WASHINGTON, D.C.
President Barack Obama pledged to direct three percent of the United States’ gross domestic product to scientific research and development at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in April of 2009. The $420 billion in funding will support research in areas such as the space program, sustainable energy, software development, and advanced prosthetics. The President asserted that the budgets of science agencies including the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy Office of Science, and the National Institutes of Standards and Technology will be doubled. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy will also be launched as part of the Department of Energy.
