White House Reverses Plan to Cut NSF

The White House rolled out its fiscal year (FY) 2019 budget request in two parts; the original request and then a short addendum that reflects the recent budget agreement by Congress to lift spending caps for 2019. The original proposal called for a 30 percent cut to the National Science Foundation (NSF) budget, which would have rolled funding back to $5.27 billion. In the more recent twenty-six-page addendum to the budget, the White House would restore the proposed cuts and fund NSF at its 2017 level of $7.472 billion. Some highlights from the budget request: Funding for the six research directorates would increase by $145 million (2%), primarily due to a proposed upgrade to Antarctic Research facilities. Funding for the education directorate would remain flat at $819 million, after initially being slated for a 29 percent cut. The cost of salaries and operations would decrease by $25 million (7 percent). As with all aspects of the President’s budget request, these are only requests. Congress must now review the budget request and is likely to make significant adjustments to the President’s budget requests.      
Source: Public Policy Reports - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: news