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Department of Commerce
The Commerce Department provides information, technology services, and science that assist American business and society. The department makes possible the weather reports heard every morning; it facilitates technology that Americans use daily in the workplace and at home; it supports the collection and development of statistical information essential for competitive business and our representative democracy. The agency has three strategic goals:
- Provide the economic framework to allow the U.S. economy to operate smoothly and fairly, nationally and globally.
- Create the infrastructure to allow scientific progress to promote American competitiveness.
- Monitor and maintain the Earth's environment to protect human welfare and promote growth.
Strengthening Economic Framework
The budget aims to strengthen core Commerce activities, including statistical programs and international trade compliance.
Department of Commerce Spending
| | 2002 (actual) | 2003 (estimate) | 2004 (request) |
Economic and
Statistics
Administration | $62 million | $73 million | $85 million |
| % Change* | --- | 15.0% increase | 14.1% increase |
International
Trade
Administration | $355 million | $364 million | $382 million |
| % Change* | --- | 6.2% increase | 4.7% increase |
Economic
Development
Administration | $368 million | $350 million | $367 million |
| % Change* | --- | 5.1% decrease | 4.6% increase |
Minority Business
Development
Agency | $28 million | $29 million | $29 million |
| % Change* | --- | 3.4% increase | --- |
* % Change from the previous year.
Patent and Trademark Office (PTO)
The Patent and Trademark office provides the fuel that drives American industry and innovation by offering patents, trademarks, and copyrights. The President's budget requests $1.404 billion for the PTO to move ahead with their 21st Century Strategic Plan. The funding is a 5% increase over the FY'03 proposal; however, $100 million in collected PTO user fees will continue to be diverted from the agency and spent on unrelated government programs. In FY'03, more than $193 million was diverted from the PTO.
Under their proposed budget, the PTO hopes that they will be able to:
- Process all patents electronically by 2004.
- Hire 750 new patent examiners.
- Initiate competitive outsourcing of patent searches.
- Achieve complete review of patents applications by an average of 26.9 months by 2008.
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
The President's budget request for FY'04 will enable the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop the cutting-edge science and technology infrastructure needed to strengthen and safeguard America's economic foundations and security capabilities. The Administration's FY'04 budget request of $498 million represents a decrease of about $65 million (13%) compared to the FY'03 appropriation.
The budget provides increases in funding for labs of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, including $7 million for the new Advanced Measurement Laboratory. In addition, the budget allots $12 million for homeland security standards development related to biometric identification, threat detection, and high-rise safety.
However, other non-security related programs have been cut. Although the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) has been heralded as a success within the Commerce Department, the Administration has proposed terminating the program due to overall budget constraints:
"The Administration believes that other federally funded research and development programs are more effective and of higher priority. Further, large shares of ATP funding have gone to major corporations which do not need subsidies. Finally, ATP-funded projects often have been similar to those being carried out by firms not receiving such subsidies."
Department of Commerce: Science and Technology Spending
| | 2002 (actual) | 2003 (estimate) | 2004 (request) |
NIST
| $685 million | $563 million | $498 million |
| % Change* | --- | 21.6% decrease | 13.0% decrease |
Office of
Technology Policy | $8 million | $8 million | $8 million |
| % Change* | --- | --- | --- |
Advanced
Technology
Program | $185 million | $108 million | $27 million |
| % Change* | --- | 42% decrease | 300% decrease |
US Patent and
Trademark Office | $1,130 million | $1,334 million | $1,404 million |
| % Change* | --- | 15.3% increase | 5.0% increase |
* % Change from the previous year.
National Science Foundation (NSF)
The National Science Foundation gives merit-based grants to individual researchers at 2,000+ universities and institutions. NSF provides one quarter of all federal support for basic research at academic institutions. The President's budget calls for an 8.5% increase in fiscal year 2004 discretionary funding-to $5.48 billion-for the NSF. Although NSF's 2004 request calls for a 60% hike in major research equipment and facilities, the overall 8.5 % increase is sought for core research and related activities for the coming year.
NSF's investments in homeland security-related research will include such projects as joining with the National Institutes of Health in research on the ecology of infectious diseases and microbial genome sequencing.
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