Temporary Funding Levels Extended for FY2011
About
Witness the Arctic provides information on current arctic research efforts and findings, significant research initiatives, national policy affecting arctic research, international activities, and profiles of institutions with major arctic research efforts. Witness serves an audience of arctic scientists, educators, agency personnel, and policy makers. Witness was published biannually in hardcopy from 1995-2008 (archives are available below) and is currently published online 3-4 times annually, depending on newsworthy events.
Archives
With the Spring 2009 issue, ARCUS changed the format of Witness the Arctic. To provide more frequent updates and reduce printing and mailing costs and associated environmental impacts, the newsletter is now distributed online in three or four shorter issues per year, depending on newsworthy events.
Contact
If you have a question or an idea for a Witness article, contact Betsy Turner-Bogren at betsy [at] arcus [dot] org.
RSS Feed
On 21 December 2010, Congress approved House Resolution (H.R.) 3082, which extended fiscal year 2011 (FY2011) appropriations through 4 March 2011. This temporary spending bill, also referred to as a Continuing Resolution (CR), freezes discretionary appropriations for FY2011 at FY2010 spending levels. If Congress does not pass FY2011 regular appropriations acts before the 4 March expiration, they may extend FY2010 spending levels through another interim CR. The fiscal year runs from 1 October through 30 September.
H.R. 3082 was the fourth CR passed since the start of the current fiscal year. At FY2010 funding levels, this CR provides NSF with $498 million less than the Obama Administration's FY2011 proposed budget released on 1 February 2010. Full funding of the President's proposed budget would have provided NSF's Office of Polar Programs a 17% increase over FY2010 funding levels, including a 4.8% increase in funding for the Division of Arctic Sciences, and $54 million for operations and maintenance of the U.S. Coast Guard polar icebreakers Polar Sea and Healy (See Witness Fall 2010).
The Administration will release its proposed FY2012 budget on 14 February 2011.
For more information on the status of appropriations for FY2011, see the Library of Congress website: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app11.html. For more information about the NSF FY2011 Budget requests, see the Division website: http://www.nsf.gov/about/budget.