health programmes while making cuts at NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The plan stands little chance of being enacted by the divided houses of Congress, which have already passed their own rival budgets, but was hailed by the administration’s top scientists as preserving key research goals.
Overall investment in research and development would amount to $142.8 billion, a $1.9 billion increase over 2012 but a dip backward when 4 per cent inflation is taken into account.
John Holdren, assistant to the president for science and technology, said “it’s a small decline and it represents a continuing strong commitment” by the Obama administration to protect research and development.
Holdren also noted that if defence cuts were separated out, remaining research and development would show a five per cent climb over 2012.
Top projects at the US space agency would continue, including preparing a new spaceship to send astronauts to the International Space Station, an asteroid rendezvous and the 2018 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope.
The plan allows for $17.7 billion for NASA, a decrease of 0.3 per cent, or $50 million below 2012.
Much of that decline comes from moving education programmes for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, known by the acronym STEM, out of NASA as part of a major reshuffle.
Ninety STEM programmes across 11 different agencies, all worth a total of $180 million, are being funnelled into the Department of Education, in what Obama’s budget described as “the single biggest consolidation proposed this year.”
NASA administrator Charles Bolden said the budget “reflects fiscal realities and aligns NASA’s full spectrum of activities in order to meet the president’s challenge to send humans to asteroid in 2025 and to Mars in the 2030.”
Both job and budget cuts were foreseen for the Environmental Protection Agency, which would receive $ 8.2 billion, or a 3.5 per cent cut below the 2012 enacted level.
The $296 million decrease at the EPA would be achieved, in part, through “consolidating positions and restructuring the workforce to ensure the Agency has the necessary skills for the current era of environmental protection.”
Meanwhile, funding would rise for the National Science Foundation, with an increase of $593 million over 2012 to an annual $7.6 billion budget.