(This analysis is a preview of the
EPA section in the forthcoming AAAS Report XXXI: Research and Development FY
2007, a comprehensive look at the President's budget for R&D in FY 2007.
This analysis contains revised AAAS estimates of EPA R&D, different from figures
originally presented in the President's budget. More tables and continually updated
supplemental materials on R&D in the FY 2007 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 be a
proposed $557 million in FY 2007 (see Table II-17),
a $43 million or 7.1 percent cut after a similar cut in 2006. Although most
of the reduction would be from the proposed elimination of 2006 congressional
earmarks, funding for most EPA research areas would decline, with the major exception
of homeland security R&D.
- EPA’s overall budget would fall $310 million or 4.1 percent to $7.3
billion, again after a similar cut in 2006. The Bush Administration proposes to dramatically
reduce State and Tribal Assistance Grants funding by 11 percent down to $2.8 billion.
-
EPA’s R&D funding would fall to the lowest level in two decades (since
1987) in real terms.
EPA R&D in the FY 2007 Budget
The
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the primary regulatory agency for the U.S.
environment, funds a broad portfolio of R&D to meet the science and technology
needs of its regulatory and enforcement responsibilities. Mirroring trends in
the overall EPA budget, the FY 2007 request would cut EPA’s R&D funding by
$43 million or 7.1 percent to $557 million in 2007 following a similarly sized
cut in the final 2006 budget (see Table II-17). Most
of the cut would be from the elimination of $33 million in congressionally earmarked
2006 projects from the 2007 request, but the remaining $10 million cut would be
distributed across the broad EPA R&D portfolio, with only clean air and homeland
security research slated to receive increases.
EPA’s
R&D is managed by its Office of Research and Development (ORD), which funds
both R&D at EPA laboratories around the country and external R&D, mostly
at universities. Nearly all of EPA’s R&D comes from
the Science and Technology (S&T) budget account, which would total $788 million
in 2007, an increase of 8.0 percent. R&D makes up most but not all of the
S&T account. Subtracting non-R&D items such as critical infrastructure
protection, operating overhead costs, and clean air standards and certification
activities leaves an R&D portfolio of $528 million from S&T, down 7.1
percent. R&D would fall even as the overall budget increases because funding
for non-R&D activities would increase dramatically from a transfer in operating
costs from the Environmental Programs and Management (EPM) account to S&T.
ORD also receives R&D funding from the Superfund program (down $3 million
to $30 million) for hazardous wastes research, and small amounts of funding from
other EPA accounts.
Congressional
earmarks account for much of the decline in the most recent two years for EPA’s
R&D portfolio. Congressionally designated R&D projects totaled $74 million
in 2005; appropriators showed some restraint in 2006 in providing only $33 million
for earmarks, while the 2007 request continues the standard agency practice of
deleting earmarks from the budget request. But because total R&D funding would
decline $10 million more than the $74 million earmarks reduction over two years,
most core EPA R&D programs would receive slight increases
in 2006, but cuts in 2007. Clean air research would fall $6 million down to $95
million after an increase in 2006; within the portfolio, global change research
would be $17 million (down $1 million for the second year in a row). Human health
and ecosystems research, the largest part of the ORD portfolio, would fall $10
million to $238 million, with an increase in the computational toxicology program
offset by cuts in other areas such as endocrine disruptor research and human health
risk assessment. Within this portfolio, there would be a nearly one-third reduction
in funding for fellowships down to $8 million, which would discontinue support
for up to 37 fellows receiving EPA support for their studies in environmental
fields.
Homeland
security related R&D, however, would continue to be a growth area in the portfolio,
rising from $23 million to $30 million this year and up to $38 million in 2007.
Some of this effort is devoted to protecting drinking water supplies against terrorist
attack through vulnerability assessments and a laboratory network for surveillance.
This portfolio also funds EPA’s National Homeland Security Research Center (NHSRC)
to conduct R&D on a wide variety of terrorist threats that may have an impact
on the natural environment, such as radiation, drinking water contamination, and
the environmental impacts of cleanup technologies after a terrorist attack. Another
area proposed for an increase is clean water research, up $10 million to $106
million for drinking water and water quality research.
Figure 1.
(click on the image for PDF)
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. EPA’s total budget would
fall from $7.6 billion down to $7.3 billion, a reduction of 4.1 percent after
a similar cut in 2006 (see Table II-17). EPA would steeply reduce funding for
the State and Tribal Assistance Grants (STG) program by 11 percent down to $2.8
billion. Most of this money goes to state, local,
and tribal governments to fund environmental projects, primarily projects to preserve
clean drinking water, and much of the requested cut is due to the elimination
of congressional earmarks. The Environmental Programs and Management (EPM) account
that funds most of EPA’s regulatory work would also fall, by $38 million to $2.3
billion, but most of the cut is due to a transfer of funding to the S&T account
as well as the proposed elimination of earmarks, resulting in a slight increase
for like programs.
Outlook and Impacts for the EPA Budget
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.
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 through its Science
to Achieve Results (STAR) program. The remainder is performed by nonprofit institutions
and state and local governments.
Although
physical sciences research would be a high priority in the FY 2007 budget, environmental
research would share the fate of other domestic programs in tight budgetary conditions.
In inflation-adjusted dollars, EPA R&D would fall to the lowest funding
level in two decades (since 1987) if the FY 2007 budget becomes final. EPA’s
R&D support has been declining slowly for the past few years after steady
growth in the late 1990s (see Figure 1). EPA R&D fell in FY 2000, and has
eroded in inflation-adjusted dollars since then except for a one-time boost in
FY 2004 for homeland security-related R&D.
Looking
to the future, the Bush Administration’s outyear budget
projections show that in the push to reduce the budget deficit in half over the
next few years EPA will be one of the agencies slated to sacrifice. Although key
physical sciences research agencies would see their R&D budgets increase in
2008 and beyond, funding for EPA’s S&T account is projected to fall in 2008,
2009, and 2010 before rebounding slightly in 2011. After adjusting for inflation,
EPA R&D could fall a further 16 percent over the next five years. While Congress
will try its best to boost the 2007 request when it begins the FY 2007 appropriations
process in late spring, congressional add-ons may end up going to earmarked projects
rather than to boost core EPA research programs, leaving most EPA research on
a downward path with further cuts to come.
(More materials on
R&D in the FY 2007 budget, historical data and charts, and more information
on AAAS Report XXXI: Research and Development FY 2007, can be found on
the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
-
February 28, 2006
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Avenue,
NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607
AAAS R&D Web site: http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd
