Senate Spending Bill Would Help NSF Preserve Its Priorities
Senate Democrats are hoping to make it easier for the National Science Foundation (NSF) and a handful of other federal science agencies to manage the impact of sequestration. And that's good news for researchers who depend on NSF funding.
The Senate's approach, to be spelled out on Monday, would still result in a 5% cut to each agency's budget. But NSF officials say it should give sufficient flexibility to honor funding commitments to current grantees, avoid furloughs, protect programs for young scientists, and continue work on large new facilities. Its terms are also likely to cause NSF to revise its guess earlier this year that the sequester would wipe out 1000 new grants; the actual loss will be much smaller.
The Senate bill is designed to avert a government shutdown, which would happen on 27 March if Congress does not extend a temporary spending measure that has frozen agency budgets at 2012 levels. The House
No comments:
Post a Comment