(This analysis is a preview of the EPA section
in the forthcoming AAAS Report XXX: Research and Development FY
2006, a comprehensive look at the President’s budget for R&D in
FY 2006. This analysis contains revised AAAS estimates of R&D, different
from figures presented in the AAAS Preliminary Analysis
of February 10. More tables and continually updated supplemental materials
on R&D in the FY 2006 budget can be found on the AAAS R&D Web
site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
Highlights
- The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) R&D budget would decline
0.7 percent or $4 million to $568 million in FY 2006 (see Table
II-17). The proposed elimination of R&D earmarks and a decline
in the Superfund R&D program would leave room for modest increases
to core EPA R&D programs in areas such as global change, particulate
matter, drinking water, and water quality.
-Homeland security-related R&D would be the big winner in the R&D
portfolio, with large increases for decontamination research and
drinking water security research.
- EPA’s overall budget would fall a steep 5.7 percent down to $7.6 billion
because of steep proposed cuts to State and Tribal Assistance Grants.
EPA R&D in the FY 2006 Budget; Earmarks Out, Homeland Security Up
EPA’s R&D, mostly funded in the Science and Technology account, would total $568 million in the FY
2006 budget, a modest cut of $4 million or 0.7 percent (see Table
II-17). The FY 2005 omnibus bill contained $51 million in R&D
earmarks, many of them renewed from previous years (AAAS estimates).
The FY 2006 budget would eliminate these earmarks, allowing for a net
increase for EPA’s core R&D programs.
R&D in the S&T account would increase slightly by $1 million to
$536 million in FY 2006, but the proposed elimination of R&D
earmarks would free up an additional $50 million for program increases.
Funding for particulate matter research ($61 million this year) would
combine with $4 million in tropospheric ozone research in a new research program of $71
million. Global change research would rise modestly from $20 million
to $21 million; drinking water research from $44 million to $46 million;
and water quality research would increase from $45 million to $56 million.
Other areas of research such as pollution prevention and human health/ecosystems
would see cuts in funding.
Homeland security-related R&D would be the big winner in the R&D
portfolio, nearly tripling from $33 million in FY 2005 to $94 million
next year (AAAS estimates based on OMB data). EPA efforts would be focused
in two areas. Drinking water security research would be one priority,
and would involve EPA efforts to develop better surveillance and laboratory
networks for drinking water supplies to counter potential terrorist
threats. The other priority would be decontamination research, to develop
better technologies and methods for decontaminating terrorist attack
sites such as the Senate office buildings that EPA decontaminated from
anthrax in 2001. EPA would also continue threat and consequence assessments
and testing potential biodefense and other decontamination technologies. Much of
this work would be conducted at EPA’s National Homeland Security Research
Center (NHSRC) in Cincinnati.
In non-R&D
programs, the FY 2006 budget requests $8.3
million for the STAR Fellowship Program, roughly this year’s funding
level, to encourage science and engineering graduate students to study
environmental science fields that could be of use to EPA’s mission.
EPA’s S&T
investments are a small part of the overall EPA portfolio (see Table
II-17), and are designed to support EPA’s regulatory and enforcement
missions. R&D would fare better than the overall FY 2006 budget
of $7.6 billion, a loss of $455 million or 5.7 percent. EPA requests
only $3.0 billion for State and Tribal Assistance Grants (STG), perennially a higher priority
for Congress than for EPA and funded at $3.6 billion this year. Most
of this money goes to state, local, and tribal governments to fund environmental
projects, primarily projects to preserve clean drinking water. Most
other EPA accounts would receive increases, including the Environmental
Programs and Management (EPM) account that funds most of EPA’s regulatory
work (up 4.8 percent to $2.4 billion).
Impacts of the EPA R&D Portfolio
EPA’s basic and
applied research support (excluding development and R&D facilities)
comprises the large majority (80 percent) of EPA’s R&D. The largest
part of EPA’s research is in the life sciences (primarily biology and
environmental biology), with significant support for the environmental
sciences and engineering as well. 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 environmental R&D. In the environmental sciences,
EPA accounts for only 4 percent of total federal support, while in the
life sciences EPA funds less than 1 percent.
Figure 1. (click
on the image for PDF)
Roughly 47 percent of EPA’s
R&D is performed in the agency’s own laboratories, while about 10 percent
is performed by industrial firms. Nearly a third of EPA’s R&D is performed
by colleges and universities, a share that has been growing in recent years as
EPA has attempted to expand its links with academia. The remainder is performed
by nonprofit institutions and state and local governments.
EPA’s R&D
support has been declining slowly for the past few years after steady
growth in the late 1990s. EPA’s R&D budget declined sharply after
FY 1994 and bottomed out in FY 1996 (see Figure 1). In subsequent years,
EPA’s R&D grew until FY 1999. EPA R&D declined again in FY 2000,
and has eroded slowly in inflation-adjusted dollars since then except
for a one-time boost in FY 2004 for homeland security-related R&D.
EPA R&D has essentially stayed at $600 million in today’s dollars
for more than a decade.
-
March 2, 2005
(More materials on R&D in the FY 2006 budget, historical data and
charts, and more information on AAAS Report XXX: R&D FY 2006,
can be found on the AAAS R&D web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
AAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607; -6600
www.aaas.org/spp/rd
