(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 FY 2007 appropriations
bills. The data in this analysis highlight AAAS interpretations of R&D earmarks
in Senate-approved appropriations. The complete series of AAAS R&D Funding
Updates, including continually updated analyses of R&D by agency 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.)
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Congress appears to be well on its way to matching last year’s record-breaking
total of R&D earmarks in the FY 2007 budget now under consideration. Before
a month-long August recess, Senate appropriators designated $1.3 billion for congressionally
designated, performer-specific R&D projects in FY 2007 appropriations (see
Table A and Figure 1), while the House would earmark
$1.1 billion in R&D funds.
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If past patterns hold, the final earmark total could be the House and Senate totals
combined rather than the average of the two. Last year, the House had $1.2 billion
and the Senate $1.5 billion in R&D earmarks which combined for a total of
$2.4 billion in final FY 2006 appropriations.
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Although earmarking in Senate appropriations would continue unabated in agencies
such as the Department of Energy (DOE; $240 million), the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA; $352 million), the Department of Defense (DOD; $448 million) and the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA; $184 million), both the House and
the Senate have so far refrained from earmarking the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) budget in 2007, and in DOE both chambers have chosen
to add earmarks on top of the budget request rather than cutting the request to
make room for earmarks.
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These earmarked projects amount to just 1.0 percent of the Senate’s total $138.3
billion appropriation for federal R&D, but because they are heavily concentrated
they can have big impacts on key programs. Earmarks make up 1 out of every 5 R&D
dollars for USDA’s extramural research programs and nearly 1 out of 4 R&D
dollars in NOAA.
FY 2007 R&D Earmarks in Senate Appropriations
Before
departing Washington for a month-long
August recess, the Senate Appropriations Committee finished drafting Senate versions
of all 11 FY 2007 appropriations bills. In June, its House counterpart drafted
the House versions of these bills. (For full details of federal R&D so far
in 2007 appropriations, please see the August Summary Report
on R&D in FY 2007 Appropriations, available on the AAAS
R&D Web site). The Senate versions of the FY 2007 bills contain $1.3 billion
in R&D earmarks, down nearly half from the $2.4 billion total for R&D
earmarks in FY 2006. The House would earmark $1.1 billion for mostly different
projects. But based on past patterns, the final FY 2007 total could equal or exceed
FY 2006 when 2007 appropriations are finalized this fall. Last year, for example,
the 2006 House bills contained $1.2 billion in earmarks while the Senate bills
contained $1.5 billion, but the final total was $2.4 billion, almost as much as
the two chambers’ totals combined (see Table A).
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.
- R&D earmarks total $1.3 billion in Senate FY 2007 appropriations
bills, and $1.1 billion in the House versions of these bills. Although these
projects amount to only 1.0 percent of total R&D in the Senate, they are concentrated
in a few key agencies and programs (see Table A).
Four agencies (the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA; $352 million), the Department
of Energy (DOE; $240 million); the Department of Defense (DOD; $448 million),
and the Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA; $184 million)) receive 91 percent of the total R&D earmarks in the
Senate bills. The House bills do not earmark the NOAA R&D portfolio, so just
three agencies account for 90 percent of the House’s earmarks.
- The Senate’s 2007 earmarks and the House’s 2007 earmarks are down from
the combined total for 2006, but only slightly down from the Senate’s $1.5 billion
and the House $1.2 billion in earmarks in last year’s appropriations bills (see
Figure 1).
Figure
1. (click on image for PDF)
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The USDA earmarks total $352 million in the Senate, approaching the record
total of four years ago. These include $113 million for 179 itemized extramural
research projects in the Special Research Grants program, with another $33 million
for 37 other projects in USDA’s extramural research accounts. The Senate would
allocate $110 million for intramural research projects at USDA laboratories around
the nation, and would earmark the entire $83 million appropriation for Agricultural
Research Service (ARS) Buildings and Facilities for congressionally designated
construction projects. In addition to making up 100 percent of facilities funding,
R&D earmarks total 22 percent of all extramural research 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
or formula-based research funding. The House would have similar totals for partially
overlapping lists of projects, totaling $306 million.
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The DOD budget contains $609 million in House R&D earmarks, while
the Senate would earmark $448 million for an almost entirely different set of
projects, suggesting that the final 2007 list of earmarks could exceed $1 billion.
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. Earmarks for “6.2” (applied
research) earmarks are $134 million, or almost 3 percent of a sharply declining
total. Earmarks in the “6.4” or higher categories of DOD development are $157
million in the Senate, only 0.3 percent of a dramatically expanding portfolio.
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DOE R&D earmarks decline in House appropriations to $116 million,
the lowest level this decade, but total $240 million in Senate appropriations
for 2007. The Office of Science (OS) budget contains $63 million in Senate earmarks
and $30 million in House earmarks, compared to a $130 million total in 2006. But
both the House and the Senate would add these earmarks on top of the already-substantial
14 percent requested increase for DOE Science, allowing for a 21 percent increase
in core (non-earmarked) Science R&D funding between 2006 and 2007 in the Senate
plan. Although DOE energy R&D earmarks hit a new high of $266 million in 2006,
the House would earmark only $61 million for energy R&D in 2007 and would
keep the earmarks in a separate account from core funding. The Senate would follow
suit by earmarking $132 million in energy R&D, mostly in separate accounts.
The new policy would have big impacts on key programs such as biomass R&D
where earmarks make up 50 percent of total program funds in 2006. The biomass
program not only more than doubles in the Senate appropriation, but because most
2007 earmarks would be in a separate account core biomass funding would nearly
quadruple. Solar, hydrogen, and other renewable energy programs
also benefit from these House and Senate actions of substantial increases in non-earmarked
2007 funding compared to a heavily earmarked 2006 base.
- Some agencies remain earmark-free. The National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) all remain earmark-free in FY
2007 appropriations so far. Traditionally, NIH and NSF’s research accounts have
been free of earmarks, although in some years NSF construction projects are earmarked.
FY 2007 is the fourth year of appropriations for DHS; so far, Congress has not
earmarked R&D projects in DHS. And the House and the Senate have so far refrained
from inserting earmarks in NASA appropriations, although there are strong indications
that they will appear in the final 2007 NASA budget.
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.
AAAS
definitions of R&D earmarks tend to undercount earmarks, because they include
explicitly performer-specific projects only. Congress often designates funding
for specific projects or research topics; in some cases such as in DOD’s peer-reviewed
medical research programs the topics may be congressionally designated but the
performers are selected competitively so they are not counted as earmarks. In
many other cases, however, Congress will designate funding for a specific research
project without identifying a location explicitly, but on the implicit understanding
that only one organization is capable of performing it or has already been selected
to do earlier work in that area. Such topical earmarks are common in DOD’s R&D
portfolio, where earmarks for weapons projects or technology areas are understood
to steer the funds to a specific performer with demonstrated expertise or past
experience. This analysis does not count such projects in which competitive awards
are theoretically possible albeit unlikely.
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. Some of these earmarks may come
from the same budget accounts that fund R&D earmarks. 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 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 relies on AAAS interpretations and judgment calls
on a project-by-project basis of what is or is not an R&D earmark. In doing
this analysis, AAAS does not take a position on the relative merits of agency
requests vs. congressional earmarks, or of competitively awarded funds vs. earmarked
funds.
Conclusions
When
Congress returns to session in September, the October 1 start of FY 2007 will
be less than four weeks away. Appropriators have already given up hope of completing
FY 2007 appropriations on time, so most federal R&D funding agencies will
have to wait until after the November elections to receive their final budgets.
Although there has been much debate and attention on the practice of congressional
earmarking this year as a result of scandals that have derailed the careers of
several members of Congress who were caught taking bribes in exchange for doling
out earmarks, the practice continues unabated. Reform proposals have so far focused
on bringing greater transparency to the process, which seem unlikely to curb earmarking
in an environment when members of Congress are mostly eager to take credit for
earmarks they have steered to their districts or states. For R&D performers,
flat or declining R&D budgets for many R&D funding agencies as well as
the example of peer institutions hiring lobbyists to secure earmarks has set off
a scramble among universities, localities, and research institutions to step up
lobbying for earmarks for fear of missing out on increasingly scarce funds. In
such a Washington environment, the
recent trend of ever-increasing R&D earmarks within flat total R&D budgets
is likely to continue.
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August 11, 2006
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
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R&D web site: www.aaas.org/spp/rd
