Congress moves to reverse Trump’s proposed cuts to federal science funding

Congress is racing to undo thousands of cuts to federal science programs that President Trump proposed last year, with the Senate Appropriations Committee releasing a bipartisan package this week that largely scraps the administration’s planned reductions and the House voting to approve the package.

The White House had sought to cut total scientific funding to $154 billion from $198 billion, a 22 percent drop that analysts said would have been the largest reduction since World War II. The Senate package would, if the proposed budgets hold up in the weeks ahead, set aside roughly $188 billion for federal research — about a 4 percent decline from the most recent annual budget.

“That’s pretty solid,” said Alessandra Zimmermann, a budget analyst at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “Congress is really starting to push back.” The bills foresee a possible rise of more than 2 percent for basic research after the administration had called for cutting such funding by more than one-third.

The Trump plan sought to slash the National Science Foundation to $3.9 billion from $8.8 billion; the Senate package counters with $8.75 billion, a reduction of less than 1 percent. The package also includes $24.4 billion for NASA (a 1.6 percent cut), $8.8 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency (a 4 percent cut), $8.4 billion for the Department of Energy Office of Science (a 1.9 percent increase), $6.2 billion for NOAA (roughly flat), $1.4 billion for the U.S.

Key Topics

Science, Congress, Trump Administration, National Science Foundation, Nasa, Environmental Protection Agency