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Federal Relations Blog

National Science Foundation, FY2020 Funding

Rep. Lawson Joins Colleagues in Supporting NSF

As the annual appropriations process gets fully underway on Capitol Hill, Congressman Al Lawson joined 172 other House members in a letter to appropriators recommending a $9 billion FY20 budget for the National Science Foundation. The figure would represent an increase of 11.4% over the current NSF budget. The letter touches on the critical role that the basic research funded by NSF plays in promoting national security, public health, and economic growth. FSU is one of the top-10 public university recipients of NSF funding. The final NSF budget for FY20 will emerge after the next several months of negotiations over the overall federal budget and specific agency/program line-items.  

Jonathan Nurse

Senate Holds Hearing on HEA and Sexual Assault

Senate Holds Hearing on HEA and Sexual Assault

On Tuesday, as parts of its effort to reauthorize the Higher Education Act, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing on campus sexual assault and steps to ensure student safety and rights. The HEA sets policy on a broad range of higher education issues such as accreditation, financial aid, and accountability. The hearing specifically looked at existing law, such as provided by the Clery Act, which is supposed to provide transparency around campus crime policies and statistics. The hearing delved in the requirements of due process as well as the definition of sexual assault/harassment, and the impact that the location of an incident (on campus versus off) has on on reporting. The hearing also touched on recent steps by the Department of Education that would impact Title IX.

Panelists included Patricia Howl (Conrad O'Brien), Fatima Goss Graves (National Women's Law Center), Jeannie Gersen (Harvard Law School), Ann Meehan (American Council on Education) and Jeff Howard (East Tennessee State University). Some of the more interesting thoughts shared included the need for federal government definitions of sexual assault/harassment, timely reaction to reported incidents, procedural fairness for both sides and preservation of a student's ability to address a sexual assault even if it has occurred off campus.

HEA reauthorization will continue to move forward on parallel tracks in the House and Senate. 

Laura Hall

FY20 President's Budget Request Released

On Monday, the White House released final details on its Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 budget request to Congress. The release marks the official beginning of the FY20 appropriations process on Capitol Hill, which will play out over the next several months. A President’s Budget Request (PBR) simply reveals the spending and policy priorities of an administration. Congress ultimately decides specific allocations for federal agencies and programs, after hearings with agency heads and input from constituents. The FSU Office of Federal Relations is currently working with its counterparts in the State University System of FL as well as with the national higher education associations to send a unified message to Congress that the research and student aid line-items in the budget need to be given a high priority in the FY20 cycle.

As widely reported, over the last few days, the White House budget proposes significant reductions to agencies and programs of interest to the higher education community. Of particular note, the PBR includes:

  • $7.1 billion for the National Science Foundation, a decrease of $975 million (-12%);
  • $14.1 billion for Department of Defense Science & Technology, a decrease of $1.9 billion (-12%);
  • $3.6 billion for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, an increase of $124 million (+3.6%);
  • $5.5 billion for the Department of Energy Office of Science, a decrease of $1.1 billion (-16.5%);
  • elimination of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy;
  • $34.4 billion for the National Institutes of Health, a decrease of $4.7 billion (-12%);
  • $6.3 billion for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Science Mission Directorate, a decrease of $601 million (-8.7%);
  • $463 million for the Environmental Protection Agency Office of S&T, a decrease of $243 million (-34.4%);
  • elimination of the National Endowment for the Humanities;
  • elimination of the Regional Education Laboratories, a component of the Institute of Education Sciences;
  • elimination of the Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant that is currently provided by the Department of Education;
  • $500 million for the Federal Work Study Program, a decrease of $630 million (-55.8%); and
  • a Pell Grant maximum individual award of $6,195, same as current, rescinding $2 million in the program surplus that is held to provide future stability of the program. 

The allocations above are similar to those seen in the last two White House budget requests. During both appropriations cycles, Congress acted in a bipartisan fashion to maintain and in several cases increase support for research and student aid programs.

Within the above agency/program names, I have included hyperlinks to more detailed information from the budget request. The hyperlinks include helpful narratives of the intent behind each proposed allocation.  Additionally, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), of which FSU is a member, has a helpful chart that captures funding recommendations for the line-items above that the higher education community will advocate for with Congress. Please contact Jonathan Nurse if you have questions about the funding status of any federal agency, program or initiative.

 

Laura Hall

FY19 Appropriations Process Concludes

Today marks the end of the Fiscal Year 2019 appropriations process in DC, which began over a year ago when President Trump released his budget request to Congress for federal agencies and programs. ... Read More

Jonathan Nurse

White House Science Adviser Confirmed

In the final hours of the 115th Congress, the United State Senate confirmed the nomination of University of Oklahoma Vice President for Research, Kelvin Droegemeier to head the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. ... Read More

Jonathan Nurse

NSF Releases Shutdown Guidance

The National Science Foundation has released guidance for proposers and grantees regarding its operational status during the partial government shutdown. ... Read More

Jonathan Nurse

Partial Federal Government Shutdown Looms

Federal agencies that have yet to receive full year appropriations for 2019 will cease non-essential operations at midnight unless the White House and Congress forge a last minute agreement, which appears highly unlikely at this point. ... Read More

Jonathan Nurse

FSU Joins Stakeholders in Support of DOD Basic Research and S&T Programs

Last week, FSU and other members of the Coalition for National Security Research crafted a letter to Department of Defense Secretary James Mattis and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney urging them to increase funding in their FY2020 budget for basic research and science and technology programs. ... Read More

Karim Goforth

Deal Emerging to Avoid Partial Government Shutdown

Leaders on the Hill and the administration have signaled that a deal is on the horizon to keep federal agencies that are currently operating on stopgap appropriations to remain open beyond December 7 when funding is set to lapse. ... Read More

Jonathan Nurse

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