Tracking Science Spending

What this tracks. Obligations are commitments to spend federal funds, and represent the broadest measure of agencies' spending activity. This tab shows total obligations within each agency's research function, including grants, contracts, salaries, and continuations. The data come from OMB's SF 133 Report on Budget Execution, and are normalized to the reported appropriations for the relevant agency functions. Because it captures all spending, the obligation pace is slow to reflect disruptions to new research funding specifically. See the New Awards tab for that view.

Each line shows how an agency's current obligation rate compares to its historical average. A value below 100% means the agency has obligated less than it typically would have by that point in the fiscal year.

Reading this chart: The 100% line is each agency's historical average pace. An agency at 80% has obligated only four-fifths of what it normally would have by this point in the year. The Oct–Nov segment is faded because October marks the start of the fiscal year, when all agencies begin on pace by definition.

Each agency's cumulative obligations over the fiscal year, plotted against the range of prior years.

Agency Detail:

Summary metrics and a detailed spend-down chart for the selected agency, with current-year data plotted against the historical range.

What this tracks. The obligation data on the previous tab capture total spending commitments, including continuations, salaries, and contracts. This tab focuses on new grant-making: how quickly agencies are issuing new awards compared to prior years. For NIH and NSF, data come from agency-specific APIs (NIH Reporter, NSF Awards). For DOE, NASA, and USDA, new award obligations are drawn from USASpending.gov. All sources are filtered to new awards only, excluding continuations and modifications. New grant spending is normalized to each agency’s reported appropriation, rather than compared in raw dollar terms or as a fraction of end-of-year totals. This accounts for year-to-year changes in agency budgets and for years in which agencies do not fully spend their appropriation.

Each line shows an agency's current award-making pace as a percentage of its historical average at the same point in the fiscal year.

Reading this chart: The 100% line is each agency's historical average award-making pace. An agency at 50% has issued only half the new award dollars it normally would have by this point in the fiscal year, as a share of its annual appropriation. NIH and NSF values are based on individual awards from agency APIs; DOE, NASA, and USDA values are based on monthly new-award obligations from USASpending.gov.

Individual Agency Award Trends

Cumulative new awards over the fiscal year, plotted against the range of prior years.

Agency Detail:

Summary metrics and a cumulative award chart for the selected agency, with current-year data plotted against the historical range.

View:

Methodology. All figures are drawn from OMB SF-133 Reports on Budget Execution and Budgetary Resources, published by the Office of Management and Budget. These reports are generated from agency-reported data in the FACTS II system and represent the official record of federal budget execution.

Obligations are measured using Line 2190 (total new obligations & upward adjustments), filtered to unexpired accounts only. Expired-account adjustments (Line 2180) are excluded as they represent prior-year corrections rather than current-year spending activity.

Appropriations use Line 1100 (discretionary) + Line 1200 (mandatory)—the raw enacted appropriation figures rather than net totals (Lines 1160/1260). Net totals include CR preclusions (Line 1134), which can dramatically understate the full-year appropriation during a Continuing Resolution. Once a full-year appropriations bill is enacted, Line 1134 goes to zero and the raw and net figures converge.

Reporting cadence. SF-133 data is reported monthly for October through September of each fiscal year. Quarterly reports (December, March, June, September) are considered official; monthly reports are preliminary. This tracker uses all available periods for the most current picture.

Continuing Resolutions. During a Continuing Resolution, Line 1100 reflects the annualized prior-year rate. Obligation percentages may appear lower until a full-year bill is enacted, at which point Line 1134 preclusions go to zero and raw and net figures converge.

Agency filtering. Each tracked agency corresponds to specific Treasury Account Fund Symbols (TAFS) or bureau codes within department-level SF-133 files:

Agency	SF-133 Filter	Scope
NIH	Bureau: “National Institutes of Health,” excl. TRACCTs 3966, 4554, 838	Research institutes & OD (excl. Management Fund, Services & Supply, Buildings)
NSF	TRACCTs 100, 106	Research & Related Activities + STEM Education. TIP is budgeted within R&RA. H-1B fee-funded accounts (TRACCT 5176) are excluded because they have no corresponding appropriation on Lines 1100/1200.
DOE	TRACCT 222	Office of Science
NASA	TRACCT 120	Science Mission Directorate
USDA	TRACCTs 1400, 1500, 1502	Agricultural Research Service + National Institute of Food and Agriculture

Historical range. The shaded band on spend-down charts shows the minimum-to-maximum range across prior fiscal years (FY2016–FY2024). The dashed line shows the average. These provide context for whether current-year spending is within normal bounds. FY2016 and FY2017 data is available at non-quarterly months only (8 of 12 periods); the historical range at quarterly reporting periods uses FY2018 onward. FY2020 included emergency supplemental appropriations (CARES Act) that affected spending levels; this year is included in the historical baseline.

Dollar amounts. All dollar figures are nominal and not adjusted for inflation.

Obligation Time Series

Complete monthly obligation data underlying the spend-down charts. All dollar amounts are nominal.

Glossary

Appropriation: Budget authority enacted by Congress allowing an agency to incur obligations and make payments.
Obligation: A binding commitment to pay for goods, services, or other expenses—the primary measure of spending activity.
Outlay: Actual disbursement of funds from the Treasury. May lag behind obligations by months or years.
Budget Authority: Total authority to enter financial obligations, including appropriations, borrowing, and contract authority.
Continuing Resolution: Temporary funding at prior-year levels when full-year appropriations have not been enacted. During a CR, Line 1134 preclusions reduce net appropriation figures substantially.

Methodology. New award data cover the pace of grant-making: how many new grants are issued and how much new funding is committed. This is distinct from total obligation figures, which include continuing grants, salaries, and contracts. Awards are drawn from agency-specific APIs and grant databases, filtered to new and competing-renewal grants, and normalized against discretionary appropriations to allow comparison across years and agencies.

NIH data comes from the NIH Reporter API. Awards are filtered to Type 1 (new) and Type 2 (competing renewal) extramural grants, excluding subprojects and intramural research (activity codes starting with Z). Date is based on the award notice date. Data is available daily from FY2016 onward.

NSF data comes from the NSF Awards API, covering Research & Related Activities, STEM Education, Technology Innovation & Partnerships, and Integrative Activities (CFDA programs 47.041, .049, .050, .070, .074, .075, .076, .083, .084). All new awards are included, dated by the award decision date (not the project start date, which may be months later). Dollar amounts represent the initial obligation recorded for each award, extracted from the per-year funding breakdown in the NSF API. For standard grants, this equals the full award value; for continuing grants, it is the first-year increment. Data is available daily from FY2016 onward.

DOE Office of Science, NASA Science, and USDA data comes from USASpending.gov, filtered to project grants and cooperative agreements (award type codes 04 and 05) under agency-specific CFDA program numbers. The new_awards_only filter excludes continuations and modifications. Data is reported monthly. USASpending coverage begins in FY2017–2019 depending on the agency; years with incomplete data are automatically excluded from the historical baseline.

Comparability. All three data sources capture initial competitive awards or new award obligations, excluding non-competing continuations. NIH data includes Type 1 (new) and Type 2 (competing renewal) grants. NSF captures all new award decisions. USASpending is filtered to new awards only.

Historical range. The shaded band on award charts shows the minimum-to-maximum range across available prior fiscal years. The dashed line shows the average. Because USASpending data availability varies by agency, the baseline period may differ: NIH and NSF use FY2016–2024, while DOE begins FY2019, USDA begins FY2018, and NASA begins FY2017. Earlier years are excluded due to incomplete data coverage.

Normalization. To compare across years and agencies, cumulative new award dollars are expressed as a percentage of the discretionary appropriation (SF-133 Line 1100) for the relevant research component. Mandatory appropriation (Line 1200) is excluded from the awards denominator because competitive grants are funded from discretionary accounts; mandatory funding supports specific earmarked programs. (The Obligations tab uses discretionary + mandatory as its denominator because it tracks all spending activity.) This removes variation from budget changes over time, isolating changes in award-making pace. The overview chart divides the current value by the historical average at the same point in the fiscal year to produce the “% of average pace” metric. Metric cards use the same normalization: year-over-year and vs-average comparisons are based on appropriation-normalized values, not raw dollar amounts. Agencies whose average appropriation share is below 0.05% at a given point are excluded from the overview chart to avoid noisy ratios from small denominators.

Award Time Series

Cumulative new award data underlying the award charts. All dollar amounts are nominal.

Glossary

New Award (NIH): A Type 1 (new) or Type 2 (competing renewal) grant, as classified by NIH. Excludes non-competing continuations, supplements, and subprojects.
New Award (NSF): An award whose decision date falls within the fiscal year. Continuing grant increments retain the original award's start date and are not double-counted.
New Grant Obligation (USASpending): A project grant or cooperative agreement obligation classified as a new award by USASpending.gov, excluding modifications to existing awards.
Cumulative Dollars: Running total of new award dollars from the start of the fiscal year (October 1) through the latest available date.
% of Appropriation: Cumulative new award dollars divided by the agency's full-year discretionary appropriation (SF-133 Line 1100). Provides a budget-normalized view of award pace.

Experimental comparison. This tab shows the same agencies using USASpending.gov as a unified data source for all five, instead of the agency-specific APIs (NIH Reporter, NSF Awards) used on the New Awards tab. This allows comparison of data source effects. USASpending uses the new_awards_only filter, which captures initial obligations on new award records and excludes non-competing continuations. Dollar amounts may differ from the agency APIs due to differences in how transactions are aggregated.

Each line shows an agency's current award-making pace as a percentage of its historical average, using USASpending data.

Individual Agency Trends (USASpending)

Cumulative new award obligations from USASpending, plotted against the range of prior years.

Agency Detail:

Summary metrics and cumulative chart using USASpending as the data source.