Diving Deeper: What’s Really Going on With the President’s Budget?
What led to drastic cuts for some NOAA ocean programs?
President Biden released his Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) budget request on Monday, March 11, 2024. Some of the numbers made quite the splash, so if you haven’t already, check out our blog post for a breakdown of what’s in it.
Today, we’re diving a bit deeper to look at:
What led to drastic cuts for some NOAA ocean programs
How the budget request impacts the federal funding process
Uncovered trends in priorities for President Biden vs. Congress across federal agencies that impact our ocean and coasts
This issue is a long read, but it gives important context, I promise!
What Happened to the Ocean and Research Programs at NOAA?
We saw big winners and losers in the President’s Budget (PB), and I want to highlight again the troubling and unprecedented proposed cuts to some important ocean programs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Before you panic: remember the PB is just made up of imaginary dollars. It’s meant to act as a blueprint for Congress to determine actual federal appropriations. But increasingly, it’s used as a messaging tool more than anything else.
In a limited fiscal environment, any proposed increase in spending corresponds with a cut somewhere else. Leaders at NOAA and the White House had to make some tough calls. They want to signal to Congress that they need significantly increased funding for satellites, building maintenance, and the NOAA Corps program (NOAA research vessels, planes, and the uniformed folks who operate them). But they had to do it while adhering to the budget cap Biden agreed to last summer.
For FY25, Congress is only allowed to increase overall government spending by one percent above FY23 levels. This comes from the budget ceiling deal made between former House Speaker McCarthy and President Biden last May.
In a tough situation like this, the administration will sometimes propose major cuts to programs they know Congress loves, choosing to spend their imaginary messaging dollars on programs for which they need to increase congressional support. That’s why you sometimes see popular programs like Sea Grant get cut by half, or even down to $0, in a budget request. The administration knows Congress loves Sea Grant and, as such, is very unlikely to actually cut it.
Plus, throw in the major influx of cash from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) and the Inflation Reduction Act, and you’ve got yourself a few weird budget years. Congress and the administration might look at programs that got funding through those bills and say, “You’re set for the next few years, we don’t need to spend regular appropriations on you right now, especially in a tight budget year.”
But in reality, IIJA and IRA dollars are directed to specific projects and can’t be used to maintain basic functions of a given program. This is even more true for grant programs at the agencies that were used as a passthrough to get funds out the door quickly; it might look (on paper) like an agency got a big influx of funding, but they actually just passed it along to other entities.
So, slashing the coral reef program, NOPP, and IOOS by 50-75% (for example) because they got money for special projects or to recapitalize aging infrastructure doesn’t really work in practice. That would be like investing in brand new tires and a roof rack for your car, but not setting aside funds for regular maintenance to keep it running. In the end, the car will break down.
Why the President’s Budget Matters
The PB signals the administration’s support (or not). Our job at ESP is to help Congress better understand how vital these ocean programs are, how much value they bring to constituents, and why they should get increased funding.
A proposed cut in the PB makes it a lot harder to convince any folks who aren’t already supportive of these programs. In the appropriations request process (happening now), congressional staff want to know previous funding levels and the PB numbers for a particular program.
It’s awkward to ask for an increase when an agency is proposing a cut. This is especially true when talking to Democrats on the Hill who share a party with President Biden and generally want to support his priorities.
Comparing Winners and Losers: Congress vs. President Biden
Numbers are funny: they tell different stories depending on how you look at them (and if you know me, you know I love finding stories in the numbers).
Let’s look at what these numbers tell us about the priorities of the politically split Congress versus the Biden Administration. The table below shows the will of Congress versus the administration’s priorities at agencies and departments that impact our community.
NOTE: If you’re a numbers super sleuth, you might notice that the table below has different percentages than what you’ll see in our recent blog post, which compared the PB to the recently-passed FY24 spending bills. Here, we’re comparing the PB to what Congress enacted the previous year in FY23 because the FY24 appropriations bills had not yet passed when the PB was written. Looking at the numbers this way gives us a better picture view into the administration’s priorities overall.
Congress and the administration seem to agree that increased funding is worthwhile (especially in a limited fiscal environment) at NOAA and DOE. That is great news for some programs housed there. The other departments and agencies, as you can see, are locked in battles between two branches of the U.S. government.
Let me state the obvious: as much as we wish federal funding was purely policy-driven, politics wins the day. Biden is using messaging dollars in the PB to highlight priorities like climate research, environmental regulation, and offshore wind. In order to free up some of that imaginary funding, it had to be pulled from other agencies and programs.
What Comes Next
The FY25 appropriations process is now *officially* in full swing. The halls of Congress are absolutely packed with folks from all over the country to make their case for federal funding priorities – and team ESP and our clients are right there with them fighting for important ocean, science, and coastal programs.
Thanks for hanging in there on this longer post—this is complicated stuff! As always, post a comment or reach out with questions or if you’d like to see a specific topic discussed.