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Reston, Virginia – The Biden-Harris Administration today submitted to Congress the President’s fiscal year 2025 budget request, which includes $1.6 billion for the U.S. Geological Survey to provide publicly available scientific data that informs the responsible management of our nation’s lands, waters, and living resources and contributes to the security of the American people and economy.
The proposal reiterates the President’s vision to build on his Administration’s recent investments in next-generation tools to further understand our changing world.
“The President’s FY 2025 budget request emphasizes the value of USGS science to strengthening the nation’s economic growth and security,” David Applegate, director of the U.S. Geological Survey.
The investments requested in the budget proposal focus on several key aspects of the USGS science portfolio, including:
Landsat’s Next Satellite Mission
The President’s FY 2025 budget request funds the development of Landsat Next, which could unlock new applications for sustainable water use and crop production, and provide critical information for assessing habitat change, climate and snow dynamics, soil health, and other variables.
The Landsat satellite program, a joint effort of the U.S. Geological Survey and NASA, is the world’s longest-running space-based Earth observation program. It provides a 52-year continuous record of changes in Earth’s surface. The program provides openly accessible foundational data and science that is critical to farmers, ranchers, land managers, and others who rely on accurate information to make decisions to effectively manage wildfires, droughts and floods, coastal change, and countless other challenges.
The Landsat Next satellite mission will ensure the continuity of the program while revolutionizing the breadth and depth of actionable information freely available to end users.
The proposed $12 million funding increase for Landsat Next will support the development of the satellite’s ground systems in partnership with NASA.
Strengthening comprehensive laboratory support
To ensure that the USGS continues to be the gold standard for science, informing fair and evidence-based decision making, the budget includes a $1.7 million investment to strengthen scientific quality and integrity through comprehensive laboratory support, training, and oversight programs.
The program will enhance best practices for safety, risk management, quality, integrity, and animal welfare at USGS laboratories.
The FY 2025 budget request makes targeted investments in drought science to enable USGS’s scientific capabilities to mitigate and adapt to this critical climate challenge. Stakeholders, including the agricultural industry and federal, state, tribal, and local governments, urgently need drought information, data, and tools, and the USGS is well positioned to provide these resources.
Investments in drought preparedness will provide scientific and monitoring data to inform long-term management, planning, and decision-making on potentially transformational changes in ecosystems.
In the budget request, USGS proposes to expand the federal priority hydrographic survey network, advance integrated national and regional water availability assessments, and strengthen the Three-Dimensional Hydrology Program, all of which will provide decision makers with better water data and assessments to help them manage and plan for droughts, fires, and floods, as well as agricultural conservation planning, drinking water protection, and ecosystem management.
Continued investment in these activities will further our understanding of the factors that cause drought and will help build strong forecasting capabilities for drought planning at local, regional and national levels.
Providing conservation, restoration and management information to decision makers
The President’s FY 2025 budget request proposes to increase information to support decisions that affect our national security and the efficient use of natural resources: specifically, through the USGS’s Energy and Mineral Resources and Ecosystems mission areas.
Through the Energy and Mineral Resources mission area, USGS will expand critical mineral supply chain forecasts and improve scenario and risk analysis methods for supply chain disruptions, including trade wars, natural disasters, and electric vehicle market penetration. This work will inform billions of dollars in federal and private sector investment decisions.
The Ecosystems Mission Area will make additional investments to meet the science needs of the Department of the Interior’s conservation strategies. These investments will support a broad range of federal agencies, tribes, and western states by providing a better understanding of wildlife migration corridors, particularly for large animal populations. The FY 2025 budget request will allow the USGS to establish a science delivery architecture to comprehensively inventory existing migrations and provide publicly available, interactive migration maps to help decision makers protect, restore, and manage America’s lands and waters.
Continue science investment and impact with bipartisan infrastructure law and inflation reduction bill
The President’s FY 2025 budget request capitalizes on the once-in-a-generation investment in our Nation made through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act (P.L. 117-58), which the President signed on November 15, 2021.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Act provides $511 million for the USGS to better understand and characterize the nation’s mineral resources through integrated mapping, collection and preservation of geological and geophysical data, and replacement laboratory facilities for energy and mineral research. The 2025 Budget request builds on these investments to continue investments in critical mineral mapping and research that will support U.S. economic growth and national security.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provided $23 million to produce, collect, disseminate, and use three-dimensional (3D) elevation data. The 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) is the first-ever nationally consistent, high-resolution topographic map baseline that meets the needs of a wide range of business, government, and civil society sectors.
IRA funding advances the goal of completing the National 3DEP baseline coverage, helps ensure efficient and timely data processing and delivery, and supports research and acquisition to build the 3D National Terrain Model. Approximately 70 percent of IRA funding is used for data acquisition for the baseline and next-generation 3DEPs, leveraging funding from federal, state, local, and other partners.
Through these efforts, as well as ongoing programs funded in the President’s FY 2025 budget request, the USGS will continue to advance science that informs evidence-based decision-making and benefits every American.
For more details on the Department of the Interior’s fiscal year 2025 budget, see the department’s press release here and an overview of DOI’s fiscal year 2025 budget here.
For more information on the President’s FY 2025 budget request for the USGS, see the USGS FY 2025 Budget Statement here.
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