The 112 th Congress continued to take a strong interest in the health of the U.S. research and development (R&D) enterprise and in providing support for federal R&D activities. However, widespread concerns about the federal debt and recent and projected federal budget deficits drove difficult decisions involving prioritization of R&D within the context of the entire federal budget and among competing priorities within the federal R&D portfolio. The U.S. government supports a broad range of scientific and engineering research and development. Its purposes include addressing specific concerns (e.g., national defense, health, safety, the environment, energy security), advancing knowledge generally, developing the scientific and engineering workforce, and strengthening U.S. innovation and competitiveness in the global economy. Most of the R&D funded by the federal government is performed in support of the unique missions of the funding agencies. The federal government has played an important role in supporting R&D efforts that have led to scientific breakthroughs and new technologies, from jet aircraft and the Internet to communications satellites and defenses against disease. Congress plays a central role in defining the nation's R&D priorities as it makes decisions with respect to the size and distribution of aggregate, agency, and programmatic R&D funding. Some Members of Congress have expressed concerns about the level of federal funding in light of the current federal fiscal condition, deficit, and debt. As Congress acted to complete the FY2013 appropriations process it faced two overarching issues: the extent to which the federal R&D investment could grow in the context of increased pressure on discretionary spending and how available funding would be prioritized and allocated. Low or negative growth in the overall R&D investment may require movement of resources across disciplines, programs, or agencies to address priorities. This report provides government-wide, multi-agency, and individual agency analyses of the President's FY2013 request as it relates to R&D and related activities and congressional actions on appropriations legislation, and specific information on appropriations enacted by Congress in the FY2013 Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, ( P.L. 113-6 ) for agencies that have made such information available. Agency FY2013 appropriations were subject to one or more rescissions as well as sequestration. For several agencies, research and development (R&D) funding is included in accounts with non-R&D activities. For such agencies, unless Congress provides funding at the full request level as requested, it is not possible to know the agency's R&D funding level. In such cases, the funding level may not be known until it is included in the President's FY2015 budget request and/or agency budget justifications. When final appropriations are not resolved until after the President's next fiscal year budget request is prepared (as was the case for FY2013 appropriations and the President's FY2014 request) funding for agency R&D may not be known until the subsequent year's budget request. However, some agencies may opt to provide funding estimates, publicly or privately (for example, in response to a CRS inquiry). Determination of funding levels can be complicated by a number of factors, including rescissions, sequestration, supplemental funding, transfers, and reprogramming. Agency analyses in this report use the most current information available at the time this report was published. President Obama's proposed FY2013 budget, released on February 13, 2012, included $140.820 billion for R&D in FY2013, a 1.4% increase over the estimated FY2012 R&D funding level of $138.869 billion. Adjusted for inflation, the President's FY2013 R&D request represented a decrease of 0.2% from the FY2012 level. Among its provisions, the President's FY2013 budget maintained an emphasis on increasing funding for the physical sciences and engineering, an effort consistent with the intent of the America COMPETES Act ( P.L. 110-69 ) and the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 ( P.L. 111-358 ). These acts sought to achieve this objective by authorizing increased funding for accounts at three agencies with a strong R&D emphasis in these disciplines: the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Department of Commerce (DOC) National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) core laboratory research and R&D facilities construction funding (collectively referred to as the "targeted accounts"). However, appropriations provided to these agencies for FY2008, FY2009, and FY2010 fell short of the levels authorized in P.L. 110-69 . P.L. 111-358 set authorization levels for the targeted accounts for FY2011-FY2013 at a slower growth rate than P.L. 110-69 . FY2011 and FY2012 funding for the targeted accounts fell short of their P.L. 111-358 authorized levels. For FY2013 appropriations not only fell short of the authorized levels for the targeted accounts, but actually decreased 3.1% from the FY2012 appropriations level. (See " Doubling Effort " later in this report for a more detailed discussion.) More broadly, in a 2009 speech before members of the National Academy of Sciences, President Obama put forth a goal of increasing the national investment in R&D to more than 3% of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). President Obama did not provide details on how this goal might be achieved (e.g., how much would be funded through increases in direct federal R&D funding or through indirect mechanisms such as the research and experimentation (R&E) tax credit); however, doing so likely would have required a substantial increase in public and/or private investment. In 2009, total U.S. R&D expenditures were $400.5 billion, or approximately 2.87% of GDP. Based on 2009 figures, reaching President Obama's 3% goal would have required an increase of 4.4% in national R&D spending. In addition, advocates for increased federal R&D funding—including President Obama's science advisor, John Holdren—have raised concerns about the potential harm of a "boom-bust" approach to federal R&D funding (i.e., rapid growth in federal R&D funding followed by much slower growth, flat funding, or even decline). The biomedical research community experienced a variety of challenges resulting from such a circumstance following the five-year doubling of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget that was completed in FY2003. With the NIH doubling came a rapid expansion of the nation's biomedical research infrastructure (e.g., buildings, laboratories, equipment), as well as rapid growth in university faculty hiring, students pursuing biomedical degrees, and grant applications to NIH. After the doubling, however, the agency's budget fell each year in real terms from FY2004 to FY2009. Critics assert there have been a variety of damages from this boom-bust cycle, including interruptions and cancellations of promising research, declining share in the number of NIH grant proposals funded, decreased student interest in pursuing graduate studies, and reduced employment prospects for the large number of biomedical researchers with advanced degrees. According to then-NIH Director Elias Zerhouni, the damages have been particularly acute for early- and mid-career scientists seeking a first or second grant. The current effort to double funding for the targeted accounts has followed a similar pattern, but on a smaller scale. Funding for the targeted accounts grew by about 28% from FY2006 to FY2010 (or approximately 6.4% per year), but fell 3.6% between FY2010 and FY2013. Analysis of federal R&D funding is complicated by several factors, such as the inclusion of R&D in accounts with non-R&D activities. As a result of this and other factors, the R&D agency figures reported by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) (shown in Table 1 ), may differ somewhat from the agency budget analyses that appear later in this report. Another factor complicating analysis of the President's FY2013 budget request was the inclusion of the Wireless Innovation (WIN) Fund, a part of the Administration's Wireless Innovation and Infrastructure Initiative. First proposed in the President's FY2012 budget request, the WIN Fund would have received $300 million in FY2013 from receipts generated through electromagnetic spectrum auctions. The fund was intended to support development of leading-edge wireless technologies and public safety applications. Under the President's budget, NIST was to have received up to $300 million in FY2013 if the WIN fund had been established. NIST intended to use these funds to work with industry and public safety organizations on research and development of new standards, technologies, and applications that advance public safety communications, including establishing a competitive grant fund. The grant fund would have awarded between $70 million and $75 million per year from FY2014 through FY2016 for related research, development, and demonstration projects. Congress did not authorize the establishment of the WIN Fund in FY2013. Federal R&D funding can be analyzed from a variety of perspectives that provide different insights. The authorization and appropriations process views federal R&D funding primarily from agency and program perspectives. Table 1 provides data on R&D by agency for FY2011 (actual), FY2012 (estimated), and FY2013 (request) as reported by OMB.