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SSTI Digest
Department of Energy
The Department of Energy (DOE) budget request for FY 2008 totals $24.3 billion, a 3 percent increase above the FY07 request. Key priorities in the budget are tied to President Bush’s Advanced Energy Initiative, Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, and American Competitiveness Initiative. The initiatives would affect most directly the department’s four energy offices, which together would receive a 20 percent boost in funding under the proposed budget and the Office of Science, which would receive a 7 percent increase. The Office of Fossil Energy and the Office of Nuclear Energy are expecting the biggest gains, at 33 percent and 38 percent, respectively.
Department of Health and Human Services
The lion’s share of the $697.3 billion FY 2008 budget request for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is allocated towards Medicare (55.4 percent) and Medicaid (29.0 percent) spending. Discretionary programs, such as the Food and Drug Administration, Centers of Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), represent only 9.9 percent of the total HHS budget.
Department of Homeland Security
The Administration’s FY 2008 budget request for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) totals $46.4 billion in funding, an increase of 8 percent over the FY 2007 request. The key priority of this year’s request is a $13 billion initiative for border security and immigration enforcement.
The FY08 request provides $799 million for the Science and Technology Directorate, which oversees the department’s research, development, testing and evaluation activities. Last year, the directorate saw its funding request drop by 33 percent, as the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office spun off as a separate DHS office. Even after the reorganization, the FY08 budget cuts an additional $200 million from the directorate’s FY07 request of $1.002 billion.
Department of Housing and Urban Development
The Administration's FY 2008 budget request for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is $36.15 billion (31 percent decrease from the FY06 appropriation level – mostly due to a FY06 supplemental one-time funding for disaster relief). The department’s major priority for FY08 will be increasing home ownership.
The office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) would receive $65 million this year. It would be split between $40 million for the Research and Technology studies and testing and $25 million for University Programs, which provide funds to minority-specialized colleges and universities to form partnerships for revitalization activities with their surrounding communities.
Community Development Block Grants
Department of the Interior
The Administration’s FY 2008 request of $10.705 billion for the Department of the Interior (DOI) represents a decrease of 2.3 percent from the FY06 appropriation. The FY08 figure is 1.7 percent above the president’s FY07 request.
In preparation for the National Parks Centennial, the park service will receive the largest budget in its history with $2.1 billion. Indian Affairs, wildfire preparedness, landowner stewardship, rural water, and National Park Service construction bear the majority of the department’s cuts.
Research activities within DOI are distributed among many offices and are relatively modest in spending, compared to other agencies discussed in this week’s Digest. Highlights include:
Department of Labor
The Administration's FY 2008 request for the Department of Labor (DOL) is $10.6 billion in discretionary budget authority, a decrease of $900 million (7.83 percent less) compared to the FY06 appropriation level of $11.5 billion. Compared to the FY06 budget overview, the agency’s payroll would increase by 679 full-time equivalent positions, however.
Department of Transportation
The Administration's FY 2008 budget request for the Department of Transportation (DOT) is $67 billion. This funding would be distributed across the department's five key strategic objectives - improving safety (30.4%), reducing congestion (54.6%), increasing global transportation connectivity (2.1%), protecting the environment (9.8%) and supporting national security (1.4%) - with the balance of 1.7 percent going toward organizational excellence.
As with most other federal agencies, with notable exceptions such as the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, research and TBED programs constitute a very small percentage of DOT’s annual budget. For example, more than one-third of the DOT budget request is dedicated to highway and bridge construction and maintenance.
Among budget highlights for the scientific and engineering community is a $175 million request for a 21st century satellite navigation system to replace older air traffic control equipment.
Department of the Treasury
There are only four programs in the Treasury Department that SSTI monitors for the tech-based economic development community. Most of them are slated for termination or phase-out in FY 2008.
Treasury requests $24.4 million for the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI) Program (21 percent decrease from FY06 appropriation) and $4.12 million to administer the New Market Tax Credits Program (NMTC), a 3.2 percent decrease. The NMTC Program provides credit against federal income taxes to taxpayers making qualified equity investments in designated Community Development Entities in order to attract private capital investments in low-income communities.
Environmental Protection Agency
For the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Administration has requested $7.2 billion for FY 2008, a 1 percent decrease from the FY07 request. Under the new budget, Science and Technology activities would receive $754.5 million (4.3 percent decrease). Within S&T, research activities would decrease 2.4 percent to $478.5 million. A few science and technology programs are expected to receive small budget increases this year, however, including Clean Air Research (3 percent increase), Environmental Enforcement Forensics (15 percent increase), and Climate Protection (4 percent increase).
Science and Technology programs include:
- Air Toxics and Quality - $93 million
- Climate Protection Program - $13 million
NASA
The Administration’s FY 2008 budget request for NASA totals $17.309 billion (3.9 percent increase from the FY06 appropriation) and is distributed across six directorates and offices.
- Science - $5.516 billion (5.18 percent increase from FY06 appropriation) to conduct scientific exploration that is enabled by access to space or near-space in pursuit of a science plan with four broad goals or themes: earth science; planetary science; heliophysics; and, astrophysics.
- Exploration Systems - $3.924 billion (28.6 percent increase) to pursue the president’s goal of returning humans to the moon, landing on Mars and venturing beyond.
- Aeronautics Research - $554 million (38 percent reduction) to expand the boundaries of aeronautical knowledge.
National Science Foundation
The Administration’s FY 2008 National Science Foundation (NSF) budget request of $6.43 billion represents an increase of nearly $409 million (6.8 percent) above the FY07 request. The large increase is distributed across many research and related activities:
- Mathematical and Physical Sciences - $103 million increase
- Engineering - $55 million
- Geosciences - $47 million
- Computer and Information Science and Engineering - $47 million
- Education and Human Resources Directorate (increases to several programs) - $34 million
- Integrative Activities - $32 million
- Office of Polar Programs - $27 million
Regional Commissions and Authorities
Four federally established regional commissions and authorities dedicated to improving the economic opportunities within specific geographic regions are included in the Administration’s FY 2008 budget request. No funding is requested for the Northern Great Plains Regional Authority, which was created in the 2002 Farm Bill.
The Appalachian Regional Commission, Delta Regional Authority and Denali Commission are dependent on annual appropriations. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the oldest and largest of the five authorities, generates its budget primarily through power generation revenues. TVA still requires the government to approve or set its annual spending level.