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Relief, Disappointment as 2007 Appropriations Bill Passes After months of uncertainty about the future of jobs, grant money, and the availability of large-scale instruments, many in the science community can breathe a sigh of relief. President Bush signed the long awaited fiscal year 2007 funding bill into action on February 15, 2007. The bill, which froze and cut the budgets of many agencies, made exceptions for the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Under the appropriations bill, NSF will receive an increase of $335 million allocated for research and related activities, the same amount initially requested by the Administration. This is an increase of 6.0% over NSF’s fiscal year 2006 budget appropriation. Several departments within NSF will benefit from the increase, including the nanoscale science and engineering programs and cyber infrastructure and research programs in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Department. The DOE Office of Science received an increase of 5.6% over its fiscal year 2006 appropriation, which amounts to an additional $200 million for reducing the U.S. dependence on oil. In addition, the bill frees from restriction $130 million that was designated by Congress to specific projects in 2006, thereby allowing the Office of Science to allocate this money as they see fit. This increase was only 40 percent of the amount requested by the Office of Science for fiscal year 2007. Of the four solicitations announced by the Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences last year, the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative received $4 million of the requested $17.5 million, Solar Energy Utilization received $8 million of the requested $34 million, and the Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems and Mid-Scale Instrumentation programs received none of the requested funding. As a result, many of the awards will not be available until 2008. The appropriations bill allocates $50 million in new funding to NIST for physical science research and laboratory support related to nanotechnology and neutron research. This increases the NIST laboratory research budget by 13.3% and is about half of the total requested increase for fiscal year 2007. Although less than requested, these increases were encouraging news to the science community after months of uncertainty during which all United States government agencies—with the exception of 386

Homeland Security and the Department of Defense—were operating under their fiscal year 2006 budgets well into fiscal year 2007. The 109th Congress was unable to agree on budget allocations for these agencies during its term and passed a number of continuing resolutions, ultimately passing the appropriations responsibility on to the 110th Congress who convened on January 4, 2007. The 110th Congress started its session with a packed agenda and Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Representative David Obey (D-Wis.), then incoming chairs of the Senate and House Appropriations Committees, announced in late 2006 that they