The President's FY2003 Budget for Research and Development

An Analysis by the Democratic Staff of the House Science Committee

I. INTRODUCTION

The Overall FY03 Budget

The President's overall budget submission calls for $2,128 billion in outlays and $2,048 billion in receipts for a projected FY03 unified budget deficit of $80 billion. Of the $766.9 billion requested for discretionary budget authority, $111.8 billion is for research and development (R&D). The comparable outlay figures are $789.0 billion and $111.7 billion. Thus, R&D outlays as a percentage of discretionary outlays will be 14%, an increase over the 10% to 12% level that has persisted over the past 20 years.

The FY03 R&D Budget

The budget proposes to invest $111.8 billion for R&D, including facilities, in FY03, an increase of $8.574 billion (8%) above FY02. Civilian R&D would increase by $3.872 billion (8%), defense R&D by $4.702 billion (8%). Of the civilian increase, $3.745 billion is allocated for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Funding for other civilian, non-health R&D would increase by $127 million, or one-half of one percent. (See table at end of document for agency-by-agency breakdowns)

The Main Story Line in the FY03 R&D Budget:
Business-as-Usual but Watch Those Metrics!

The FY03 R&D budget request can be described in one sentence: defense increases eight percent, NIH increases 17 percent, and all other civilian R&D is collectively frozen.

In fact, there is a business-as-usual quality to the overall civilian R&D portfolio. As has been the case stretching back through last year's budget and into the Clinton years, NIH is slated to receive most if not all of the civilian R&D increases. But the sense of continuity - perhaps inertia is a better word - extends beyond this persistent trend. Even the multi-agency R&D priorities highlighted in this budget are essentially holdovers from the Clinton budgets: anti-terrorism R&D, networking and information technology R&D, nanotechnology R&D, and climate change R&D. Politically unpopular cuts in renewable energy and energy efficiency, so prominent in last year's submission, have disappeared. Even the Clean Coal R&D Program, a Bush campaign promise, is paid for by other cuts in the coal R&D portfolio. At the macro level, this is very much a steady-as-it-goes budget submission.

This is not to say, however, that storm clouds are not lurking. Much of the civilian R&D portfolio, the budget warns, will be subject to impending programmatic or management reviews, or both. So, on a large scale, NASA finds much of its science and human space flight accounts dependent upon further rumination and consideration and the dollars requested in this budget imply few commitments by the Administration to the continuation of the Space Station, Mission to Planet Earth, or the Outer Planetary Program. On a smaller scale, the Smithsonian may or may not see some of its science portfolio transferred to NSF after further study.

And a large amount of ink is spilled in the President's budget asserting that management metrics were applied in making budget allocations and promising that performance metrics, still being developed, will be used to guide decisions in the next budget cycle. The budget actually awards grades (red light, yellow light, green light) for performance across five management measures. The Department of Defense, which receives a more than 12% increase, also receives five "red lights" for its management. Obviously we cannot shortchange national defense in a time of national crisis so the disconnect between performance and dollars is explicable.

But how do we explain NIH, housed at Health and Human Services, staying on its doubling path when HHS has five red lights? Yet that management score seems to have had no impact on NIH's $3.9 billion budget increase. And how do we explain NASA's lone yellow light in a sea of red - for financial management - when its inept financial management is cited as the reason for putting the agency's flagship program - the International Space Station - on life support?

Then there is NSF. NSF received one green light and one yellow light as well as three red lights. NSF's score was better than every single Cabinet-level agency. Mitch Daniels, head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), held NSF up as a model agency at a November 28, 2001 appearance at the National Press Club. He described it as one of the "true centers of excellence in this government" for its low overhead costs and efficient use of tax dollars.[note 1] And what is the reward reaped for this status? After backing out programs transferred to NSF from USGS and NOAA, the core R&D accounts at NSF appear to have grown by approximately $53 million - or 1.5%. That increase is less than inflation.

In short, despite assertions that management scores mattered, it appears to us that the management scores had little or no effect on what happened to a particular agency's budget. We wonder whether the new and still developing performance metrics will have any greater impact. It is worth noting that in the years since the Government Performance and Results Act was implemented it has become a great tool for justifying what you would do anyway. If a program out of favor receives a bad score, it should be cut back, terminated or moved to another agency. If a program in favor receives a bad score, it is simply proof that we need to spend more to achieve our important goal. If a disfavored program was to receive good scores, it would be proof that it could get by with less, and a favored program with good performance could see more money as a "reward" for its performance.

Metrics have become a cloak behind which politics, both Presidential and Congressional, can carry on as before with a new patina of impartiality. We will track the evolution and application of the new R&D metrics with great care, and we hope that the science and educational communities become more alert to the renewed push by this Administration to take a "business-like" approach to science.

In summary, the theme for this year's budget submission is incremental change, but with many major programmatic changes lurking, changes that will be justified with as-yet sketchy and opaque management criteria.

[note 1] This quote and line are from an NSF press release of December 4, 2001.

Other Themes in the FY03 R&D Budget

Last year's staff analysis noted four major themes in the FY02 budget submission:

• The request reversed the trend toward parity (actually achieved in FY01) between defense and non-defense R&D.
• The imbalance between biomedical R&D and R&D in the physical sciences was further exacerbated.
• The budget submission stopped in its tracks a growing consensus that the NSF budget should grow at least at the same rate as the NIH budget.
• Cooperative Federal-industry R&D programs fare poorly in the budget submission.

Each of these statements is probably as true for the FY03 submission as it was last year.

First, in this year's submission, defense R&D would constitute 52 percent of total R&D, only the second budget (last year's was the first) to reverse a 15-year trend toward a greater civilian share. The combined defense/homeland security R&D budget is even higher - approximately 55 percent. In a time of changing national priorities, these trends may be appropriate. But they are worth noting and debating.

Second, the trend toward HHS dominance of the civilian R&D budget continues to grow. This is the first budget submission in which the HHS R&D request ($27.683 billion) exceeds the R&D request of all other Federal civilian R&D ($26.046 billion). HHS would dole out over 60 percent of all civilian funding for basic research in FY03. The budget submission dismissed this imbalance as follows:

"The Administration believes the focus should not be on how much we are spending, but rather on what we are getting for our investment and how well it is being managed."

This may be true, but it also remains a fact that none of the tough management criteria being applied to many civilian R&D programs seem to apply to NIH. Doubling the NIH budget was a campaign promise and a Congressional priority, so it will happen. Meanwhile the trend continues, unabated and unexamined.

Third, the five-year doubling path for NSF, started in FY01, is officially off the rails. NSF's R&D budget would grow from $3.571 billion to $3.700 billion in FY03. However, $76 million of this growth is transfer of R&D programs from other agencies, so the actual increase is $53 million, or 1.5 percent. This is a net loss for NSF, after inflation. The story with DOE's programs in the physical sciences is the same.

Finally, last year's report noted the targeting of several R&D collaborations involving academic, industry, and government as wasteful examples of corporate welfare. Some of last year's targets (Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV), cooperative renewable energy programs) are now off the radar screen, but several remain (Advanced Technology Program (ATP), Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), aviation R&D). The Administration has yet to explain why some cooperative industry programs are good and some are bad. ATP and MEP, for example, have received near-unanimous positive outside reviews for effectiveness and for management, but they apparently fail to satisfy some unstated Administration management criteria. The management mantras scattered throughout the budget request are useful only to the extent that they are transparent, and in the case of these programs they are not.

There is one nearly foolproof way to predict which cooperative programs will be "good" - that is, not engendering corporate welfare. If the program can be seen as a substitute for regulatory action on a controversial environmental issue, it is "good." This probably explains the continuing popularity, in the Administration's request, of the Clean Coal Program, the Climate Change Science and Technology Initiatives, and the Freedom Car Program. All of these research programs suggest that more research is needed (and in each case there is a 10-20 year program to produce research results) before any regulatory change or mitigative action is warranted.

II. AGENCY BUDGETS UNDER SCIENCE COMMITTEE JURISDICTION

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The FY03 budget request for NASA is $15.0 billion (a 0.66 percent increase over the FY02 appropriation). The Administration's five-year budget projects the NASA budget growing to $16.79 billion in FY07. While the budget essentially is flat-funded in FY03 relative to FY02, it is difficult to make specific comparisons to FY02, since OMB still hasn't approved NASA's proposed FY02 Operating Plan for submission to Congress.

At the same time, the budget materials released by the Administration contain enough detail to allow one to conclude that the FY03 NASA request is not so much a "status-quo" budget as a "devil-is-in-the-details" budget. That is, the budget request contains assumptions and implicit (and explicit) policy directions that are only partially explained in the budget documents. Thus, the total implications of the budget request and associated policy initiatives are not likely to become clear for some time.

For example, in the Human Space Flight account, the budget projections assume that $560 million in savings will be realized in the Space Station program in order to achieve the 3-person "Core Complete" station mandated by OMB, which raises the issue of what the impact on the program will be if those assumed savings do not materialize. In addition, the Space Shuttle account suffered a $65 million cut in FY03, even though a roughly $1 billion funding shortfall over the next five years was identified by the Shuttle program last year. The Shuttle flight rate will be cut back from 6-7 flights per year to 4-5 flights as part of OMB's plan for dealing with the funding shortfall. In addition, the Shuttle's safety and supportability upgrades program has been cut by about $500 million over the next five years. As an example of what some would call "robbing Peter to pay Paul," some $300 million of those deleted Shuttle upgrade funds have been redirected to pay for upgrading or maintenance of Shuttle infrastructure and facilities.

Although the budget request highlights a 12 percent increase in funding for Aerospace Technology, essentially all of that increase is for a single project: the 2nd Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle project. The other activities in Aerospace Technology are either flat-funded or cut. In particular, according to NASA's accounting, the budget for "Revolutionizing Aviation" is cut by almost 10 percent in the FY03 request relative to the FY02 appropriation.

The Earth Science budget is essentially stagnant or declining in real terms over the next several years. Even the parity between the FY02 and FY03 budgets is somewhat artificial given the fact that about $60 million of the FY03 funding is for support of ground network operations - funding that was previously provided in the Human Space Flight account and does not represent additional funds available for Earth Science initiatives. In addition, the budget request states that no new follow-on missions of the Earth Observing System will be initiated until a review of the U.S. Global Change Research Program has been completed - with no timetable being set for the completion of that review.

The Biological and Physical Research (BPR) Enterprise is funded at $842.3 million (a 2.3 percent increase over FY02). The five-year budget for BPR reflects the elimination of $1 billion from the Space Station research program that resulted from OMB's restructuring of the program.

The Space Science account is funded at $3.414 billion (19 percent increase over the FY02 appropriation). About $191 million of the increase is artificial, reflecting the transfer of the Deep Space Network operations from the Human Space Flight account, where it had been previously funded. Funding was added in FY03 for an initiative to develop space-based nuclear power and nuclear propulsion systems for solar system exploration. Such an initiative could generate some public controversy. In addition, OMB addressed the competition between the Pluto-Kuiper Express mission to Pluto (added by Congress to the FY02 NASA appropriation) and the Europa Orbiter mission (a mission to send a probe to one of Jupiter's moons that is believed to have a water ocean) by canceling both of them. In their place, NASA has announced its intention to initiate a "New Frontiers" program (at a level of $15 million in FY03) to develop cost-capped, competitively procured deep space missions.

Finally, the Academic Programs account was cut from the FY02 appropriation of $227.3 million to a level of $143.7 million in FY03 with flat funding projected through FY07. Presumably, NASA would propose to absorb the cut by eliminating Congressionally sponsored projects funded in the FY02 appropriation.

As was previously indicated, some of the most significant policy shifts being contemplated by the Administration are not discussed in any depth in the budget request. The Administration's intentions in these areas are still to be clarified. These include: implementation of the results of NASA's Strategic Resources Review that purportedly is addressing Center roles and missions, infrastructure consolidation/elimination, and so forth; the Shuttle privatization initiative mentioned but not explained in the budget request; NASA's proposed commercial policy; NASA's potential workforce flexibility initiative; the proposed Space Station Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), and the plans for resolving the agency's infrastructure revitalization backlog. Taken as a whole, these initiatives are likely to have more of an impact, for better or worse, on the long-term health of NASA than the specific funding levels outlined in the FY03 budget request.

National Science Foundation

Using the National Science Foundation's definitions of research as opposed to those used by OMB, the President's FY03 budget proposal for NSF is $5.029 billion, which is $233 million (4.9%) above the appropriations level of $4.796 billion in FY02. Of the increase, 32% ($76 million) comes from the transfer of existing programs to NSF from other agencies. Therefore, the actual NSF budget increase for new activities is 3.3%.

Research and Related Activities (R&RA). The FY03 funding level for R&RA is $3.783 billion, which is $185 million (5.1%) above the FY02 appropriations level. The six research directorates and the Office of Polar Programs received 2.5% to 3.5% increases, except for Geosciences (up 13.4%) and Social Sciences (up 15.9%). All but 1% of the increase for Geosciences results from transfer of three existing programs from other agencies: Environmental Education from EPA ($9 million), National Sea Grant program from NOAA ($57 million), and Hydrology of Toxic Substances from USGS ($10 million). The increase for the Social Sciences includes seed funding for a new priority area that explores the interactions among society, its institutions and technology. Other initiative areas that receive increases or are level funded include Biocomplexity in the Environment ($79 million; up 36%), Nanoscale Science and Engineering ($221 million; up 11%), Mathematical Sciences ($212 million; up 40%), and Information Technology Research ($678 million; level).

Education and Human Resources (EHR). The FY03 funding level for the base EHR programs is $908 million, which is $33 million (3.8%) above the FY02 appropriations level. The H-1B program receipts for FY03 (designated for undergraduate scholarships and K-12 science education programs) are expected to be $92.5 million, which is $2.5 million (3%) above FY02. The total for EHR is then $1.001 billion (3.7%) above current levels. The request allocates $200 million (25%) for the second year of the Math and Science Partnerships between institutions of higher education and K-12 school systems and increases support for graduate programs by $23 million (22%) to increase student stipends. These increases total $30 million above the amount of new funding, which translates into cuts for undergraduate programs (down 4.8%), programs to increase participation by underrepresented groups (down 7.4%), and the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR; down 17.6%).

Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC). The FY03 funding level for MREFC is $126.3 million, which is $12.5 million (down 9%) below the FY02 appropriations level. The request provides $35 million to start construction of EarthScope, an earthquake detection and research network, and $12 million to establish two prototype sites of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). The fourth increment ($13.6 million) is provided for construction of the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES), the second increment for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA; $30 million), the final increment for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC; $9.7 million), the final increment of the second terascale computing system ($20 million), and a supplemental allotment ($6 million) for the new South Pole Station. No follow-on funding is requested for the environmental research airplane (High-Performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research, HIAPER; $35 million appropriated for FY02), nor for the neutrino detector at South Pole, Ice Cube ($15 million appropriated for FY02), both projects being characterized as having lower priority than EarthScope, NEON and ALMA.

Department of Energy

The Department of Energy's R&D programs appear to be moving toward consolidation in several areas: smaller and reduced coal R&D; oil and natural gas technologies; more focused and increased nuclear reactor programs with reductions in optimization of existing nuclear plants; spent fuel reprocessing and transmutation; advanced nuclear medicine; and increased emphasis on the development of advanced vehicles based on hydrogen technologies.

Science. The request provides for $3.279 billion for FY03, an increase of approximately $5 million over the comparable FY02 appropriation; essentially no change. All programs except Program Direction (down 9%) and biological and environmental research (down 12%) are increased from 1 to 15 percent. The Department notes that emphasis has been given to infrastructure improvements at laboratory facilities (up 15%), not only because of the need for increased security but also because many of the facilities are aging and in poor condition. Other increases are provided to allow for additional operating hours at fusion and nuclear physics facilities.

The Biological and Environmental Research program FY02 funding of $570 million contains $69.8 million of what DOE describes as earmarked programs which are eliminated in the FY03 request for $504 million. The Genomes to Life program is increased by $15.2 million while the Human Genome Project and Climate Change Research programs are increased only slightly.

Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology. The request is for $250 million, a decrease of $43 million (down 15%) from the comparable FY02 appropriation. Nuclear Energy Technologies is increased from $12.0 to $46.5 million (up 288%), while the Nuclear Energy Plant Optimization ($6.5 million in FY02) and Advanced Nuclear medicine Initiative ($2.5 million in FY02) are not funded.

Within the Nuclear Energy Technologies program the Nuclear Power 2010 request increases from $8.0 million (FY02) to $38.5 million (FY03). This comes at the expense of the Spent Fuel Pyroprocessing and Transmutation program, which is decreased by 76% (to $18.2 million) from the FY02 comparable appropriation of $77.2 million.

Fossil Energy Research and Development. The request is $494 million, a decrease of $93.0 million (down 16%) from the comparable FY02 level of $587 million. The coal research program (which includes the President's Clean Coal Technology program) request is $325.6 million, a $12.8 million (down 3.8%) decrease from the 2002 comparable appropriation of $338.4 million. Major decreases are requested in the oil and natural gas technologies programs. For example, Natural Gas Technologies programs are decreased from the FY02 comparable appropriation of $45.2 million to $22.6 million (down 50%). Oil Technologies are cut from $56.0 million to $35.4 million (down 37%), and Cooperative R&D is cut 27% to $6.0 million.

Energy Conservation. The FY03 request is for $904 million, a decrease of $9 million (down 1%) from FY02. Weatherization grants are increased to a level of $277.1 million (up 20%), while the other programs are reduced an average of ten percent.

Renewable Energy Resources. The request is for $407.72 million, an increase of 5% over the current appropriation of $386.406 million. Among the R&D programs, the Hydrogen program is increased to $7.5 million (up 50%), Hydropower programs are increased to $7.5 million (up 50%), and Wind energy systems are increased to $44.0 million (up 14%). The Hydrogen program increases reflect the Administration's National Energy Policy emphasis on hydrogen research, including the Hydrogen Energy Development Initiative, and development of storage technologies. Renewable support and implementation programs are up by more than $10 million (up 74%) with the greatest increases in the International Renewable Energy Program (up 129%) and Renewable Indian Energy Resources (up 193%).

Department of Commerce

Technology Administration (TA). The request for $8.1 million is consistent with budget requests from past years. There are no new initiatives slated within TA and the request maintains existing activities. However, TA served as the secretariat for the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, the duties of which have been moved to DOE under the new FREEDOM car initiative. Considering that TA will no longer play a role in this program, the budget request will result in an increase to staff the secretariat.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). NIST funding is increased by $59 million (18%) to a level of $385 million. However, this increase is misleading. A portion of this funding arises from an accounting shift of approximately $15 million of laboratory funding previously accounted for in the ATP budget. The FY03 budget request simply shifts the ATP funding to the lab request. This ATP funding shift will be used to fund new initiatives in nanotechnology and healthcare. A significant portion of the increase ($35 million) is a one-time cost for purchasing new equipment for the Advanced Metrology Lab in Gaithersburg. Take away these accounting shifts and one-time costs, and NIST's budget increase in FY03 is $9 million (2.8%).

The FY03 request of $146 million for ATP is a 21% decrease from last year's appropriation of $185 million. Like last year's request, the FY03 request is not realistic but relies upon a number of improbable assumptions. The FY03 request is based on the assumption that only half of the FY02 funds available for new awards will be used and that approximately $30 million will be available for carry-over in FY03. If ATP makes the anticipated $60.7 million in new awards this year, the FY03 request will have a shortfall of approximately $50 million.

The Administration proposes to eliminate federal funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program. Congress has strongly supported this program in the past and it is unlikely the program will be eliminated. This seems to be similar to the budget savings the Administration sought last year when it recommended eliminating the ATP. The Administration seems to implicitly be counting on Congress to maintain the MEP, as $12.9 million of the request in NIST is required for MEP activities in the program office in Gaithersburg. The MEP is a federal/state/private partnership. By law, the federal contribution is limited to 1/3 with the other 2/3 funding made up from state contributions and fee-for-service work. Without federal funding it's difficult to justify the need for federal programmatic coordination. The Administration's proposal could cause states to eliminate their funding as well. If both state and federal contributions are eliminated there will be no MEP. This request sends the wrong signal to both state governments and small business.

The FY02 NIST construction appropriation included $41.5 million in earmarks leaving only $20.9 million for non-directed construction and maintenance activities. The FY03 request maintains level funding for maintenance activities, but also includes $15 million for the completion of the Advanced Metrology Lab in Gaithersburg and $17.3 million for phase I of the central utility plant in Boulder.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

The overall budget request for NOAA is $3.2 billion, a decrease of $48 million (down 1%). The Oceans and Atmospheric Research (OAR) account is funded at $301 million (down 21%) and the National Ocean Service is funded at $404 million (down 20%). The National Weather Service budget increases by $30 million (up 4%) over last year's level to $801 million.

Most of the decrease in funding for OAR is due to moving the Sea Grant College Program to the National Science Foundation budget. After accounting for the Sea Grant transfer, the Ocean, Coastal, and Great Lakes research program is cut by $21 million (down 28%) to a level of $54.2 million. The entire $21 million cut comes from the Other Partnership Programs which is funded at $5 million.

The NESDIS budget increases $57 million (up 9%) to a level of $758 million.

Environmental Protection Agency

The Administration request for Science and Technology programs at EPA is $685 million (down 17%) below the current estimate for FY 2002 and $24 million below the FY2000 actual amount. Even if the supplemental appropriation EPA received in Public Law 107-38 is excluded from the estimated 2002 level of funding, the FY2003 represents a 4% cut in funding for S&T programs at the Agency.

Although the Administration's request indicates an intention to allocate $75 million to continue a research program on technologies and procedures to cope with biological and chemical contamination resulting from terrorist activities, no additional resources have been added to EPA's budget to fund this new program.

Department of Transportation

The President's FY03 budget request for the FAA RE&D activity is $127 million, which is $118 million (down 48%) below the FY02 appropriations level. The decrease primarily reflects the transfer of aircraft safety R&D activities to the Transportation Safety Administration (activities funded at $94.5 million in the RE&D account for FY02). The change is not expected to impact the Science Committee's jurisdiction over safety R&D at TSA. The remaining programs within RE&D are funded at levels close to FY02, except for noise research (which drops from $16 million to $1.2 million), information system security (drops from $2.6 million to zero), and support for the Hughes Tech Center (drops from $12.2 million to $6.4 million). It appears that some of the funding for these activities has been transferred to the Facilities and Equipment account, continuing a trend of siphoning funds from RE&D.

Federal Emergency Management Agency

The President's FY03 budget request for the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) is $40.6 million, which is $9.7 million (down 19.3%) below the FY02 appropriations level. This reduction reflects the end of a one-time fire safety initiative ($5 million) to increase awareness of fire hazards by high-risk populations, and the transfer of the anti-terrorism grant program ($5 million) to the new National Preparedness for First Responder program. Consequently, funding for the remaining USFA programs is frozen. The request is $9.4 million below the current authorization level, which includes $8 million for the anti-terrorism grant program.

Also, the budget request proposes to transfer the Fire Grants Program ($150 million FY02 appropriation, plus $210 million from the FY02 emergency supplemental appropriation), which was administered for its first two years by USFA, to the new National Preparedness for First Responder program.

III. AGENCY BUDGETS OUTSIDE THE SCIENCE COMMITTEE'S JURISDICTION

Department of Defense

The tragic events of September 11 necessitate an increased focus on the military and homeland security. The President's request reflects this increased emphasis by increasing federal spending on research and development at DoD by $5.373 billion to a total of $54.5 billion (up 11%). This accounts for 63% of the increase in federal R&D. All but $3 million of this increase is for increased development activities at DoD meaning research (basic and applied) are flat funded. The development of a Joint Strike Fighter accounts for nearly $2.0 billion of this increase.

In aggregate terms, the Administration is requesting a total of approximately $58 billion (8% increase) for defense-related R&D, $54.5 billion in the Department of Defense and approximately $3.5 billion to support the defense research activities within the Department of Energy.

Health and Human Services

The budget request for R&D at the Department of HHS is up $3.745 billion (up 13%), to $27.683 billion. NIH is increased by $3.902 billion, meaning the rest of HHS received a nominal cut of $157 million. Of special note is the $176 million cut to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), which lowers the request to $3.9 billion. The request assumes $57 million less spending on chronic disease prevention and health promotion, $29 million less for occupational safety and health, and $31 million less for public health improvement.

Department of the Interior

Total budget authority requested for the Department of Interior, including trust funds, is $10.3 billion - a mere $12 million below the current level. Funding for the U.S. Geological Survey is $867.3 million, a decrease of $33 million (down 4%) when the assumed transfer of the $13.9 million Substances Hydrology Program to NSF is included.

Department of Agriculture

Due to the Administration's announced effort to end all Congressional earmarks, the USDA R&D budget request was cut by $233 million (down 10%) to $2.1 billion.

IV. INTER-AGENCY INITIATIVES

Global Change

The FY03 research budget for the U.S. Global Change Research Program is $1.714 billion, an increase of $44 million (up 3%). This account includes climate R&D funding from nine Federal agencies. In addition, the President is funding two initiatives at $40 million each, the National Climate Change Technology Initiative at DoE and the Climate Change Research Initiative at five agencies. It is unclear whether these new initiatives, which build on the President's announcement in June of 2001, are new programs or continuations of prior programs.

Networking and Information Technology R&D

The Networking and Information Technology R&D initiative of seven different agencies is funded at $1.890 billion, an increase of $46 million (up 2%).

The National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP)

NEHRP is a multi-agency program funded by FEMA, NSF, USGS, and NIST. FEMA is the lead agency charged with coordinating the program.

The President's FY03 budget request for NEHRP is $117.9 million, which is $10.6 million below (down 8.2%) the FY02 appropriations level. The main reason for this decrease is the $10.8 million drop in the next to last funding increment for construction by NSF of the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation. The agency components of NEHRP are otherwise flat funded: FEMA, $17 million; USGS, $51.1 million; NSF, $47.4 million; and NIST, $2.5 million.

V. SUMMARY TABLE

The following table is a portion of Table 8-2 ("Federal Research and Development Spending") in the Analytical Perspectives volume of the President's budget submission. It compares Federal agency R&D funding in FY2001, FY02 and FY03. Dollar amounts are in millions.