(This analysis is a preview of the
USDA chapter in the forthcoming AAAS Report XXXI: Research and Development
FY 2007, a comprehensive look at the President's budget for R&D in FY
2007. More tables and continually updated supplemental materials on R&D in
the FY 2007 budget can be found on the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
Highlights
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The U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) R&D portfolio would fall 16.5 percent or
$399 million down to $2.0 billion in FY 2007, in a repeat of the annual tug-of-war
over congressional earmarks (see Table II-13). Most
of the steep cut would come from eliminating 2006 earmarks.
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Despite a falling R&D budget, the National Research Initiative (NRI) of
competitively awarded research grants would increase $67 million to a record $248
million. Similar proposed increases in past years have not made it through
Congress. USDA would also try to shift formula funding to competitive grants;
Hatch Act funding would remain at $177 million, but a growing share of program
funding would go to competitive grants rather than formula distributions to land-grant
universities.
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The completion of the National Centers for Animal Health in Ames,
Iowa, and the proposed elimination of earmarked
facilities projects would allow intramural facilities funding to plummet from
$139 million down to $8 million. Intramural research would fall 11.5 percent down
to $1.0 billion, mostly from the elimination of earmarks.
USDA R&D in the FY 2007 Budget
In
a reprise of past budget requests, the Bush Administration once again proposes
to reduce the USDA R&D budget in the latest FY 2007 request, mostly by not
renewing a bumper crop of earmarks inserted by Congress into the 2006 budget.
Total USDA R&D would fall $399 million or 16.5 percent to $2.0 billion
in FY 2007 (see Table II-13). A recent AAAS analysis
of the final FY 2006 budget counted $331 million in USDA R&D earmarks in FY
2006, suggesting that most but not all of the cuts would come from removing
earmarked funding. The remaining cuts would be due to the completion of major
facilities and the presence of one-time emergency funds in 2006.
In
USDA’s external portfolio, a sharp reduction in earmarks 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 $127 million or 19.0 percent to $540 million in FY 2007. By eliminating
an estimated $165 million in R&D earmarks inserted into the 2006 budget, the
2007 budget would allow CSREES funding of competitively awarded funds to rise
even as the overall budget falls steeply. The National Research Initiative,
USDA’s main competitive research grants program, would jump 37 percent or $67
million to an all-time high of $248 million in FY 2007 after several years of
being stalled at the $180 million level. But more than half the proposed increase
would be due to the transfer of competitive funds from a separate Integrated Activities
budget account to the NRI. Still, the remaining increase would be sufficient to
expand competitive grant opportunities for agricultural scientists.
Funding
for formula programs would remain flat in the USDA proposal, but there would be
changes under the surface. The Hatch Act, the largest funding source for formula-distributed
research funds to the nation’s land-grant universities, would stay level at $177
million. This portfolio has remained at this level for most of the decade, resulting
in a steady erosion of purchasing power from inflation. But the FY 2007 request
is notable in that it proposes to change a small portion of the Hatch Act to competitively
awarded grants as the first of a multi-year push to expand competitive awards
within the program, starting with roughly 9 percent. In a flat budget, this would
mean that formula research funds would actually fall. The USDA proposes a similar
move for the Cooperative Forestry program (level funded at $22 million), converting
a majority of funding from formula to competitive.
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 20 percent or $261
million to $1.0 billion. Taking out an estimated $158 million in 2006 earmarks accounts for a majority
of the proposed cut. The Buildings and Facilities account, which funds intramural R&D facilities,
would fall from $139 million down to just $8 million in 2007 to fund improvements
at the National Arboretum in Washington, DC. The 2006 budget contains numerous earmarked projects at USDA laboratories
around the country and $59 million for the National Centers for Animal
Health in Ames, Iowa.
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. Funding is complete for this
project and would not be required in 2007. On the research side, ARS support of
intramural research would fall $130 million to $1.0 billion, primarily from the
elimination of earmarks but also from one-time emergency funds for avian flu response
in 2006 that would not continue next year, and some program cuts in 2007.
The
other major USDA R&D agency is the Forest Service, whose R&D budget would
fall $11 million or 3.5 percent down to $302 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 2007 USDA R&D portfolio would be a dramatic reduction
from recent years in which the department’s R&D funding has been near record
highs in inflation-adjusted dollars (see Figure 1). 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 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 accompanying these
increases have been a steady increase in congressionally earmarked projects; by
proposing to eliminate these projects, the FY 2007 budget would bring USDA R&D
down dramatically.
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).
Looking
to the future, the Bush Administration’s outyear budget
projections show that in the push to reduce the budget deficit in half over the
next few years USDA R&D will be one of the programs to sacrifice. Although
key physical sciences research agencies would see their R&D budgets increase
in 2008 and beyond, funding for USDA’s investments in the agricultural sciences
and other disciplines is projected to fall in 2008, 2009, and 2010 before rebounding
slightly in 2011. After adjusting for inflation, USDA R&D would fall a
projected 27 percent over the next five years, with the biggest cuts happening
in 2007.
While Congress will try its best to boost the 2007 request when
it begins the FY 2007 appropriations process in late spring, it is likely to do
so by earmarking research projects and chiseling away at competitively awarded
funds. It is also possible that Congress will add several million dollars in emergency
funds for avian flu research if a possible pandemic becomes more likely over the
coming months.
(More materials on R&D in the FY 2007 budget,
historical data and charts, and more information on AAAS Report XXXI: Research
and Development FY 2007, can be found on the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
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March 3, 2006
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
