[mmaimcal] Senate NSF Funding Bill

[Al Wootten]

The newly established Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice 
and Science has sent its FY 2006 funding bill, H.R. 2862, to the floor.
The Subcommittee recommends an increase in the National Science Foundation
budget of 1.1% (recall that the House bill provides an increase of 3.1%).
For Research and Related Activities The Committee recommends an appropriation 
of $4,345,213,000. The recommendation is $124,657,000 above the fiscal year 
2005 funding level and $11,713,000 above the President's budget request.

For details, please see http://tinyurl.com/942u7
Language of interest:

"The Committee is concerned that NSF continues to underfund
operations for radio astronomy. The operations, maintenance, and
development of new instrumentation at the Very Large Array, the Very
Long Baseline Array, and the Green Bank Telescope allows these
world-class facilities to provide valuable research into the origins
of the universe. The Committee recommends $51,400,000 for the
operations of the National Radio Astronomy Observatories."

"The Committee recommends $49,240,000 for the Atacama Large
Millimeter Array [ALMA] [same as House bill].

The Subcommittee is chaired by Senator Richard
Shelby (R-AL), with Democratic Ranking Member Barbara Mikulski
(D-MD),

Clear skies,
Al