| Senate Passes CJS Appropriations Bill: Conference with House to Follow |
Note: MPSA is a governing member of COSSA, which monitors all federal agencies that provide support for social and behavioral research and advocates for a non-politicized research agenda. This article appeared in the October 22, 2007, issue of COSSA Washington UPDATE. For more information about COSSA, visit their website at http://www.cossa.org/.
On October 16, the Senate passed its version of the FY 2008 Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) appropriations bill by a vote of 75-19. The bill includes Senate recommendations for funding the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).
Steered through the Senate by CJS Appropriations Subcommittee Chair, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), with help from the panel’s Ranking Republican Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), increased spending for NSF’s research and education programs were highlighted during the presentation of the bill to the Senate.
The White House has threatened to veto the CJS legislation because the Administration objects to the overall spending level. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) amendment to recommit the bill to the Appropriations Committee with instructions to report it back with a discretionary spending level closer to President Bush’s request was rejected 44-50.
The next step for the spending bill is a conference with the House of Representatives in order to reconcile differences in funding the individual programs and agencies. The two Houses are close on NSF’s increase with some adjustments on research and education necessary. The Senate boosted NSF 10.8% over FY 2007, with a 21.9% increase for the Education and Human Resources Directorate. The House provided a 9.8% increase over FY 2007, but its enhancement was more geared to the Research and Related Activities
account.
The Census Bureau lost $40 million during consideration of the bill in the House and so the Senate number to continue the ramp-up to the 2010 Census, to fund the 2007 Economic Census and Census of Governments, and to restore the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) is significantly larger. The BEA received increases from both the House and Senate.
The Senate needs to correct its “misprint” (see Update July 23, 2007) in its funding for BJS and hopefully will agree with the House that the agency deserves a $10 million boost over its FY 2007 funding to maintain and improve the National Crime Victimization Survey. Both the House and Senate increased NIJ’s budget to $60 million. However, the Senate limited spending on “social science research and evaluation” to $5 million.
What happens after the conference version is completed and both Houses accept it remains uncertain. Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is still suggesting that the completed CJS bill will go to the President with the expectation of a veto. Following that, the Congress and the White House will get down to serious negotiations to get the FY 2008 spending bills done before we move even further into the new fiscal year, which began on October 1, 2007 since the Continuing Resolution under which the government is operating is causing difficulties for many agencies.