Academic and research groups signed a letter urging Bush to remain open to using the supplemental appropriations bill to fund scientific research and education. Science groups want war cash

With Congress entangled in another tussle over funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s easy to miss the universities, tech companies and scientists lobbying for a relatively small pot of money to finance scientific research they say is critical to maintaining America’s technological edge.

The coalition has mobilized corporate executives, college presidents and scientists to seek a $500 million boost in this year’s wartime supplemental funding bill to restore cuts to the National Science Foundation and prevent hundreds of layoffs from the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.


The situation wasn’t always so grim. Last year, Congress and the Bush administration supported an increase of at least $1.2 billion for the two groups and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

But the pumped-up funding fell victim to the year-end budget battle between congressional Democrats and President Bush, and the groups saw little or no increases, said Tobin Smith, associate vice president of federal relations for the Association of American Universities.

“Last year, unfortunately, when the money didn’t get included, the administration blamed Congress. Congress blamed the administration, and the community is left asking, ‘When are they going to work together to solve a problem everyone has said must be solved?’” Smith said.

To press their case, thousands of scientists and engineers from 25 scientific societies called their representatives, senators and the White House last month. The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology estimated its members alone made more than 5,000 calls, Smith said.

Earlier, university presidents also pressed their case in Washington and have been actively engaging their local lawmakers.

The technology community also rallied its troops. About 10 frustrated corporate executives descended on Capitol Hill during a Semiconductor Industry Association meeting in March, an association spokeswoman said.

The CEOs pressed lawmakers and senior administration officials to support research funding and to move other gridlocked issues such as overhauling the immigration system for highly skilled workers and permanently extending the research and development tax credit, the spokeswoman said.

“The business community is becoming disenchanted and thinks these statements [of support by Congress and the White House] are mere lip service, and there’s no sense of urgency to provide the funding to back up what everyone says is important,” Smith said.

Stakeholders have focused their efforts largely on House leaders and members of the House Appropriations Committee, said Amy Burke, government relations director for Texas Instruments. And they have worked to identify and mobilize companies, federal labs and universities in key lawmakers’ home districts.

Burke pointed to a letter sent to House leaders from Reps. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) and Ralph Hall (R-Texas) — chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the House Science and Technology Committee — as well as 29 other representatives who urged new funding “to prevent the permanent loss of hundreds of our nation’s best scientists and engineers ... [and] restart research critical to American innovation and competitiveness.”

Nearly 250 business, academic and research groups signed a similar letter, urging Bush to remain open to using the supplemental appropriations bill to fund scientific research and education.

If research isn’t funded in the supplemental, supporters worry that this fall’s elections will sidetrack Congress from passing the 2009 appropriations by year’s end, leaving them without critical funding into next year.

“This has to get turned around now,” said Barry Toiv, spokesman for the university association. “If it doesn’t happen in the supplemental, we worry it won’t happen for a long time.”