Science (Both Physical and Life) is Back in the Conference Stimulus Bill

SEA (again) has the details of the result of the House and Senate conference bill for economic stimulus. Here are the parts related to science:

Provides $3 billion for the National Science Foundation, for basic research in fundamental science and engineering - which spurs discovery and innovation.

Provides $1.6 billion for the Department of Energy's Office of Science, which funds research in such areas as climate science, biofuels, high-energy physics, nuclear physics and fusion energy sciences - areas crucial to our energy future.

Provides $400 million for the Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to support high-risk, high-payoff research into energy sources and energy efficiency in collaboration with industry.

Provides $580 million for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, including the Technology Innovation Program and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

Provides $8.5 billion for NIH, including expanding good jobs in biomedical research to study diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer, and heart disease.

Provides $1 billion for NASA, including $400 million to put more scientists to work doing climate change research.

Provides $1.5 billion for NIH to renovate university research facilities and help them compete for biomedical research grants.

While I am skeptical of scientific funding via economic stimulus bills, I am pleased to see the commitment to scientific funding in both houses. I am also skeptical of the notion that scientific funding will over the short-term expand "good jobs in biomedical research." However, as the creation of intellectual property and new technologies is the basis in any healthy economy of long-term growth, I choose to believe that they are going with the right policies for the wrong reasons.

What we have to wait for now is to see whether in two years this enthusiasm will have subsided. Good science takes decades, and we need decades long commitment from Congress. They have taken steps to suggest that it is there, but I will believe it when I see it.

I truly hope that when this funding is used up we don't go back to flat funding for another several years.