US$136 Billion American Competitiveness Initiative: a Breakdown. (March 6, 2006)

    It has taken five years and a concerted effort from the enabling sciences but it looks as though a turn around has begun.

    The American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) proposed by US President George W Bush in his 2007 budget is a US$136 billion 10-year package which boils down to a doubling over 10 years of the current combined US$9.5 billion budgets of the National Science Foundation (NSF), core programs at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Office of Science at the Department of Energy (DOE). The starting point -- a US$910 million increase in funding in 2007.

Triumphant trio. NSF Director Arden Bement, DOE Secretary Samuel Bodman, and NIST Chief William Jeffrey SOURCE: 2007 BUDGET; (IMAGES, LEFT AND RIGHT): CHRIS MADDALONI; (CENTER) STEVEN SENNE/AP PHOTO From Science Feb. 17, 2006

The most costly component is an estimated US$4.6 billion in 2007 and US$86 billion over 10 years which would make permanent a tax credit for companies that increase their research budgets. Its provision for doubling the budgets of the NSF, DOE's Office of Science, and core programs at NIST would cost US$50 billion over the ten years. ACI also contains a 1-year infusion of US$380 million for the Department of Education to improve the teaching of maths and science in the nation's elementary and secondary schools.

To get President Bush's agreement to put the ACI forward took the persuasive powers of presidential science adviser physicist John Marburger, Samuel Bodman, a former Massachusetts Institute of Technology chemical engineering professor and corporate CEO who in January 2005 became Energy Secretary and the release of the October report from the National Academies entitled Rising Above the Gathering Storm just as the 2007 budget requests were under scrutiny.

Science reports, "Now that the president has spoken, Congress must decide whether it will give each agency what Bush has requested--and for the designated programs. Despite an overall budget for 2007 that would reduce domestic discretionary spending, Wolf, who chairs the spending panel with jurisdiction over NSF and NIST, flat-out promises that both agencies 'will get their number.' (NSF is pegged for a 7.9% boost, and NIST's core programs would rise by 24% once projects earmarked by individual members are removed from the budget.) 'I don't plan to spend a year talking about it, like we had to do last year,' Wolf adds. 'We're going to get it done.'"