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Go to: -Table.
Dept. of Homeland Security R&D in FY 2007 House Appropriations PDF
version of this document Main
R&D in the FY 2007 Budget Page
Supplemental
Materials: "DHS R&D Falls
in 2007 Budget," AAAS R&D Funding Update on R&D in the FY 2007
DHS Budget AAAS Analysis of R&D
in the FY 2007 Budget -
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Highlights -
After several years of rapid increases, the Department of Homeland Security’s
(DHS) R&D funding would fall for the first time in the 2007 budget and House
appropriation, in the House by 15.6 percent or $200 million down to $1.1 billion
(see Table). The total DHS budget, however, would keep
increasing. -
The radiological and nuclear countermeasures R&D portfolio moves to a new
Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) in 2006, and would move again to a separate
budget account in 2007 from the rest of the DHS R&D portfolio. Although the
House has questions about the wisdom of moving DNDO away from the rest of DHS
R&D, the House bill would boost DNDO R&D from $209 million to $292 million.
- Funding
for nearly all DHS R&D activities would decline from previous years. Only
DHS R&D activities in interoperable communications, cybersecurity,
and radiological and nuclear countermeasures would increase in the House plan.
- University
and Fellowship Programs funding would drop further to $52 million in 2007, down
$10 million. 
Figure
1. (click on the image for PDF) DHS R&D in FY 2007 House Appropriations On
May 25, the full House left for a week-long Memorial Day recess while still engaged
in floor debate on the House version of the FY 2007 Homeland Security appropriations
bill (HR 5441), which funds the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The House
is expected to complete debate and approve the bill in early June. The
DHS budget continues to be a high priority for the Bush Administration and for
Congress; both would keep the DHS budget increasing in tough budgetary conditions.
But it is a different story for the DHS R&D portfolio: after starting from
virtually nothing three years ago and rapidly ramping up its R&D capabilities
to become the seventh-largest R&D funding agency, DHS R&D in FY 2007 would fall for the first time, by 15.6 percent
to $1.1 billion in the House appropriation (see Table and Figure 1) and by 10.3 percent
in the request, in a broad-based retrenchment that would affect nearly all parts
of the DHS R&D portfolio. (For details of the President’s request for
DHS R&D, please see Chapter 12 of AAAS
Report XXXI: R&D FY 2007 or
the February 28 DHS R&D Funding Update.) This
year, nearly all DHS R&D programs have their home in the Directorate
of Science and Technology (S&T). This Directorate has responsibility for
setting homeland-security R&D goals and priorities, coordinating homeland
security R&D throughout the federal government, funding homeland security
R&D, facilitating the transfer and deployment of technologies for homeland
security, and advising the DHS Secretary on all scientific and technical matters.
Coast Guard (CG) R&D remains separate within the Coast Guard appropriation
at $19 million in 2006; the House would provide $14 million in 2007. But the consolidation
would reverse somewhat in FY 2007 as the radiological and nuclear countermeasures
portfolio would migrate out of S&T to a separate Domestic Nuclear Detection
Office (DNDO) in the request; although the House grumbles about the wisdom of
the move, its appropriations bill goes along with the move. 
Figure
2. (click on the image for PDF)
R&D
against weapons of mass destruction dominates the DHS R&D portfolio (see
Figure 2). Defenses against biological, chemical, explosive, radiological, and
nuclear threats continue to make up nearly three-quarters of the R&D investment,
but of these areas only the radiological and nuclear R&D portfolio would increase
in 2007. Biological
countermeasures would continue to be the largest portfolio with $337 million in
the House plan, down 10.4 percent from 2006. DHS’ biodefense
effort works with the Department of Defense (DOD), the National Institutes of
Health (NIH), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and other agencies. Construction
of the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures
Center (NBACC) continues in FY 2006 and 2007 toward a target completion date of
2008. NBACC will be part of a biodefense complex of
DHS, NIH, and DOD facilities at Fort Detrick,
Maryland. Explosives
countermeasures funding appears to increase in 2007 (see Table), but the apparent
increase is due to the transfer of civil aviation explosives detection R&D
from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in 2005 to an R&D Consolidation
account in 2006 to the Explosives Countermeasures account in 2007; with each transition,
funding would be reduced dramatically; the House would reduce the already declining
request by a further $10 million to end up with $77 million, roughly half this
year’s funding level. The
House would also reduce the Chemical Countermeasures R&D portfolio to $45
million, less than half this year’s funding level, despite increasing congressional
concern over the vulnerability of chemical plants or transported chemicals to
terrorist attacks. The House explains the dramatic reduction by noting that other
federal agencies have important roles in this type of research, without specifying
who they are or how they are to coordinate with DHS. The House also criticizes
the Bush Administration repeatedly for assuming fee increases in its DHS request;
because the House bill does not authorize these fees, the House appropriation
makes cuts in many areas. The
Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), which funds the radiological and nuclear
countermeasures portfolio, begins operations in 2006 within the S&T Directorate,
but would move to a separate budget account in 2007. The DNDO will develop, acquire,
and support a domestic system to detect and report terrorist attempts to transport
or use radiological or nuclear materials. The total DNDO budget of $334 million
in 2006 would increase dramatically to $500 million in 2007 in the House plan,
$36 million short of an even greater requested increase. Subtracting $178 million
in procurement of nuclear detection devices for U.S.
ports of entry and $30 million in management costs for the newly independent office
would leave $292 million for R&D, up dramatically from $209 million in 2006
and just $123 million the year before. After
a 2006 budget in which there were ups and downs for the first time in the R&D
portfolio after nothing but ups in the first few years, the cuts would far
outnumber the increases in both the 2007 request and the House plan. Funding
for many areas would decline for the second year in a row. Other than radiological
and nuclear countermeasures, only the interoperable communications (up $4 million
to $30 million) and cybersecurity portfolios (up $6
million to $23 million) would increase in 2007 (see Table).
All other DHS R&D areas would see cuts in 2007; the apparent increases in
explosives countermeasures and R&D for DHS Agencies would be due to transfers
from the R&D Consolidation account. The Counter MANPADS portfolio would plummet
from $109 million down to $5 million, primarily because the development phase
of this project would end in 2006 with the production of prototypes. Man Portable
Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) are shoulder-mounted portable air missiles that
have been used (unsuccessfully so far) against passenger aircraft. Funding
for University and Fellowship Programs would fall $10 million to $52 million in
2007, after a similar cut in 2007. But the House notes that this program has not
yet obligated $68 million in previously appropriated funds, so that the cut should
have less impact than at first glance. This program funds university-based Centers
of Excellence that are multi-year university consortia to perform R&D on homeland
security-related topics, Cooperative Centers that are multi-agency university
centers, and also fellowships to encourage U.S.
students to pursue scientific and technical degrees in areas of study related
to homeland security. There are now five DHS Centers of Excellence, the latest
awarded in December 2005 to Johns Hopkins
University and partners for the National
Center for the Study of Preparedness
and Catastrophic Event Response. The FY 2007 request would continue funding for
these centers and would leave open the possibility of a sixth center. But the
declining budget would not allow for any more university centers, stopping short
of the up to 10 centers envisioned three years ago when DHS was founded. On the
fellowships side, DHS would support 200 students and scholars (down significantly
from 300 this year), and also up to ten postdoctoral fellows and up to five AAAS
fellows to participate in DHS research with the resources provided in the FY 2007
request. In an unusual
move that could add an additional wrinkle, the House bill would withhold $400
million of the R&D funding in a fit of pique over the lack of budgetary
information provided to Congress over the last several DHS budget requests. The
House bill would release these funds only after DHS provides more detailed budget
information on cost estimates, evidence of improved financial management controls,
and better performance measures to the House Appropriations Committee. Outlook
and Next Steps The
full House will continue debate on the Homeland Security bill the week of June
5, and will likely approve it. The Senate
version of the bill, however, may not be drafted until July or later. DHS
R&D, after a rapid ramp-up phase, now appears to be a mature R&D portfolio
and subject like other R&D funding agencies to cuts because of the tight budget
situation facing domestic programs. As shown in Figure 1, DHS began life with
only a few R&D laboratories and programs that it inherited from USDA, DOE,
and DOD, unlike the massive transfer of personnel and capabilities that happened
in the rest of the new department. From a transfer of less than $300 million of
programs in 2002, DHS began rapidly creating new R&D capabilities after its
foundation in FY 2003 (see Figure 1), adding portfolios on long-neglected technology
areas to address homeland security, establishing relationships with existing national
laboratories and federal laboratories, and setting up new structures for funding
external R&D. In the past few years, DHS has set up an Office for National
Laboratories that coordinates DHS interactions with DOE national laboratories
possessing expertise in homeland security. DHS has also set up its own FFRDC,
the Homeland Security Institute (HSI), and has also consolidated R&D activities
at laboratories it inherited from other departments. The extramural R&D portfolio
in the S&T directorate is now managed by the
Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA), modeled on
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the Department of Defense
(DOD). HSARPA awards extramural grants for basic and applied research to promote
revolutionary changes in homeland security technologies; develops and tests potential
homeland security technologies; and accelerates or prototypes the development
of homeland security technologies to get them ready for deployment. But
after DHS finished its start-up phase in 2005, budget growth slowed down in 2006
and would reverse in 2007 (see Figure 1). After several years in which every part
of the DHS R&D portfolio grew dramatically, in 2006 and 2007 there would be
difficult rebalancing choices made within the portfolio. (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.)-
May 31, 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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