NSF Director, biologist Rita Colwell, identified this research as a priority when she unveiled the NSF budget on April 9. They were asking to sign onto a message to the Senate leadership in support of doubling the NSF budget. The case for doubling the NSF budget is being made in the context of the NIH budget increases, casting it both as a matter of science and as a matter of fairness. Regarding the former, many argue that fundamental research is essential to progress. Bond went even further.
Basic research is the foundation on which applied science and technology rests.
Subsequently, Bond, Mikulski and others were successful in adding an amendment to the Senate's version of the federal budget that would increase NSF by 15.3 percent above the FY 01 level and keep NSF on schedule for doubling its budget. The fairness of NIH's large increases is also being raised within science, where rumblings of discontent are growing in the face declining budgets for other federal science agencies. Frustrated at seeing the large increases for NIH, some have gone public with their views. Kennedy noted that federal science agencies by and large are targeted for level funding or in many cases, substantial cuts. He attributes this in part to the fact that no science adviser has yet been appointed.