R&D Do Well in US President Obama's 2011 Budget Request. (February 3, 2010)

US President Barack Obama's first budget proposal for which he can claim full responsibility signal's a fiscal year 2011 budget of US$66 billion to be spent on non-defence research and development -- a 5.9% increase over fiscal year 2010's budget.

John Marburger, former president George W. Bush's science advisor said: "It's very gratifying to see science treated this way in a time of very severe budgetary constraint."

While the US' National Institutes of Health (NIH), will receive a modest increase, President Obama has requested strong increases for the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Department of Energy's Office of Science. Former President George W Bush had started to double the collective budgets of these three agencies over 10 years, and Mr Obama's request would keep that plan on track.

NatureNews observes: "The new request puts a heavy emphasis on climate research and clean-energy development, allocating US$2.6 billion to the multi-agency US Global Change Research Program, for example — an increase of 21%.

While NASA's overall budget would rise by 1.5% to US$19 billion. The US President removes government-developed replacement for the space shuttle and calls for abandoning the returning humans to the Moon. On the other hand "in 2011, the agency's science budget would grow by 11% to US$5 billion. Earth-science programmes would reap most of the gains, including more money to rebuild the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, a failed satellite that would have tracked global carbon dioxide levels".

However, The astrophysics division gets a cut of 2.6%,  which will have a profound effect on developing the James Webb Space Telescope currently scheduled to be launched in 2014. It  is already markedly over budget.

With regard to the 3.2% budget increase for the NIH (it will keep pace with biomedical inflation) its director Francis Collins said: "Of course I would wish for a more generous budget if that were possible, but it could have been a lot worse if we didn't have an administration and a president who really values science."

As regards Steven Chu's Department of Energy, "the department's Office of Science, the nation's largest supporter of physical-sciences research, will get a 4.4% increase, to US$5.1 billion if the President's request is approved by the US Congress. That would include a 12% increase for basic energy research, funding for which would grow to US$1.8 billion.

NatureNews also reports: "Spending on solar-energy research would rise by 22% to US$302 million, and wind-energy research would jump by 53% to US$123 million with an increased focus on offshore applications. Overall funding for fossil energy would drop by 20% after a huge increase in stimulus spending; Obama also proposes ending fossil-fuel tax subsidies worth US$2.7 billion annually."

The President's budget also looks to nuclear fuelled energy by allocating "US$195 million into the development of small nuclear reactors and other advanced nuclear designs [but also] providing US$36 billion in loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants, adding to the US$18 billion that was authorized last year".

It is noteworthy that in order "to attract and educate future scientists and engineers in clean-energy fields, a new programme known as RE-ENERGYSE would provide US$19 million for up to 8,500 students pursuing clean-energy careers by 2015".

Finally, as for the National Science Foundation (NSF) the President has requested an increase from US$6.9 billion to US$7.4 billion. Most of the increase would go "to the agency's core research activities, which would receive around US$6 billion. This would be shared across all of the research disciplines it funds".