(The complete series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates,
including continually updated analyses of R&D by agency in FY 2000
appropriations, is available on the AAAS R&D Web Site (http://www.aaas.org/spp/R&D)
in the "FY 2000 R&D" or the "What's
New" sections.)
(revisions in [ ] )
[On October 20, President Clinton signed into law an
FY 2000 VA-HUD appropriations bill (HR 2684) that gives $7.6 billion
to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).] Congress agreed to provide
$385 million more than the Administration request for EPA to bring the
EPA budget to exactly its FY 1999 funding level of $7.6 billion. EPA's
R&D declines 3.1 percent or $21 million to $648 million, but this
amount is $3 million more than the agency request (see Table).
Although FY 2000 started on October 1, Congress is
still struggling to draft the 13 appropriations bills within discretionary
spending caps that are forcing sharp cuts to domestic discretionary
programs. The discretionary spending caps, enacted in 1997, require
FY 2000 discretionary spending to be nearly $20 billion below FY 1999
funding levels. Thanks to several accounting maneuvers, including billions
of dollars in rescissions of unspent housing funds, designations of
emergency spending for disaster relief, and advance appropriations of
FY 2001 funds, the final VA-HUD bill manages to stay within tight budget
totals while still providing increases for priority programs.
Within the $70 billion discretionary total for the
final VA-HUD bill, padded with an extra $10 billion in additional funds
from accounting maneuvers, Congress provides EPA with $385 million more
than it had requested. The total EPA budget of $7.6 billion is the same
as FY 1999 although there are differences in individual accounts.
EPA's R&D funding, mostly from the Science and
Technology account, totals $648 million in FY 2000, a cut of $21 million
or 3.1 percent (see Table). Most research
programs are funded at the requested levels, but to make room for $54
million for 38 congressionally designated projects in the S&T account,
the bill trims $23 million from the request for R&D in the Climate
Change Technology Initiative (CCTI) and $28 million from other projects
and from a general reduction. CCTI is a multi-agency initiative to address
global warming through partnerships with locally based organizations,
research on energy efficient technologies, and tax incentives for energy
efficiency. Global change research receives $17 million, the
same level as FY 1999.
In the overall EPA budget, the final bill adds $629
million to the requested amount for State and Tribal Assistance Grants,
bringing the total to $3.5 billion, 1.8 percent more than the FY 1999
level. Most of this money goes to state and local governments. For Environmental
Programs and Management, which funds most of EPA's operating expenses,
the bill provides $1.9 billion, 2.8 percent more than FY 1999 but $147
million less than EPA had requested. Within the account, the bill reduces
the request for CCTI programs by $90 million. Between this account and
the S&T account, CCTI funding totals $103 million, less than half
the request of $216 million and down from the FY 1999 level of $110
million. The Superfund program is cut $98 million below the FY
1999 funding level, for a total of $1.4 billion. Superfund also funds
R&D on hazardous substances managed by EPA's Office of Research
and Development paid for out of a $38 million transfer to the Science
and Technology account. Within the Superfund account, EPA will transfer
approximately $37 million to the National Institute of Environmental
Health Sciences (NIEHS) for its research activities related to hazardous
substances.
The House and Senate versions of the bill, and the
final bill also, contain a legislative provision, carried over from
last year's EPA funding bill, that prohibits EPA from implementing actions
called for under the U.N. Kyoto Protocol, which has not been submitted
to nor ratified by the Senate.
EPA's basic and applied research support (excluding
development and R&D facilities) comprises most of EPA's R&D.
The EPA research portfolio is fairly well-balanced between the environmental
sciences, the life sciences, and engineering research. Although EPA
is the major environmental regulatory agency in the federal government,
many other agencies have environmental responsibilities related to research,
resource stewardship, and economic management of the environment, so
EPA is a relatively small funding source for R&D related to the
environment. In the environmental sciences, EPA accounts for only 7
percent of total federal support, while in the life sciences EPA funds
only 1 percent of total federal support and in engineering research
only 3 percent.
Nearly half of EPA's R&D is performed in the agency's
own laboratories, while about a third is performed in the nation's colleges
and universities, a share that has been growing in recent years. The
remainder is performed by industrial firms and nonprofit institutions.
[President Clinton signed the VA-HUD bill into law
on October 20.] Although these funding levels would be final under normal
circumstances, Congress may still re-open completed FY 2000 appropriations
if it runs into trouble passing the remaining appropriations bills.
Congress is seriously considering enacting across-the-board cuts in
discretionary spending to get all FY 2000 appropriations under budget
targets. These cuts could affect EPA and other agencies in the VA-HUD
bill even after the bill becomes law.
