No Soup for You!

The US House of Representatives panel that oversees funding for several science agencies says the National Science Foundation will receive no budget increase in 2012, reports ScienceInsider's Jeffrey Mervis. The appropriations subcommittee will vote Friday on a $50 billion spending bill that, if approved, would erase the $900 million budget increase that President Barack Obama suggested for NSF, leaving the agency at its current level of $6.86 billion, Mervis says. "The biggest hit on the president's request would be levied on the account to fund major new facilities, which would receive only $100 million instead of the president's request for $225 million," he adds. "That lesser amount wouldn't even cover the $102 million sought to continue building up the Ocean Observatories Initiative. The agency's request for $87 million to begin construction of the National Ecological Observatory Network would also be severely squeezed under the House figure."