Senate Panel Approves Science Budget Bill

The Senate appropriations committee on Thursday approved a spending bill that would increase funding to the National Science Foundation by about 1 percent in the coming fiscal year.

Lawmakers on the panel passed a measure that would provide the science agency with $7.2 billion for the fiscal year starting October 1. That is the same amount that the Obama administration requested earlier this year, but lower than the $7.4 billion level that the House set last week. 

Unlike the House version of the budget bill, however, the Democrat-led Senate panel did not include provisions targeting social science research.