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Go to: -Table.
Dept. of the Interior R&D in FY 2007 House Appropriations PDF
version of this document Main
R&D in the FY 2007 Budget Page
Supplemental
Materials: "2007 Budget Proposes
USGS R&D Cuts," AAAS R&D Funding Update on R&D in the FY
2007 Interior Budget AAAS Analysis
of R&D in the FY 2007 Budget -
| Highlights -
The House has taken initial action to reverse requested cuts to R&D in the
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Instead of a 5 percent requested cut, the House
would provide a 1.7 percent increase for USGS R&D in 2007 to $568 million
(see Table). The sharpest reversal would be in the
mineral resources R&D program, which Interior once again proposed to cut but
the House would save. -
The total Department of the Interior R&D portfolio would be $631 million in
the House plan, a slight fall of 0.6 percent down to $631 million. -
In inflation-adjusted terms, R&D funding for Interior would remain on a downward
trend for the seventh year in a row. USGS R&D in FY 2007 House Appropriations On
May 10, the House Appropriations Committee approved its version of the fiscal
year (FY) 2007 Interior and Environment appropriations bill (HR 5386) for expected
debate and approval by the full House this week. The bill funds most of the Department
of the Interior as well as the Smithsonian Institution, the Forest Service, and
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Interior
R&D would total $631 million in
FY 2007 in the House plan, a cut of $4 million or 0.6 percent that reflects
tough budgetary times for domestic programs, although
the House appropriation would be an improvement over a 6 percent cut in the President’s
request (see Table). (For details of the President’s
request for Interior R&D, please see Chapter 13
of AAAS Report XXXI:
R&D FY 2007 or the March
2 Interior R&D Funding Update.) 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 2007 budget request released in February, the Bush Administration requested
$945 million for the USGS total budget, 2 percent less than in 2006 (see
Table). But the House would add $47 million to turn a requested cut into a 2.1
percent increase for a total budget of $991 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. The House Interior bill would allocate $568
million for USGS R&D in FY 2007, an increase of 1.7 percent or $9 million
that contrasts with a 5 percent requested cut (see Table).
Once again, as in previous years, Congress is on track to reverse sharp proposed cuts to R&D in the
Geologic Hazards, Resources, and Processes Division. The 2.9 percent increase
to $218 million for geologic resources R&D contrasts with a proposed 9 percent
cut. In February, USGS proposed to cut the $53 million mineral resources R&D
program in half to just $31 million, just as it has in the last several requests.
But just as it has in the past three years, the House disagrees strongly with
the proposed cuts and keeps the program funded near its current year level. 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. Within this division, the House would go along with a proposed
increase to energy resources R&D to $26 million in order to perform oil shale
assessments and gas hydrate research mandated by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. In water resources R&D, the House would add funding to ease requested
cuts. Again, the House would reject a perennial USGS
proposal to eliminate the water resources research institutes program and instead
provides $6.5 million, the same as this year’s funding level. Other water programs
would stay close to this year’s levels, for a total water
R&D investment of $123 million (down $4 million from 2006, but $8 million
more than requested). USGS biological research programs would fall $3 million
to $176 million. 
Figure
1. (click on the image for PDF) 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. The House would stick to the request for R&D in these
programs. Impacts of the FY 2007 Interior Budget The slight cut to Interior R&D in the House plan, if it prevails,
would mark the seventh year in a row that Interior R&D funding has just kept
pace or lost ground to inflation (see Figure 1), and would leave the department
25 percent below the funding levels of a decade ago. Interior R&D has declined
sharply since FY 1994. 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 (see Figure
2), primarily from Biological Research program. 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
2. (click on the image for PDF) Outlook
and Next Steps The
full House will debate the Interior/Environment bill this week, and will most
likely approve it by a large margin. The Senate version of the bill, however,
may not be drafted until July or later. (This analysis is one of a series
of AAAS R&D Funding Updates on FY 2007 congressional appropriations. The complete
series of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including continually updated analyses
of R&D in FY 2007 appropriations, is available on the AAAS
R&D Web Site (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd)
in the “FY 2007 R&D” or the “What’s
New” sections.)-
May 17, 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
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