(This
analysis is an update of data originally presented in AAAS
Report XXXII: Research and Development FY 2008, a comprehensive look at
the President's budget for R&D in FY 2008. This analysis contains revised
AAAS estimates of Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) 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 2008 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 interagency Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) would increase
slightly in the proposed FY 2008 budget by 0.8 percent to $1.8 billion (see Table).
In real terms, however, CCSP funding would continue its steep fall of 23
percent from 2003 to 2008 and would be well below annual funding levels over the
past decade.
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The related Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP), after a banner year
in 2007 thanks to congressional add-ons for energy programs, would increase a
further $325 million or 9.4 percent in the FY 2008 proposed budget to $3.8 billion
(see Table).
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The Congress is trying to add even more to the CCSP and CCTP requests in the FY
2008 appropriations process, but it could be months before they are finalized.
Climate Change Science Program funding in
the FY 2008 Budget
Figure 1. (click on image for full-size
PDF)
Revised data indicate that federal funding for
the longstanding interagency Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) would barely
increase by 0.8 percent or $14 million in the President’s proposed budget to $1.8
billion in FY 2008, well behind the projected 2.4 percent inflation rate (see
Table). Although CCSP funding would be well above
FY 2006 funding of $1.7 billion during a particularly disastrous budget year for
NASA, the largest sponsor of climate change science, CCSP funding in both 2007
and 2008 would be well below the average $2 billion-a-year funding levels of the
past decade. As shown in Figure 1, CCSP funding has declined steeply since 2003,
the year NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) restructured
its programs significantly to count more programs within CCSP than in previous
years. The proposed 2008 CCSP budget would be 23 percent below the 2003 funding
level in inflation-adjusted terms.
The Climate Change Science
Program (CCSP) dates back to the late 1980s when the U.S. Global Change Research
Program (USGCRP) took shape as an interagency, coordinated federal research effort
to understand climate change through federal support of research.
Now an effort involving a dozen federal agencies, the program has been restructured
and renamed over the years but remains an interagency effort complete with a coordinating
office, structured coordinating mechanisms between the agencies, and an integrated
budget. This decade, a similar effort called the Climate Change Technology Program
(CCTP) has emerged as a more development oriented effort to coordinate programs
that attempt to respond to or mitigate the effects of climate change. CCTP includes
applied research, development, and also non-R&D deployment, demonstration,
and mitigation programs. CCTP funding would increase a dramatic $325 million or
9.4 percent to $3.8 billion in the proposed 2008 budget (see Table),
after an even larger increase in the final 2007 appropriations as approved by
Congress in February 2007. Department of Energy (DOE) funding dominates CCTP,
especially its programs in Energy Supply and Conservation that fund R&D on
renewable energy and energy conservation as well as non-R&D deployment and
demonstration projects.
Outlook for Climate Change Funding
The
2008 budget is now before the 110th Congress and is being translated
into FY 2008 appropriations for the many agencies participating in the two interagency
climate change programs. The 110th Congress has already indicated its
intention to dramatically boost federal spending on both the CCSP and CCTP, and
made a start in February 2007 by finalizing 2007 appropriations with large increases
above the 2007 request for both initiatives, particularly in DOE’s programs. Armed
with $21 billion more for all domestic appropriations than the President’s request,
congressional appropriators have boosted funding for climate change science in
2008 appropriations so far, including new dedicated climate change science programs
in agencies such as USGS and EPA. Appropriators have also added hundreds of millions
to the request for DOE’s energy R&D programs which make up a big part of the
CCTP. But 2008 appropriations are far from finished, and big battles loom between
the President and the Congress over most of the 12 2008 appropriations bills.
President Bush has threatened to veto any bills that exceed his budget request,
and most of them could do so because of the $21 billion in additional congressional
money sprinkled among them. The final funding levels for climate change programs
in 2008 thus remain uncertain.
(More
materials on R&D in the FY 2008 budget, historical data and charts, and more
information on AAAS Report XXXII: Research and Development FY 2008, can
be found on the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
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September 21, 2007
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
