Science magazine reports that most federal science agencies and academic researchers who depend on federal grants may have to get by on flat funding levels through late next year:
"The Republican Congress adjourned last week without passing a 2007 budget for most federal agencies, choosing instead to extend a temporary spending measure until 15 February. And this week, the incoming Democratic leadership announced plans to apply current spending levels for the entire fiscal year, which ends 30 September, so that it can make a fresh start on the 2008 budget. Those decisions will put the squeeze on many research agencies and the scientists funded by them.
The yearlong resolution, if adopted once the new Congress convenes next month, would limit agency spending to the lowest of what either the House or Senate has already approved or what the agency received for the 2006 fiscal year."
Who will be some of the big losers ?
- DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, for example, may have to cancel the next run of its Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider if the lab doesn't receive its budget by 1 February. That's because a delay will push the next 20-week session into the summer months, when the cost of electricity is prohibitive.
- Some scientists in the Sea Grant program funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) could miss the boat, as delays in the scheduled 1 February awarding of some 50 grants could prevent them from obtaining ship time or hiring the next crop of graduate students.
- Investigators with funding from the National Institutes of Health have been told to expect only 80% of what NIH initially committed for the next year of their multiyear grant.