Volume 38 (2019)
Talks Continue as Congress Attempts to Raise Budget Caps
As previously reported, fiscal year (FY) 2020 discretionary spending is subject to austere caps that were put in place in 2011 as part of a larger effort to significantly reduce the size of the federal budget over 10 years. The Budget Control Act of 2011, or BCA, put in place caps on discretionary spending for both nondefense and defense spending for the period of 2013 through 2021. COSSA joined a letter with over 800 organizational signatures urging Congress to raise these spending caps. Congressional leaders are now considering several solutions to raise the discretionary spending caps and are currently taking…
Congress Holds Hearings on FY 2020 NIH Budget
On April 2, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (LHHS) hosted leadership from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to testify on the agency’s fiscal year (FY) 2020 budget request on April 2. Present were NIH Director Francis Collins, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Director Diana Bianchi, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci, National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Director Gary Gibbons, National Cancer Institute (NCI) Deputy Director Doug Lowy, and National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora Volkow. Members from…
OMB Seeks Feedback on Length of Executive Branch Comment Prohibition for Release of Economic Indicators
Statistical Policy Directive No. 3 recommends Executive Branch employees refrain from commenting on the release of principal federal economic indicators for 60 minutes after their release. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is seeking public comment on whether that 60-minute window is still appropriate given the many changes in the information landscape since the policy directive was issued in 1985. OMB is not considering changes to the embargo on the release of any information or comment about federal statistics before their official release by the statistical agencies, only whether policy officials should be allowed to comment earlier than 60…
COSSA Washington Update, Volume 38 Issue 7
Featured News Administration Releases FY 2020 Budget Request; Read COSSA’s Analysis of Social Science Impacts COSSA in Action Read COSSA’s 2018 Annual Report Congressman Paul Tonko Answers “Why Social Science?” Letters & Statements Congressional News Release of President’s Budget Puts Pressure on Congress to Raise Caps; COSSA Urges Advocates to Take Action Congressional Appropriators Get to Work; NSF Director Testifies Federal Agency & Administration News IES Requests Comment on Proposed Priorities NSF Releases Dear Colleague on Research on Sexual Harassment in STEM Nomination Opportunities Funding Opportunities Notices & Requests for Comment Fellowships & Professional Development Community News & Reports Notices…
Administration Releases FY 2020 Budget Request; Read COSSA’s Analysis of Social Science Impacts
On March 11, the Trump Administration released a preview of its Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 budget request to Congress, with additional details unveiled the following weeks. The budget was delivered about a month late, largely due to the partial government shutdown that paralyzed much of the federal workforce throughout December and January. The President’s request proposes steep cuts to all corners of the federal budget, with the exception of national security-focused agencies which would see significant boosts. When considering the Trump Administration’s proposals for FY 2020 it is important to remember that the budget request remains a political, largely symbolic…
Read COSSA’s 2018 Annual Report
COSSA’s 2018 Annual Report is out now. Check it out to learn more about COSSA’s activities and successes over the past year. Find out how your organization can become a member of COSSA on our website. Back to this issue’s table of contents.
Release of President’s Budget Puts Pressure on Congress to Raise Caps; COSSA Urges Advocates to Take Action
The release of the President’s budget request signals the official kick-off of the annual appropriations process in Congress. However, before Congress can fully dive into the FY 2020 bills, lawmakers must address a larger threat facing federal funding for next year. As COSSA has been reporting, discretionary spending that is appropriated every year by Congress has been subject to austere caps that were put in place in 2011 as part of a larger effort to significantly reduce the size of the federal budget over 10 years. The Budget Control Act of 2011, or BCA, put in place caps on discretionary…
Congressional Appropriators Get to Work; NSF Director Testifies
Following the release of the Administration’s fiscal year (FY) 2020 budget request, Congressional leaders have gotten to work on spending bills for the coming fiscal year. As COSSA has previously reported, Congress must first address the limits to discretionary spending (“raise the caps”) before they can complete the FY 2020 appropriations process. Congress has until the end of September to finalize all government spending. COSSA has signed onto a letter as part of the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF) to encourage Congress to raise the caps on discretionary spending. While Congress has yet to reach a broader budget deal…
IES Requests Comment on Proposed Priorities
The Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the statistics, research, and evaluation arm of the Department of Education, has released a request for comment on proposed priorities for IES. The Federal Register Notice explains that the request is part of the process required by the agency’s authorizing legislation to receive public comment on priorities the Director of IES recommends to the National Board for Education Sciences. Proposed priorities fall into two categories: A Focus on Outcomes and Increasing Dissemination and Use. The Outcomes priority includes specific outcomes at the preschool, K-12, and postsecondary levels of education. The Dissemination and Use priority…
NSF Releases Dear Colleague on Research on Sexual Harassment in STEM
The National Science Foundation (NSF) released a Dear Colleague Letter on March 29 highlighting NSF’s continued support for competitive research that advances fundamental knowledge about the nature and underlying dynamics of sexual and other forms of harassment and the evaluation of harassment prevention in research, STEM, and workplace settings. The letter outlines that NSF has designated liaisons for harassment research in their research directorates and offices to help potential grantees determine whether a research idea is within the scope of the Dear Colleague Letter and appropriate for existing programs at NSF. The letter also includes several potential research foci in…
COSSA Washington Update, Volume 38 Issue 6
Featured News Details of President’s FY 2020 Budget Request Emerge COSSA in Action COSSA Urges Action on Non-Defense Discretionary Spending COSSA Asks OMB to Remove Census Citizenship Question Letters & Statements Federal Agency & Administration News National Science Foundation Invites Participation in Convergence Accelerator Pilot William Beach Confirmed as BLS Commissioner Nomination Opportunities Funding Opportunities Notices & Requests for Comment Open Positions Fellowships & Professional Development Community News & Reports National Academies Releases Decadal Survey of the Social and Behavioral Science for Applications to National Security Nomination Opportunities Notices & Requests for Comment COSSA Member Spotlight Recent Reports Events Calendar
Details of President’s FY 2020 Budget Request Emerge
This week, the Trump Administration began releasing details of its fiscal year (FY) 2020 budget request. Like previous years, the budget proposes steep cuts that would damage America’s research and data enterprise. Full details of the budget are still in the process of being released this week. COSSA will be sharing its in-depth analysis of the proposal in the coming days. Below is a snapshot of some of the funding levels we know so far: It is important to remember that the Presidents’ request is simply a proposal and is unlikely to become law. Congress has sole authority over appropriating…
COSSA Urges Action on Non-Defense Discretionary Spending
Before Congress can fully dive in to the FY 2020 appropriations process (see related article), it must address a larger threat facing funding for next year. As COSSA has reported, the Budget Control Act of 2011 put in place caps on discretionary spending for every year between 2013 and 2021, which limit how much Congress can spend every year with an aim of reducing the federal deficit. Thankfully, Congress took action since 2013 to amend the law and raise the caps, which has allowed funding for federal research agencies to increase above the painful caps. Unfortunately, the relief enacted by…
COSSA Asks OMB to Remove Census Citizenship Question
In response to a Federal Register request, COSSA submitted a comment to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requesting that, should a Census citizenship question be reinstated by the Supreme Court, as has been proposed by the Trump Administration, OMB remove it from the 2020 Census on the grounds that it violates the Paperwork Reduction Act. COSSA argues that including the question “is of minimal practical utility or public benefit, will increase the burden on respondents, and will harm the integrity and accuracy of information collected for statistical purposes.” The full comment is available on the COSSA…
National Science Foundation Invites Participation in Convergence Accelerator Pilot
In a Dear Colleague letter released on March 18, the National Science Foundation (NSF) invited interested parties to participate in the NSF Convergence Accelerator Pilot. The NSF Convergence Accelerators Pilot seeks to accelerate use-inspired convergence research in areas of national importance by facilitating convergent team-building capacity around exploratory, potentially high-risk proposals. The Pilot seeks proposals to support fundamental research while encouraging rapid advances through partnerships that include, or will include, multiple stakeholders in three research tracks aligned with two of the NSF Ten Big Ideas. The three research tracks are: Open Knowledge Network (as part of the Harnessing the Data…
William Beach Confirmed as BLS Commissioner
On March 13, William Beach was confirmed as the next Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after a protracted wait. Beach was originally nominated by the Trump Administration in October 2017 (see COSSA’s previous coverage). He is an economist who spent much of his career at conservative think tanks and was most recently Vice President at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. He also spent several years as Chief Economist for the Senate Budget Committee Republican Staff and has been involved in the evidence-based policy-making activities of the last several years. The Friends of BLS, of which COSSA is a…
National Academies Releases Decadal Survey of Social and Behavioral Science Applications to National Security
On March 5, the Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences of the National Academies of Science released a Consensus Study Report of the Decadal Survey of Social and Behavioral Science for Applications to National Security. A decadal survey is a method of engaging members of a scholarly community to identify lines of research with the greatest potential to be used over a 10-year period in pursuit of a particular goal. This is the first decadal survey to attempt to set a research agenda for the social and behavioral sciences or the intelligence community. The report, A Research Agenda for…
COSSA Washington Update, Volume 38 Issue 5
Featured News NIH Seeks Input on the Need for an Administrative Data Enclave COSSA in Action March’s Headlines Webchat to Feature Deep Dive on FY 2020 Budget Request Anthropologist Lee Hoffer Answers “Why Social Science?” Letters & Statements Congressional News Trump Administration to Release FY 2020 Budget Request Next Week Federal Agency & Administration News NIH Publishes Update on Efforts to Address Sexual Harassment in Science Nomination Opportunities Funding Opportunities Notices & Requests for Comment Open Positions Fellowships & Professional Development Community News & Reports NASEM Report Evaluates Strategies for Reducing Child Poverty Notices & Requests for Comment Recent Reports…
March’s Headlines Webchat to Feature Deep Dive on FY 2020 Budget Request
COSSA members are encouraged to sign up for the monthly Headlines webchat on March 14 at 2:00 pm Eastern, in which COSSA staff will recap the most important social and behavioral science news from the past month and answer participants’ questions. The March chat will feature a deep dive discussion with COSSA staff on the Trump Administration’s budget request for fiscal year (FY) 2020. Individuals employed by or affiliated with a COSSA member organization or university can register for the webchat here. Back to this issue’s table of contents.