Catch-all spending bill has winners, losers

Meeting in a "lame duck" session shortly before Thanksgiving, Congress approved a catch-all, $388 billion spending bill encompassing nine separate appropriations bills it had failed to pass by the Oct. 1 start of the new 2005 fiscal year. Included in that bill were billions of dollars in research funding supported by ASME. As in any budget year, there were winners and losers among agencies and research programs.

One big winner was nuclear energy research, which received $100 million more than President Bush had requested for advanced permitting support, new licensing procedures for additional nuclear units, and for advanced reactor and fuel research and development. One of the largest increases within nuclear energy was for the Advance Fuel Cycle Initiative, which received a $20 million increase over its current level of $68 million, and a $42 million increase over the president's request.

Another big winner was the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which received a fairly substantial budget increase after seeing its budget slashed in last year's omnibus bill.

ASME and other scientific and engineering societies spent part of 2004 waging an ultimately successful education campaign on Capitol Hill that included visits with members of Congress, meetings with committee staff, a noontime briefing sponsored by ASME highlighting the research successes of NIST's Building and Fire Research Laboratory, and a visit by a key committee chairman to NIST.

For its laboratories, NIST received a 10 percent funding increase, to $379 million, considered a success in a tight budget year. Concomitant increases in the Advanced Technology Program (ATP), part of which funds laboratory work, will further brighten the financial picture of the labs. The president had requested zero funding for ATP, but Congress ultimately provided $142.3 million.

Congress also added $73 million to the president's request for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a 50-state program designed to assist small businesses with technology acquisition and understanding.

The biggest — and perhaps most surprising — loser this year was the National Science Foundation (NSF), which received a 1.9 percent cut for fiscal year 2005. This $105 million reduction brings the NSF budget down to $5.472 million from its current level of $5.577 million. The president had requested a 3 percent increase.

Within the NSF appropriation, the Education and Human Resources Directorate funding declined 10.4 percent, or $97.6 million, for fiscal year 2005. The conferees provided $79.4 million for the Math and Science Partnerships (MSP) program, an initiative strongly supported by ASME. The fiscal 2004 MSP budget was $139 million.

Congress boosts foreign worker visa limit

A provision in the $388 billion catch-all spending bill passed in late November increases by 20,000 the limit on visas for foreign high-tech workers under the H-1B visa program.

The previous limit of 65,000 was reached by U.S. industry the first day of fiscal 2005, which began Oct.1. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., led the effort on this issue, in response to pressure by a coalition of U.S. business giants, made up of Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Motorola, Texas Instruments and others. The coalition, called Compete America, complained that its members were losing talented university graduates to competitors overseas and thus were having difficulty hiring technically skilled workers.

— Francis Dietz
ASME Government Relations

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