Highlights
- In FY 2006, Interior R&D
totals $629 million, a gain of 2.2 percent over 2005 (see Table).
- Congress reversed proposed cuts to R&D in the U.S. Geological Survey
(USGS) and instead agreed on an increase of $11 million or 2.1 percent
to $553 million, after reversing
steep proposed cuts to the USGS mineral resources R&D program.
- R&D funding
for Interior remains on a downward trend for the sixth year in a row.
USGS R&D in FY 2006 Final Appropriations
On August 2,
President Bush signed the FY 2006 Interior and Environment appropriations
bill into law, the first of the FY 2006 appropriations bills to be enacted.
The bill funds most of the Department of the Interior as well as the
Smithsonian Institution, the Forest Service, and for the first time
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Tight budget limits gave
negotiators fits as they struggled to wrap up the bill, and in the end
they inserted an across-the-board cut of 0.48 percent for all programs
to bring the bill’s spending total down. But in December, appropriators
attached a 1 percent across-the-board cut for all discretionary programs
to the final Defense bill, further reducing Interior funding totals.
But at the same time, Congress also added billions of dollars in emergency
funding for avian flu preparedness in the Defense bill, some of which
goes to Interior. All told, Interior R&D totals $629 million
in FY 2006, an increase of $14 million
or 2.2 percent above FY 2005 that stands in sharp contrast to a cut
of 6 percent contained in the President’s request (see Table).
(All figures in this analysis reflect the two across-the-board cuts
and emergency appropriations.)
The Department
of the Interior manages most of the publicly owned lands in the United
States, from the national park system
to Indian lands to publicly owned mines. 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.
In the FY 2006
budget request released in February, the Bush Administration requested
$934 million for the USGS total budget in FY 2006, $2 million or 0.2
percent less than last year (see Table). The final Interior bill
compromises between earlier House and Senate proposals at a level of
$971 million, 3.6 percent or $34 million more than last year’s funding
level and a similar amount over the request, after adjusting for
the across-the-board cuts.
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. The
final Interior bill provides $553 million for USGS R&D in FY 2006,
an increase of 2.1 percent or $11 million that stays just ahead of the
2.0 percent expected inflation rate (see Table),
in contrast to a proposed cut of 4.8 percent in the request. The final total is slightly above earlier House
and Senate plans. The budget requested particularly steep cuts
in the USGS Geology Division, but the final Interior bill provides increases
for all four USGS divisions. (For
details of the President’s request for Interior R&D, please see
Chapter 13 of AAAS
Report XXX: R&D FY 2006 or the March 2 Interior
R&D Funding Update.)
Congress reverses sharp proposed cuts to R&D in the
Geologic Hazards, Resources, and Processes Division and provides a modest
0.5 percent increase to $207 million instead of a proposed 13 percent
cut. In February, USGS proposed to cut the $54 million mineral resources
R&D program in half to $25 million in FY 2006, in a repeat of similar
requests in past years. But just as it has in the past two years, Congress
disagrees strongly with the proposal and adds back $30 million in funding
in the final Interior bill. Report language accompanying the bill disagrees
strongly with USGS’ rationale that minerals research could be funded
by the private sector, and reaffirms the federal role in minerals research.
In another earth
sciences-related division, Mapping and Geography R&D increases 11
percent or $4 million to $40 million, but the increase only restores
funding to the 2004 level after a cut in 2005. The ups and downs in
this division are in the land remote sensing programs, which operate
satellites but also fund R&D on data retrieval, archiving, processing,
and imaging.
In water resources R&D, Congress keeps funding flat at $128 million,
in contrast to a requested cut. Again, Congress rejects a perennial USGS proposal to eliminate the water
resources research institutes program and instead provides $6.5 million,
slightly above this year’s funding level. Other water programs are mostly
funded at this year’s levels. Funding for the Toxic Substances Hydrology Program stays at $14.6 million; 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. There is a slight increase for the National Water Quality Assessment Program
(NAWQA) to $63 million to bring it back to last year’s funding level.
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. Similarly, R&D in the Cooperative Water Program stays at last year’s funding level of $64
million after a cut in the 2005 budget. This program supports the collection
of basic hydrologic data, studies of specific water-resources problems,
and hydrologic research through USGS partnerships with state governments
and other entities.
USGS biological research
programs increase by $7 million to $179 million because of the addition
of congressionally earmarked projects and also from an infusion of $4
million in emergency funds for research on pandemic avian flu.
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. Congress goes along with the President’s request for these
programs, including $6 million in BLM for a fire science program, but
also adds $11 million to the Bureau of Reclamation budget for Salton
Sea research in California.
Impacts of the FY 2006 Interior Budget
The modest FY 2006 increase to Interior R&D marks the sixth year in
a row that Interior R&D funding has just kept pace or lost ground
to inflation (see Figure 1), and leaves the department nearly 25
percent below the funding levels of a decade ago. Interior R&D has
declined sharply since FY 1994, primarily because of the elimination
of the Bureau of Mines in FY 1996 and the merging of the former National
Biological Service into USGS in the mid-1990s. After a large increase
in FY 2000, Interior R&D has been mostly flat since then, resulting
in losses after adjusting for inflation.
Interior support for research has
followed trends in Interior R&D, because nearly all of Interior’s
R&D portfolio is research with only a small amount for development. A third
of Interior’s research goes to the life sciences, primarily from the BRD. Life
sciences research increased with the creation of the National Biological
Service in the early 1990s, but budget cuts in subsequent years have eroded
support. Two-thirds of Interior research goes to the environmental sciences,
primarily in earth-related fields such as geology. Interior support for
environmental sciences research has declined steadily as the USGS budget has
lost purchasing power. Interior used to be a significant supporter of
engineering research, but this support was almost entirely eliminated with the
closure of the Bureau of Mines.
Figure 1. (click on the image for PDF)
-
December 28, 2005
(This analysis is one of a series of AAAS R&D Funding
Updates on FY 2006 congressional appropriations. The complete series
of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including continually updated analyses
of R&D in FY 2006 appropriations, is available on the AAAS
R&D Web Site (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd) in the "FY
2006 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
AAAS R&D
Web site: www.aaas.org/spp/rd
