FY05 DIRECTOR'S ANNUAL GUIDANCE

As we commemorate our 125^th^ year, our reputation as the premier
Federal natural science agency is unrivaled. There is an ever-increasing
demand and need for USGS science to address the impacts on the Nation's
natural environment and resources of population growth, climate
variability, and the certainty of natural hazards. These impacts include
expanded agricultural development, dispersal of invasive species,
increased demand on surface and groundwater resources, acceleration of
land use change, stresses on wildlife populations and habitats,
increases in energy and mineral development, and susceptibility to
natural hazards. These issues are at the heart of the work we do -- work
that is uniquely our own in the Federal government -- but increasingly,
work that we cannot do alone.

Yet, our ability to move into new relevant areas of research has been
hampered by budget constraints. The outlook for significant funding
increases in FY 2005 is not good. The low Congressional budget
allocation levels will make full restoration of cuts challenging and
unlikely. Financial demands to support President's Management Agenda
activities and Department of the Interior initiatives continue and will
likely increase. These realities plus growing uncontrollable costs, the
continuing demands in the areas of financial management and IT security,
and our own operations cost increases, will continue to erode funds
available for the science and information programs that are our reason
for existing.

Across the bureau, the response to this situation has been an
understandable frustration and an expectation that if we would cut our
growing administrative costs, things would improve for our science.
Reducing administrative and overhead costs through increased
efficiencies is a worthy goal, but we must recognize that many of these
costs are essential to our operations. Reductions will be difficult to
accomplish in an environment of increased reporting, accountability, and
obligations for responsiveness to demands beyond our control.
Nevertheless, I am committed to a comprehensive evaluation of the
effectiveness of USGS management activities. The organizational reviews
proposed by our field science managers are welcome and will contribute
to this effort. While we all hope that scrutiny of our administrative
and facilities costs will lead to cost reductions, it is unrealistic to
think that the savings will be of a magnitude that compares with our
overall science program funding deficiencies.

Nevertheless, we need to find ways to move forward as a science bureau.
We need to look for innovative ways to add value to our work and to
develop proactive approaches to maintaining and growing our priority
programs. First, we need to determine what these are. Inevitably, our
senior managers will have to make difficult decisions and agree to
divert funds from lower priority activities to higher ones. Some
activities may need to cease altogether. Additionally, we will have to
focus energy in finding ways to increase funding derived from sources
other than appropriations; in short, we need to develop a greater
reliance on reimbursable dollars and provide incentives for doing so.
This would mean that programs and centers not able or willing to attract
sufficient reimbursable funds and not receiving increases in
appropriated dollars through budget increases or shifts from lower
priority activities, would be expected to manage the decline in
available funds by doing less with less. This dependence is fraught with
challenges to the integrity of our science planning and prioritization
processes, but I believe it is a viable and logical approach. In
addition to providing additional program funds, reimbursable efforts
help keep science relevant and competitive.

There are other ways that we can add value to our work without
significant increases in appropriated funding. This year, I urge you to
look for ways to partner *internally*, within the USGS. We all know the
value of partnering with external organizations \-- with Federal, state,
and tribal governments, with universities, and with the private sector.
I am convinced that increased partnering within the USGS will provide
the same potential for adding value to our work as partnering
externally. Please take the time to learn about the other disciplines
and the new structure taking form in the Geographic Information Office
(GIO). Learn about the successes of our regional managers in connecting
to their counterparts in the Department of the Interior and other local
stakeholders. Look for ways to coordinate related scientific efforts, to
coalesce projects for greater impact, and to integrate scientific
expertise to address complex scientific problems. Consider using people
short on funding in other programs or disciplines instead of temporary
hires and contract people to meet short-term program staffing needs.

Some internal partnering opportunities include working with NAWQA and
the Cooperative Water Program. Also, the National Map holds great
potential as the integrator for much of the work we do. There are a
number of opportunities that exist between the Water and Biology
disciplines to better understand ecosystem health and integrity. There
is an additional challenge, highlighted in the REX-PC meeting, of
bringing together the science of energy and mineral resource
characterization and the science of the impacts of energy and mineral
development on ecosystems and the environment and land use. Our DOI
partners tell us that they need information and insights from all
disciplines to manage development in an environmentally responsible
manner. The development of decision support systems is another great
integrator of information and disciplines. There is an increasing
interest in adaptive management by the DOI and other land and resource
management agencies such as the Forest Service and the US Army Corps of
Engineers. Monitoring, assessment, and research are essential elements
of this approach and we need to be sure they are included.

I have been gratified to see significant increases in the number and
caliber of integrated science projects and the impressive growth in
interactions with our DOI sister bureaus in the last few years. Both are
adding dimensions to our science and demonstrating the relevance it can
have to important management decisions. I commend all who have
contributed to these successes and urge you to continue these efforts in
FY05. The Bureau Planning Process, including the workings of the REX-PC
meeting, has done much to increase the awareness of thematic
opportunities for collaborative work and to bring the people together
who can turn these opportunities into projects. The effectiveness of the
planning effort depends on its results being communicated to all levels
of the bureau and on our science leaders being held accountable for
working within it as programs are shaped. We must focus on increasing
the utility of this process in FY05 and on incorporating the priorities
identified with this process into our budget initiative requests.

There are a few areas of program emphasis that I would like to bring to
your attention where our FY 05 efforts can add momentum consistent with
our program priorities.

**Priority Ecosystem Science** -- We should be looking toward adding to
the ecosystems we include in this program in a staged way. The earliest
efforts can be informal as programs work together to tackle important
natural systems. This can lead to a budget initiative that formally
defines a new PES project. I would like to see regional executives work
with program coordinators to initiate these collaborative efforts on
priority landscapes and waterscapes and to consider recommending
discontinuing PES status for any existing areas no longer considered a
priority.

**Science Impact** -- Science Impact is a focused effort to improve and
expand the use of science information to inform and support land and
resource decision-making. This effort is new and is still taking shape
through a dialog being carried out across the bureau this year, and with
a small group of demonstration projects funded by the Director's Venture
Capital Fund. Most of our projects would benefit from a re-evaluation of
their current strategies for interacting with stakeholders and a
re-examination of the potential for their products to inform decisions.
I encourage you all to participate in the Science Impact dialog and to
learn more about building greater stakeholder value into your project
workplans.

**Cross-Cut Federal Programs** -- Our scientists are involved in several
research areas that are formally or informally part of interagency
Federal science programs which address climate change and climate
variability, emerging human health threats, earth observations, invasive
species, and other challenging scientific issues. It is to our advantage
to be at the table when these issues are framed, and to articulate to
the Federal science community the diverse natural science capability and
expertise of the USGS. I am very pleased to see an increase in the level
of USGS participation in interagency science efforts. In our current
funding environment, we need to be aggressive not only in our research,
but in its visibility and prominence in Federal cross-cut programs.

**Water Availability** -- Gaining a better understanding of the nation's
water resource base, especially ground water, should be addressed to the
maximum extent possible with existing funds and the efforts publicized
broadly. This is critical to demonstrating that we are the agency with
primary responsibility in this area and to obtaining additional funds.
Water availability is, and always will be, a high priority global issue,
and the USGS should continue to provide leadership across the Federal
government in the hydrologic sciences.

**Landscape Change** -- We need to increase our efforts, at all temporal
and geographic scales, to monitor, measure, quantify, understand, model,
and forecast change of the land surface. The use of remote sensing as a
tool in this should be increased, and the incorporation of other
disciplines continued. Landscape change should be the subject of a
bureau workshop in 05.

Included with this guidance is a summary list of priority issues
identified by disciplines and regions in response to my call for
suggestions for topics to be included in this document. As we prepare
for our FY05 program implementation, I ask that you review this list to
determine which priority areas, including international opportunities
within them, might grow through increases in reimbursable funding and
think about where that funding might come from. I will convene a group
early this fall to more fully explore the role increased reimbursable
funding could play and how we might develop a plan to implement this
approach.

These times are difficult and will inevitably cause strain within our
organization. However, I have the greatest confidence that we will
weather the next few difficult budget years if we continue to join
forces internally, to partner with our sister DOI bureaus and other
Federal and State agencies, and have the courage to focus on the most
important scientific issues for which we have a unique capability to
develop understandings that benefit society.

Chip Groat

April 1, 2004

Priority Issues from the Disciplines and Regions

for FY 2005

-   Forces of change in society and our environment that require USGS
    science:

    -   Population growth

        -   Agricultural practices spread, expansion of pesticides,
            fertilizers, etc.

        -   Water needs increase

        -   Land use changes accelerate

        -   Energy needs increase

        -   Susceptibility to hazards increase

        -   Interactions with wildlife increase; wildland-suburban
            interface pressure

    -   Climate change

        -   Hydrologic systems

        -   Weather patterns

        -   Fire, drought, landslides, floods

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Science in support of DOI bureaus for land and resource management:
    challenges of multi-use management and restoration, stewardship of
    trust species, etc.

-   Integrated science themes

    -   Water availability (quality and quantity)

    -   Restoration of impaired habitats

        -   Contaminant detection and impact

    -   Invasive species

    -   Forecasting landscape change

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Cross-discipline opportunities

    -   NAWQA

    -   Cooperative Water Program

    -   National Map: Geography is the science integrator

    -   Energy/mineral resource characterization (GD) -- impacts of
        development (Water, Biology, Geography)

    -   

    -   Water availability (Water) -- Ecosystem health and integrity
        (Biology)

    -   Decision support tools

    -   Adaptive management

    -   Information management; continuity and quality of data delivery

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Places on the landscape

    -   Coastal zones: Pacific Northwest (Puget Sound, Glacier Bay, San
        Francisco Bay), Atlantic coast (New Jersey), northern Gulf of
        Mexico, Mississippi Delta, coral reefs,

    -   Great Basin

    -   Lower Colorado, Columbia, Klamath Rivers

    -   Columbia Plateau

    -   Great Lakes

    -   North Slope

    -   US Mexico Border

-   Focus on partnerships

    -   NOAA, DOI bureaus, NSF

-   New Ideas

    -   Propose a new Priority Ecosystem Science study area (northern
        Gulf of Mexico or Pacific Northwest)

    -   Focus on post-disaster research

    -   Consider developing Coop programs in other discipline modeled on
        Water

    -   Investment in technological innovations, such as
        genetics/molecular biology; miniaturized remote sensing
        instruments

    -   Develop rapid response models for natural hazards