White House FY22 Budget Request to be Released Friday

The Biden administration has announced it intends to release its Fiscal Year 2022 (FY22) budget request on Friday, May 28. The White House budget is routinely scheduled to be released in February, though on a Presidential transition year it is often delayed. Even so, Senate Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has voiced his concern for the late timetable. The President’s budget request helps inform Congress of the White House’s priorities and makes recommendations to Congress on programmatic funding levels.

The late distribution has Congress questioning the time frame for the annual, must-pass National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) has stated that he does not think the Committee will be able to finalize its version of the NDAA by July as originally intended. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed (D-RI) previously stated his Committee will markup the bill in July, though the timetable keeps getting shortened for the full Senate to consider the legislation before the end of this fiscal year.

Earlier in April, President Biden did release a budget outline for FY22, but the full budget request expected Friday will provide more details for individual agency and program funding and also offer a long-term projection that usually looks at the next ten years. We know from the earlier budget outline that the White House intends to seek a 16% increase in domestic spending, while only increasing defense spending by 1.7%.

The science and engineering research agenda specifically is expected to see a dramatic increase under Biden’s budget request. Under the earlier budget outline, the White House showed its commitment to the research agenda by recommending that Congress boost the National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) budget by $1.7 billion and the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Science would grow by $400 million. More details on which programs specifically under these agencies and more will be included in the full budget request expected to be released by the White House at the end of the week.

For more information on President Biden’s earlier budget outline, please reference our previous article, “Biden Proposes Research Boost in Fiscal Year 2022 Budget Outline.”