NSF Funding Request Faring Well in Congress

摘要

Last week, a Senate committee declared the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to be "the finest science foundation in the world." And federal legislators seem prepared to back up their kind words with hard cash. While the 2011 budget requests of other U.S. research agencies are struggling to stay afloat in choppy fiscal seas, so far NSF's is sailing through Congress largely intact.rnLast week, the Senate appropriations committee gave NSF all but $71 million of the $498 million increase that it had requested for 2011. A few weeks earlier, a House of Representatives spending panel endorsed the entire 7.2% increase, which would boost NSF's budget next year to $7.4 billion.