p 2081
ES&T News
NOAA faces 6% decrease
U.S. Fiscal Year 2007 Budget Proposals
The president’s proposed FY ’07 budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) totals nearly $3.7 billion, which is a drop of $227 million or 5.8% from the agency’s FY ’06 funds enacted by Congress. Although some basic functions of NOAA—such as satellite upkeep, tsunami and hurricane monitoring, and marine transportation safety—are slated to see more money, funding for NOAA’s overall R&D efforts would decline by 6% from $546 million in FY ’06 to $533 million.
NOAA officials argue that if “terminations”—congressional earmarks to the FY ’06 budget for favorite projects—are excluded, the FY ’07 plan is actually an increase in agency funding. NOAA’s terminations account for $621 million or 16% of the FY ’06 budget. However, every year since FY ’01, Congress has increased NOAA’s funding with earmarked projects, and many believe that legislators will do it again. “The [proposed] budget has always been lower than enacted,” admits NOAA’s director, Conrad Lautenbacher, Jr.
According to NOAA’s analysis, several of its strategic areas face drops in funding from the enacted FY ’06 budget. These include ecosystems, whose funding would decrease by 13% to $1.1 billion; climate, by 8% to $230 million; and weather and water, by 3% to $904 million. However, the aquatics invasive species program would get a significant boost, jumping a whopping 150% to $2.5 million.
Within NOAA, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research is targeted for an 8% budget cut to $348 million, although the request for this office’s climate research program rises by 6% to $181 million. Funding for the National Ocean Service (NOS), responsible for managing coastal and ocean areas, would plummet 30% to $413 million. And support for the Ocean Resources Conservation and Assessment program within NOS would drop 40% to $126 million. Finally, funds for the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, which oversees and collects data from 16 earth-observing satellites, would increase by 9% to just over $1 billion.
