GOVERNMENT & POLICY EARMARKS RISING Congressional committees continue to pick R&D projects worth billions of dollars despite objections by 0MB and other agencies.
EARMARKING PROS AND CONS Scorned by OMB, 'targeted projects' are also seen as a necessary arrow in the legislative quiver WILLIAM G. SCHULZ, C&EN WASHINGTON
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ITH THE ANNUAL A P P R O
priations process for the fiscal 2003 federal budget under way in Congress, the White House Office ofManagement & Budget (OMB) and others will be keeping close tabs on congressional earmarks for R&D. Such earmarks have been on the rise in recent years. In 2001, for example, approximately $2 billion of the nation's $44 billion R&D budget consisted of earmarks. For the Bush Administration, congressional earmarks tear at its management agenda, which seeks to tie agency budgets to performance. OMB officials would prefer to see agency leaders defending their budget requests on Capitol Hill as they are submitted rather than taking them as a startingpoint to cut new budget deals with members of Congress, via earmarks. For many people in the R&D community, earmarks subvert the process of peer review, which, since the end of World War II, has been the agreed-upon method between the scientific community and government officials for arriving at science funding decisions. Critics ofpeer review, on the other hand, say it is a system dominated by scientists at the nation's large research universities. They say this system has led to uneven distribution of research funding and uneven HTTP://PUBS.ACS.ORG/CEN
development of scientific and technical infrastructure around the nation. Finding earmarks in congressional spending bills depends on the definition of "earmark" used for conducting the search. OMB, for instance, says an earmark is "research performed by congressional direction." The exact definition agencies are expected to follow, according to OMB analyst Sarah Horrigan, is "intramural and extramural research programs where funded activities are awarded to a single performer or collection of performers with limited or no competitive selection, or with competitive selection but outside the agency's primary mission, based on direction from the Congress in law, in report language, or by other direction. Funded activities may be merit reviewed prior to award." Horrigan made her remarks at a workshop held in October 2001 at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D C . The workshop—"Earmarking of Science: Definitions, mterpretations, and Implications"— was cohosted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Association ofAmerican Universities, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Association of State Universities & Land Grant Colleges. "The growth of academic earmarks has really been very remarkable over the past
two years," said Chronicle of Higher Education Assistant Editor Ron Southwick. His publication has compiled an annual survey of earmarks since 1989. "Just within the past two years, academic earmark totals have more than doubled," Southwick said at the conference. "In 1999, the total was $797 million, and now it is $1.67 billion. "Some defenders of earmarks have said that it is part ofthe price ofa generous Congress, and that it does not necessarily have an effect on the peer-reviewed research programs at different federal research agencies," Southwick continued. "But our survey found that that is not always the case. "NASA, the National Aeronautics & Space Administration, reduced its grants to researchers in the life sciences across the board by about 5% in order to pay for earmarks within that agency's budget," he pointed out. Southwick added that while proponents of earmarking say it helps universities and states compete for federal research dollars, the results are mixed. He said, "It is worth noting that the top 100 institutions in terms of federal R&D have remained virtually unchanged for the past 10 years." "EVERYONE HAS a different definition of what an earmark is," said Kei Koizumi, director of the AAAS R&D Budget & Policy Program. "We tried to keep it very simple so that it fits, in essence, in one sentence. We have defined R&D earmarks as congressionally designated, performerspecific, R&D projects not appearing in agency budget requests." Koizumi continued that "the performerspecific part is, I guess, what distinguishes it as an earmark for us. For our analysis, since we look at all of R&D that goes to the universities, as well as the federal labs and other performers, we are focusing on all categories of performers and not just the academic institutions." Koizumi said the AAAS definition is different from that of OMB because "it fully regards R&D; it includes basic research, applied research, development, and also R&D facilities."The OMB definition, he said, does not include R&D facilities. "But as we can see from the Chronicle study and from our study R&D facilities support is an important part of R&D earmarking. And, of course, it is a big reason C & E N / A P R I L 8, 2002
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GOVERNMENT & POLICY why universities themselves describe why institutions and research institutions withthey pursue earmarks, which is to help in in 23 states and Puerto Rico. meeting their infrastructure needs." "There's always going to be someone on In thefiscal2002 budget, Koizumi said, the bottom," said Vaitukaitis about the disthe big earmark targets were NASA, the tribution of federal R&D funds. "But the Department of Energy, the Department states are interested in peer-reviewed fundof Agriculture, and the National Science ing. They don't want earmarks." Foundation. Two years ago, the I D e A program Former Louisiana Sen. J. Bennett Johnawarded 19 grants totaling approximately ston delivered a strong defense of ear$166 million over Rve years to biomedical marking at the workshop. He noted that research institutions located in states that $2 billion in earmarked funds was but a fraction of the fiscal 2002 federal R&D budget of $44 billion. "It is a political matter where you distribute the largesse that is generated by the tax dollars of the U.S.," Johnston said. "It is a political matter, and it matters a lot where you spend this money in terms of not only jobs, or in the scientific base, but also the economic base of a community And Congress has a very legitimate right, and duty, I believe, to say that at least part ofthat money for science ought Koizumi Vaitukaitis to recognize a little distribution." Johnston said that opponents of earmet criteria based on previous funding. marking make a false assumption: That is, Each newgrantee institution will establish if earmarked projects are halted, money a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE), to be led by an established budgeted for them will be made available investigator who will direct a multidiscito peer-reviewed research programs. plinary effort to focus on a basic or clinical research theme, such as neuroscience, IN REALITY, he said, "You would just be cancer, structural biology immunology, or taking money away from science, and you bioengineering. wouldn't be putting it in your peer-reviewed projects. In the process, you would States eligible to apply for IDeA grants were those that received less than $70 million in N I H funding from 1994 to 1998 or that had an N I H grant award success rate of less than 2 0 % over that period. "The goal was to enhance their infrabe stifling the enthusiasm of a lot of memstructure," Vaitukaitis said. She added that bers of Congress who would now think the problem in the IDeA-eligible states is about the scientific capability of their unithat "there are not enough trained investiversity, and about how it would be nice to gators in health-related research, and that's put such and such a project at that univerwhy they don't submit applications to N I H . sity and increase the whole pot of scientific "In response to that recognition, and expenditure." from discussions with representatives from Equitable distribution of federal R&D those states—including presidents of unimoney has been a subject of growing concern in recent years. This is especially true versities and investigators—they to aperson, pointed out that they didn't want any earas economists have begun to document marks," Vaitukaitis continued. "They want how R&D investments can boost local, to be trained in terms of how to get grants, long-term economic development. how to do research and be competitive. But Another earmarking workshop speakjust doing the research itself is only one er, Judith L. Vaitukaitis, director of the part. YDU need the tools, you need the labNational Center for Research Resources at oratories and the instrumentation, and the the National Institutes of Health, decoaching through established investigators. scribed the N I H Institutional Develop"The COBRE program was an extenment Award (IDeA) program. The goal of sion of other programs that we had develthe program is to enhance biomedical reoped over many years to try to jump-start search capacity building among academic
"Earmarking is definitely and clearly a two-edged sword."
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C & E N / A P R I L 8. 2002
some of the mmority-seiving institutions," she said. "We learned that we were giving them enough money we thought. But in retrospect, it was just enough money to fail, so that once we withdrew our support, they had no way to keep going because we had not built adequate infrastructure." "Is there a single view on the subject of earmarks?" asked Raymond E. ByeJr., vice president for research at Florida State University (FSU), Tallahassee. "Within my university, we agree that earmarking is definitely and clearly a two-edged sword. "For an institution that is concerned about its national reputation relative to high-quality faculty and growing competition among academic institutions for funding," Bye continued, "earmarking may be viewed by some as not particularly desirable. "Ifet blanket disavowal did not seem appropriate for us at FSU either." Instead, he said, university officials have developed a set of criteria used for "targeted projects," which the university will then discuss with its congressional delegation. FIRST, Bye said, FSU avoids earmarking through agencies that have strong and established peer review programs. He said they avoid earmarks for basic research projects, focusing instead on applied research. Also, FSU tries to focus on a university strength or priority in seeking out an earmark, he said. "Our intention is to expand and build upon existing and possibly unique strengths we have in both human and technical areas." Other criteria FSU uses for seeking earmarks include developing concept papers or proposals to discuss with agency officials at the same time FSU is discussing the matter with its congressional delegation. Last, he said, FSU wants to see fast outcomes on earmarked projects. Bye said FSU would like to be considered "a responsible user in the context of this congressional process." He says he sees earmarks as "a necessary arrow in the legislative quiver." "If public funds are wasted on poor or inferior activities, then earmarking is less than optimum," Bye said. "However, I do not concur with the blanket statement that all such activities are wasteful and unproductive and unduly constrain budgets. "The challenge to the executive branch and to those of us in universities is not to advocate eliminating a necessary tool for legislative action," he said, "but to develop some agreement on what is a reasonable, responsible, and balanced approach to this complex and controversial issue." • HTTP://PUBS.ACS.ORG/CEN
