General Statement Earthquake Hazards (+$1.6 million) -In the minutes following a damaging earthquake, Federal, State and local emergency program managers need accurate maps showing the severity and geographic distribution of strong ground shaking. This information is also needed by the managers of transportation systems and utilities, public service providers A Plan for Implementing a Real-Time Seismic Hazard Warning System, approved by the Department and OMB, identified the need for installing a total of 840 strong motion sensors to support early alerts that can help to minimize the loss of life and property in the event of an earthquake. and the public. This proposed increased funding will increase from 20 to 100 the number of earthquake sensors that can be purchased and installed in FY 2000. Flood Hazards (+$3.0 million) — A new evaluation of the USGS streamgaging network Customer Comment was recently conducted. A report of the results was provided to Congress, as requested in the FY 1999 House Appropriations Committee report, and is available at http://water.usgs.gov/streamgaging/ This evaluation provides the foundation for continued development of the network. With the requested increase, the USGS will purchase and install new and upgraded stream gaging telemetry for a total of 250 gaging stations (an increase of 150 from the annual rate of 100 new or upgraded gaging stations), in support of high-priority river "Your site has been the best source of river forecasting locations selected in consultation with the National Weather Service. In addition, USGS will purchase new velocity sensing equipment for an additional 5 gaging locations on rivers where conventional techniques do not provide timely and reliable floodflow information, and will enhance our ability to estimate streamflow from water levels at 50 gaging stations where existing ratings do not permit accurate forecasting of extreme floods. We will reactivate discontinued stations or strengthen existing stations at 10 vital locations. Geomagnetic (Solar) Storms (+$0.4 million) — The USGS operates 13 magnetic observatories that monitor short and long-term variations in the Earth's magnetic field. The next maximum in the 11-year solar sunspot cycle will be in 2000-2001, and will produce strong short-term variations in the earth's magnetic field in the form of geomagnetic or solar storms. These storms induce strong, spurious electrical currents in power grids, disrupt communications and navigation systems, and can damage or destroy satellites. The USGS will modernize three observatories, expand telemetry links and increase data processing capability to provide real-time data to users, including the airlines industry and the U.S. Air Force. a single source of disaster information readily available to a wide range of users. The Survey has a critical role in providing disaster related information for specific hazards, such as earthquakes, landslides, and floods. However, the government-wide integration of disaster information is not the Survey's primary role. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, with direct responsibility over disaster response, is the more appropriate umbrella agency for this proposal, not the Survey." A National Research Council review of the DIN program, Reducing Disaster Losses through Better Information, published in 1999 strongly endorses the advancement of the concept for an improved information system to save lives and reduce losses related to natural disasters. Among their findings, they state that "At present several federal agencies and other organizations perform a variety of functions relevant to development and communication of information about natural disasters.... The inability to access information and the lack of standardization, coordination, and communication are all obstacles that need to be overcome... in developing the information there is a need to integrate data across many disciplines, organizations, and geographical regions." The USGS believes that we do have a significant, appropriate, demonstrated contribution to offer in the resolution of these issues and in support of the multiagency effort to establish a robust, integrated disaster information network by virtue of our critical role in providing disaster related information for specific hazards, such as earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, and floods, our expertise and lead responsibility for geospatial information services among Federal, State, and local agencies and the private sector, our multidisciplinary expertise and strength in integration of scientific data for problem solving, A preview of what could be achieved more efficiently and expeditiously with this initiative in place was demonstrated by our Center for Integration of Natural Disaster Information (CINDI) in response to Hurricane Mitch. CINDI is a research facility to develop advanced methods for disaster data gathering, integration, and dissemination. CINDI was pressed into operational General Statement activities during the emergency that accompanied Hurricane Mitch. While the results of our efforts were well received by the other Federal agencies and the governments of the countries affected, the effort showed the critical need to have common data format standards, various protocols, and a more streamlined system in place for gathering, processing, and distributing critical hazards data to the disaster managers. The disaster environment is inherently chaotic and lines of communication are stressed beyond normal limits, and often broken, at a time when efficient effective communication is essential to saving lives and property. DIN would be the operational network with standards and protocols in place for all phases of disaster management. Therefore, the FY 2000 budget requests $8.0 million for the Disaster Information Network (DIN). The DIN request and Real Time Hazards request, taken in tandem, represent a comprehensive strategy for improved disaster mitigation and recovery. It incorporates both a state-of-the-art disaster monitoring and detection component and an advanced, integrated, and coordinated communications link among the sources of disaster information and the users of that information to ensure access during all phases of disaster management. Administrative Priorities Maintenance/Capital Improvement (+$1.5 million) The Conference Report on the FY 1999 Omnibus Appropriation states "The Committees understand that the maintenance needs of the Survey are being included as part of the Department's 5-year maintenance planning effort and encourage the Survey to reflect these needs in future budget requests.” The USGS has developed a Five-Year Deferred Maintenance and Capital Improvement Plan as part of the Department of the Interior's efforts to improve its infrastructure. We conducted a detailed inventory of our facilities and equipment needs based on the Department of the Interior's standards and criteria. These projects have been ranked with critical health and safety and critical resource protection as the highest priorities. The FY 2000 Budget requests a $1.5 million increase as the first step in correcting the USGS' highest priority deferred maintenance and capital improvement projects included in the Plan as well as beginning a cycle of condition assessments and development of a maintenance management system that has elements in common with those of the land management bureaus and BIA. Y2K The FY 1999 House Appropriations Committee report states "The Committee directs the agencies to ensure that the Year 2000 conversion efforts include the full inventory of both information technology and non-information systems in day-to-day agency operations. The non-information systems include mechanical systems in buildings, telephones, radios and scientific instruments. Non-information systems should be treated with as much urgency as the information systems." General Statement The FY 1999 Senate Appropriations Committee report states "The Committee is hopeful that agencies in this bill will continue to work aggressively to resolve outstanding year 2000 issues within available funds, but will also work with the Office of Management and Budget to access any emergency funds that may be appropriated to the President for information technology systems and related expenses." In FY 1999, the U.S. Geological Survey received from DOI a total of $15,087,000 from the FY 1999 Emergency Supplemental Appropriation for replacement, upgrade, installation, testing of scientific instruments, communications equipment and scientific applications software allocated as follows: seismic activities: $3.6 million; water research and analysis: $7.5 million; mapping: $1.9 million; biological research: $1.1 million; and administrative & technology: $0.9 million. The General Accounting Office (GAO) has made over 100 recommendations in more than 70 reports addressing the urgent Year 2000 computing challenge. In their most recent release, GAO High-Risk Series An Update GAO/HR-99-1, January 1999, the focus of their recommendations is summarized in five categories. USGS progress toward accomplishing each is discussed in the following table. Project planning Priority-setting Data exchanges Testing Business continuity and contingency planning The USGS has developed a three-tier project plan with automatic aggregation from discreet systems, telecommunications and scientific instruments projects to the organization's division and bureau levels. The USGS has identified those facilities which house processes critical to its mission and where materials and organisms are used whose release into the environment could be hazardous. The USGS has completed its analysis of data exchange partners, remediated The USGS completed testing of its mission critical systems and, using The USGS has business continuity and contingency plans for most of its While all mission-critical and most mission essential computers, application systems, telecommunication infrastructure components and scientific instruments will be year-2000compliant by the turn of the century, there is the growing realization that this problem is extraordinarily pervasive and that not everything can be fixed in time. Consequently, Y2K remediation, testing and implementation activities will continue into FY 2000 for those items that, on the basis of business impact and acceptable risk analyses, may be deferred and for latent problems that are uncovered. General Statement FY 2000 Budget Summary The USGS 2000 budget request is $838.5 million, an increase of $40.6 million over 1999. The request reflects tradeoffs, redirections and offsets to achieve a final budget that addresses the Department's and Nation's most urgent science needs and fully covers our fixed cost increases. The budget includes $19.6 million for uncontrollable cost increases in order to continue the current services level of program operations and prevent program erosion that would occur from absorbing these increased costs. This increase is consistent with Presidential policy for civil service pay, providing $18.5 million for the pay raise of 3.6 percent anticipated in January 1999, and the 4.4 percent pay raise anticipated in January 2000. The increase includes the anticipated costs of the conversion of agency personnel currently enrolled in the Civil Service Retirement System to the Federal Employees Retirement System ($0.8 million); Workers' and Unemployment Compensation adjustments (-$0.1 million); and contributions to the Department of the Interior Working Capital Fund ($0.3 million). There is a decrease of $1.3 million for technical adjustments to the Biological Research activity, eliminating the $1.0 million needed in FY 1999 for replacement of an incinerator at the National Wildlife Health Disease Center located in Madison, Wisconsin. Also eliminated is $300,000 pursuant to the transfer of the San Marcos Field Station from the USGS to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). The facility is currently being operated by the the FWS. The budget includes $53.6 million for programmatic increases, a number of which contribute to the Administration's Integrated Science for Ecosystem Challenges initiative, Livable Communities initiative, and Land Legacy initiative. In addition to the priorities previously described: Integrated Science (+$17.4 million), Community/Federal Information Partnership (+$10 million), National Biological Information Infrastructure (+$1.0 million), amphibian research and monitoring (+$5.6 million), real-time hazards waming (+$5.45 million), and Disaster Information Network (+$8.0 million), USGS is participating in several other interagency efforts for which additional funding is requested. Highlights of the changes follow. National Satellite Land Remote Sensing Data Archive (+$2.5 million) — The Secretary of the Interior has delegated to the USGS the responsibility to manage the National Satellite Land Remote Sensing Data Archive, as mandated by the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992 and the National Space Policy (NSTC) of 1996. The USGS maintains this permanent, comprehensive, govemment archive of global remotely sensed data by providing proper storage, preservation, and timely access to data for long-term monitoring and global environmental studies. In 1999, new remote sensing instruments (Landsat 7, MODIS, and ASTER) will begin to provide unprecedented amounts of data that the USGS archive is currently unable to accept. The FY 1999 budget included an increase of $2.5 million of a total $5.0 million needed to develop the required systems and infrastructure capacity to ensure the availability and avoid permanent loss of these data. This budget includes a request for the remaining $2.5 million in the Earth Science Information Management and Delivery Subactivity of the National Mapping Program to ensure that Federal and State agencies, academia, private companies, and general public expectations, as well as congressional intent under the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act, can be met. Coral Reefs (+$1.0 million) — Recent evidence indicates that coral reefs are deteriorating worldwide. Symptoms include loss of corals, increasing abundance of benthic algae, declining |