| Introduction
This
chapter focuses on those fields of biology pertaining to the natural world,
including: botany, zoology, ecology, basic molecular and cellular biology,
agricultural sciences, and taxonomy. While life sciences as a broad category
have the biggest share of non-defense R&D funding (55 percent), the
bulk of that funding is for human health-related research sponsored by
the National Institutes of Health (NIH; see Chapter
8). By contrast, funding for non-medical biology amounts to approximately
$5.1 billion—less than 20 percent of all federally supported life sciences
funding. Biological
and ecological research provides the scientific basis for management of
the nation’s natural resources. Nearly every federal agency supports biological
research, ranging from probing the function of soil microbes to developing
atmospheric models. Much of this type of research is conducted in-house
by agencies with a regulatory role in environment and natural resources.
These agencies include the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for the Department
of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
In
addition to research conducted by federal agencies themselves, many also
have extramural grants programs. Data from the National Science Foundation
(NSF) indicate that 65 percent of the extramural funding for this type
of research comes from the NSF. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA),
the Department of Energy (DOE), EPA, and NOAA also fund competitively
awarded extramural biological and ecological research.
Highlights
- NSF: The proposed budget includes
a 0.9 percent ($5.1 million) increase in funding for the Biological Sciences
Directorate (BIO).
- NOAA: The National Undersea Research Program
would decrease nearly 40 percent. - USDA: The National Research Initiative would receive $250
million, a 39 percent boost.
National Science Foundation (NSF)
NSF remains the principal federal supporter of the
biological and ecological sciences, providing 63 percent of the academic
funding for non-medical biology. The NSF proposed budget for FY 2006 includes
a 0.9 percent ($5.1 million) increase in funding for the Biological Sciences
Directorate (BIO), which would bring it to a total of $581.7 million (see
Table II-7). Six major program areas make up the core research of
biology funded by NSF. Those programs, along with the requested FY 2006
budget, and the percentage change from FY 2005, are: Molecular and Cellular
Biosciences, $109.7 million (a 7.1 percent decrease); Integrative Biology
and Neurosciences, $101.7 million (a 1.7 percent decrease); Environmental
Biology, $107.1 million (a 1.1 percent increase); Biological Infrastructure,
$82.9 million (a 2.9 percent increase); Emerging Frontiers (a cross-discipline,
“virtual” directorate), $85.9 million (a 16.0 percent increase with a
focus on microbial biology); and Plant Genome Research, $94.2 million
(no change from the enacted amount).
Within these program areas, the Long Term Ecological
Research Network program would stay at last year’s enacted level of $17.5
million. The Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis is slated to
be funded at $3.8 million, a 10 percent increase, while the Center for
Synthesis in Biological Evolution is proposed at $3 million (a $0.6 million
decrease), shifting from start up costs to day-to-day research and educational
activities.
BIO’s portion of the cross-directorate Biocomplexity
in the Environment Initiative would decrease by 23.7 percent to $30.4
million. This is a reflection of the planned absorption of this initiative
into core activities across the BIO Directorate. The focus will continue
on the ecology of infectious disease and microbial genome sequencing.
NSF
has requested $6 million for the National Ecological Observatory Network
(NEON) in BIO. Last year’s enacted amount of nearly $6 million (after
a $50,000 rescission and also through the BIO account) has been funding
the development of the NEON plan. The FY 2006 request would continue development
of this execution plan and of “necessary tools and infrastructure” that
are to be key components in preparation for the actual construction of
a NEON platform.
U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA)
The
Administration is again proposing a significant increase for the nation’s
premier competitive research program for fundamental and applied research
in agriculture. The National Research Initiative (NRI) would receive $250
million under the President’s proposed budget, a 39 percent boost over
FY 2005 (see Table II-13). NRI is administered
through USDA’s Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service
(CSREES), which partners with higher education institutions to foster
extramural research, higher education, and extension activities related
to agricultural productivity and natural resource management. In addition
to bolstering peer-reviewed research in the agricultural sciences, NRI
also helps develop the next generation of scientists with expertise critical
to meeting the nation’s challenges in food resources. However, because
the proposed boost to NRI would come at the expense of formula funds,
which provide infrastructure support to Land Grant Colleges, NRI’s proposed
budget windfall is far from certain.
Also within USDA, the Forest Service’s Forest and Rangeland Research budget
is slated to receive $285 million in FY 2006, an increase of $9 million
over fiscal year 2005. The proposed increase is to ensure the full implementation
of the Forest Inventory and Analysis program.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
The
President’s FY 2006 budget proposes a slight cut to research and development
at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). EPA’s R&D budget is
slated for a $4 million (0.7 percent) cut to a total of $568 million (see
Table II-17). A significant amount of EPA’s
research budget is for biological and ecological research. Of particular
interest to biologists is EPA’s Human Health and Ecosystems program. EPA
is requesting $169.6 million for the program this year, a 4 percent decline
from last year’s request.
Several
biological and ecological science programs would be cut as a result of
the budget request. The ecosystem protection research program would be
reduced by $5.8 million to $88 million. The Western Environmental Monitoring
and Assessment Program (EMAP), the National Coastal Assessment, the Regional
Vulnerability Assessment tools and watershed modeling research would all
be affected by the cuts. The EPA budget also includes a $5.0 million (50
percent) cut to its exploratory grants program, which supports investigator-initiated
research projects that address future or emerging environmental issues.
EPA
is requesting $8.3 million (no increase) for its fellowships programs,
which includes the Science to Achieve Results (STAR), Greater Research
Opportunities (GRO), Environmental Science and Technology (EST) and Environmental
Public Health (EPH) fellowship programs.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA)
The
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) supports intramural
and extramural research related to its mission to “understand and predict
changes in Earth’s environment and conserve and manage coastal and marine
resources to meet our Nation’s economic, social, and environmental needs.” NOAA is requesting a total of $565 million for research
and development in FY 2006. The National Ocean Service (NOS) and NOAA
Research (OAR) support the bulk of biological and ecological science research
at NOAA.
Within
the National Ocean Service, two programs fund ecological assessment or
research for America’s coastlines. The Ocean Assessment Program, which funds
monitoring projects such as coastal observing systems, is slated to receive
$55.2 million in FY 2006, a sharp drop from the $146.9 million approved
by Congress for FY 2005. A large amount ($80.5 million) of the drop is
due to the elimination of congressional earmarks; however the request
is still 24 percent below what the Administration requested last year.
The
National Ocean Service also requests $48.0 million, including $16.6 million
for extramural research, for the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science
(NCCOS). NCCOS joins NOAA’s coastal research centers: the Center for Sponsored
Coastal Ocean Research, the Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment,
the Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research, the Center for
Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research and the Hollings
Marine Laboratory. NCCOS activities focus on five areas of ecosystem research:
climate change, extreme natural events, pollution, invasive species and
land and resource use. The request is $11.6 million below the amount appropriated
for FY 2005.
The
FY 2006 budget request for ocean, coastal and Great Lakes research in OAR is $118.6 million, a 19.2 percent decrease from FY 2005
enacted levels. As with other NOAA line offices, this large cut is largely
due to the elimination of several congressionally earmarked projects.
The largest program within OAR is the National Sea Grant College Program,
which is flat-funded at $61.2 million. NOAA Sea Grant supports research,
education and extension projects to help the country better manage its
coastal resources.
The
National Undersea Research Program (NURP), which places scientists under
the sea to conduct research in support of coastal and ocean resource management,
would decrease nearly 40 percent to $10.4 million under the President’s
FY 2006 request. The Ocean Exploration program is flat-funded at $22.7
million. NOAA is also requesting $4.1 million in other ecosystem programs:
$2.5 million for its share of a multi-agency aquatic invasive species
program and $1.6 million for a marine aquaculture research, education
and technology transfer program.
Department of Energy (DOE)
DOE’s
Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program supports research
ranging from climate models to the study of microbes and their role in
sequestering carbon. FY 2006 would see a $126.2 million decline in the
overall BER program, most coming from reductions in medical and environmental
remediation research, as well as elimination of some $80 million worth
of earmarked programs. BER is divided into four main research areas: life
sciences, climate change, environmental remediation, and medical science.
Funding for climate change research within BER would increase slightly
($141 million to $143 million). (See Table II-11
and Chapter 9 for more information on DOE.)
U.S. Geological
Survey (USGS)
USGS
is the Department of Interior’s sole science agency, providing natural
science expertise needed to address challenges that range from freshwater
availability to controlling invasive species. The President’s budget would
provide basically flat funding to USGS’ biology division, a funding increase
to the mapping program, and cuts to geology and water. Overall funding
for the science agency would fall by 0.2 percent to $933.5 million. The
agency’s Water Resources Research Institutes, currently funded at $6.4
million, would once again be eliminated by the Administration’s budget
blueprint.
Research
areas the agency plans to highlight in the coming year include invasive
species research initiatives addressing Tamarisk in the Rio Grande Basin, the Brazilian pepper tree in South Florida, and leafy spurge and yellow star thistle in the Northern Great Plains. In addition, the budget would provide small increases
to assess ground-water depletion in the western United States and conduct research activities in the Grand Canyon. (For information on other USGS activities, see Chapter
17; for more on Interior R&D, see Chapter
13.)
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