While researchers relax for the summer holidays, science lobbyists in Washington are feeling tense about the state of the US budget.

For the third straight year, the budget looks as though it will be severely delayed — raising concern that research may be stymied in the months to come.

As Nature went to press, Congress had failed to complete work on any of the 13 spending bills that provide funding for the US government in fiscal year 2005, which begins on 1 October 2004. Squabbling over the overall budget has held up work on the bills.

With the Congress summer recess set to begin on 23 July, this situation seems unlikely to change much. Experts say little will probably be done until after the November presidential election. Many think that any shift in power will make it difficult to resolve the budget bills before the newly elected members of government take over in January. “I can't imagine we will be done until February or March,” says one staffer at the House of Representatives.

That could mean trouble for science funding, according to Janet Shoemaker, head of public affairs at the American Society for Microbiology in Washington. If the budgets aren't passed on time, Congress will pass a series of ‘continuing resolutions’ that will supply funding at 2004 levels. Until a budget is passed, agencies will be unable to fund new projects set to begin in 2005, Shoemaker says. Although most agencies anticipate a few months' delay each year, the potential for a prolonged hold-up is worrying. “Beyond January it becomes a severe problem,” she says.

That was the case after the mid-term election in 2002, when the government ran on continuing resolutions for nearly five months before finally approving a budget in February (see Nature 421, 774; 200310.1038/421774a).

Work done on the budget so far indicates that science agencies are unlikely to get much in the way of new funds even when the spending bills do pass. A report last week from the House subcommittee working on the budget for the National Institutes of Health indicated that the agency could receive an increase of $727 million for 2005 — a 2.6% rise from its current funding level of $28.5 billion.