Some Research Programs Face Cuts

While federal research spending is slated for an overall increase next year, programs not in the health and defense fields stand to take a major hit in Congressional budget cutting, according to an analysis by a science group.

In appropriations bills approved before the August recess, the House voted to increase basic research by an estimated 1.6 percent, to $14 billion.

The National Institutes of Health, the government’s primary medical research arm, was the big winner, gaining 5 percent in basic research and development funding to $6.4 billion, said a report Monday by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In the defense arena, House appropriators are calling for a 4.2 percent increase in research and development spending, to $36.7 billion, in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.

But non-defense research and development spending the next fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 would drop nearly $2.7 billion, or 7.9 percent, from 1995 spending.

“The House affirmed the importance of the federal government’s role in basic research by increasing funding slightly,” the AAAS analysts wrote. “Many Republicans, however, regard industrial and applied R&D as corporate welfare and do not believe the federal government should support these programs.”

As a result, the report said, lawmakers voted to scrap such items as the Advanced Technology Program at the Commerce Department and a technologies initiative at the Environmental Protection Agency, and slash spending on renewable energy and fusion research at the DOE.