Washington — Federal spending on energy research would get a hefty boost of 16 percent in the 2009 fiscal year, under a bill approved today by a Senate Appropriations subcommittee. That increase, however, is less than was proposed in the House of Representatives and by President Bush.

Under the Senate plan, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science would get $4.64-billion — less than the $4.86-billion approved last month by the House Appropriations Committee and the $4.72-billion requested by President Bush.

Unlike the House’s version, the increase suggested by the Senate panel would fall slightly short of putting the office’s budget back on track to double from 2006 to 2013, as called for by the America Competes Act, enacted last year. That law aimed to increase federal spending on fundamental research in the physical sciences to help improve America’s global economic competitiveness.

Congress and the president approved an initial installment toward the doubling goal in the 2007 fiscal year but deadlocked over aggregate spending levels in 2008, agreeing eventually to only a minimal increase for the Office of Science this year.

Today’s action marked the unveiling in the Senate of the energy bill for the 2009 fiscal year, which starts in October. The full Senate Committee on Appropriations is to consider it on Thursday. But Congress is expected to delay for months final approval of the various appropriations bills to finance higher-education programs in 2009. —Jeffrey Brainard