Last month, the White House released its FY21 budget proposal, which includes $590 billion for nondefense discretionary spending, a 7 percent cut to the $634.5 billion FY21 level set under the two-year budget deal lawmakers agreed to in August 2019. While the proposed budget does include some positive components, chief among those being $300M for a new National Security Multi-mission Vessel (NSMV) for our Maritime Academy at Texas A&M-Galveston, in addition to critical areas of research such as artificial intelligence and space technology, it also contains funding cuts critical to advancing research at Texas A&M. In particular, a nearly $600M decrease (-6.5%) in funding to the National Science Foundation and a $3B decrease (-7%) to the National Institutes of Health.

House appropriators will likely begin marking up the various appropriations bills the week of April 20, and are aiming to complete subcommittee and full committee consideration by mid-May, so that June can be dedicated to floor consideration of the bills. The Senate is on a similar track, with an end goal of completing its work before August, when Congress heads home mostly through Election Day. While Congress does seem determined to pass a FY21 budget at this time, a Continuing Resolution (CR) is not off the table.

Texas A&M University and the higher education community look forward to working with Congress to ensure appropriate and consistent funding is available to maintain critical research being conducted at Texas A&M and throughout all institutions of higher education.