Highlights
- The Senate has drafted an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) budget
for FY 2005 that would cut the agency’s R&D budget by 2.0 percent
or $12 million to $604 million, a more generous allocation than
the deeper cuts contained in the agency request and the House’s budget
plan because of added Senate earmarks (see Table).
- The Senate would be generous with
EPA’s total budget, providing an increase of $135 million to $8.5 billion
in contrast to steep cuts in the EPA request and the House plan.
EPA R&D in FY 2005 Senate Appropriations
On September 21, the Senate
Appropriations Committee drafted its version of an FY 2005 VA/HUD appropriations
bill (S 2825) that would provide a modest increase for the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) in FY 2005, in contrast to steep requested cuts.
The Senate bill would give EPA a total budget of $8.5 billion in FY
2005, $135 million or 1.6 percent more than last year (FY 2004) and
far more than the $7.8 billion request and House appropriation. EPA’s
R&D funding would decline 2.0 percent down to $604 million, but
would compare favorably with R&D appropriations below $600 million
in the request and the House plan. (For details of R&D in FY 2005
House appropriations, see the July 26 AAAS R&D Funding Update. For
details of R&D in the FY 2005 request, please see Chapter
13 of AAAS
Report XXIX: R&D FY 2005 or the February
25 AAAS R&D Funding Update.)
The Senate FY 2005 VA-HUD
bill would provide $93 billion for discretionary programs, almost $1
billion more than the President’s request and $2 billion more than this
year’s funding level. The bill funds science agencies including the
National Science Foundation (NSF), the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and EPA, and non-R&D
programs for veterans and housing. Although the Senate total appears
to be the same as the House, the Senate is able to provide more funds
for R&D in NSF, NASA, and EPA than the House because the Senate
bill contains an additional $2 billion in emergency spending for NASA
and veterans programs, freeing up resources for other priorities.
EPA’s R&D, mostly funded in the Science and Technology account, would total $604 million in the FY
2005 Senate plan, a cut of $12 million or 2.0 percent (see Table).
The FY 2004 omnibus budget bill contained 41 congressional earmarks
in the S&T account and another 11 R&D earmarks in normally non-R&D
Environmental Programs and Management account, many of them renewed
from FY 2003, for a total of $56 million in R&D earmarks (AAAS estimates).
The FY 2005 request would have eliminated these earmarks, for a slight
net increase in FY 2005 for EPA’s core R&D programs. The Senate
would fund 22 R&D earmarks totaling $23 million and several other
non-R&D earmarks in the S&T account, allowing for a modest increase
in EPA’s core R&D programs.
R&D in the S&T account would increase 0.9 percent to $566 million
in FY 2005. The Senate bill would allow for some modest program
increases, such as particulate matter research from $58 million last
year to $62 million in FY 2005, and flat or slightly increasing funding
for most EPA research areas.
The Senate bill does not explicitly address EPA’s funding of competitively
awarded extramural research, which would decline steeply in the agency
request. EPA’s Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program of extramural
research grants would decline by one third in the agency request, requiring
the elimination of STAR grants in four areas; the House would restore
most of the funding, but the Senate bill does not address the STAR program.
EPA’s S&T investments are a
small part of the overall EPA portfolio, and are designed to support
EPA’s regulatory and enforcement missions. The Senate would reverse
proposed cuts to EPA’s total budget, and would instead provide a modest
increase of 1.6 percent to $8.5 billion (see Table).
EPA requested only $3.2 billion for State and Tribal Assistance Grants (STG), perennially a higher priority
for Congress than for EPA, but the House followed tradition by adding
to the request, bringing funding to $3.4 billion, and the Senate would
go further by boosting spending above last year’s level to $3.9 billion.
Most of this money goes to state, local, and tribal governments to fund
environmental projects, primarily projects to preserve clean drinking
water. For Environmental Programs and Management,
which funds most of EPA’s operating expenses, the Senate would nearly
match the request of $2.3 billion, slightly above last year’s funding
level. The Senate would match the $1.4 billion request for the Superfund
program, a 9.9 percent increase over FY 2004.
Next Steps
The House VA-HUD
bill’s proposed cuts to NSF, NASA, and EPA look so steep, especially
in an election year, that the bill may never make it to the House floor
as a stand-alone bill. 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 has also run out of time to approve
its version as a stand-alone bill. Thus, EPA programs are operating
through 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 VA-HUD bill will be rolled into
an omnibus appropriations bill along with the other unfinished appropriations
bills in a post-election lame duck session.
(This analysis is one of a series
of AAAS R&D Funding Updates on the FY 2005 congressional appropriations
process. This analysis includes information on R&D in Senate appropriations
for the Environmental Protection Agency. 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
