President Obama’s proposed 2010 budget goes where no Bush has gone before by including significant spending for scientific agencies, including NASA, the EPA, and Department of Energy, on top of the stimulus package. NASA will get $700 million from the budget, which isn’t all that much, but combined with the $1 billion from the stimulus bill, they’re still getting a substantial increase on last year’s operating budget of $18 billion. Interestingly, the budget stipulates that NASA will need to retire its three space shuttles by 2010, with a push for the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle proposed by Obama’s predecessor, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. The Environmental Protection Agency will bump their budget up 35% to $10.5 billion with the $2.7 billion increase, in addition to the $7 billion they’ll receive from the retooled stimulus package. The National Science Foundation, which handles all non-medical science and engineering research, landed an 8.5% bump, which along with their stimulus cash money will give them an operating budget of $10 billion. On a different note, Obama plans to increase the spectrum license fees for wireless provides from $50 million to $200 million, a huge increase. We’re not really sure why; there’s not a ton of money to be made on this kind of tax and there’s no obvious symbolic reason to up the fees. We’re just hoping the carriers don’t pass the costs on to the consumer. [ Wired ]

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Obama’s New 2010 Budget Promotes Radical Pro-Science Agenda [Science]