A better budget could mean more research dollars.

Talk of the first surplus in the federal budget in nearly 30

years has been floating up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, between the White

House and Capitol Hill, for some time now. With Congress now back in

session following its three-month recess, serious plans are

take advantage of the booming economy and beef up the nation's investment

in research and development.

The outlook for such funding is brighter than it has been in quite some

time. President Clinton's budget for fiscal year 1999, which was submitted

to Congress on Feb. 2, includes increases - substantial in some cases - for

the R&D budgets of nearly every federal agency.

This proposed boost is significantly higher than had been anticipated by the

research community and most Washington budget forecasters. For many years,

research funding remained relatively flat, largely because of burgeoning

budget deficits and lackluster congressional support.

During last year's budget cycle, however, R&D funding began to make a bit of

a comeback. The budget for fiscal year 1998 called for a 5.4-percent

increase in nondefense research spending and a 3.1-percent raise for defense

R&D - both above the expected level of inflation. The Department of

Transportation was the only federal entity not to receive at least some

increase for R&D; the Commerce Department received a whopping 14.8-percent

raise for this area.

The president's State of the Union message on Jan. 27 renewed the drive to

increase this area of the budget. In his speech, Clinton reiterated his

support for federal investment in research and development, calling for "a

21st century research fund for path-breaking scientific inquiry." The budget

for the upcoming fiscal year, which the White House submitted to Congress a

week after the State of the Union, contained R&D funding increases that are

in some cases unprecedented in modern budgetary history.

For example, the administration's request for a 10-percent increase for R&D

efforts by the National Science Foundation (NSF) dwarfs the previous year's

request of 2.1 percent (Congress nearly tripled that number, giving NSF a

6.1-percent increase last year). The president also requested an R&D funding

increase of 8.4 percent for the National Institutes of Health, including

funding for bioengineering research; 11 percent for the Department of

Energy, mostly targeted for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and

reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions; and 6.3 percent for the National

Institute of Standards and Technology. The Department of Defense's overall

R&D budget would decrease, but its basic-research account would rise 6.6

percent.

These numbers are a good indication of the president agreeing with many on

Capitol Hill that a strong research investment policy is good public and

political policy. While it is still too early to tell exactly how lawmakers

will react to the president's requests, the executive and legislative

branches will most likely agree on the upward direction R&D funding will

take this year.

To help pave the way for such an increase, senators Phil Gramm (R-Tex.),

Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), and Jeff Bingaman

(D-N.M.) have introduced the National Research Investment Act of 1998 (S.

1305). This legislation would make the doubling of the nation's basic

nondefense scientific, medical, and precompetitive engineering research

budget a national priority. The budgetary change would take place over the

next 10 years, increasing funds from $34 billion in fiscal year 1998 to $68

billion in fiscal year 2008.

S. 1305 is not an appropriations bill, so it would not actually increase

spending; rather, it would express the will of Congress that such spending

should be increased. Appropriations committees in both houses would have to

work the increases into the appropriate legislation for each affected

agency. Similar legislation is expected to be introduced shortly in the

House.

In a letter to colleagues seeking support for S. 1305, the senators noted

that the nation's R&D investment has fallen significantly from its 1965

levels, when it was 5.7 percent of the federal budget compared with just 1.9

percent today. They lamented the fact that Japan's nondefense R&D spending

(in absolute dollars) now exceeds the United States' and warned that other

countries - namely China, Germany, India, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan

- are aggressively promoting R&D investment. The senators warned that if the

United States does not move quickly, its scientific and technological edge

could be in peril.

The public may not be very well versed in the benefits of federally funded

scientific and engineering research, but it does have an instinctive view

that such funding will enhance the nation's standard of living. Nearly every

nationwide poll taken on the subject shows that the public supports a strong

federal R&D effort.

In a city that sometimes seems to be governed by polls, those results have

not gone unnoticed by policy makers.

Francis Dietz works in ASME's Government Relations Office in Washington,

D.C.