Under the President's budget, funding for the U.S. Geological Survey would be cut by $37 million from $1.06 billion in FY 2008 to $969 million in FY 2009. Funding for the Geologic discipline would be cut by $18 million from $239 million in FY 2008 to $221 million in FY 2009.
The President's budget would increase funding for the National Science Foundation by 14 percent to $6.854 billion in FY 2009. Funding for NSF's main research account would increase 16 percent to $5.594 billion in FY 2009. The large increase in funding for the National Science Foundation is consistent with the President's American Competitiveness Initiative, which would double the sum of the budgets of NSF, NIST core programs, and DOE Office of Science over ten years, and the America COMPETES Act, which was passed by Congress and signed by the President in 2007.
We should have more details this afternoon after briefings by the White House and Interior Dept.