From Science:

National Science Foundation (NSF) is using its $2 billion windfall from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to fund more proposals already in the pipeline, reducing what officials say is a $2-billion-a-year backlog of good ideas. That’s quite a contrast from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which has rolled out an array of mechanisms, including new competitions and several types of supplemental grants targeting various audiences, to allocate its $8.2 billion in research funds from the $787 billion stimulus package.

For more information see the article in Science .