One of the primary goals of the National Biomass Initiative (the Initiative) as stated in the Biomass Research and Development Act of 2000 (Biomass R&D Act) is to coordinate efforts between Federal agencies that promote the use of biofuels and biobased industrial products. For example, a major Initiative activity is the annual USDA/DOE Joint Solicitation (the Solicitation). See the feature article in the November 2005 Biomass Initiative Newsletter for the most recent Solicitation results.

The Initiative represents a strong example of how two federal agencies have formed a collaborative relationship to meet common goals while continuing to work through traditional budget processes. This article will provide an overview of the history of funding under the Initiative and the federal appropriation process.

Three major bodies carry out the Initiative:

• The Initiative office, including a (DOE) appointed Designated Federal Officer, and a point of contact from (USDA);
• Biomass R&D Technical Advisory Committee (the Committee), consisting of DOE and USDA-appointed representatives from industry, academia, non-profit organizations, and state government;
• Interagency Biomass R&D Board (the Board), with representatives from DOE, USDA, Interior, Office of the Federal Environmental Executive, National Science Foundation, and Office of Science and Technology Policy.

It is important to clarify the difference between funds "authorized" and funds "appropriated". Authorization can be defined as the ceiling that appropriations cannot exceed. Appropriations are the actual amount of funds that Congress provides to Federal programs each year. In the case of the Initiative, funds appropriated have never approached funds authorized.

Table 1: Joint Solicitation Funding by Technical Area

II. The Federal Budget Process
Federal agencies and programs receive funding through an established budget process. After the President submits his budget proposal to Congress, a budget resolution providing a blueprint for budget activities in the coming fiscal year is agreed upon by the House and Senate. Once a budget resolution is agreed upon, the Appropriations process begins in both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. The Committees independently decide on how to distribute the resolution funding to the 13 Appropriations bills or sub-allocations. Upon Committee agreement, the 13 sub-allocations are distributed to the corresponding Subcommittees for assignment of specific agency program funding levels.

The 13 Appropriations bills that provide funding for most federal agencies and programs include:

• Agriculture & Rural Development
• Commerce, Justice, State & the Judiciary
• Defense
• District of Columbia
• Energy & Water Development
• Foreign Operations
• Interior
• Labor, Health & Human Services, Education
• Legislative Branch
• Military Construction
• Transportation
• Treasury, Postal Service & General Government
• Veterans, Housing & Urban Development, Independent Agencies

The Agriculture and Rural Development; the Energy and Water Development; and the Interior Appropriations bills all provide funding for biomass-related federal programs. Therefore, the funding levels are allocated to DOE and USDA programs by Appropriation Subcommittees (see Table 2) that correspond with each of the Appropriations bills.

Table 2: Appropriation Subcommittees that Allocate Biomass Funding

The majority of discretionary funding for USDA and DOE are provided in the Agriculture and Rural Development and Energy and Water Development Appropriations bills, respectively. The third Appropriations bill that provides funding for biomass-related activities is the Interior bill, which assigns funding for the Forest Services program at USDA, and prior to fiscal year 2006, assigned funding for a small portion of the DOE Biomass Program.

The House and Senate Subcommittees work independently of one another to determine the discretionary funding level for each agency under its jurisdiction. Once the Subcommittees complete the spending bills, the full Appropriations Committee considers the 13 bills. After discussion and possible amendment, the bills must be approved by the full Appropriations Committee. The approved bills must then be discussed and passed by both the House and the Senate by majority vote.

Upon passage of the Appropriations bills, the House and Senate each appoint members to confer and work out discrepancies in the respective versions of the bills. Ultimately the small group of conferees must agree on one version of each of the 13 Appropriations bills that can achieve the support of at least half of the conferees. Once out of conference, the bills must be passed by both the House and Senate by majority vote. The agreed upon and passed Appropriations bills are then presented to the President for his approval or veto. Upon the President's signature, the bill is a law and discretionary funding is provided to the agencies through the Department of Treasury.

III. Funding History of the Biomass Initiative
Funding for the Biomass Initiative Joint Solicitation started in 2002 and has continued each fiscal year since (see Table 3). Over the period of 2002-2005, funding for the Joint Solicitation was provided to USDA (NRCS) through the Farm Bill. In 2006, this was transferred to the USDA Commodity Credit Corporation. DOE contributes funds to the Joint Solicitation through the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's Office of the Biomass Program.

Table 3: USDA/DOE Joint Solicitation Funding¹

Each Department is an independent entity governed by different rules, regulations, and business practices. Their close cooperation is a model for other Departments to follow. The following sections will describe funding levels and organization as it relates to the Biomass Initiative.

United States Department of Agriculture
There are several agencies within USDA that are involved in biomass activities:
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) - As the in-house research arm of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) conducts fundamental and applied research to develop solutions to agricultural problems with a high national priority. Research related to biobased products focuses on developing industrial products that expand markets for farm products, replace imports and petroleum-based products, and offer opportunity to meet environmental needs. Activities include development of technologies for biobased degradable plastics, adsorbents and absorbents, improved and lower-cost fuels and fuel additives, biopesticides, composites, cotton-based fabrics with versatile new and improved properties, encapsulating agents, fiber crops for specialized uses, polymers and polymer blends, soy ink, functional fluids (lubricants, hydraulic fluids), specialty chemicals, coatings, health care products, and new crops to meet niche market opportunities. ARS conducts most of its new uses/biobased products and biofuels research at four USDA research centers originally funded by Congress more than 60 years ago to develop new uses for U.S. agricultural commodities and byproducts. These centers are located at Albany, CA, New Orleans, LA, Peoria, IL and Wyndmoor, PA.

Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service (CSREES) - CSREES is USDA's principal link to academia and participates in a nationwide agricultural research planning and coordination system that includes State land-grant universities and the agricultural industry. CSREES promotes research and development for biobased industrial products and bioenergy primarily through its Agricultural Materials Program, National Research Initiative (NRI), and Small Business Innovation Research Program. The Agricultural Materials program provides non-competitive funding to land grant institutions through formula funding and special research grants to support a range of basic and applied research topics. NRI provides a bridge between basic research and near-term development, and SBIR supports pre-commercialization activities. Examples of topics supported under all three programs include: plant breeding and genetics, crop production, materials processing, and product development. Products include biobased lubricants, energy, fibers, polymers, chemicals, and utilization of agricultural waste.

Farm Service Agency (FSA) - The Farm Service Agency's Bioenergy Program (Program) funded through the Commodity Credit Corporation's (CCC) was extended through Fiscal Year 2006 by the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (the Act). The Program reimburses eligible producers of bioenergy (commercial fuel grade ethanol and biodiesel) for part of their input costs of eligible commodities used to increase bioenergy production over the previous Fiscal Year. The Act made changes including modifying the definitions for biodiesel, conversion factor, eligible commodities and ethanol, extending the program beyond Fiscal Year 2002, and allowing producers to enter into multi-year contracts for program payments.

Forest Service (FS) - Forest Service Research and Development has had an active research program for almost 90 years in the growth and management of timber, timber removal, and forest products development. Biobased products research is directed toward development of cost-effect feedstock systems for wood fiber that are competitive with non-renewable resources and new technologies to provide low-cost and environmentally acceptable processing and manufacturing of wood-based products. Activities include development in the area of composites, pulp and paper technology, adhesives, wood engineering, wood processing, wood preservation, harvesting, wood energy systems, and feedstock growth.

Natural Resources and Conservation Service (NRCS) - NRCS provides technical assistance to farmers and ranchers to help ensure that the production of feedstocks for bioenergy and bioproducts are produced in an environmentally acceptable manner. The agency is focusing increased attention on helping producers use animal wastes in energy production, especially to address greenhouse gas problems. Through the USDA's Resource Conservation and Development program, NRCS works at the community or area-wide level to help develop enterprises to produce and market bioenergy and bioproducts. Indirect support to bioenergy/biobased products projects developed by local RC&D councils is provided as NRCS coordinators devote some staff time to assist the councils with these projects.

Rural Development (RD) - Rural Development helps rural communities meet their basic needs by: building water and wastewater systems, financing decent, affordable housing, supporting electric power and rural businesses including cooperatives, and supporting community development with information and technical assistance.

Table 4 lists biomass-related funding by agency. Also listed are the Office of the Chief Economist and Departmental Administration. Overall funding requests for FY07 are down 10 to 20 percent from FY06 levels for the majority of these agencies with the exception of FSA where the FY07 request is a 7 percent increase from '06 levels.

Table 4: USDA Historic Funding for Biomass Activities (Dollars in millions)

United States Department of Energy
The Department of Energy program dedicated to the Biomass Initiative is the Office of the Biomass Program located in the DOE office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. It is funded by two subcommittees under the Congressional Appropriations Committee: the Energy & Water Development (EWD) and Interior (INT) subcommittees. Table 5 illustrates a breakdown of annual appropriations by subcommittee. In response to the President's Advanced Energy Initiative, the funding request for FY07 for the DOE Biomass Program is an increase of 65 percent or nearly $59 million from FY06.

Table 5: DOE Historic Funding for Biomass Activities

Program Organization - Platforms and Pathways The Biomass Program organizes its planning and R&D approach into six technology platforms (including the Integrated Biorefinery) and six biorefinery pathways. The technology platforms support core R&D in feedstock and conversion technologies, while the pathways incorporate specific feedstock and conversion technology options for the development of various biorefinery types. The pathway approach defines generic biorefinery pathways aligned with the biomass resource and bioindustry market segments to streamline evaluation of opportunities and set priorities.

Pathways translate different aspects of core feedstock and conversion R&D conducted in technical platform areas to various types of biorefineries. In addition to including platform technologies, the pathways are linked to a feedstock resource (agricultural or forest), the existing segments of today's bioindustry, where possible, and future bioindustry market segments, where envisioned. They are categorized as near, mid, and long-term possibilities.

Pathways

• Existing Wet and Dry Mill Improvements Pathway: Improves existing commercial process by utilizing corn fiber and residual starch conversion to produce additional ethanol and other bioproducts, including the recovery and/or conversion of oils, as well as heat and power.
• Oil Seed Mill Improvement Pathway: Improves existing commercial process by incorporating new technologies to produce high-value chemical intermediates from the primary oil and glycerol byproduct streams, and evaluating new oil seed feedstocks.
• Agricultural Residues Pathway: Develops new commercially viable processes and facilities to utilize farm residues from current grain crop production activities (e.g., corn stover and wheat straw) in integrated biochemical and thermochemical conversion processes.
• Pulp and Paper Mill Improvements Pathway: Improves existing commercial process to more efficiently utilize residuals (hog fuel and black liquor) for the production of new intermediates (e.g., sugars, pyrolysis oils, syngas) that can be used to generate a variety of fuels, chemicals, and heat and power.
• Perennial Grasses and Woody Energy Crops Pathway: Develops new commercially viable processes and facilities for utilizing dedicated energy crops (e.g., switchgrass and willow) in integrated biochemical and thermochemical conversion processes.
• Forest Residue Pathway: Develops new commercially viable processes and facilities for utilizing residuals to produce new intermediates (e.g., pyrolysis oils, syngas) that can be used to generate a variety of fuels, chemicals, and heat and power.

Table 6: Biomass Program Technology Platforms

For additional information on the Biomass Initiative; USDA or DOE; or the Joint Solicitation projects please visit: http://www.biomass.govtools.us/publications.asp#DOEJointSolicitation

¹In 2002, USDA and DOE agreed to collaborate by using an existing DOE solicitation, which was consistent with provisions of the Biomass Act.