Stimulus Deal and Funding for Science and Education

The negotiators from both the House and Senate have come to an agreement on a stimulus package worth approximately $790 billion that will be voted on by the end of the week. The package meets the demands of Republican Senators Collins, Snow and Specter which will keep their votes and avoid a filibuster in the Senate. Despite being valued at lower monetary levels than both houses originally wanted, science and education spending levels remained promising.

Some important science funding includes:

• $3 billion for the National Science Foundation, for basic research in fundamental science and engineering – which spurs discovery and innovation.
• $1.6 billion for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which funds research in such areas as climate science, bio fuels, high-energy physics, nuclear physics and fusion energy sciences – areas crucial to our energy future.
• $580 million for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, including the Technology Innovation Program and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership.
• $8.5 billion for National Institute of Health (NIH), including expanding good jobs in biomedical research to study diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer, and heart disease.
• $1 billion for NASA, including $400 million to put more scientists to work doing climate change research.

Providing funds for biomedical research was critical in keeping Senator Specter’s vote. In referring to the biomedical research, he stated I think it is an important component of putting America back on its feet (New York Times). Adding $8.5 billion to the NIH biomedical research budget potentially has a major impact on STEM education since the NIH has an Office of Science Education.

As for education, funding comprises:

• Preventing Teacher Layoffs and Education Cuts by the States: Prevents teacher layoffs and other cutbacks in education and other key services, by establishing a $53.6billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, including $40.6 billion to local school districts using existing funding formulas, which can be used for preventing cutbacks, preventing layoffs, school modernization, or other purposes; $5 billion to states as bonus grants for meeting key performance measures in education; and $8 billion to states for other high priority needs such as public safety and other critical services, which may include education.

• Increases the higher education tax credit to a maximum of $2,500. Also makes it available to nearly 4 million low-income students who had not had any access to the higher education tax credit in the past by making it partially refundable.
• Increases the maximum Pell Grant by $500, for a maximum of $5,350 in 2009 and $5,550 in 2010.
• Adds $200 million to the vital College Work-Study program.

• Provides $13 billion for Title I grants to help disadvantaged kids reach high academic standards ensuring that in this period of tight state and local budgets these vital services are maintained.
• Provides $12.2 billion for grants for IDEA (Special Education) to increase the federal share of these costs, and prevent these mandatory costs from forcing states to cut other areas of education.

An education function that provided a major difference between the two different stimulus packages was school construction. The House version had called for $21 billion for school construction while the Senate version did not. Senator Collins was emphatic that school construction not be part of any stimulus package. Federal funding of school construction has become a major philosophical issue between the two parties with the Democrats wanting more funding while the Republicans wanting to leave it to the states. So even though no direct funding for school construction made it into the stimulus package, there is a bonding program that can be used for “school construction, rehabilitation and repair.”

It is yet to be seen how many, if any, Republicans will vote for the stimulus package in the House, but assuming there are three Republican votes in the Senate, the stimulus package will become law shortly.