Funding Opportunities: 2004-2005 STAR Grant Program - Frequently Asked Questions

How does the President’s Budget for 2005 affect the STAR research grant program?

The President's Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2005 was recently submitted to Congress. Although the budget requested resources for many important environmental research and development programs, the request for the Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grants program in the EPA portion of the budget was $65 million which was significantly lower than previous Presidential budgets.

Has funding for STAR programs ever been eliminated?

The STAR grant program has been part of the President’s budget since 1995. Until the 2005 request, the President’s budget request for STAR has been about $100 million per year since 2000.

The $10 million STAR fellowship program was not included in the 2003 President’s budget request. The fellowship program was included in the 2003 appropriation and has been included in the President’s budget request for 2004 and 2005.

How does the federal budget process work?

The Executive Office of the President develops a budget request for the Federal government each year. Based on the Presidential request, some programs might be eliminated; others could receive additional funding. The Presidential budget is then given to Congress where discussions are held. After holding congressional hearings, Congress will send an appropriation bill to the President. The levels in the appropriation bill are often different from those in the President’s budget. The President may then sign the appropriation bill into law or veto it.

Which STAR grant programs have been affected?

Four STAR grant research areas were not included in the budget request: endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), ecological research, mercury, and pollution prevention (Technology for a Sustainable Environment). In addition, half the funding for the final year of the Hazardous Substance Research Centers, a 5-year program, was not included. You can see the 2004 Requests for Applications that were affected at www.epa.gov/ncer/rfa. RFAs planned for these research areas in 2005 will not be issued.

How many grants were you planning to fund that will not be funded?

A typical STAR grant is funded for about $500,000 – with full funding in the first year that may last up to three years. Using that average amount, and compared to recent budget requests, approximately 70 fewer individual research projects will be awarded from the 2005 President’s budget request.

Are any STAR grants that have already been awarded affected by this decision?

The President’s budget request is for fiscal year 2005 which means that primarily new grant awards are affected. However, the research portion for the planned fifth and final year of the existing STAR Hazardous Substance Research Centers was not included in the request.

Since the funding decreases were in the 2005 budget, why are any 2004 grants affected?

The programs that have been affected in 2004 are those that require multi-year resources from 2005 and beyond. These research programs are complex and require multidisciplinary team approaches. For these reasons, they are incrementally funded for each year of the project rather than completely in the first year.

Has the STAR fellowship program been affected by the President’s budget submission?

The President’s budget requested more than $6 million for the STAR fellowships, an increase of about $1.2 million from the FY2004 request. Only the grant program was adversely affected by the 2005 budget request.

Is there any mechanism for us to register any comments, concerns or raise additional questions?

You can visit our website and express your concerns and questions there (http://es.epa.gov/cgi-bin/ncer_rfa.cgi). We will get back to you as soon as we can.

Where else can I find research grant money since I was counting on STAR?

Although other federal agencies do not specifically focus on support in the same environmental research areas as EPA, you can check the Web sites for the National Science Foundation (http://www.nsf.gov/ ), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (http://www.noaa.gov/ ), National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (http://www.niehs.nih.gov ) or the US Department of Agriculture (http://www.usda.gov/ ). For a general listing of all federal grants, you can check www.grants.gov.

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