Yesterday President Obama signed the stimulus bill. With the stroke of a pen, $789,500,000,000 has been "spent". The bill includes roughly $18B for science research, and over $50B for education.

The National Science Foundation receives $3B, of which $2B goes directly to peer-reviewed science. Given that the total budget for NSF is $6B a year, this is a significant increase. The Department of Energy Office of Science receives $1.6B, while energy programs at the DOE receive over $30B. NASA receives $1B, of which almost half goes to Earth science climate research. If you sent email or made phone calls, please take a moment now to thank your Senators and Representatives. Many people worked very, very hard to ensure that science was adequately funded. This is a lot of money, all of which needs to be spent on a very short timescale. But it sends a clear message that science is important to the future of this Nation, and this Planet.