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发帖数: 4346 | 1 http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/how-science-fares-us-budget-deal
Not super good news for NSF:
NSF ordered to build three ships
Congress has told the National Science Foundation (NSF) to build three
research ships—but hasn’t given it enough to money to pay for them all.
The 2017 spending bill basically holds NSF’s funding steady—a $9 million
bump to $7.472 billion. It keeps both the six research directorates and NSF
’s education directorate at their combined 2016 totals, of $6.033 billion
and $880 million, rejecting small hikes in each account requested by Obama.
And it ignores NSF’s request for $43 million more in operating funds to
build and move into a new headquarters building in northern Virginia,
leaving officials in a quandary.
The research funding marks a retreat from levels in a bill approved last
summer by appropriators in the House, and holds to the figure in an earlier
Senate bill. But House appropriators prevailed over their Senate
counterparts in ordering NSF to launch a $15 million program for Hispanic
college students, something that NSF says it’s already doing as part of a
broader outreach to underrepresented minorities.
The only NSF account that grows is for new large facilities. NSF had
requested $193 million for three projects. Two are telescopes already under
construction (the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii and the Large
Synoptic Survey Telescope in Chile). The third project is two regional-class
research vessels that NSF hopes to start building next year to upgrade its
academic fleet.
NSF had requested $106 million in 2017 to start building the two vessels,
estimated to cost $127 million apiece. (NSF had originally planned on
building three ships, but changed its mind after a National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine panel said two were sufficient.) House
appropriators balked, zeroing out the project. But the Senate spending panel
called for the original trio of vessels, and it won out in the end.
The only problem is that congressional appropriators allocated only $15
million more than the $106 million NSF had requested for continued planning
and the start of construction of two ships. That leaves NSF $38 million
short, based on a per capita request of $53 million for each ship.
Clare Reimers of Oregon State University in Corvallis, which is managing the
construction project, says “The plan is for a staggered build with hulls
two and three starting 1 and 2 years after hull one, respectively.” NSF
officials declined to comment on how the new spending levels would affect
those plans. “It is possible tough choices will need to be made,” says
geophysicist Maria Zuber, the chair of the National Science Board, NSF’s
oversight body.
But Zuber, who is vice president for research at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology in Cambridge, adds that the board is keeping its fingers
crossed. “We appreciate the support for NSF in this challenging budgetary
time. And we hope Congress will follow up with a [fiscal year] 2018 budget
that continues commitments of these important activities without incurring
additional delays and costs.” —Jeffrey Mervis |
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