Trump seeks to dramatically reduce funding for science – again

On March 11, US President Donald Trump released his draft budget for fiscal year 2020, which begins Oct. 1, 2019.

NatureThe Institute's news team reports what the Trump budget would mean for US science agencies.

National Institutes of Health

The White House plan would give 34.4 billion US dollars to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), about $ 5 billion less than the current level. The plan would move the Agency for Health Research and Quality Health Care (AHRQ), an independent agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, to the NIH.

"I think the adoption of this law would be a disaster for science," said Benjamin Krinsky, deputy director of legislative affairs at the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology in Rockville, Maryland.

But Krinsky and others are skeptical about the congressional acceptance of the Trump plan. It's the third year that Trump proposes to cut the NIH budget. Congress rejected Trump's proposed cuts over the last two years and last year rejected his plan to transfer the AHRQ to the NIH.

"I look forward to Congress rejecting these budget cuts, just as it has rejected all other cuts proposed by the President," said Benjamin Corb, director of public affairs at the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Rockville, Maryland.

Corb adds that the president's budget makes no sense in light of Trump's January proposal to stem the spread of HIV over the next decade. "The president is committed to eradicating HIV / AIDS by 2030 and removing the programs that would be needed to achieve this goal," he said.

National Science Foundation

The budget request includes $ 7.1 billion for the National Science Foundation (NSF), about 12% less than the current $ 8.1 billion. But the Trump Plan does not include any details on how to distribute this money within the NSF.

"Like everyone else, I do not know the details," says Joel Widder, lobbyist-researcher at Federal Science Partners and former NSF Public Affairs Officer. He says the White House proposal would reduce the NSF budget below the 2015 level. "They pushed the agency back by at least five years with this budget request."

Environmental Protection Agency

The Trump plan would provide $ 6.1 billion to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a 31 percent drop from the agency's current $ 8.8 billion budget. This includes $ 440 million for science and technology. Trump proposed equally drastic cuts to the EPA budget in 2017 and 2018, which Congress rejected.

NASA

NASA's proposed $ 21 billion budget, 2% below the current level, is heavily focused on the administration's goal of sending astronauts back to the moon. The Trump plan would set aside $ 10.7 billion for various programs to advance the human and robotic exploration of the moon, including $ 363 million for a lunar lander that can carry cargo and astronauts on the lunar surface. Smaller commercial landers could fly to the surface as early as this year, and the agency says it will place humans on the moon by 2028. "We plan to move forward," said the administrator. from NASA, Jim Bridenstine, in a March 11 speech.

The White House plan would reduce NASA science by 8.7 percent to $ 6.3 billion. Of the four scientific divisions of the agency, planetary science would receive the biggest pot of money; The financing proposed by the administration, amounting to $ 2.6 billion, is 4.9% below the current level. The Trump Plan includes funding for a rock sample recovery mission from Mars; it could be launched as early as 2026. The samples would be collected by NASA's Mars 2020 robot, which is currently under development. It also provides funding for a mission, which is scheduled for launch in 2023, to fly over Jupiter's frozen moon Europa. The project was championed by former Rep. John Culberson (Republican, Texas), who was dismissed in November, in part because his constituents felt he was focusing too much on the job. exploring the solar system and not enough about their problems.

Astrophysics would suffer the deepest cuts. The budget request would fund the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, for $ 353 million. This would move him to a launch in March 2021. "This administration is attached to the James Webb Space Telescope," said Bridenstine. But the White House proposal would reduce the rest of the astrophysics budget to $ 845 million, a drop of 29%. And for the second consecutive year, the administration has sought to cancel the wide-field infrared geometry telescope, designed for hunting exoplanets and dark matter. Congress reinstated its funds last year despite cuts requested by Trump.

The proposed $ 1.78 billion budget for the earth sciences is 7.8% below the current level. The Trump plan would cancel two missions that the White House has twice tried to eliminate: the Plankton satellite, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem and a solar reflection mission called CLARREO Pathfinder. Two others that were already part of the cutting block – the Observatory of Carbon in Orbit 3, expected to be launched in April, and the Earth Observation Instruments mounted on the DSCOVR space weather satellite – do not are not threatened this time.

Funding for heliophysics would decrease by 2% to $ 704.5 million. The Trump Plan would continue to fund missions such as the Parker Solar Probe, which is currently circling the Sun closer than any other spacecraft.

Department of Energy Office of Science

The Trump plan includes $ 5.5 billion for the Office of Science of the US Department of Energy, just over 16% from the 2019 funding level. The 2020 demand would reserve $ 169 million. dollars to the science of quantum information, $ 71 million to research on artificial intelligence and machine learning and $ 500 million to supercomputing. The current office budget includes $ 936 million for advanced computation research; it is unclear how the $ 500 million administration's proposal for 2020 compares to that of 2019. The White House has provided some other details on its 2020 demand for the energy department . It is difficult to know how Congress will welcome the plan. Last year, the Trump administration had asked the Science Bureau $ 5.4 billion, but Congress finally gave $ 6.6 billion to the office.

The National Administration of Oceans and the Atmosphere

The White House budget documents do not include a detailed funding proposal from the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), which received $ 5.4 billion in 2019. It provides for $ 1.2 billion for the NOAA satellite program, including "polar meteorological satellites, space weather instruments, and satellite data collection systems". The Trump budget also seeks to eliminate NOAA's Sea Grant College national program, which supports more than 30 US universities that conduct research, education and training on oceans and coastal areas. The White House proposed ending the Sea Grant program in 2017 and 2018 as well, but Congress continued to fund it.

Food and Drug Administration

The budget of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would increase by $ 362 million, to reach $ 3.3 billion. The Trump plan includes $ 55 million to combat opioid addiction and $ 55 million to accelerate the commercialization of digital health technologies. The budget request would also add user fees to applications for approval of new tobacco and nicotine-related products, including e-cigarettes.

Stephen Grossman, Deputy Executive Director of the stronger FDA Alliance lobby group in Silver Spring, Maryland, welcomes the proposed FDA increase, but notes that the details of the agency's budget are unclear . "The agency will be able to use new funds for important programs," he said, "as well as to hire the necessary scientific staff."

But Ryan Hohman, vice president of Friends of Cancer Research's advocacy group, says that while the FDA's budget is increasing, there is little reason to be happy about the cuts proposed for the NIH. "By bringing a hatchet to the agency that provides the basic science that leads to all the life-saving therapies that the FDA evaluates, you are putting at risk decades of potential progress."