REGULATORY FOCUS EPA's FY'85 budget
Richard M . Dowd
The president's EPA budget for fiscal year 1985 carries a "good news, bad news" message for the agency's research and development program. The good news is that the research budget will increase by 14% over the previous year's level. President Reagan's budget increases funding for the entire agency both above his own request and congressional appropriations for 1984. This reverses the downward trend, both in dollars and in personnel, of the past three years. The bad news is that, in the context of national environmental research needs, the proposed budget is still considerably below the levels of fiscal years 1980 and 1981, both in program resources and in personnel. The one significant exception is Superfund, where dollar and personnel resources have been substantially increased. The Superfund budget shows an increase of $230 million and 350 work-years over the fiscal year 1984 appropriation, largely to expand the number of Superfund sites under construction and to increase the number of enforcement personnel. As in the past, in fiscal year 1985 EPA's overall monitoring program will receive essentially no increase in funding (though a modest addition to the Air Office budget will increase monitoring for air toxics). The need for a major monitoring program for comprehensive measurement of ambient concentrations of potentially toxic chemicals in air, land, and water will again be unmet in 1985. President Reagan has proposed a budget for EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) of $278 million; the budget for fiscal year 1980 was roughly $463 million (in 1984 dollars). Thus, although ORD's bud0013-936X/84/0916-0123A$01.50/0
get has increased from last year's level of $245 million, it is still at only 60% of the fiscal year 1980 level. It is interesting to trace EPA's ORD funding over the past 10 years (see chart). The chart shows that, despite the good news (increases for fiscal year 1985 over the previous year), the overall level of total research and development expenditures is still at an almost historic low: roughly 50% of the average of fiscal years 1975 through 1981, in constant dollars. Since research provides such a fundamental basis for regulatory action, it is useful to examine which program areas are proposed for increases and which still need additional funding. Acid rain is the primary area of increased research funding in fiscal year 1985. The president's budget proposes a $34.4-million acid rain research program, an increase of $19 million over the level of fiscal year 1984. This effort constitutes more than 50% of the
government's acid rain program, which will total $55 million in 1985. Other increases in the ORD budget consist of salaries and expenses for a larger staff. Extramural funding for other research programs remains essentially constant, with some changes in priorities. More emphasis will be placed on toxic pollutants research, particularly health and risk assessments of potential hazardous air pollutants in order to list chemicals under NESHAPS; increasing work on hazardous waste, particularly engineering and technology evaluation; and continued development of test methods for new toxic chemicals—although an increase of $2.7 million for the latter can hardly be characterized as large. Richard M. Dowd, PhD, is a Washington, D.C., consultant to Environmental Research and Technology, Inc.
ORD budget (constant 1972 dollars) 220
Source: R. M. Dowd & Co.. 1984
© 1984 American Chemical Society
Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 18. No. 4, 1984
123A
