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To Members of the NASULGC System:
This report provides additional details about final House-Senate
conference committee decisions on CSREES programs funded through
the F.Y. 2005 agriculture appropriations bill, as incorporated
within H.R.4818, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2004.
Overview
As you know, the federal budget situation was highly constrained
this year, and the agriculture appropriations bill faced many
challenges, including a reduced 302(b) allocation and increased
costs for the WIC program. Against this backdrop, we are pleased
to report that the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service
(CSREES) was one of a few federal agencies (outside DOD and DHS)
to receive an increase in funding between F.Y. 2004 and F.Y. 2005.
The CSREES budget grew by $48.7 million this year, which
translates into a 4.4% increase for the agency. (The increase
would have been 5.2% but for the 0.8% across-the-board cut made to
all domestic programs in H.R.4818.) The following table shows the
CSREES increases broken down by the agency's major funding categories:
| Research and Education Activities |
+$37,715,000 |
| Extension Activities |
+$6,506,000 |
| Integrated Activities |
+$4,517,000 |
How the NASULGC Request Fared
Those of you who have been following the F.Y. 2005
budget/appropriations cycle are aware that the NASULGC system made
two primary requests: (1) we asked that all 33 CSREES line items
cut in the F.Y. 2004 ag appropriations bill be restored to at least their F.Y. 2003
levels; and (2) we asked for modest increases in a dozen CSREES
line items.
With respect to our first request, Congress fully restored 12 line items, partially restored 7 more lines,
but failed to
restore funding for 14 lines. In absolute dollar terms $12,488,000
was added to the lines cut last year while $8,200,000 in cuts were
not restored. However, most of the lines with strong political
support were restored (some even increased), including: IR-4 minor
crop pest management, animal health and disease, EFNEP, water
quality, and food safety.
With regard to our second request, we asked for increases in 12
CSREES lines and secured increases for 10 of the 12 lines for a
total "plus-up" of $28.1 million. As you can see from the table
that follows, we generally secured a 10% to 12% increase for the
lines that were singled out for "priority attention."
(Again, it is important to note that the F.Y. 2005 results
reported below are after the 0.8% across-the-board
reduction to domestic programs.)
| Line Item |
F.Y. 2004 |
F.Y. 2005 |
% Increase |
| 1890 Institution Capacity Building Grants |
11,411,000 |
12,312,000 |
7.90% |
| 1890 Facilities (Sec. 1447) |
14,912,000 |
16,777,000 |
12.51% |
| 1994 Institutions Research |
1,087,000 |
1,078,000 |
-0.83% |
| 1994 Institutions Extension |
2,929,000 |
3,247,000 |
10.86% |
| Hispanic Education Partnership |
4,645,000 |
5,600,000 |
20.56% |
| Resident Instruction and Distance Ed. Grants |
0 |
496,000 |
n/a |
| Expanded Food & Nutrition Ed. Program |
52,057,000 |
58,438,000 |
12.26% |
| National Research Initiative |
164,027,000 |
179,552,000 |
9.46% |
| Institution Challenge Grants |
4,859,000 |
5,456,000 |
12.29% |
| International Science & Education Grants |
895,000 |
992,000 |
10.84% |
| Animal and Plant Diagnostic Labs/EDEN |
7,953,000 |
8,928,000 |
12.26% |
| Higher Education Agrosecurity Education |
0 |
0 |
0% |
| Total |
$264,775,000 |
$292,876,000 |
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Summary of Results
We set out to restore funding for 33 CSREES line items. We
restored funding (in whole or part) for 19 of the line items.
We also set out to secure increases for 12 CSREES lines. We
succeeded in securing increases for 10 of those lines. Most
of these increases were in the range of 10% to 12%. Counting EFNEP
only once (it was on both lists), we secured a total net increase
of $34.2 million for the CSREES lines included within our
requests.
Links
Spreadsheet showing final CSREES results:
http://www.nasulgc-bac.com/documents/FY2005/2005_CSREES_Conference.xls
NASULGC request vs. conference action:
http://www.nasulgc-bac.com/documents/FY2005/NASULGC_vs_Conference.doc
How we fared in restoring the 33 CSREES lines cut in F.Y. 2004:
http://www.nasulgc-bac.com/documents/FY2005/Final_33_Cuts.doc
Fred H. Hutchison
Fleishman-Hillard Government Relations
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