FY 2005 U.S. Geological Survey Request

Under the FY 2005 budget request recently submitted by the Bush Administration, funding for the U.S. Geological Survey would decline 1.9% or $18.2 million. USGS currently receives $938.0 million, which would drop to $919.8 million for the fiscal year starting on October 1.

A USGS budget document quotes its director, Charles Groat, as stating: “In FY 2005, we will put emphasis on providing science to help meet other DOI bureaus’ natural resource management needs and on the President’s Management Agenda. Our efforts for 2005 will focus on water availability and invasive species, as well as our response to natural hazards, all of which are issues of critical importance to land and resource managers and to all Americans. We will continue to provide timely, objective scientific information to other Federal agencies, state and local partners and stakeholders to address critical societal issues. We will also enhance activities associated with financial management and information technology security.”

USGS has released a fairly comprehensive outline of its FY 2005 budget request categorized by activity/subactivity/program element that can be viewed at http://www.usgs.gov/budget/2005/fy05_pres_budget_request.html The following are the percentage and dollar changes between the current year and FY 2005. Note that while almost all of the accounts decline, that USGS proposes a new line item called Enterprise Information for which $45.2 million is requested. The line item “consolidates funding of all bureauwide information functions (technology, management, and service) that were previously distributed among several USGS office and budget structure items.” Since this new structure represents, to varying degrees, changes in program activity, it cannot be determined how actual funding for each program might change.

Mapping, Remote Sensing, and Geographic Investigations: Down 8.3% or $10.8 million from $129.8 million to $118.9 million.

Geologic Hazards, Resources and Processes: Down 5.7% or $13.4 million from $234.2 million to $220.8 million.

Water Resources Investigations: Down 6.0% or $13.0 million from $215.7 million to $202.7 million.

Biological Research: Down 4.0% or $6.9 million from $174.5 million to $167.6 million.

Science Support: Down 24.3% or $22.1 million from $90.8 million to $68.7 million.

Facilities: Up 3.2% or $3.0 million from $93.0 million to $96.0 million

Enterprise Information: New budget activity for which $45.2 million is requested.