A Cloud on the Horizon for Funding?

While the America Competes Act passed by Congress should increase science funding in the US, Wired Science notes that just how much money will be appropriated for that bill will be decided in early 2011. "House Republicans have made the National Science Foundation a symbol of wasteful spending, so America Competes may still lose," writes Wired's Brandon Keim. The reauthorization of the bill calls for $45 billion in funding — including $23.5 billion for NSF, $16.9 billion for the DOE's Office of Science, and $2.9 billion for NIST, among others, as our sister publication GenomeWeb Daily News reported earlier this month. Science advisor John Holdren wrote on the White House blog that "full funding of the Competes Act is among the most important things that Congress can do to ensure America's continued leadership in the decades ahead."