Computing Research Policy Blog

House Numbers for Science Prevail in Stimulus Conference

Speaker Pelosi's office just released a fact sheet on the conference agreement for the American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act and, wow, it looks good for science agencies in the bill. Here's the relevant bit:

Transform our Economy with Science and Technology:  To secure America’s role as a world leader in a competitive global economy, we are renewing America’s investments in basic research and development, in training students for an innovation economy, and in deploying new technologies into the marketplace.  This will help businesses in every community succeed in a global economy.
 
Investing in Scientific Research (More than $15 Billion)

• Provides $3 billion for the National Science Foundation, for basic research in fundamental science and engineering – which spurs discovery and innovation.
• Provides $1.6 billion for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which funds research in such areas as climate science, biofuels, high-energy physics, nuclear physics and fusion energy sciences – areas crucial to our energy future.
• Provides $400 million for the Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to support high-risk, high-payoff research into energy sources and energy efficiency in collaboration with industry.
• Provides $580 million for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, including the Technology Innovation Program and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership.
• Provides $8.5 billion for NIH, including expanding good jobs in biomedical research to study diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer, and heart disease.
• Provides $1 billion for NASA, including $400 million to put more scientists to work doing climate change research.
• Provides $1.5 billion for NIH to renovate university research facilities and help them compete for biomedical research grants.

Extending Broadband Services

• Provides $7 billion for extending broadband services to underserved communities across the country, so that rural and inner-city businesses can compete with any company in the world.
• For every dollar invested in broadband, the economy sees a ten-fold return on that investment.

It's essentially everything we asked for. The entire fact sheet (pdf) doesn't seem to be online yet, but we've got it here.

We'll have more on the details as soon as we get them, but this is appears to be great news for the science community and great news for those who care about the long-term health of America's innovation ecosystem!

Posted by PeterHarsha at February 12, 2009 12:37 AM
Posted to Economic Stimulus and Recovery