Severe Cuts Proposed for EPA STAR Research Grants and Fellowships

[Submariner]

From my email newsletter. Another show of Bush ignorance of the value of science, while foreign students excel. I wonder what jobs will be outsourced next.Hmmmmm.....

Extramural research grants and graduate fellowships administered by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would be severely cut under the
President's budget request for FY 2005. EPA's Science to Achieve Results
(STAR) graduate fellowship program would be cut by 33.5 percent relative to
the FY 2004 enacted level. EPA's larger STAR research grants program would
be cut by approximately 30 percent or $36 million. Approximately 93 fewer
STAR research grants would be awarded, according to EPA's budget
justification to Congress. Deep budget cuts in EPA's STAR programs have
been proposed less than one year after the National Academy of Sciences
(NAS) issued a laudatory report entitled The Measure of STAR.

STAR Graduate Fellowships. Funding for STAR graduate fellowships would
decrease by $3.1 million, or 33.5 percent, relative to the FY 2004 enacted
level. STAR is the only federal fellowship program designed exclusively for
students pursuing advanced degrees in environmental sciences. According to
the National Academy of Sciences report, "The STAR fellowship program is a
valuable mechanism for enabling a continuing supply of graduate students in
environmental sciences and engineering to help build a stronger scientific
foundation for the nation's environmental research and management efforts."

The President's budget request proposed even deeper cuts in the STAR
graduate fellowship program in the past two years. The budget request would
have cut funding for the STAR graduate fellowship program by 50 percent in
FY 2004 and by 100 percent in FY 2003. Congress restored full funding for
the EPA STAR graduate fellowship program in both years. NCSE is working to
restore full funding for the program again in FY 2005.

STAR Research Grants. The proposed cuts to EPA's STAR research grants
program are somewhat surprising because the National Academy of Science
judged the program "excellent" in a recent report. Harold Mooney, Professor
of Environmental Biology at Stanford and chair of the NAS committee, said
the STAR program "…has provided EPA with independent analysis and
perspective that has improved the agency's scientific foundation. By
attracting young researchers, this program has also expanded the nation's
environmental science infrastructure." According to the NAS report, "the
STAR program should continue to be an important part of EPA's research
program."

Research programs that would be affected by the proposed cuts in EPA STAR
funding are listed below. Funding cuts are expressed relative to the
Administration's FY 2004 budget request rather than the FY 2004 enacted
funding levels, which are not yet available.

* Ecosystems Protection (-$22.2 million): Approximately 50 STAR grants for
research on ecosystem stressors and effects would be eliminated. Research
that would be discontinued includes development of indicators for regional
estuarine systems, development of genomic water indicators, and research on
invasive species' potential to invade vulnerable ecosystems. According to
the agency's budget documents, "As a result of this reduction, STAR efforts
designed to establish or improve the connection between ecosystem stressors
and effects, serving as input to decisions at the regional, state, and local
levels, will be discontinued."
* Pollution Prevention (-$5 million): Over 20 research grants would not be
funded under the Technology for the Sustainable Environment (TSE) program,
which is a collaborative effort with the National Science Foundation.
* Endocrine Disruptors (-$4.9 million): Approximately 18 STAR research
grants for research on endocrine disrupting chemicals would be eliminated.
According to EPA, grants for research in computational toxicology, and
research on mitigating the effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals from
concentrated animal feeding operations will not be awarded.
* Mercury Research (-$2 million): The approximately 5 STAR grants that
support mercury research would be eliminated. The research supported by
those grants would support understanding of the fate of atmospheric mercury.
* Hazardous Substance Research Centers (-$2.3 million): A five-year program
that awarded grants for hazardous substance research would not be funded in
FY 2005. According to EPA, some multi-year grants would not be funded in
their final year due to this cut.

Other EPA Research Programs. Other EPA research programs would be cut under
the FY 2005 budget request, including the following programs:

* Homeland Security Building Decontamination Research (-$8.3 million):
Research on building decontamination for homeland security would be
completely eliminated.
* Environmental Technology Verification (-$1.0 million): One or two centers
for testing the effectiveness of commercial environmental technologies would
be closed.

Environmental Education. All funding for the EPA Office of Environmental
Education, which EPA established to implement the 1990 National
Environmental Education Act, would be eliminated according to the
President's FY 2005 budget request. The office received approximately $10
million in FY 2004.

Overall EPA Budget. EPA's STAR research grants and fellowship programs
would receive more drastic cuts than the total EPA budget, which would
decline by 6.9 percent relative to the FY 2004 enacted level. EPA's Science
and Technology account would be cut by 11.8 percent, $92.5 million, to
$689.2 million in FY 2005. The proposed budget includes increases for a few
research-related programs, including $2.0 million to implement information
quality guidelines.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to
the mailing list <[e-mail]>.
The AFS list is provided as a service to all AFS members.

[yo-yo-ma]

1. selling future, selling out science

Great post
not only will the cuts in funding lead to fewer researchers but less research on chemical exposure, the environment etc. Clearly in top WH form, Homeland security research is also proposed to be cut!

The dismantling of science in the service of a narrow ideology is a huge priority of the administration. The Nation article linked below describes how this is happening in all levels of government employment.

<http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040308&s=kennedy>