page_title: 2012 United States federal budget
section_title: Major initiatives
hierarchical_section_title: 2012 United States federal budget / Major initiatives
caption_attribution_description: English: Caption: During cryogenic testing, the mirrors will be subjected to temperatures dipping to -415 degrees Fahrenheit, permitting engineers to measure in extreme detail how the shape of each mirror changes as it cools. More information: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/releases/2010/10-094.html
context_page_description: The 2012 United States federal budget was the budget to fund government operations for the fiscal year 2012, which lasted from October 1, 2011 through September 30, 2012. The original spending request was issued by President Barack Obama in February 2011. That April, the Republican-held House of Representatives announced a competing plan, The Path to Prosperity, emboldened by a major victory in the 2010 Congressional elections associated with the Tea Party movement. The budget plans were both intended to focus on deficit reduction, but differed in their changes to taxation, entitlement programs, defense spending, and research funding.
  The House resolution did not pass the Senate, nor did the Senate pass a resolution of their own, so there was no 2012 budget of record. The actual appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 2012 included four continuing resolutions and three full-year appropriations bills enacted in November and December 2011, in accordance with the United States budget process.
context_section_description: The following provisions were enacted in the final budget legislation:
  No new funding for long-distance intercity and high-speed rail was included in the budget.  This funding had originally been introduced as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus bill in 2009, but had proved controversial as several Republican governors elected in the 2010 elections subsequently rejected the federal funding for rail projects in their states.  However, funding for 26 short-distance routes eliminated in the House version was restored in the enacted bill.
  The National Science Foundation's budget was increased 2.5%, to $7.03 billion, and the National Institutes of Health's was increased slightly from $30.4 billion to $30.7 billion.  However, the Office of Science and Technology Policy's budget was cut by 32% to $4.5 million, in retaliation for the office allegedly ignoring a provision in 2011 budget legislation banning it from pursuing collaborations with China.  Funding for the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, was maintained, as was funding for the Joint Polar Satellite System.
  The legislation contained a ban on using federal funds to enforce the phase-out of incandescent light bulbs that had been mandated in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, but requires recipients of more than $1 million in Department of Energy grants to comply with the energy efficiency standards.
  Regular funding for the Department of Defense increased from $513 billion to $518 billion, including a 1.6% pay raise for military personnel.  Funding for the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan was reduced from $158 billion to $115 billion.
  Funding for the Race to the Top education program was cut from $698 million to $550 million.  A proposal to create an educational technology research and development program, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Education (ARPA-ED), in a similar vein to the successful DARPA research agency within the Department of Defense, was not enacted.
  The Obama administration had requested to create a Climate Service within NOAA, similar to the National Weather Service.  This request was not enacted.
  Transfers of prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to the United States was prohibited, and language on transfers to other countries was revised.
  The Department of Justice was forbidden from consolidating or maintaining certain firearms records, and it was prohibited for health officials to use federal money to advocate gun control.
caption: The House version of the budget legislation removed all FY2012 funding for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, pictured under construction in July 2010.  The funding was restored in the enacted version.  The telescope is intended to be the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.[39]
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