# Presentation: 042712

## OSTP Update

**Rob Dimeo & Jon Morse**
**Physical Sciences and Engineering**
**Office of Science and Technology Policy**
**Executive Office of the President**

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006

## The Budget Cycle

**memorandum on R&D priorities**

**2. Agencies prepare and submit **
**proposed budgets**
**to OMB**

**3. Passback, negotiations, & appeals between agencies and EOP**

**4. President makes final decisions and sends Budget Request to Congress**

**5. Congress reviews, considers, & approves *****overall***** Budget Request**

**6. Appropriations hearings with agencies & EOP on individual programs**

**7. Congress marks up & passes agency appropriations bills**

**8. President signs or vetoes appropriations bills**

**9. Agencies make decisions on allocation of resources consistent with enacted appropriations and program plans**

***The Budget Cycle***

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006

## The FY2008 President’s Budget continues to prioritize the American Competitiveness Initiative

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006

## President Bush’s ACI Research Commitment(in millions of dollars)

| ACI Basic Research Agencies | FY 2006 Funding | President’s FY 2007 Request | House FY 2007 Continuing Resolution | House Cuts to FY 2007 Request | President’s FY 2008 Budget | FY 2008 Budget Above House CR |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NSF | 5,582 | 6,020 | 5,916 | -104 | 6,429 | +513 |
| DoE Office of Science | 3,596 | 4,102 | 3,796 | -306 | 4,398 | +602 |
| NIST Core | 568 | 535 | 491 | -44 | 594 | +103 |
| ACI Total | 9,747 | 10,657 | 10,203 | -454 | 11,421 | +1,218 |

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006

## NASA Science(in millions of dollars)

| Agency | FY 2006 Funding | President’s FY 2007 Request | House FY 2007 Continuing Resolution | House Cuts to FY 2007 Request | President’s FY 2008 Budget | FY 2008 Budget Above House CR |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NASA Science Mission Directorate | 5,245 | 5,330 | 5,251 | -79 | 5,516 | +265 |

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006

## National Science & Technology Council

**NSTC Structure****November 2005**

**Biotechnology**

**WH:   Sharon Hays**
**DOD:  Ken Krieg**
**DHS: Charles McQueary**

**WH: Richard Russell**
**DOC: Ben Wu**

**WH: Sharon Hays**
**DOC: Conrad Lautenbacher**
**EPA: George Gray**

**NSTC**
**Director, OSTP**

**WH: Sharon Hays**
**NSF: Arden Bement**
**NIH: Elias Zerhouni**

**Committee on **
**Environment & **
**Natural Resources**

**Committee on **
**Science**

**Committee on **
**Technology**

**Committee on **
**Homeland and**
**National Security**

**Aeronautics S& T**

**Manufacturing Research & Development**

- *in development
- **Informal

**Social, Behavioral & Econ.**

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006

## Interagency Working Group on the Physics of the Universe

**Interagency Working Group on the *****Physics of the Universe***

**Originally established to formulate an implementation plan for the opportunities identified in the 2002 NRC report *****Connecting Quarks with the Cosmos: Eleven Science Questions for the New Century***
**Report released in February 2004**

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006

## Interagency Working Group on the Physics of the Universe

**Co-chairs: Robin Staffin (DoE-SC), Joe Dehmer (NSF-PHY), Michael Salamon (NASA-SMD)**
**Will report on progress made towards interagency coordination on items discussed in the PoU report.**
**Interagency ****Task Force on High Energy Density Physics**** under the auspices of the PoU IWG; report imminent**
**Interagency ****Lessons-Learned Task Force****: an ad-hoc task force under the auspices of the PoU IWG; draft report in progress**

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006

## OSTP Endorses Process of NSF Astronomy Senior ReviewDecember 22, 2007

***OSTP Endorses Process of NSF Astronomy Senior Review******December 22, 2007***

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006

## The Role of NRC Decadal Surveys in Prioritizing Federal Funding for Science & Technology

**	****Community-based documents that provide consensus views of frontier science opportunities for maintaining the Nation’s scientific leadership**
**	****Provides for each field a single, well-respected source for community priorities and the scientific motivations to the agencies, OMB, OSTP, and the Congress**
**	****Limits the range of activities to consider for funding**
** ****Cost estimates, technical risk assessments, and technology roadmaps aid in budget planning**

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006

## The Role of NRC Decadal Surveys in Prioritizing Federal Funding for Science & Technology

**	****Prioritizing specific projects can become static and inflexible, with little ability to account for project setbacks, new discoveries, changing budgetary circumstances, etc.**
**	****Technical risks are often not well known or stated clearly**
**	****Cost estimates have often been inaccurate**
** ****Project cost estimates too low and do not reflect total lifecycle costs**
**Recommended project portfolios cannot fit in any realistic budget scenario (unrealistic expectations)**
** ****Small, medium, and large projects are not compared to each other**
** ****Surveys often do not address how projects should be phased, individually or relative to each other**
**Surveys usually assume only growth in the number and scale of facilities and missions, and do not identify offsets in the existing portfolios to enable new initiatives**

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006

## The Role of NRC Decadal Surveys in Prioritizing Federal Funding for Science & Technology

**What is most useful for making decisions?**

**	****Frame the discussion by identifying the key science questions**
** ****Focus on what you want to do, not on what you want to build**
** ****Discuss the breadth and depth of the science (e.g., impact on our understanding of fundamental processes, impact on related fields and interdisciplinary research, etc.)**
**	****Then explain what measurements and capabilities are needed to answer each question**
**Discuss the complementary nature of initiatives, relative phasing (domestic and international context)**
** ****How do various past, present, and future measurements and facilities work together to answer the questions?**
** ****What roles do/could private, interagency, and international partnerships play?**
**Reporting by capabilities (e.g., wavelength range, *****in situ***** vs. remote sensing, etc.) is not useful for policy and budget planning**

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006

## The Role of NRC Decadal Surveys in Prioritizing Federal Funding for Science & Technology

**	****Establish science and project priorities in the broad context of past, present, and future projects and changing conditions**
-  **New initiatives, upgrades and/or recapitalizations**
**	****Establish relative priority amongst new initiatives, projects currently under development (e.g., from previous Surveys), operating projects, R&A, PI-led projects, and technology/R&D investment needs**
**	****Prioritize across all initiatives vs. grouping into small, medium, large (i.e., remove ambiguities about what is meant by “a balanced program”)**
**Explain the associated risks (technical, dependencies on other projects)**
** ****Assume that large projects (> $1B) will need international support**
**Provide tables that summarize key information about science & projects**
**Provide timeline/phasing charts and diagrams for project portfolios under various budget scenarios**
**Consider adding non-specialists or even non-scientists to committees to aid in communicating societal benefits (e.g., interdisciplinary aspects, education, workforce training, public outreach)**

**Suggested Improvements**

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006

## The Role of NRC Decadal Surveys in Prioritizing Federal Funding for Science & Technology

**Managing Expectations**

**	****Acknowledge stewardship role in taxpayer investment**
**Identify highest priority activities but within a framework that allows flexibility to react to new scientific opportunities**
**Use **_***order-of-magnitude lifecycle***_** cost estimates instead of specific (often under-estimated) construction costs or costs by decade**
**Explain how circumstances (e.g., project overruns, changing budget forecasts, phasing with other projects, new discoveries) would change priorities**
**Consider multiple, *****realistic***** budget profiles and what science various profiles would buy**
** ****Work with agencies, OMB, Congress to define constraints**
** ****Macro-budgetary pressures are expected to *****increase***** during the next decade, so flat budget projections may actually be optimistic**
** ****Also need to consider project terminations that allow new initiatives to move forward (part of Decadal Survey or subsequent Senior Review process)**

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006

- Backup slides

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006

## Executive Office of the President (EOP)

**White House Office**
- (Homeland Security Council, Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, Freedom Corps)

**Office of **
**Management & Budget**
**(OMB)**

**Office of the **
**Vice President**

**National Security Council **
**(NSC)**

**President’s **
**Foreign Intelligence **
**Advisory Board**

**Council of**
**Economic Advisors**
**(CEA)**

**Council of**
**Environmental Quality**
**(CEQ)**

**US Trade Representative**
**(USTR)**

**Office of **
**Administration**

**Office of National Drug Control Policy**

**Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP)**

- Mix of detailees, career, political

- Primarily **political staff**

- Primarily **career** staff

**Domestic Policy Council**
**Nat’l Economic Council**
**Nat’l AIDS Policy**

**Executive Office of the President (EOP)**

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006

## OSTP-What We Do

**Advise the President and others within the Executive Office of the President on the impacts of science and technology on domestic and international affairs; **
**Lead interagency efforts to develop and implement sound science and technology policies and budgets; **
**Work with the private sector to ensure Federal investments in science and technology contribute to economic prosperity, environmental quality, and national security; **
**Build strong partnerships among Federal, State, and local governments, other countries, and the scientific community; **
**Evaluate the scale, quality, and effectiveness of the Federal effort in science and technology.**

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006

## OSTP-Who We Are

- AAAC Meeting: October 13, 2006