170 



On the other hand, competitively awarded special grants and the NRI are perceived by most 

 policy and decision makers as offering a greater ability to focus and provide a structure 

 against which accountability can more readily be measured. 



In the real world, our experience over the last ten years or more has been that a more 

 achievable approach to initially acquiring and subsequently maintaining future increases in 

 funding is to be as specific as possible regarding the purposes to which such increases will 

 be applied. Thus, the advocates of formula funds have set the more limited goal of seeking 

 support to maintain their purchasing power through increases which offset inflation, but to 

 seek other mechanisms to secure major real growth in total funding. 



7. Do Special Research and Facilities Grants result in an erosion of base funding? 

 What would the Agriculture Research System look like if there were no "pork" ? 



Up to this point, there has certainly been some concept of a total available package of 

 appropriations for agricultural research. But, we believe that the "fbced pot" concept will be 

 more of a factor in the overall future strategy in the current Congress and under the new 

 administration. 



There is ample information to show the deterioration of agricultural research facilities in 

 Land Grant xmiversities. TTiere is no mechanism other than special facilities grants for the 

 federal government to pay their share of the modernization and expansion of these 

 resources. The result is that the Congress has provided funds through this mechanism. 

 Because of its accessibility, the special grants mechanism has been used to fund 

 non-agricultural projects on occasion. There is not a mechanism in place to assure that 

 facilities grants are awarded on the basis of national priorities or that they support the 

 programs most likely to impact national priorities. Facilities grants are usually 

 initiated to fund planning or design studies, creating an implication of future funding that 

 has resulted in a bow-wave of almost $500 million of future funding, if all projects initiated 

 were funded at the level requested for the federal share. There is clearly a need for a new 

 mechanism to provide federal funds for facilities used in agricultural research.. 



Special Research Grants are a vitally importzmt part of the national agricultural research 

 portfolio. They provide a mechanism for focusing on national priorities. This is recognized 

 in the Administration's budget proposal, where a large part of the present portfolio is 

 recommended for continuation. There are other special grants that are national in scope 

 and targeted to priority areas that are not included in the President's Budget Proposal. Most 

 of these grants are competitively awarded on the basis of merit and relevance. We have 

 suggested an increase in special grant fimding for "contract research" to deal with short term 

 emergency issues. 



