(This analysis is a preview of the
Interior section in the forthcoming AAAS Report XXXI: Research and Development
FY 2007, a comprehensive look at the President's budget for R&D in FY
2007. This analysis contains revised AAAS estimates of Interior 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 2007 budget can be found on
the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
Highlights
-
R&D in Interior’s lead science agency, the U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS), would fall $27 million or 4.7 percent in the FY 2007
budget (see Table II-16). As in previous requests,
the cuts would be concentrated in USGS’ mineral resources and water resources
R&D.
- R&D
in the Department of the Interior would fall 6.2 percent to $595 million, keeping
agency funding on a downward trend for the entire decade.
USGS R&D in the FY 2007 Budget
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. R&D to support Interior’s land management responsibilities
would total $595 million in the FY 2007 budget, a cut of $40 million or 6.2 percent
from 2006, mirroring proposed cuts in other environmental R&D agencies (see
Table II-16).
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. Because
of these characteristics, USGS is left well out of the spotlight that shines on
basic research in the physical sciences in the Bush Administration’s American
Competitiveness Initiative. While the ACI and FY 2007 budget propose substantial
increases for key physical sciences research programs, the Bush Administration
proposes $950 million for the total USGS budget, a cut of $20 million from 2006
(see Table II-16).
USGS
R&D would make up most of the Interior portfolio, totaling $532 million in
the FY 2007 request for a cut of $27 million or 4.7 percent (see Table II-16).
Just over half of the USGS budget is devoted to R&D activities, with the remainder
going for science support, data gathering and dissemination, facilities operations,
mapping, and natural hazards reduction. R&D funding would decline in three
of the four USGS research divisions, with only the National Mapping Division
proposed to increase.
The
Geologic and Mineral Resources Division would see its R&D funding cut $18
million or 8.6 percent down to $194 million, but as in past years this proposal
is unlikely to make it through Congress. USGS proposes 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 in past years, Congress has disagreed strongly
with USGS’ rationale that minerals research could be funded by the private sector,
and has repeatedly reaffirmed the federal role in minerals research with restored
funding. The Division’s slightly smaller program in energy resources would increase
to $26 million in order to perform oil shale assessments and gas hydrate research
mandated by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. There would also be modest increases
for the earthquakes hazards research portfolio. In another earth sciences-related
division, Mapping and Geography R&D would increase $6 million to $46 million,
primarily for R&D related to the Landsat 8 satellite scheduled for launch in 2010.
Water
resources R&D would fall $11 million or 8.9 percent to $115 million, but Congress
is likely to reject these cuts as it has for past proposed cuts. USGS puts forward
its perennial proposal to eliminate federal funding for the water resources research
institutes for a savings of $6 million in 2007, but Congress has rejected similar
proposals in past years and has preserved the federal role in these cooperatively
funded institutes. The Cooperative Water Program would decline slightly to $62
million. 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. Funding for the Toxic
Substances Hydrology Program would fall to $13 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; 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 remaining water portfolio would mostly stay flat, although some funding would
be shifted from R&D activities to the mostly non-R&D streamgage
network.
USGS biological
research programs would fall $6 million to $173 million because of the proposed
elimination of 2006 earmarks. Within the remaining portfolio, there would be flat
funding for most areas. In 2006, emergency funding of $3.7 million was provided
for USGS to initiate an avian flu research program; the program would continue
in 2007 with $3.2 million in funding, a slight reduction because the 2006 funds
include one-time purchases of equipment.
Other Interior Agencies
Although
USGS is the primary science agency in Interior, four other Interior bureaus also
fund R&D (see Table II-16). 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 and other park-related projects in the National Park Service. R&D
in all these bureaus would fall in the FY 2007 request, primarily from the proposed
elimination of 2006 congressional earmarks.
Impacts of the FY 2007 Interior Budget
Although
physical sciences research would be a high priority in the FY 2007 budget, environmental
research funding would decline along with other domestic programs. The FY 2007 cut to Interior R&D would mark the sixth year out of the
last seven that Interior R&D funding has lost ground to inflation (see
Figure 1), and would leave the department more than 25 percent below the funding
levels at the beginning of this decade. 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 steady 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 Biological Research Division. 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)
Looking
to the future, the Bush Administration’s outyear budget
projections show that in the push to reduce the budget deficit in half over the
next few years, USGS will be one of the agencies to sacrifice. Although key physical
sciences research agencies would see their R&D budgets increase in 2008 and
beyond, the USGS budget is projected to fall in 2008, 2009, and 2010 before rebounding
slightly in 2011. After adjusting for inflation, USGS R&D would fall 16.5
percent over the next five years. While Congress will try its best to boost the
2007 request when it begins the FY 2007 appropriations process in late spring,
congressional add-ons may end up going to earmarked projects rather than to boost
core USGS research programs, leaving most USGS programs on a downward path with
further cuts to come.
(More materials on R&D in the FY 2007
budget, historical data and charts, and more information on AAAS Report XXXI:
Research and Development FY 2007, can be found on the AAAS R&D Web site
at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
-
March 2, 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
