(This analysis is a preview of the
EPA section in the forthcoming AAAS Report XXXII: Research and Development
FY 2008, a comprehensive look at the President's budget for R&D in FY
2008. 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 2008 budget can be found on
the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
Highlights
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The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA)
R&D portfolio of $540 million in 2008 would be a 3.1 percent cut from the
final 2007 funding level (see Table II-17), with cuts
to most research areas.
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EPA’s R&D funding would fall to the lowest level in more than two decades
(since 1985) in real terms.
EPA R&D in the FY 2008 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.
The FY 2008 request would cut EPA’s R&D funding by $17 million or 3.1 percent
to $540 million from the recently finalized 2007 funding level (see Table
II-17). In most years, cuts in EPA R&D would be primarily due to the proposed
elimination of congressional earmarks, but because the 2007 EPA budget is earmark-free
the 2008 cuts would be cuts to core EPA research programs. Nearly all EPA research
areas would decline, and even the few increases would only partially recover ground
lost from cuts in previous years.
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 $755 million
in 2008, down slightly from the final 2007 funding level. 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 $512 million from S&T,
down 3.0 percent (see Table II-17). ORD also receives
R&D funding from the Superfund program (down $2 million to $26 million) for
hazardous wastes research, and small amounts of funding from other EPA accounts.
Because of congressional delays in wrapping up 2007 appropriations EPA only received
its final 2007 budget on February 15, 4 ˝ months into the fiscal year. Most EPA
accounts were held flat at 2006 funding levels, but without detailed guidance
on how EPA should spend the money. (All figures in this analysis reflect AAAS estimates of final
2007 appropriations as signed into law on February 15, based on an assumption
that EPA will mostly follow its 2007 request in distributing its funding.)
Funding
for nearly all EPA research areas would decline in the 2008 budget (see Table
II-17). Clean air research would increase slightly to $98 million, but would remain
below the $101 million 2006 funding level. EPA’s contribution to global change
research would continue to slide, down to $17 million. The clean air portfolio
tries to understand the composition and effects of air pollution and to develop
technologies for reducing it, and also funds research on related topics such as
the health effects of fine particles in the atmosphere. Human health and ecosystems
research, the largest part of the ORD portfolio, would fall $11 million to $218
million, with an increase in the computational toxicology program offset by cuts
in other areas. Within this portfolio, fellowships funding would remain at $8
million, down by half from $16 million last year.
Homeland
security related R&D, a growth area in previous years, would fall from $38
million this year down to $34 million. 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.
Figure
1. (click
on the image for PDF)
Outlook and Impacts for the EPA Budget
Environmental
research in general and EPA R&D in particular would fall steeply in the 2008
budget within a tight overall domestic budget. In inflation-adjusted dollars,
EPA R&D would fall to the lowest funding level in more than two decades
(since 1985) if the FY 2008 budget becomes final. EPA’s R&D support has
been declining steadily 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.
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 life sciences
(primarily biology and environmental biology) and the environmental sciences dominate
the EPA research portfolio (see Figure 2), with significant support for 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 just 1 percent.
More
than two thirds of EPA’s R&D is performed in the agency’s own laboratories,
while about 10 percent is performed by industrial firms. Almost 15 percent of
EPA’s R&D is performed by colleges and universities. The remainder is performed
by nonprofit institutions and state and local governments.
Figure 2. (click on the image for
PDF)
While
Congress will try its best to boost the 2008 request when it begins the FY 2008
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 2008 budget, historical data
and charts, and more information on AAAS Report XXXII: Research and Development
FY 2008, can be found on the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
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March 2, 2007
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
