US science funding frozen

Written byBob Grant

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The financial crisis befalling the nation has proven that its tentacles reach even into the scientific community. On Saturday (Sept. 27), the US Senate decided to freeze federal funding of any program except those relating to veterans affairs and national security by linkurl:passing;http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR02638:@@@X bill linkurl:HR 2638.;http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR02638:@@@L&summ2=m& This leaves many US science agencies including NASA, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation high and dry for the first half of the 2009 fiscal year. The bill, which received broad bipartisan support in Congress, keeps the budgets of NASA, the NIH, the NSF, and the Department of Energy at current levels from tomorrow - October 1, the beginning of the fiscal year - until March 6, 2009. The passage of this legislation scuttles an attempt to linkurl:boost;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55016/ the NIH budget by $500 million before the start of the fiscal year as well as linkurl:other;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54756/ planned NIH budget increases. Only the $150 million linkurl:increase;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54761/ that the NIH got as part of a supplementary funding bill back in July will stand. Researchers applying for new or continued NIH funding this year will likely feel the pinch in the form of less grant awards and reduced funding levels on existing grants, according to linkurl:__Science__.;http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/929/1 The legislation now goes to President George W. Bush's desk to await his signature.

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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