(This analysis is a preview of the
USDA chapter in the forthcoming AAAS Report XXXIII: Research and Development
FY 2009, a comprehensive look at the President's budget for R&D in FY
2009. This analysis contains revised AAAS estimates of USDA R&D, different
from figures originally presented in the President's budget. More tables and continually
updated supplemental materials on R&D in the FY 2009 budget can be found on
the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
Highlights
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R&D in the U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA) appears to fall a dramatic 15.9 percent in 2009
to $2.0 billion (see Table II-13), but as in
past years the requested cut is due to the proposed elimination of congressional
earmarks. Congress is likely to add back R&D earmarks in 2009 appropriations.
Excluding earmarks from the 2008 base, USDA R&D would decline 1.0 percent
between 2008 and 2009.
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On the extramural side, the National Research Initiative (NRI) of competitively
awarded research grants would increase $66 million to a record $257 million, although
similar proposed increases in past years have not made it through Congress.
Hatch Act funding would fall from $196 million to $139 million, but formula funding
would fall even more steeply. USDA intramural research would fall $84 million
to $1.0 billion, but the cut would become a small increase after adjusting for
2008 earmarks.
USDA R&D in the FY 2009 Budget
In
a reprise of past budget requests, the 2009 USDA budget once again proposes to
reduce the USDA R&D budget through the proposed elimination of congressional
earmarks. As in most years, Congress inserted hundreds of millions of dollars
in R&D funding for congressionally designated, performer specific R&D
projects in 2008 which USDA proposes to cancel in 2009 for a total USDA R&D
request of $2.0 billion, a $369 million or 15.9 percent cut (see Table
II-13). But taking out $269 million in 2008 R&D earmarks from the 2008
base and excluding a $67 million proposed rescission of earmarks from the 2009
request results in a smaller 1.0 percent cut in 2009.
In
USDA’s external portfolio, a sharp reduction in formula funding would allow for
a boost to competitively awarded research funds. USDA’s extramural research
grants, nearly entirely to colleges and universities, are administered by the
Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES). Total CSREES
R&D would fall $154 million or 23.3 percent to $508 million in FY 2009, primarily
from the proposed elimination of 2008 earmarks. Within the declining total, the
National Research Initiative, USDA’s main competitive research grants program,
would see its funding jump 34 percent or $66 million to an all-time high of $257
million in FY 2009. But similar increases in the past several budgets have
been rejected by Congress, because they would have been offset by cuts in formula
or earmarked funding. And even the apparent requested increase would be due primarily
to the proposed $43 million transfer of research activities currently funded under
Integrated Grants into the NRI, another proposal rejected by Congress in the past.
The one true NRI program increase would be $19 million in new funding for bioenergy
and biobased fuels research.
Indeed,
funding for formula programs would decline sharply in the 2009 proposal,
and there would be further cuts under the surface. The Hatch Act, the largest
funding source for formula-distributed research funds to the nation’s land-grant
universities, fell from $323 million in 2007 down to $196 million this year, and
would fall even further to $139 million. But intensifying the impact is USDA’s
proposal to expand the portion of Hatch Act funding going to multi-state projects
from 25 percent to 70 percent and to make all these grants competitively awarded,
meaning that $98 million of 2009 Hatch Act funding would go to competitive multi-state
research projects, leaving just $41 million for traditional formula research funds
instead of the roughly $180 million a year for most of this decade. USDA proposes
a similar move for the Cooperative Forestry program ($19 million), converting
two-thirds of total funding from formula funding to competitive multi-state grants.
Congress is likely to oppose these formula funding cuts, but it is unclear whether
they will fully reverse the proposed shift toward competitively awarded research.
Figure
1. (click
on the image for PDF)
Most of USDA’s intramural research
is performed in the Agricultural Research Service (ARS). ARS
R&D would fall 15.6 percent or $185 million to $1.0 billion, primarily because
USDA would not continue 2008 earmarks in 2009. But
part of the steep cut is due to USDA’s proposal to rescind $67 million in previously
appropriated R&D facilities earmarks. After adjusting for earmarks, intramural
research in ARS Salaries and Expenses would increase slightly from 2008 to 2009,
while after adjusting for earmarks and the proposed rescission non-earmarked ARS Buildings and Facilities funding would increase from
$0 to $13 million.
The
other major USDA R&D agency is the Forest Service, whose R&D budget would
fall $22 million or 6.5 percent down to $315 million. Although the primary focus
of its R&D portfolio is forestry and ecosystems research, in recent years
the Forest Service has emphasized its fire science and wildfire management research
portfolio as well. Most of this research is performed in intramural laboratories.
The falling FY 2009 USDA R&D portfolio
would the smallest since 1990 and would represent a dramatic reduction from earlier
this decade, when the department’s R&D funding hit record highs in inflation-adjusted
dollars (see Figure 1). After FY 1996, USDA R&D funding climbed, first because
the federal budget surplus made more discretionary funds available to congressional
appropriators, then in FY 2000 and FY 2001 from the release of mandatory competitive
research funds, and from FY 2002 from millions in security upgrades and other
homeland security-related investments. Those needs have waned, and thus funding
has been falling in more recent years and would fall to its lowest level since
1990 in real dollars in the 2009 budget.
Figure 2. (click on the image for
PDF)
USDA
is the sixth-largest supporter of R&D in the federal government, and its support
is especially important for key disciplines. USDA is responsible for just 5 percent
of all research support in the broad area of the life sciences, but dominates
funding for two disciplines within life sciences, agricultural sciences and environmental
biology. USDA funds more than 90 percent of all federal support for the agricultural
sciences, with the remainder supported by the Agency for International Development
(for international agriculture R&D) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (for aquaculture and other marine-related R&D). USDA is also
an important supporter of chemistry and biology, and represents a majority of
federal support for economics through the Economic Research Service (ERS).
More
than two thirds of USDA R&D is performed in USDA’s own laboratories (see Figure
2). ARS, Forest Service, and ERS funding goes almost exclusively to intramural
laboratories, while the nearly one third of USDA R&D funding going to universities
and colleges comes from CSREES. These proportions have been stable in recent years
because of the division of labor between ARS and CSREES in funding external and
internal research.
(More materials on R&D in the FY 2009 budget, historical
data and charts, and more information on AAAS Report XXXIII: Research and Development
FY 2009, can be found on the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
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March 20, 2008
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Avenue,
NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607
AAAS R&D Web site: http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd
