(This analysis is part of a
AAAS effort to enumerate congressionally designated, performer-specific
R&D projects not appearing in agency budget requests (earmarks)
in the FY 2004 appropriations process. The data in this analysis highlight
AAAS interpretations of R&D earmarks in the final FY 2004 appropriations
bills. The complete series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including
continually updated analyses of R&D by agency in FY 2004 appropriations,
is available on the AAAS R&D
Web Site (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd) in the “FY
2004 R&D” or the “What’s New” sections.)
- R&D earmarks total $1.9 billion in FY 2004,
up sharply from last year, according to the AAAS analysis of congressionally
designated, performer-specific R&D projects in the FY 2004 appropriations
bills(see Table A and Figure 1).
- Although
these projects amount to only 1.5 percent of total R&D, they are
concentrated in a few key agencies and programs. Four agencies (USDA,
$220 million; NASA, $194 million; DOE, $284 million; and DOD, $825 million)
receive 80 percent of the total R&D earmarks, while NIH and NSF
remain earmark-free. In some programs, earmarks make up 1 out of every
5 program dollars.
- FY 2004 earmarks
are up 32 percent from $1.4 billion in FY 2003, after a small decline
from the previous year.
FY 2004 R&D Earmarks in FY 2004 Appropriations: Earmarks Up Substantially
In late November, President
Bush and the 108th Congress reached agreement on the final
outline of FY 2004 appropriations. The FY 2004 omnibus appropriations
bill (HR 2673) bundles together the 7 unfinished appropriations bills
(to add to the 6 appropriations bills already signed into law). The
House approved the bill on December 8, and the Senate gave final approval
on January 22. The 1185-page
omnibus bill throws together nearly $328 billion in federal discretionary
spending for FY 2004 and is filled with budgetary maneuvers to fit under
congressional budget targets, including a 0.59 percent across-the-board
cut for all non-DOD appropriations, even for agencies whose budgets
have already been signed into law. Hidden in the omnibus bill and already-enacted
FY 2004 appropriations bills are numerous congressionally designated,
performer-specific R&D projects (R&D earmarks). It appears that
earmarked projects in all areas, including non-R&D areas such as
transportation, health care facilities, and local environmental grants,
would increase sharply in FY 2004. For R&D earmarks, the FY 2004
total sees a sharp increase after a leveling off in FY 2003. (For full
details of total federal R&D in FY 2004, please see Congressional
Action on R&D in the FY 2004 Budget
and its accompanying preview, available
on the AAAS R&D Web site).
Within federal
appropriations for R&D are R&D earmarks of unrequested,
congressionally designated performer-specific R&D projects contained
in legislative language or committee report language attached to appropriations
bills. These projects have been added to agencies’ requested budgets
as part of the annual give-and-take between Congress and the Executive
Branch over the size and shape of agencies’ budgets. As Table A and
Figure 1 show, R&D earmarks total $1.9 billion in FY 2004, mostly
in the FY 2004 omnibus appropriations bills and the FY 2004 Defense
appropriations bills.
- R&D earmarks
total $1.9 billion in FY 2004. Although these projects amount to
only 1.5 percent of total R&D, they are concentrated in a few key
agencies and programs (see Table A). Four
agencies (the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA; $220 million), the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA; $194 million),
the Department of Energy (DOE; $284 million) and the Department of Defense
(DOD; $825 million) receive 80 percent of the total R&D earmarks.
Figure 1.
(click on image to view or download a full-size
color PDF version of this chart)
- FY 2004 earmarks are up sharply by 32 percent
from the $1.4 billion in R&D earmarks in FY 2003, in contrast to
last year when they declined slightly from $1.5 billion in FY 2002 (see
Table A and Figure 1). Within
a record R&D investment of $127 billion in FY 2004, up 8.1 percent,
R&D earmarks grew far faster than R&D spending as a whole. Nearly
all of the increase is due to an explosion in R&D earmarks in the
Department of Defense (DOD), which sees its earmarked projects nearly
double from $426 million last year to $825 million in FY 2004. Earmarks
in DOE R&D also double, to $284 million in FY 2004.
- The share of the R&D portfolio that is
earmarked rises to 1.5 percent after dipping to 1.2 percent in FY
2003 from 1.4 percent in FY 2002. But because these earmarks are highly
concentrated, earmarks make up 1 out of every 5 program dollars in some
R&D programs.
- The USDA
earmarks include $125 million for more than 200 itemized extramural
research projects, mostly in the Special Research Grants program, with
another $34 million allocated in the Agricultural Research Service (ARS)
for intramural research projects. Congress earmarks $52 million for
intramural R&D facilities construction in FY 2004 for projects not
in the agency budget request, down from last year because the FY 2003
earmarks included emergency counter-terrorism funds to boost laboratory
security and to upgrade capabilities to handle potential bioterrorism
agents. All of these categories of USDA earmarks are down for the second
year in a row, perhaps because the overall USDA R&D budget declines
by 5 percent in FY 2004. R&D earmarks total 21 percent of all extramural
R&D in the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension
Service (CSREES), making these a significant drain on resources that
might have gone to competitively awarded research grants; spending on
USDA competitive grants declines in FY 2004.
- The NASA
projects totaling $194 million are up slightly from last year, and are
found in five programs within the agency’s Science, Aeronautics and
Exploration (SAE) account: Space Science, Earth Science, Biological
and Physical Research, Aero-Space Technology, and Academic Programs.
Earmarks make up 24 percent of total R&D in Academic Programs, and
smaller percentages in the other four programs. The final NASA bill
includes 46 projects in Academic Programs totaling $55 million. Although
all programs in this account are classified as R&D, the congressionally
designated projects include funds for education centers, community science
and math education initiatives, science museums, and planetariums. Meanwhile,
R&D earmarks in other NASA accounts often exceed funding increases
above the request, meaning NASA will have to trim some FY 2004 program
plans in order to fund earmarks.
- The DOD
budget contains $825 million in R&D earmarks, an enormous increase
over last year, but only 1.2 percent of the total R&D budget because
of the size of the DOD R&D investment. The FY 2004 R&D earmarks
continue the trend of increasing earmarks within an increasing R&D
budget, itself within a record-breaking DOD budget. The earmarks are
mostly small ($10 million or less) projects, but significantly most
are for research rather than development or R&D facilities construction,
squeezing basic research and applied research budgets. In the case of
basic research (“6.1”), the R&D earmarks will be funded out of a
total “6.1” budget that will decline by 1 percent in FY 2004.
- The DOE
R&D budget also contains a large increase in R&D earmarks,
more than doubling from $138 million last year to $284 million in FY
2004. The Office of Science budget contains $95 million in R&D earmarks
in FY 2004, nearly double the FY 2003 level. Nearly all of these earmarks
are in the Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program. Although
the BER budget increases by 12 percent over last year, the jump in BER
earmarks from $50 million to $93 million eats up the majority of the
increase, leaving core BER R&D programs with little to no increase
in FY 2004. R&D earmarks make up 16 percent of the BER budget. In
DOE’s energy R&D, there is an even larger jump from $36
million to $114 million in FY 2004; many of these R&D earmarks are
last-minute additions to the FY 2004 omnibus bill and migrated over
from the FY 2004 energy policy bill when it became clear the energy
bill would not be signed into law in 2003. Not included in the R&D
earmarks total is an additional $50 million in the omnibus bill for
the Office of Science to build a non-R&D environmental education
and ecosystems center in Iowa.
- This year,
Congress declined to earmark funds in the National Science Foundation’s Major Research Equipment and Facilities
Construction (MREFC) account, in contrast to the last two years. Similarly,
the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) budget remains free of performer-specific R&D earmarks.
Instead, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), NIH’s
sister agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS),
has $97 million in R&D earmarks, up substantially from last year.
These R&D earmarks are mostly for construction of laboratory facilities
at hospitals and university medical schools, and are mixed in with a
larger pool of earmarked funds for health care facilities renovation
and construction.
- Congress added
R&D earmarks to other R&D funding agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA;
$56 million for 54 congressionally designated research projects), the
Department of Transportation ($59 million,
mostly for projects in DOT’s smaller bureaus), the Department of the Interior ($23 million,
mostly for projects in the U.S. Geological Survey), the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the Department of
Commerce ($26 million in Construction of Research Facilities account
for several projects), and the Department
of Housing and Urban Development (HUD; $15 million for nine small
R&D projects not related to housing in a community development fund
that is home to hundreds of other earmarks).
Definitions: What is an R&D Earmark?
For the purposes
of this analysis, R&D earmarks are defined as “congressionally designated
performer-specific R&D projects not included in agency budget requests.”
The earmarks appear in either legislative language contained in appropriations
bills, in which case they have the force of law, or appear in committee
report language accompanying appropriations bills, in which case they
are technically advisory. For all practical purposes, however, agencies
usually follow the instructions from Congress contained in committee
report language, including earmarks. When Congress designates a specific
performer or performers for a particular R&D project, these are
counted as earmarks; because AAAS definitions of R&D include investments
in R&D facilities construction, the earmarks in this analysis also
include funds provided to specific institutions for investments in R&D
major capital equipment, and also construction funds for specific R&D
facilities.
R&D earmarks
do not appear in federal agencies’ budget requests, which are released
at the beginning of the budget process in February and reflect agency
priorities. These budget requests contain detailed proposed distributions
of agency funds by mission, allocation mechanism, and often by performer.
Earmarks do not appear in agencies’ own budget requests but are added
to agencies’ budgets by Congress during the appropriations process.
Some projects not originally included in agency requests may be initiated
by congressional action in earlier appropriations cycles and may be
renewed at reduced funding levels in agencies’ requests; funds added
to specific performers by Congress above the amounts requested by the
agency are counted as earmarks.
These figures
include earmarks to all categories of R&D performers. While discussion
of the earmarks issue tends to center on earmarks to academic institutions,
this analysis also includes R&D earmarks to other categories of
performers, most prominently federal laboratories. While academic institutions
receive the bulk of the earmarks in Table A,
federal laboratories, sometimes located on university campuses, also
receive earmarks as well as some nonprofits and industrial firms.
The earmarks counted
in this analysis are a subset of R&D in the federal budget as tracked
by AAAS. Thus, the earmarks in this analysis do not include non-R&D
projects that may go to R&D performers, for example educational
or extension projects awarded to universities and colleges. They also
do not include construction funds for non-R&D facilities, except
when they are provided in R&D accounts.
Purpose of the AAAS Analysis
The analysis is
intended to provide timely and unbiased information for further analysis
and debate on the allocation of R&D resources in the federal budget
process, and the R&D Budget and Policy Program undertakes this analysis
to provide timely and relevant information for policymakers and members
of the science and engineering community who are concerned about methods
of allocating R&D resources. It attempts to provide additional information
to supplement existing AAAS coverage of R&D in the appropriations
process. The analysis is not a comprehensive inventory
of earmarks; nor can the analysis break out earmarks by recipient or
by state because of the difficulty in identifying and assigning locations
to multi-performer research consortia or earmarks in which the actual
performer is left intentionally vague. Also, because earmarks are somewhat
in the eye of the beholder and are ill-defined (unlike the standardized,
longstanding definitions for R&D used by AAAS and federal agencies)
this analysis necessarily relies on AAAS interpretations and judgment
calls on a project-by-project basis of what is or is not an R&D
earmark.
This analysis does
not take a position on the relative merits of agency requests vs. congressional
earmarks, or of competitively awarded funds vs. earmarked funds.
Conclusions
Although Mitch
Daniels, the former Director of the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB), as well as the Bush Administration in general, made restraining
congressional earmarks a high priority of the Administration early on
in the Bush Administration, this earmark-fighting zeal has waned considerably
recently and dwindled to zero, especially with the departure of Daniels.
President Bush has never used his veto power, and has signaled his willingness
to accept whatever appropriations bills come his way as long as they
meet his overall budget targets. And his budget targets have left plenty
of room for earmarks. The President and the last two Congresses have
also presided over some of the largest increases in discretionary spending
in history; for the last three years, discretionary spending has increased
by more than 10 percent a year. By most accounts, total earmarks have
surged dramatically during this time, though R&D earmarks dipped
last year. Ironically, in FY 2004 discretionary spending may rise by
only 3 percent to $874 billion, yet there will be record totals for
R&D earmarks; it is still unclear what the trends will be for total
earmarks in non-R&D areas, though at first glance both the number
of earmarked projects and dollar amounts appear to climb in FY 2004.
In the FY 2004 omnibus bill, there are pages and pages of earmarks for
community development grants (950 projects in one Housing and Urban
Development program), EPA water grants (more than 500 projects in just
one EPA account), and health care facilities (more than 600 projects
in one HRSA account), all in greater numbers than last year. With 2004
as an important election year, Congress is sure to face enormous pressure
in the FY 2005 budget process to fund more and more politically popular
earmarks. In all likelihood, R&D earmarks will only increase next
year, even above the increased levels of FY 2004.
(Other
AAAS R&D Funding Updates on the AAAS
R&D Web site provide detailed information on R&D in final
FY 2004 appropriations.)
- December 12, 2003 (revised Jan. 23)
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607; -6600
www.aaas.org/spp/rd
