The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) has outlined its funding hopes for the 2009 fiscal year today (Jan. 29), just a few weeks after Congress passed the FY08 funding bill that bumped the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget up by a mere $130 million.

"Today we present, based on our expertise as scientists, what is necessary to reinvigorate and sustain our nation's extraordinary research enterprise," said FASEB's president, Robert E. Palazzo in a release announcing the recommendations.

FASEB would like to see the NIH get $31.2 billion in FY09. This would be more than a $2 billion increase over the FY08 budget.

The organization suggests the National Science Foundation receive $7.33 billion and the Department of Energy's Office of Science get $4.8 billion, along with several hundreds of millions in funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, the United States Department of Agriculture, and NASA.

Life science funding seems precarious after President George W. Bush's State of the Union address last night, during which he suggested doubling funding for physical science research but mentioned no such increase for life science research funding.