Washington

Members of the Congress are backing scientists in their demands for more research funding for 2002 than has been proposed by President George W. Bush — particularly in the physical sciences.

At a meeting of the House of Representatives Science Committee on 25 April with the heads of four research agencies, chairman Sherwood Boehlert (Republican, New York) called next year's budget “particularly disappointing”. He said the administration had already “signalled repeatedly that the numbers will be better next year, particularly for the National Science Foundation” (NSF), but added that researchers should not have to wait until then for better funding.

Boehlert and other Republican committee members, in particular Connie Morella (Maryland) and Vernon Ehlers (Michigan), said they were pressing their party leaders in Congress and the White House to raise the budgets for the science agencies.

The committee asked the agency officials present, who included James Decker of the Department of Energy, the NSF's Rita Colwell and Dan Goldin of NASA, to identify programmes that would be cut or reduced to meet the budget proposal, but they declined to do so. Boehlert said he understood their reluctance, but later described the budget proposal as “grossly inadequate”.

Various committees in Congress are now considering next year's funding levels for research and other spending priorities. They will agree a final budget with Bush around the start of the 2002 fiscal year on 1 October.

In the Senate, the Budget Committee's chairman Pete Domenici (Republican, New Mexico) has complained of nearly flat funding for the energy department's science office.

An amendment to the Senate's budget resolution, calling for $1.4 billion more science funding at the energy department, NASA and NSF, was passed last month.