Congress Is Reversing Trump’s Steep Budget Cuts to Science

Congress is racing to undo thousands of cuts to federal science programs that President Trump called for last year when planning the government’s current budget.

If enacted, the president’s bid for an overall cut in scientific funding to $154 billion from $198 billion — a plunge of 22 percent — would have been the largest reduction in federal spending on science since World War II, when Washington and the seekers of nature’s secrets began their partnership. This week, the Senate Appropriations Committee released a bipartisan package of bills that largely scraps Mr. Trump’s planned cuts. Analysts say that, if the proposed budgets hold up in the weeks ahead, Congress will set aside roughly $188 billion for federal research — a drop of about 4 percent from the most recent annual budget.

“That’s pretty solid,” said Alessandra Zimmermann, a budget analyst at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a scientific group based in Washington. “Congress is really starting to push back.”

Mr. Trump sought even larger cuts for the National Science Foundation, which sponsors much of the nation’s basic research. He proposed that its budget be slashed to $3.9 billion from $8.8 billion, a drop of 56 percent. The Senate package countered with a reduction to $8.75 billion, or less than 1 percent. The bipartisan accord on funding science, Ms. Zimmermann said, stands in sharp contrast with the congressional impasse that shut down the government last fall as Democrats and Republicans clashed over the renewal of subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.

“They’re working together now,” she said. “It’s a return to normalcy.” The new cooperation, Ms. Zimmermann added, is “promising for the eventual passage of the bills.”

Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, called the package “a fiscally responsible” move that will “spur scientific research necessary to maintain U.S. competitiveness.”

On Thursday, the House voted to approve the Senate package. Many federal programs have recently had their budgets frozen at last year’s levels. Congress, eager to avoid another shutdown, is working to pass spending bills before stopgap measures expire on Jan. 30. So far, the House’s moves on this year’s science budgeting add up to an estimated total of $185 billion — close to the Senate figure of $188 billion, and putting the two chambers not far apart for negotiations on a final budget.

The improved budgetary picture cannot undo the damage that the Trump administration’s frenzy of budget cutting and administrative chaos brought to the nation’s scientific establishment, analysts say. They see the cycles of cuts and reinstatements as taking a toll that in some cases may require years to mend. Analysts also note that the administration has made policy shifts on how appropriated funds are spent. For instance, the National Institutes of Health, which traditionally hedged its scientific bets by supporting a wide range of investigators, is now dividing its annual budget into fewer projects.