(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 2008 appropriations
bills. The data in this analysis highlight AAAS interpretations of R&D earmarks
in final FY 2008 appropriations. The complete series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates,
including continually updated analyses of R&D by agency in FY 2008 appropriations,
is available on the AAAS R&D Web Site
(http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd) in the “FY 2008 R&D”
or the “What’s New” sections.)
- Congress has resumed earmarking R&D projects in 2008
appropriations, after a one-year moratorium on most domestic earmarks in 2007.
The final 2008 omnibus appropriations bill designated $939 million for congressionally
designated, performer-specific R&D projects in 2008 (excluding the Department
of Defense (DOD)), down from $1.5 billion in 2006 and also down from previous
years (see Figure 1 and Table A).
- The 110th Congress has instituted
new disclosure requirements for earmarks that have made previously hidden DOD
earmarks more visible. In the Defense appropriations bill enacted in November,
Congress earmarked $3.5 billion in DOD R&D projects out of the $77.8 billion
total DOD R&D portfolio, most of which ($2.2 billion) would go to “S&T”
projects. In all, federal R&D earmarks total $4.5 billion in 2008, spread
over 2,526 projects.
- The Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA) are the most heavily earmarked domestic R&D agencies,
while the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation
(NSF) remain earmark-free (see Table A). R&D earmarks make up nearly 10 percent
of the energy R&D portfolio, and nearly 18 percent of USDA’s extramural research
portfolio. After being earmark-free for the first years of its existence, the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would get $82 million in R&D earmarks
in 2008.
- Congressional appropriators added more money
for R&D earmarks than they added to the overall budget request for R&D.
The $893 million in nondefense R&D earmarks (excluding DOD and DOE defense)
is more than the $786 million Congress added to the President’s request for nondefense
R&D.
- R&D earmarks are geographically concentrated.
The top 10 state recipients of R&D earmarks receive 44 percent of all earmarked
funds (see Figure 2). The top 10 states are a mixture of the most populous states
and states with politically powerful congressional appropriators.
FY 2008
R&D Earmarks in Final 2008 Appropriations
On December 26, President Bush signed into law
the 2008 omnibus appropriations bill (HR 2764) containing final versions of 11
of the 12 2008 appropriations bills. In November, the Defense appropriations bill
covering DOD appropriations was enacted separately. (For full details of federal
R&D in final 2008 appropriations, please see the AAAS FY 2008 Appropriations
Summary Update available on the AAAS
R&D Web site). The two bills together contain $4.5 billion in R&D
earmarks, significantly more than in previous years, primarily because of improved
disclosure of DOD earmarks (see Table A and Figure 3). Excluding DOD, the earmark
totals in 2008 are comparable or less than in previous years except for 2007,
when Congress had a moratorium on most non-DOD earmarks (see Figure 1).
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 are 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. The current 110th Congress
has made reforming the earmarking process a priority, and has promised to reduce
the number and amount of earmarks from previous years and has also promised to
make the earmarking process more transparent.
- R&D
earmarks total $939 million for non-DOD programs in the 2008 omnibus appropriations
bill, up from $529 million in earlier House appropriations and $628 million in
earlier Senate appropriations but 20 percent less than the two earlier sets of
earmarks combined (see Table A and Figure 1). The R&D earmarks make up 1.4 percent of
R&D appropriations in the omnibus bill, but in the November DOD appropriation
earmarks make up 4.5 percent of DOD R&D.
- Among domestic programs, R&D earmarks are
found primarily in the Department of Energy (DOE; $348 million) and the U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA; $269 million; see Figure 3). There would also be significant
dollars for earmarked projects in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA; $83 million), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA;
$45 million), and the previously earmark-free Department of Homeland Security
(DHS; $82 million).
Figure 1. (click on image for PDF)
- Congressional appropriators added more money
for R&D earmarks than they added to the overall budget request for R&D.
Nondefense R&D earmarks (excluding DOD and DOE defense) totaling $893 million
are more than the $786 million Congress added to the President’s request for nondefense
R&D. In order to make room for earmarks, congressional appropriators cut the
President’s 2008 request overall for nondefense R&D, although there were many
changes to the request so that some R&D programs received more than requested.
- On the defense side, earmarked dollars far exceed
the total dollars Congress added to the budget request. Congress added $2.1 billion
to the Pentagon request for “S&T” (“6.1” plus “6.3” programs and medical research,
comprising basic and applied research and early technology development), but added
$2.2 billion for earmarked R&D projects, resulting in a net cut to the request
for non-earmarked DOD projects. In DOD’s weapons development programs (“6.4” and
higher), Congress made program cuts to several development projects while adding
$1.3 billion in earmarks, for another net cut to the request. Combining the two,
congressional DOD R&D earmarks of $3.5 billion far exceed the $1.7 billion
Congress added to the total DOD R&D request for 2008 (see Table A).
Figure 1. (click on image for PDF)
- The top 10 state recipients of R&D earmarks
receive nearly half of the total amount (see Figure 2). Excluding earmarks
that are divided among 3 or more states, the top 10 state recipients receive 44
percent of all R&D earmarks in 2008 by value. The top 10 states are a mixture
of the largest, most populous states and smaller states with members of Congress
in key appropriations committee chairmanships. The improved disclosure of earmarks
instituted by the current Congress enables earmarks to be more easily categorized
by performer and state. The AAAS R&D
web site now has a searchable, sortable spreadsheet cataloging all 2008 R&D
earmarks in House, Senate, and now final 2008 appropriations by amount, state,
performer or project, and agency, including all 2,526 R&D earmarks in final
2008 appropriations. (Click here to download an Excel
spreadsheet of House, Senate and final 2008 R&D earmarks.)
- Some agencies
remain earmark-free. The National Science
Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes
of Health (NIH) remain earmark-free in FY 2008 appropriations. Traditionally,
NIH and NSF’s research accounts have been free of earmarks, although in some years
NSF construction projects are earmarked. But although DHS remained earmark-free
for the first three years of its existence, one small earmark appeared in FY 2007
appropriations and in FY 2008 Congress earmarked several projects for a total
of $82 million, nearly 8 percent of total DHS R&D.
- Only in USDA do earmarks make up more than
1 in 10 total R&D dollars, unlike in previous years when earmarks in selected
USDA, NASA, and DOE programs sometimes made up 1 out of every 5 R&D dollars
(see Table A). R&D earmarks total 18 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. Congress also earmarked 12.5
percent of R&D funding in the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), USDA’s
intramural research arm. Without these earmarks, USDA R&D funding in 2008
would fall compared to (earmark-free) 2007 funding.
Earmarks for energy R&D make up 9.6 percent of the total portfolio,
but the impact of these earmarks is softened somewhat by the remarkable 23 percent
growth in total DOE energy R&D, allowing nearly every energy R&D area
to receive substantial increases, even before earmarks. On the defense side, 12
percent of the Army’s R&D budget is earmarked in 2008, a far greater impact
than the other services or the Defense Agencies.
- The DOD
R&D portfolio contains $3.5 billion in R&D earmarks 2008, dramatically
higher than in previous years’ AAAS analyses because improved congressional disclosure
of earmarks has made many previously hidden earmarks more visible (see Figure
3). By several independent accounts, however, total DOD earmarks decline in 2008
from earlier years. The majority of earmarks go to the “S&T” accounts. In
basic research (“6.1”), 89 percent of the $185 million Congress added to the budget
request went to earmarks, to make up 10 percent of the total DOD basic research
portfolio. In applied research (“6.2” plus medical research), the $896 million
in earmarks make up 86 percent of all additions to the Pentagon request. In the
“6.3” category, the $1.1 billion in earmarks would be more than the net additions
to the request because of offsetting cuts in other programs. As in previous years,
the Army would get nearly half the earmarks (see Figure 3 and Table A), followed
by the Navy, the Defense Agencies, and the Air Force.
Figure 1. (click on image for PDF)
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. Starting with this year’s appropriations
bills, Congress has instituted new disclosure requirements for earmarks so that
all performer-specific congressional additions to appropriations bills are disclosed
by amount and by congressional sponsor(s).
AAAS definitions of R&D earmarks have tended
to undercount earmarks in the past, because they include explicitly performer-specific
projects only. In the FY 2008 appropriations season, however, the number of counted
R&D earmarks expands dramatically, especially in DOD, as the new congressional
disclosure requirements made visible earmarks that were previously hidden in non-performer
specific language. Congress often designates 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. While such earmarks were difficult to identify in earlier years, in
2008 appropriations the tagging of each project with a congressional sponsor makes
the location of the intended performer visible.
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.
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 for nondefense R&D
in Table A (defense R&D earmarks tend to favor
industrial performers), 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. 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
There has been much debate and attention on the
practice of congressional earmarking in this 110th Congress, primarily
as a result of the Democratic majority promising to rein in the freewheeling earmarking
practices of past Congresses. To start the year, the Democratic majority finalized
FY 2007 appropriations with a one-year moratorium on most domestic R&D earmarks,
and then set up a more transparent process for allocating and disclosing earmarks
in 2008 appropriations. After some fits and starts, the new earmark disclosure
process was in place for the final 2008 appropriations bills, with clear lists
of projects, their sponsors, and their intended beneficiaries. But although earmarked
R&D funding declines in 2008 compared to previous years, in a tight budget
environment earmarks once again crowd out hoped-for increases in competitively
awarded research programs.
- January 7, 2008
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607; -6600
AAAS
R&D web site: www.aaas.org/spp/rd
