House and Senate conferees have completed work on the FY 2004
Interior Appropriations Bill. Under this compromise legislation, the
U.S. Geological Survey will receive $949.7 million for surveys,
investigations, and research. The Bush Administration requested
$895.5 million. Last year's budget was $919.3 million. The increase
amounts to $30.4 million, or 3.3%.
The FY 2004 conference report does not provide figures for the six
USGS programs. What follows is language from House Report 108-330 that
was approved on Tuesday. This report also listed funding for many projects
by name. Readers interested in these projects should view the report,
accessible at: http://thomas.loc.gov/cp108/cp108query.html
Note that the U.S. Geological Survey will be listed twice; see the second
listing for specific projects.
"The conference agreement provides $949,686,000 for surveys,
investigations, and research instead of $935,660,000 as proposed by
the House and $928,864,000 as proposed by the Senate.
"Changes to the House for national mapping programs include an
increase of $2,795,000 for information technology and decreases of
$1,500,000 for geospatial one-stop, and $625,000 for the national
map.
"The managers are aware of the recent malfunction of scanning
equipment onboard the Landsat 7 earth observing satellite and the
disappointing failure to correct the problem. This failure has
resulted in degraded data collected by the satellite. The managers
recognize the significance of Landsat data to many activities,
including agricultural monitoring and research, environmental
monitoring, and regional planning, to name a few. The managers
understand that, although the data has relatively small gaps, the
remainder of each image has data of original quality and hence will
remain useful for many of the activities they currently support. The
managers believe that the Survey should take a proactive approach
where Federal agencies are concerned, particularly the Departments of
Agriculture and Defense, to try to secure data purchase agreements
now in order to have a stable funding source. In addition, the
managers expect the Survey to investigate and document the current
level of interest from the user community for continued data
purchases. The Survey should conduct data sales in the near term and,
based on this, estimate potential annual revenues that may be derived
from this source. This analysis will provide the basis for subsequent
recommendations regarding the types and amounts of funding necessary
to continue operation of Landsat 7. The managers also expect the
Survey, Federal agencies, and other users needing medium resolution
data to work together to determine how the degraded Landsat data can
best meet their needs prior to seeking data from alternative sources.
To the degree that Landsat data does meet the needs of Federal
agencies, the managers encourage them to use the Survey as the
provider of this data.
"The managers are supportive of the Survey's efforts to manage
more
efficiently the growing volume of collected, archived, and
distributed data at the EROS Data Center. Accordingly, the managers
support efforts by the Survey to convert its archived remote sensing
data to a modern disk based storage system. The managers believe that
such a conversion will accommodate the growing volume of data, and
provide access to users more efficiently and at lower costs. Finally,
the managers support implementation of a continuity of operations
capability utilizing 'remote mirroring' technology."
Specific projects are then listed. The report then states:
"The managers are aware that the request for the Survey's facilities
budget activity may not contain sufficient funding for rent and
operations and maintenance for some of the Survey's science centers.
The managers understand that this is due, in part, to insufficient
funds being transferred when this budget activity line was created in
fiscal year 2000. The managers remain concerned about this situation
and direct the Survey to develop a funding strategy by March 15,
2004, to resolve this issue and avoid jeopardizing ongoing science
programs.
"The managers have restored $3,013,000 in streamlining reductions
proposed in the Administration's budget request. The survey is
directed to spread these funds to the program areas based on a pro
rata distribution."
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