THE FEDERAL BUDGET AND FUNDING OF

ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVITIES*

With the advent of Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1970 which established an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Executive Office of the President, a fledgling effort of much promise has been undertaken by OMB with respect to making a special analysis of Federal funding for pollution control and abatement programs and for other environment-related activities.

In previous years, when the budget of the U.S. Government has been sent up to the Congress with its recommendations for the forthcoming fiscal year, Federal activities now generally relegated to the environmental area have been included in a section called the Federal Program by Function, and designated "Natural Resources." The program highlights of the "Natural Resources" portion of the budget document have been water resources and power, land management, mineral resources, recreational resources, and other natural resources programs. Beginning in early February 1970, before the confirmation by the Congress of Reorganization Plan No. 2, the Bureau of the Budget (now Office of Management and Budget) sent out to all agencies having environmental quality activities in their missions a questionnaire, unique in its intent to produce information on Federal funding not only for specific works of pollution abatement and control, but also for related activities, such as work in weather modification, prevention of side effects such as resource exploitation, enhancement of the environment, understanding, describing, and predicting the environment, highway beautification, population control and distribution, management of public lands, environmental health, environmental education, pest control, water and sewer grants and loans, and major civilian technology and development programs.

Subsequent questionnaires have been forwarded periodically to Federal agencies along similar lines, each one showing a more sophisticated methodology for refining estimates of the nature and magnitude of the total Federal effort in the environmental area. The Office of Management and Budget and before its institution, the Bureau of the Budget was grasping in 1970 for definitions, categories, and methods of making a "Special Analysis" of Federal funding in environmental matters. Tables 1 and 2 which accompany this brief narrative were compiled from data returned to OMB in Federal agency responses. The material used in these two tables was not officially published, but has had some internal circulation among interested Federal offices and in the Congress.

Tables 3 and 4, however, were published in the first annual report of the Council on Environmental Quality, transmitted to the Congress in August 1970.

*Prepared by Elizabeth M. Boswell, Analyst, Environmental Policy Division.

It is expected that when the Federal budget for fiscal year 1972 is presented to the 92d Congress, there will appear for the first time in budget history a special analysis of Federal funding of environmental activities.

BUDGET ANALYSIS

TABLE 1.-ESTIMATED FEDERAL FUNDING FOR POLLUTION CONTROL AND ABATEMENT PROGRAMS, FISCAL YEARS 1969, 1970, 1971, BY TYPE OF ACTIVITY

Source: Experimental special analysis," Federal Funding for Pollution Control and Abatement and Other Environmentally Related Activities", Office of Management and Budget, Oct. 10, 1970.

59-408 O 71 - 4

Fiscal year 1969

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Fiscal year 1970

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