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With the 2024 budget making significant cuts to many government agencies, increases in federal spending for science in the United States will likely be short-lived, and 2025 will likely follow a similar trajectory.
The American Institute of Physics (AIP) has detailed the federal budgets of a total of 16 government agencies through its latest report and science budget tracking tool. For some reason, some agencies are only included in reports, and some agencies are only included in budget trackers.
According to our count, four agencies experienced funding increases, 11 agencies had budget cuts, and one agency was given the same budget as in 2023. The cuts were in the single digits, with the biggest reductions being 8.2 percent for the National Science Foundation and 8.9 percent for basic research at the Department of Defense.
2023 saw an overall increase in science budgets. This year, lawmakers were enthusiastic about his $50 billion-plus plans like CHIPS and the Science Act. Even though his 2023 budget increase awarded to NASA Science was the lowest, the funding increase was 2.4 times his. Many agencies enjoyed his double-digit budget increases, including the National Science Foundation by 11.7 percent and the National Institute of Standards and Technology by 18 percent.
Unfortunately for these scientific institutions, the financial favors of 2023 did not carry over to 2024. The House proposed cutting budgets for all but a few agencies. Although the Senate was more generous, the Senate’s own proposal would leave about half of government agencies with budget cuts.
Few agencies were able to get the funding they requested, especially those that asked for large spending increases, such as the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and DARPA, which asked for increases of more than 38 percent.
Science caught in the political crossfire
Cutting federal spending is a key priority for the Republican-controlled House. Given that science-focused government agencies command large budgets, they are often the first targets of budget hawks.
AIP data suggests that 2025 will not be a very good year for science funding. The recently enacted Fiscal Responsibility Act states that non-defense discretionary spending (including the science budget) can increase by just 1% next fiscal year.
But if President Biden has his way, he would take $5 billion from the Pentagon’s budget and give at least some of it to science agencies. It’s unclear whether this will work, as Congress has given the Pentagon, the golden child of the federal government, more than it requested every year since 2017, according to AIP’s budget tracker.
A sequel to CHIPS and the Science Act could also make up for weakened science funding, but this would depend on rare bipartisan support between Senate Democrats and House Republicans. If the House really doesn’t want to increase spending on science, political realities will have a hard time changing that tone. ®
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