250 General Science, Space & Technology:Reduce Fusion Energy Sciences Spending to FY 2008 Levels

Sources

Savings are expressed as budget authority and were calculated by comparing current spending levels to estimated levels, had FY 2008 spending increased only for inflation. The FY 2008 spending level of $294.3 million is found on page 16 of Nicolas Loris, “Department of Energy Budget Cuts: Time to End the Hidden Green Stimulus,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2668, March 26, 2012. The FY 2014 funding level of $505.7 million can be found on page 164 of House of Representatives, 113th Congress, 2nd Session, “Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill, 2015.” Estimated spending for 2014, if held constant at the 2008 spending level (plus CPI inflation as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics), would have been $331 million, as compared to the enacted level of $506 million. The $175 million difference between the two spending levels was increased at the same rate as discretionary spending in the CBO’s most recent August 2014 baseline discretionary spending projections.

Technical Notes on Scoring

CBO Baseline

Unless otherwise noted, calculations for savings for each recommendation relies on the most recent Congressional Budget Office baseline, as found in “An Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook: 2014 to 2024,” published August 27, 2014, has been used.

Savings “Totals”

While totals for the five and 10 year savings are provided by section and for the complete set of recommendations, there are two reasons they should not be viewed as representing total savings for The Budget Book.

First, as noted in the introduction, The Heritage Foundation would recommend that the savings realized in the Function 050 Defense section would stay within the Department of Defense to strengthen the nation’s defense capabilities.

Second, the numbers cannot be deemed to represent the realized savings if every single recommendation were adopted because policy changes made in one program can impact spending levels in other programs.  Thus, the numbers in the table do not reflect any potential interactions between the various policy changes affecting spending or savings.