NCAR awaits politicians budget decisions

The budget battle in Washington has reached Boulder, with the the National Center for Atmospheric Research caught in the middle.

Vice President Joe Biden claims that great strides are being made in settling disputed federal funding issues, while Republicans say it isn’t so. House Speaker John Boehner denied Biden’s claim that a deal has been struck. As things stand now, current funding will end on April 8th which could lead to possible shutdowns of some federal agencies and services.

NCAR is 99% funded by the federal government. The National Science Foundation funds more than 50% of their work. The rest of their work is funded by other federal agencies such as: NOAA, NASA, the department of energy, and the FAA.

According to Cindy Schmidt, the director of the office of government affairs, this has caused problems. “So what happens is we have to continue spending at FY10, so last year’s rates for all of our programs. And we can’t have any new programs start and since there is some inflation that eats into funding at the FY10 level. So we have had a few layoffs.”

President Obama values science and believes that scientific innovation is critical to help end the recession. Cindy Schmidt agrees with President Obama. “Scientific research forms the bases for a lot of technology development and innovation and it’s extremely important to continue funding these things if we’re going to pull out of this recession.”

Obama isn’t the only one who values science. Mike Henry, legislation specialist said, “But traditionally science research is understood as a really important federal role by Republicans and Democrats both.”

The budget is causing a lot of uncertainty for NCAR and it’s still unclear when the budget will be resolved. NCAR has a plan of action for this year. They are continuing to spend according to last year’s rates for all of their programs. In addition, they are also not giving any raises and have had layoffs.