AAAS analyses show Congress is poised to add billions of dollars to proposed budgets for federal investment in research and development for fiscal year 2008.

The House and Senate would endorse large proposed increases for select physical sciences agencies in the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) and expansion of development of new human spacecraft.

In addition, instead of cutting funding for other R&D programs as requested, the House and the Senate would provide increases to every major non-defense R&D funding agency, and would “turn proposed cuts into significant increases for the congressional priorities of biomedical research, environmental research (particularly climate change research), and energy R&D.”