Republicans in the US House of Representatives announced a new budget proposal that cuts the federal budget, including federal science funding, by $74 billion, reports Nature's The Great Beyond blog. House Appropriations Committee Chair Hal Rogers (R-KY) then specific how much each subcommittee would have to cut from its budget; the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee would have to cut 4 percent of its budget. "We are going go line by line to weed out and eliminate unnecessary, wasteful, or excess spending — and produce legislation that will represent the largest series of spending reductions in the history of Congress," says Paul Ryan (R-WI), the House budget committee chair, in a statement.
However, Barry Toiv, the spokesperson for the Association of American Universities, tells the Chronicle for Higher Education that "these allocations pose a serious threat to science and higher education."
In the State of the Union and other speeches, President Barack Obama has called for investment into scientific research. This new budget proposal makes "clear the huge challenge confronting President Obama and his pledge to largely spare scientific research from the overall need for deep budget reductions," the Chronicle notes.