(This legislative update has been assembled by the UH System Office of Governmental Relations and edited by the UH Office of University Relations as a service to the UH System community.)
It appears that the House and Senate have reached an agreement on a reported $1.97 trillion budget for FY 2002. The agreement provides for a smaller tax cut than originally sought by President Bush, authorizing $1.35 trillion in tax cuts over 11 years, including $100 million in FY2002; the President's original plan called for a $1.6 trillion tax cut. The budget agreement also provides a reported $667 billion in overall discretionary spending for FY 2002, which represents a 5% increase over FY 2001. The House and the President had sought to hold spending to a 4% increase, while the Senate supported an 8% increase. Final approval of the agreement by the full House and Senate could come as early as this week.
Now that the budget agreement is in place, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees must meet to allocate the discretionary funding to the 13 appropriations subcommittees. It remains unclear how the 5% increase will be allocated, since the budget agreement does not mandate the funding level available to each subcommittee. However, it is unlikely that the increase will simply be spread evenly across the board. Instead, the final subcommittee allocations will likely provide certain subcommittees more funds than others. What effect this will have on the science agencies is presently unknown.