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March 2007 Newsletter FEDERAL UPDATE In February, Congress passed and President Bush signed a spending measure to finance higher-education programs for the remainder of the 2007 fiscal year. The measure increases spending for physical-sciences research and raises the maximum Pell Grant award by $260. Republican leaders of the Senate failed last year to complete nine of the 11 spending bills to finance the federal government in the 2007 fiscal year, which ends September 30. The new Democratic leaders proposed this single spending bill proposal to fill the gap in spending. Under the law, the National Science Foundation and the Energy Department’s Office of Science will both receive increases well above inflation. Although NIH received a 2 percent increase, the agency still plans to provide no cost-of-living increase this year for continuing grants. The agency is increasing the number of new grants awarded in 2007 by as many as 500 over 2006. Funds for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) basic-research programs will fall by 6 percent, to $2.17 billion and decreases for basic and applied research combined are close to 15 percent. The law eliminates Congressional earmarks, the controversial noncompetitive grants directed by lawmakers to specific constituents, including colleges. In 2006, Congress provided a total of $2.3 billion in earmarks for research and development. Some agencies, like NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency, that will get no increase in research spending for 2007, might be getting, in effect, a net increase because of the earmarks. With no explicit direction from Congress, the agencies are in principle free to distribute the formerly earmarked money using merit-based reviews. The law says earmarks financed in 2006 have “no legal effect’ in 2007 Elimination of earmarks is at least a temporary victory for UW-Madison. Unlike many universities, UW-Madison has a policy against lobbying for earmarks and has lobbied for their elimination. PROFS does lobby for federal funding for the research granting agencies. The Chancellor’s office also lobbies for increased funding. It is not clear how much earmarking will be allowed in the future.
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