Highlights
- The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) would see virtually no change in its R&D
budget for FY 2005 in both Senate and House budget plans. The Senate
recently proposed $547 million for USGS R&D in FY 2005, unchanged
from last year and just $1 million less than a House plan in June (see
Table). Although FY 2005 started on October
1, the FY 2005 Interior budget is still weeks away from being finalized.
- In keeping USGS funding flat, both the House and the Senate would reverse
many of the Bush Administration’s proposed cuts to geology and water
research programs; all four USGS divisions would see their R&D funding
essentially unchanged from FY 2004.
- Total Interior R&D would fall
slightly to $670 million in the Senate plan and $672 million in the
House.
Senate FY 2005 Appropriations for USGS R&D
On September 14, the Senate
Appropriations Committee drafted its version of the FY 2005 Interior
appropriations bill (S 2804), lagging months behind the House version
of the bill (HR 4568). The bill funds most of the Department of the
Interior as well as the Smithsonian Institution and parts of the Departments
of Energy and Agriculture. With time running out on the congressional
session and with FY 2005 already underway, the Senate bill may never
make it to the Senate floor but will most likely be rolled into a year-end
omnibus appropriations bill. The Senate
Interior bill would provide $670 million for Interior R&D in FY
2005, a cut of $5 million or 0.7 percent below FY 2004 that would
be nearly identical to the House plan. Although the President’s FY 2005
request would have cut R&D in Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey
(USGS) by 4.0 percent, both the House and Senate bills would restore
funding to the proposed cuts and, in the Senate case, keep USGS R&D
even with FY 2004 (see Table).
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is the primary sponsor of R&D in
Interior. USGS is one of the leading federal sponsors of earth sciences
research, along with the Department of Energy, the National Science
Foundation, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Within
the earth sciences, USGS is particularly important in geological hazards
research, including research on earthquakes and volcanoes. USGS is also
a leading sponsor of water resources research and biological research.
Nearly 90 percent of this research is conducted within Interior labs
to address the science needs of Interior’s other agencies, such as the
Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The Senate
would give $939 million to USGS for its total budget in FY 2005, $20
million more than the request and $2 million more than FY 2004 (see
Table). The House bill in June approved
$5 million more than the Senate level for a total of $944 million.
R&D accounts for nearly
two-thirds of the USGS budget, with the remainder going to non-R&D
activities such as environmental data collection, mapping, and natural
hazards reduction. In a repeat of previous years, the Bush Administration
requested a cut of 4.0 percent for USGS R&D, but both the House
and Senate would reject these proposed cuts and allocate $547 million
in the Senate and $548 million in the House, exactly even with FY 2004
in the Senate case. (For details of FY 2005 House appropriations for
Interior R&D, see the June 17 AAAS R&D
Funding Update. For details of the President's request for Interior
R&D, please see Chapter 13 of AAAS
Report XXIX: R&D FY 2005). The
request proposed to cut funding for R&D in three USGS divisions
(Geology, Water Resources, and Biological Research) and keep funding
flat in the remaining division (Mapping). Both the House and the Senate
would provide enough funding to bring all four divisions’ R&D programs
approximately to their current-year funding levels.
Funding for nearly every USGS R&D
program would stay flat or decline in FY 2005 under the congressional
plans, even after the reversal of proposed cuts. In the Water Resources
Division, funding for the Toxic
Substances Hydrology Program would stay even at $15 million in the
Senate plan, an improvement over a requested cut. The program is a collaborative
effort of USGS scientists, university and private-sector researchers,
and state, local, and other federal agency scientists to conduct long-term
research on water resource contamination in surface and groundwater
environments. Both the House and the Senate would reject the Administration’s
proposal to eliminate the water resources research institutes program,
but the $6.5 million FY 2005 funding level in both bills would be just
barely above this year’s level. The Senate appropriation of $16 million
for the hydrologic research and development program would be more than
the request, but below $17 million for this year. Both the Senate and
the House would keep the National Water Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA) at $63 million,
level with FY 2004 funding. NAWQA is charged with monitoring the nation’s
water quality, and its data are used by the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and many state regulatory agencies.
The Biological Resource Division (BRD) would receive $177 million in
FY 2005, a slight gain of $2 million in both the House and Senate plans.
R&D in the Geologic
Hazards, Resources, and Processes Division would decline slightly to
$208 million, an improvement from a proposed $10 million cut falling
disproportionately on the mineral resources R&D program. The House
and the Senate would restore funding for mineral resources R&D.
Funding for R&D on earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, geologic
mapping, geology, and earth surface dynamics would stay flat or decline
slightly. Mapping and Geography R&D would stay at $33 million.
Other Interior Agencies
Although USGS
is the primary science agency in Interior, four other Interior bureaus
also fund R&D (see Table). These include
funds for minerals and mining research in the Minerals and Management
Service (MMS), wildfire prevention research in the Bureau of Land Management
(BLM), water resources research in the Bureau of Reclamation, and R&D
for the Florida Everglades restoration project in the National Park
Service. Both the House and the Senate would go along with the President’s
request for these R&D programs.
Next Steps
The House approved
its Interior bill in June, but the Senate version faces a more difficult
path. 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 will run out of time to debate and approve the
Interior bill as a stand-alone bill. Thus, Interior programs will operate
through at least November 20 at FY 2004 levels under a continuing resolution
(CR; temporary appropriations bill) approved by Congress this week.
After the November elections, Congress will try to finish up appropriations;
the most likely scenario is that the Interior bill will be rolled into
an omnibus appropriations bill along with the other unfinished appropriations
bills in a post-election lame duck session. With the House and Senate
Interior appropriations so similar, USGS R&D is almost certain to
receive the flat funding outlined in both bills, but the big question
remaining is when that allocation will become a final FY 2005 budget.
- October 1, 2004
(This analysis is one of a series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates
on FY 2005 congressional appropriations. 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.)
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607; -6600
www.aaas.org/spp/rd
