S&T does 'fairly well' in new budget

By Stephen Barlas
Special to CRN

Nightmares in the computing research community over potentially Draconian, Republican-initiated federal basic research cuts apparently were unjustified. Many computer research programs are expected to do fairly well in fiscal 1996, although at press time, final congressional approval of some budgets had not gone through.

"Fairly well" means funding will be about the same as in fiscal 1995. Moreover, the Republican-Clinton, seven-year deficit reduction plan anticipates these research programs getting 3% inflation increases annually.

Tom Weimer, staff director of the House Science Subcommittee on Basic Research, said committee chair Rep. Robert Walker (R-PA) made it a point to ensure inflation increases for basic science programs. Walker has at the same time been a rigorous opponent of federally funded applied research. As vice chair of the House Budget Committee, he has been able to make his likes and dislikes stick.

"It hasn't been the tragedy we expected," admitted Rick Borchelt, spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. However, he pointed out that some basic research programs devoted to energy and the environment have been crippled or wiped out. Many of these, for example those involving environmental technologies and Superfund cleanup, will have little or no impact on computing researchers.

Bonnie Cassidy, spokeswoman for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said, "Federal R&D figures were better than expected. But that can mean either of two things. Either there is support for R&D, and it will continue to be protected, or the big cuts are yet to come."

The 1996 National Science Foundation budget, close to being approved at press time, looked likely to be up 1.3% in research and related activities. However, the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate would see its funding decrease by 1.1%. NSF spokeswoman Beth Gaston said Paul Young, the assistant director of CISE, declined to comment on the 1996 budget until the final numbers were in.

In this tepid funding environment, NSF is moving to maximize its bang from its stagnant bucks. A good example is the Supercomputer Centers program, which has supported four lead university centers over the past 12 years.

They are at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Pittsburgh/Carnegie Mellon University, the University of California at San Diego and Cornell University. Each of the four centers received $15 million in 1995, a sum that will remain at about that level in 1996, according to program director Dick Kaplan.

However, the program is being revamped, with NSF likely to reduce the number of lead centers from four to two or three. Kaplan said the new program will be "more Internet-focused." The National Science Board approved the new direction in December. Pre-proposals for the Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure program are due by April 1, 1996, and final proposals will be due by Aug. 15, 1996. NSF is expected to make the awards in February 1997. The program solicitation is available at http://www.cise.nsf.gov.

The House's Weimer noted, "The Supercomputer Centers program is certainly cognizant of the budget."

One aberration from the "basic research steady/applied research down" trend is the Defense Department. While total R&D increased 5.9% to $37.2 billion, funding for basic research dropped 1.6% to $1.2 billion.

That translates into a cut in computer basic research at the Advanced Research Projects Agency. Its basic research budget resides in the Defense Research Sciences program. There are three programs: Information Sciences, Electronics Science and Materials Science.

The 1995 budget was $87.6 million, minus a midyear ARPAwide decrease of a relatively small amount that ARPA spokeswoman Jan Walker was not sure of. The 1996 budget will be $81.3 million. Walker did not know which basic research programs will be cut.

Yet the ARPA Computing Systems and Communications Technology program, which has an applied research focus, will get an increase, from $390 million in 1995 to $392.3 million in 1996.

It is difficult to tell at this point how the individual Energy Department laboratories made out. Only one thing is certain. The three weapons laboratories--at Sandia, Los Alamos and Livermore--made out fairly well, all things considered, because they received the full Defense funding they expected for 1996. Some of the other labs did not receive as much Pentagon funding as they expected.

DOE's budget for High-Performance Computing and Communications did decrease in 1996. Michael Saltzman, a budget analyst in DOE's Budget Analysis Division, was able only to estimate that decrease, saying it is $3 million to $5 million below the $122 million 1995 budget.

Jeannie Wilson, a staff member on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water, said there is still considerable sentiment in the House for eliminating DOE.