493 



HUMAN, PHYSICAL, AND FISCAL RESOURCES 155 



NSF and ONR provide the majority of federal support for univer- 

 sity-based basic oceanographic research. In addition, several fed- 

 eral mission agencies (i.e., NOAA, NASA, USGS, MMS, DOE, and 

 EPA) support ocean science research both within their agencies 

 and through extramural funding to the academic research com- 

 munity. 



Federal Funding of Ocean Science r 



This section describes federal support of ocean science,- it does 

 not include funding by states and the private sector. For most of 

 the mission agencies, no distinction is made between basic re- 

 search conducted in a federal laboratory and that supported at 

 universities, but for NASA, university science support is sepa- 

 rated from total science support. 



Uniform budget information for all these agencies is difficult 

 to obtain because some agencies reorganized during fiscal years 

 1982-1992, and ocean and nonocean research budgets are some- 

 times combined into one budget category. Yearly funding is pre- 

 sented by agency in both current dollars (Table 4-7] and constant 

 1982 dollars (Table 4-8}. The funding data were substantiated by 

 the agencies for accuracy within ±5 percent. The inflation adjust- 

 ment to constant dollars is based on the gross national product 

 (GNP) index for the years 1982-1992. The GNP indices used for 

 1990-1992 are estimates. 



The distribution of fiscal year 1992 support for basic research 

 is shown in Figure 4-20. NSF was the largest supporter of basic 

 oceanographic research in the United States (34.5 percent) and, 

 along with ONR (20.4 percent) and NOAA (16.1 percent), pro- 

 vided more than 70 percent of the reported support in fiscal year 

 1992. NOAA's ocean science research programs (including Sea 

 Grant) were funded at about the same level as the ONR program, 

 and other federal agencies, including USGS, EPA, NASA, and MMS, 

 have significant programs in ocean-related research. Thus to ob- 

 tain a comprehensive picture of funding trends, contributions from 

 these other federal agencies must be included. 



National Science Foundation 



Since the 1960s, NSF has been the principal supporter of aca- 

 demic oceanographers in the United States. Figure 4-21 shows 

 the growth of the overall NSF budget and the ocean science com- 

 ponent for fiscal years 1982-1992 in both current and constant 



