Highlights
-
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA),
enjoying a record R&D portfolio this year, would see its R&D
funding fall 7.4 percent down to $2.2 billion in 2006 in the latest
House budget plan (see Table). Although
the House would add $174 million to the budget request, mostly for earmarks,
the appropriation would still leave USDA R&D $178 million below
this year’s funding level.
- The
House would reject USDA’s proposals to slash formula funds in its extramural
research portfolio. The House would keep Hatch Act formula funding
for land-grant colleges at $179 million, in contrast to USDA proposals
to eliminate half of this funding and shift the funds to a new $75 million
competitive research grants program for these institutions. The National
Research Initiative (NRI) of competitively awarded research grants would
increase almost 20 percent to a new record of $215 million, while earmarked
Special Research Grants would fall slightly from $120 million down to
$107 million.
- USDA intramural R&D would fall 12.7
percent in the House plan to $1.1 billion. The
House would go along with the request for $59 million in 2006 to complete the renovation of the National Centers
for Animal Health in Ames, Iowa.
USDA R&D in FY 2006 House Appropriations
On
June 3, the House Appropriations Committee filed its version of the
FY 2006 Agriculture appropriations bill (HR 2744), which funds most
of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The full House is expected
to debate and approve the bill the week of June 6. USDA’s Forest Service
is funded in the Interior appropriations bill (HR 2361), which was approved
by the full House on May 19. In the House bills, USDA
R&D funding would improve dramatically from a proposed 15 percent
cut in the USDA budget request, but would still remain 7.4 percent below
this year’s funding level at $2.2 billion, a cut of $178 million (see
Table). The House would add back funds
for earmarks that were deleted in the request, and would also reject
USDA proposals to shift formula funds for land-grant institutions to
competitive grants. (For details of the President’s request for USDA
R&D, please see Chapter 11 of AAAS
Report XXX: R&D FY 2006 or
the March 3 USDA R&D Funding Update).
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 4.0 percent in FY
2006 to $624 million, a big improvement from a proposed 20 percent cut.
The difference is that USDA proposed to eliminate $180 million in 2005
congressional earmarks, but the House would restore just over $120 million
in earmarked projects and keep formula funding stable. Most of these
earmarks are in the nearly entirely earmarked Special Research Grants
program, which USDA proposed to cut from $120 million this year down
to just $3 million in 2006; the House would provide $107 million. The
remaining earmarks are in other parts of the CSREES budget, and would
be terminated in the 2006 request but restored in the FY 2006 House
appropriation.
The
National Research Initiative (NRI) of competitively
awarded, extramural research grants would receive a new record of $215
million, up $35 million from the record $180 million funding level for
this year. USDA requested
even more money for a total of $250 million. Part of the increase, however,
would be due to the transfer of some competitive grants currently funded
in Integrated Grants to NRI; the truly new money in 2006 would be roughly
$15 million. USDA also proposed to make competitive grants more attractive
to potential applicants by repealing a longstanding limit on indirect
cost reimbursements for USDA grants, currently capped at 20 percent,
but the House Agriculture bill would keep the 20 percent
limit in place.
The
House would reject USDA’s proposal to dramatically restructure formula
funds for agricultural R&D at land-grant institutions in 2006.
Hatch Act formula funding for agricultural R&D at land-grant colleges
would remain at $179 million in the House plan instead of the USDA proposal
to cut it in half to $89 million. The House would also reject similar
proposed cuts to other formula research grants (in “All Other CSREES
R&D” in the Table), and the House would
reject USDA’s proposed alternative to formula funds, a new $75 million
competitive research grants program just for land-grant institutions.
Most
of USDA’s intramural research is performed in the Agricultural Research Service
(ARS). ARS R&D would fall 12.7
percent or $166 million to $1.1 billion. The appropriation includes the $59
million request for the National Centers for Animal Health in Ames,
Iowa. Congress provided $122 million for
the Ames facility in the FY 2005
budget, and the FY 2006 request of $59 million would be sufficient to finish
the major renovation project. The renovated National Centers for Animal Health
will serve as the nation’s premier animal research and diagnostic laboratory
and will enhance the nation’s ability to respond to attacks on the food supply
as a biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) facility.
Figure 1. (click
on the image for PDF)
The
other major USDA R&D agency is the Forest Service; the FY 2006 House
appropriation for its R&D is $331 million, up 5.3 percent or $17
million from this year. 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,
although there is also an extramural fire science grants program that
would receive $22 million in 2006.
Impacts of the USDA R&D Portfolio
The FY 2006 House cuts to USDA R&D bring
the portfolio down dramatically from peaks in inflation-adjusted
dollars in 2003 and 2005 (see Figure 1). USDA R&D has been at historical
highs for the past few years. Since hitting a recent low in FY 1996,
the funding trend has been generally upward, 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 then since FY 2002 because heightened
concern about agricultural terrorism and the security of USDA laboratories
resulted in millions for security upgrades and other homeland security-related
investments. But with homeland security-related construction needs waning
at locations such as Ames,
the FY 2006 budget would bring USDA R&D down to the $2 billion level.
Although
NRI hits a new high in 2005 and would go even higher in the 2006 House
appropriation and USDA request, the history of competitive agricultural
research grants has been mixed in recent years as Congress and USDA
have blocked mandatory competitive programs, directed the bulk of recent
increases to facilities rather than research, siphoned off NRI dollars
to fund earmarks, and repeatedly fallen short of the original vision
of NRI as a $500 million-a-year program. Late last year, there was a
push to create a National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA)
employing an extramural, peer-reviewed basic research model for agricultural
research like the National Institutes of Health (NIH); advocates hope
that a NIFA existing as a semi-independent agency within USDA would
offer a higher profile for basic agricultural research and perhaps higher
dollars. The NIFA proposal did not make it into the FY 2006 USDA request
or the House Agriculture bill, but increases for competitive grants
did.
The full House is expected to debate and
approve the Agriculture bill the week of June 6. The Senate Appropriations
Committee is expected to draft its version of the bill later this month.
-
June 7, 2005
(This analysis is one of a series of AAAS R&D Funding
Updates on FY 2006 congressional appropriations. The complete series
of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including continually updated analyses
of R&D in FY 2006 appropriations, is available on the AAAS
R&D Web Site (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd) in the "FY
2006 R&D" or the "What's New"
sections.)
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607; -6600
AAAS R&D
Web site: www.aaas.org/spp/rd
