Highlights
- Department of Transportation (DOT) R&D funding would increase $12
million or 1.6 percent to $719 million in FY 2005 in the latest Senate
budget bill (see Table). The Senate
proposal would be less than a larger 6.7 percent increase requested by the Bush Administration, but would be
well above the sharp cuts contained in a House proposal.
- The Senate would show its generosity
toward R&D in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which would
increase 8.4 percent to $269 million to fund weather research, aviation
safety R&D, and commercial aviation capacity-building R&D projects.
DOT R&D in Senate FY 2005 Appropriations
On September 14, the Senate
Appropriations Committee reported its version of the FY 2005 Transportation-Treasury
appropriations bill (S 2806), followed by September 22 approval
by the full House of its version of the bill (HR 5025). The Senate bill
would give $59.8 billion to the Department of Transportation (DOT) in
FY 2005. R&D is a relatively small part of the DOT budget and would
total $719 million in FY 2005 in the Senate plan, a modest increase
of 1.6 percent that would fall short of a large requested increase but
would improve on a 5.3 percent cut in the House (see Table).
(For details of DOT R&D in FY 2005 House appropriations, see the
September 9 AAAS R&D Funding Update. For
details of the DOT request, see Chapter 13
of AAAS
Report XXIX: R&D FY 2005 or the February
25 AAAS R&D Funding Update).
More than half of the DOT
budget goes to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), mostly for
spending out of the highway trust funds for road projects managed by
state and local governments. Transportation funding increased dramatically
beginning in FY 1999 as a result of the six-year (FY 1998-2003) reauthorization
of transportation programs known as the Transportation Equity Act for
the 21st Century (TEA-21), which governs spending out of
the highway trust funds. The law expired more than a year ago in September
2003, but temporary funding authorizations have been in place since
then until Congress can agree on a new reauthorization law. Congress
just approved yet another extension through next May 31. The old law
specified that transportation tax revenues would be devoted exclusively
to transportation, and specified formulas for allocating these funds.
As a result of burgeoning revenues from transportation taxes, DOT’s
budget climbed from $44 billion in FY 1998 all the way to $67 billion
in FY 2001. However, these revenues have dropped off significantly in
recent years as a result of a stagnant economy, and thus total DOT funding
has leveled off. In addition, the Transportation Security Administration
(TSA) and the Coast Guard transferred to the new Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) in March 2003, bringing the DOT budget down to last year’s
level of $58.5 billion.
In FY 2005, President Bush’s proposed
budget would reduce DOT spending by 0.3 percent down to $58.4 billion,
but the House would give DOT $58.9 billion, a slight 0.7 percent boost
over last year and the Senate would go even higher with a budget of
$59.8 billion, a $1.3 billion increase over last year. Within a declining
FHWA budget, the Bush Administration budget requested an increase for
FHWA R&D of 23.7 percent for a total of $394 million. The Administration
proposed a reshuffling of the FHWA accounts to allow for more spending
on highway R&D at the expense of funds to state and local governments,
In the past, Congress rejected similar proposals and maximized state
and local funding, and this year is no exception: both the House and
the Senate would reject the proposed shifts to leave FHWA R&D near
last year’s level, $315 million in the Senate case or just $3 million
short of last year. The largest portion of FHWA R&D funding goes
to state and local governments for their transportation-related research
projects; this funding would increase slightly to $151 million.
The Senate would put its R&D
funding increases toward the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA)’s R&D programs. FAA would receive
$269 million for its R&D programs in the Senate plan, a large boost
of 8.4 percent in contrast to steep cuts in the request and the House
plan. FAA’s R&D addresses a number of aviation-related topics, including
weather research, aircraft safety technology, human factors research,
and development of ‘free flight’ technologies to improve aviation system
capacity. The FAA’s R&D portfolio used to be much larger in the
$300 to $400 million range annually before the September 2001 terrorist
attacks, but most of its aviation security R&D portfolio transferred
to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), now housed within
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Nearly half of DOT’s research (excluding
development and R&D facilities) is in the engineering sciences,
particularly in civil engineering, but DOT also is a key federal funding
source for research in psychology and physics. DOT is only the sixth-largest
supporter of engineering research despite its importance in the DOT
portfolio, funding just 2 percent of all federal support for engineering.
The major sponsors of engineering research are the Department of Defense
and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, with about a
third each of total federal support, followed by the Department of Energy
and National Science Foundation. FAA funds 2 percent of total federal
support for psychology, mostly into the role of human factors in aviation
safety.
Next Steps
The House approved its
Transportation bill in late September, but the Senate version faces a more
difficult path. With the October 1 start of FY 2005 already past and the
October 8 target adjournment date looming with other legislative priorities
stacked up, the Senate will run out of time to debate and approve its
Transportation-Treasury bill as a stand-alone bill. Thus, DOT programs are
operating through at least November 20 at FY 2004 levels under a continuing
resolution (CR; temporary appropriations bill) approved by Congress last week.
After the November elections, Congress will try to finish up appropriations;
the most likely scenario is that the Transportation bill will be rolled into an
omnibus appropriations bill along with the other unfinished appropriations
bills in a post-election lame duck session, while the next transportation
authorization bill will not even be attempted until 2005.
(This analysis is one of a series
of AAAS R&D Funding Updates on the FY 2005 congressional appropriations
process. The complete series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including
continually updated analyses of R&D by agency in FY 2005 appropriations,
is available on the AAAS R&D Web Site
(http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd) in the “FY 2005
R&D” or the “What’s New” sections.)
- October 5, 2004
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607; -6600
www.aaas.org/spp/rd
