TMS Public and Governmental Affairs Resource Center

FROM THE FEDERATION OF MATERIALS SOCIETIES: According to Congressional budget procedures, authorization bills are supposed to be passed before appropriations bills, to give guidance to spending decisions on specific programs. This year, the appropriations bill for the Department of Defense (DOD) was passed and signed into law over the summer, while the authorization bill emerged from a House-Senate conference committee just prior to adjournment for the election campaigns. Advocates from the science and engineering community were cautiously pleased with the result, since the $11.2 billion authorized for the DOD science and technology program brings it closer to the goal of three percent of total defense program spending established in Defense Guidance documents. The conference agreement includes funding for basic research, applied research, and advanced technology development in each of the services, and $5 billion for defense-wide science and technology. The conferees commended the department for "mobilizing the capabilities of the science and technology community in transitioning advanced technologies for support of operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the Global War on Terrorism.” The conferees endorsed the need for "robust science and technology funding in future budgets and continued emphasis on the development, recruitment, and retention of the skilled scientists and engineers necessary to ensuring the U.S. military's technological edge."

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