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Go to: -Table.
U.S. Department of Agriculture R&D in FY 2007 Senate Appropriations PDF
version of this document Main
R&D in the FY 2007 Budget Page
Supplemental
Materials: "House Moderates
Steep Proposed Cuts for USDA R&D,Adds
Earmarks," AAAS R&D
Funding Update on R&D in FY 2007 House Appropriations "USDA
Proposes to Remove Earmarks, Boost Competitive Grants," AAAS R&D
Funding Update on R&D in the FY 2007 USDA Budget AAAS
Analysis of R&D in the FY 2007 Budget -
| Highlights -
In its first appropriations bill of the fiscal year (FY) 2007 appropriations season,
the Senate would join the House in rejecting steep proposed cuts in the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) R&D portfolio by adding $314 million
to the request for a total of $2.3 billion (see Table).
The Senate appropriation would be $114 million or 4.7 percent below this year’s
funding level, and just above the House appropriation. -
Both the House and the Senate would add $300 million in separate congressionally
designated, performer-specific R&D projects, or earmarks, which the request
would have eliminated. -
In order to fund earmarks, both the House and now the Senate would trim a requested
boost for the National Research Initiative (NRI) of competitively awarded research
grants, from a record $248 million request down to $190 million (up 5 percent
over FY 2006). But both chambers would
also boost formula funding for research, providing an increase in Hatch Act funding
for the first time this decade to $186 million in the Senate (up 5 percent). -
The completion of the National Centers for Animal Health in Ames,
Iowa, and the proposed elimination of earmarked
facilities projects led USDA to propose a drastic reduction in intramural facilities
from $139 million down to $8 million, but the Senate would provide $83 million
entirely for earmarked projects in FY 2007. Earmarked add-ons would result in
$1.1 billion for intramural research, $126 million more than the request but still
slightly below this year’s funding level. USDA R&D in FY 2007 Senate Appropriations On
June 22, the Senate Appropriations Committee kicked off its FY 2007 appropriations
season by approving its version of the FY 2007 Agriculture appropriations bill
(HR 5384), which funds most of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). It is
the first of the 11 Senate FY 2007 appropriations bills, and follows House approval
on May 23 of its version. Back in February, USDA proposed to cut 17.5 percent
from the USDA R&D portfolio between 2006 and 2007, mostly through the proposed
elimination of a bumper crop of FY 2006 R&D earmarks, but now both the House
and the Senate have responded by adding most of them back. The Senate would
provide $2.3 billion for USDA R&D in FY 2007, down $114 million or 4.7 percent
from the current year but $314 million more than the request (see Table).
The House would provide similar amounts. (For details of the President’s request
for USDA R&D, please see Chapter 11 of AAAS
Report XXXI: R&D FY 2007 or
the March 3 USDA R&D Funding Update. For details
of House USDA appropriations, see the May 15 R&D Funding
Update.) The
House and now the Senate restorations of $300 million in funding for partially
overlapping lists of earmarks suggests that most of the FY 2006 earmarks proposed
for elimination back in February will be renewed in USDA’s FY 2007 final appropriation.
The AAAS analysis of the final FY 2006 budget counted $331 million in USDA R&D
earmarks in FY 2006. These earmarks are distributed in both intramural and extramural
accounts, and primarily fund research grants but also fund facilities construction
at USDA laboratories. USDA’s
extramural research funds, distributed through earmarks, competitive grants, and
formula funds, come from the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension
Service (CSREES). Total CSREES R&D would stay nearly flat at $662 million
in the Senate, but this would be a dramatic $122 million improvement over the
request (see Table). The Senate would add $116 million to the meager $3 million
request for Special Research Grants for a total of $119 million, nearly all of
which would go for 179 congressionally designated, performer-specific research
projects, with the small remainder going to ongoing competitive programs. The
House would provide $103 million for a partially overlapping list of earmarks.
In addition, the Senate would add $33 million
in R&D earmarks in other parts of the CSREES budget. At
the same time, Congress would reaffirm the importance of formula funding for research.
The main formula funding program, the Hatch Act, would receive the first increase
this decade with a 3.6 percent boost in the House and a 5 percent boost in the
Senate (to $186 million) after stagnating at the current level since 1999. Other
formula funding programs would also receive modest increases. Both the House and
Senate Agriculture bills, however, are silent on the USDA’s proposal to shift
a large portion of Hatch Act funding from formula distributions to competitive
grants, leaving it unclear whether formula funding would actually rise or fall
in 2007. The large
boost in earmarks and smaller boost in formula funds would come at the cost of
competitively awarded funds. The National Research Initiative, USDA’s main
competitive research grants program, would see its funding rise $9 million to
$190 million in both the House and Senate, but funding would fall far short of
the requested 37 percent or $67 million boost to an all-time high of $248 million.
In real terms, the appropriations would represent a cut because NRI is scheduled
in 2007 to take on competitive grants currently funded in the Integrative Activities
account. 
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 6.8 percent or $89
million to $1.2 billion in the Senate. The Senate would add $75 million for facilities and $126 million for research
to improve on a nearly 25 percent requested cut. As with the extramural side,
most of the additions would restore earmarked R&D and R&D facilities projects
that USDA proposed to eliminate in its budget request. In fact, the Senate appropriation
would earmark the entire $83 million Buildings and Facilities appropriation for
unrequested projects around the country, leaving no
money for requested projects. Impacts of the USDA R&D Portfolio Both the House and Senate FY 2007 USDA R&D appropriations would be
cuts, but both would keep the department’s R&D funding near record highs in
inflation-adjusted dollars (see Figure 1). USDA R&D has been at historical
highs this decade. 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 on the extramural CSREES side.
Since FY 2002, because of heightened concern about agricultural terrorism and
the security of USDA laboratories, millions of dollars have poured into the ARS
intramural side for laboratory security upgrades and other homeland security-related
investments. With homeland security-related construction needs waning at locations
such as Ames, the FY 2007 budget brings
USDA R&D down from record levels. 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 is also an important supporter of chemistry and biology, and represents
a majority of federal support for economics through the Economic Research Service
(ERS).  Figure
2. (click on the image for PDF) Recent
increases for USDA R&D have boosted USDA support of research (see Figure 2),
with most of the increases going to the life sciences performed in USDA labs.
USDA support of other disciplines has declined steadily over the years and will
likely decline even further when the FY 2006 and 2007 budgets are distributed.
Outlook
and Next Steps The
full Senate will debate the Agriculture bill in July, and will most likely approve
it. The Senate version of the Interior bill, which funds USDA’s Forest Service,
will be drafted later this week. But a final House-Senate compromise on the Agriculture
bill may not happen until well into the fall. Although
there has been much debate over the past year on the practice of congressional
earmarking, and there are several pending legislative proposals to try to curb
the practice, if these first few FY 2007 appropriations bills are any indication
then congressional appropriators are not ready to give up or scale back their
power to designate money for research performers in their states or districts.
For USDA, which has always been one of the most heavily earmarked R&D agencies,
it means that the traditional struggle between formula funding, competitive funding,
and earmarked funding for R&D will continue to be fought in the appropriations
process. (This analysis is one of a series
of AAAS R&D Funding Updates on FY 2007 congressional appropriations. The complete
series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including continually updated analyses
of R&D in FY 2007 appropriations, is available on the AAAS
R&D Web Site (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd)
in the “FY 2007 R&D” or the “What’s
New” sections.) -
June 27, 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
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