June 29, 2005

Appropriations Season: Updates from Capitol Hill

NOAA:

At the conclusion of last week, the full Senate Appropriations Committee released its proposed Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) bill -- the principal source of financial support for NOAA. Included in the bill: a recommended $4.48 billion for NOAA's entire FY 2006 budget. As mentioned below in our June 21st update, this suggested allocation is 31% higher than the figure passed by the House of Representatives on June 16th.

In fact, Senate appropriators were quite unequivocal in their support for NOAA. In the report accompanying their proposed CJS bill, appropriators argued that NOAA merits a budget large enough in size to rival that of other major science agencies.

"The Committee notes that the budgets of other science agencies funded under this [CJS Appropriations] Act, including the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (both independent agencies), thrive. The Committee fails to understand why science dedicated to understanding this planet and its oceans and atmosphere is less important than science dedicated to the understanding of other planets, for example."

Within this $4.48 billion figure, Senate appropriators allocated $10 million in discretionary funds for the NOAA Education Initiative --the pot of money that funds the OESD Environmental Literacy Grants Program. The House of Representatives did, however, provide a lower figure ($6.5 million) for this same Education Initiative account.

Time will reveal further details on the final OESD discretionary figure, be it $6.5 million, $10 million, or somewhere in between: the precise funding level (as well as that of NOAA's total budget figure) will be decided later in the summer by a select group of House and Senate conferees whose job it will be to reach a compromise on their conflicting budget proposals. Environmental educators should feel hopeful, however, since either figure will likely provide for continuation of the Environmental Literacy Grants Program in FY 2006.

EPA:

The Senate is currently debating the FY 2006 Interior and Environment bill. We expect passage of the bill later today -- including the original $7 million figure for the OEE. Stay tuned!