Highlights
- The Senate
Appropriations Committee would keep R&D in the Department of the
Interior at this year’s funding level in FY 2006 with a minute 0.2 percent
increase to $616 million, roughly in line with the House’s proposal (see Table).
- Both the House
and the Senate would reverse proposed cuts to R&D in
the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The Senate would
provide an increase of $9 million or 1.7 percent to $550 million.
Both the House and Senate would reverse proposed cuts to the USGS mineral
resources R&D program.
USGS R&D in FY 2006 Senate Appropriations
On June 9, the
Senate Appropriations Committee kicked off its FY 2006 appropriations
process by debating and approving its version of the FY 2006 Interior
and Environment appropriations bill (HR 2361), the first of 12 appropriations
bills. 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).
On May 19, the full House of Representatives approved its own version
of the bill. The Senate Interior/Environment bill would provide $616
million for Interior R&D in FY 2006, barely an increase of $1 million
above FY 2005 after a similarly flat House appropriation; both would
stand in sharp contrast to a cut of 6 percent contained in Interior’s
February budget request (see Table).
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.
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 this year (see Table).
The House would appropriate $975 million for USGS in FY 2006,
4.1 percent or $38 million more than this year and a similar amount
over the request. Now the Senate has followed with a $963 million appropriation.
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. Both the House
and the Senate would provide a modest boost for USGS R&D in FY 2006,
in the Senate a small increase of 1.7 percent to $550 million (see Table),
in contrast to a proposed cut of 4.8 percent in the request. The
budget requested particularly steep cuts in the USGS Geology Division,
but the Senate would provide each of the four USGS divisions with an
increase. The House appropriation would be similar. (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.
For details of House appropriations for Interior, see the May
12 AAAS R&D Funding Update.)
R&D in the Geologic Hazards, Resources, and Processes
Division would increase $2 million or 1.1 percent to $208 million in
the Senate plan, in a sharp turnaround from a requested cut of 13 percent.
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 they have in the past two years, the House and
Senate disagree strongly with the proposal and would add back almost
$30 million in funding. Both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees
disagree strongly with USGS’ rationale that minerals research could
be funded by the private sector, and reaffirm the federal role in minerals
research.
In another earth
sciences-related division, Mapping and Geography R&D would increase
$3 million to $39 million in the Senate plan, but this would only restore
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, both the House and the Senate would keep funding
flat, in the Senate at $128 million, in contrast to a requested cut.
Both chambers reject the USGS proposal to eliminate
the water resources research institutes program and would instead provide
$6.5 million, slightly above this year’s funding level. Other water
programs would be funded at or slightly below this year’s levels. Funding
for the Toxic Substances Hydrology
Program would rise slightly in the Senate bill to $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 would be a slight increase
for the National Water Quality Assessment Program
(NAWQA) to $63 million in both the House and the Senate 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 would stay even at last year’s funding level of $64
million in the House and Senate bills after a cut in the 2005 budget.
Both the House
and the Senate would provide a small boost to USGS biological research
programs, to $174 million in the Senate (up 1.3 percent).
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 chambers would go along with the President’s request for
these R&D programs.
The Interior/Environment
bill now goes to the full Senate for expected approval. After that,
a conference committee will negotiate a final Interior/Environment bill.
Because House and Senate proposals for USGS are so similar, USGS is
almost certain to receive a modest increase in the final Interior appropriation.
-
June 17, 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
