Earth Science Information Network: Relationship of Consortium to Federal Agencies
Released: 1995-11-28T00:00:00

Letter

Background

CIESIN (pronounced “season”) was established in 1989 as a private, nonprofit organization chartered by the state of Michigan. It is structured as a consortium of university and nongovernmental research organizations. The current members of the consortium are

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan;

Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan;

Saginaw Valley State University, University Center, Michigan;

University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland;

Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, New York; and

Environmental Research Institute of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

CIESIN’s Mission

According to CIESIN officials, CIESIN’s mission is to provide access to, and enhance the use of, information worldwide on human interactions in the environment and to serve the needs of scientists and public and private decisionmakers. CIESIN uses computer and communications technology to provide tools to search for, obtain and understand data. Some of its current activities include (1) providing information on the human aspects of global environmental change to the research and policy communities; (2) furnishing computer tools for data access, research, and analysis across academic disciplines; (3) serving as a bridge between the socioeconomic and natural science research communities; (4) operating the SEDAC; (5) managing the U.S. Global Change Research Information Office; and (6) continuing the development of its Information Cooperative.

The Information Cooperative is being developed to enable worldwide cataloging of data archives to be shared over the Internet. It is intended to enable rapid access to information about human activity and its relationship to the environment through a network of U.S. federal entities, including NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency, and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry; state and regional environmental information systems; U. N. agencies, such as the World Health Organization; other multilateral entities, such as the Organization of American States and the World Bank; individual foreign countries, including China and Poland; and selected nongovernmental organizations and international scientific research programs. Members of the Information Cooperative work with CIESIN to make their HDGC-related databases compatible with and accessible through CIESIN’s computer network and to maintain those databases. CIESIN plans to continue to work on broadening the database capabilities and data sources supporting its mission. Further information on CIESIN’s Information Cooperative is in appendix I.

CIESIN’s Funding

To date, CIESIN has received most of its funding from federal agencies, including the Departments of Defense and Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and NASA, primarily through earmarked appropriations—portions of lump-sum amounts appropriated to agencies for general purposes. Appropriations for CIESIN through fiscal year 1995 totaled over $89 million, exclusive of over $42 million provided for building a CIESIN headquarters facility, which was subsequently withdrawn. Through June 1995, CIESIN was furnished over $82 million by federal agencies and had used almost $74 million, as shown in table 1. Nonfederal sources of funding for CIESIN totaled about $505,000 through June 1995. Most of this funding has been fees from members of CIESIN.

Because CIESIN funding was largely specifically designated, the funding agencies initially had to work with CIESIN to find functions or activities for CIESIN to perform that related to their missions. These agencies used various mechanisms, including grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts, to provide funds to CIESIN for work that generally fell into three main categories: (1) obtaining data sets, (2) integrating data systems, and (3) developing software support retrieval and analysis of data. For example, CIESIN’s work for the Department of Agriculture includes five tasks under that agency’s Global Change Data Assessment and Integration Project: (1) data survey, assessment, integration and access; (2) data rescue; (3) Geographic Information Systems; (4) knowledge transfer; and (5) laboratory support.

Officials at the federal agencies providing significant funding for CIESIN told us that, in the absence of actual or anticipated earmarks, funding of CIESIN would not have been requested because budgets were tight and that they all had higher priority, mission-related requirements. Of the federal agencies currently funding CIESIN, only NASA plans to do so after the remaining funds are used.

NASA’s continued funding of CIESIN is for developing and operating a SEDAC. The SEDAC is one of nine Distributed Active Archive Centers under NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System. The SEDAC is to develop and implement innovative activities that integrate data from both the social and natural sciences and respond to high priority information needs of policy decisionmakers. The SEDAC is also to make the HDGC data it holds—and the information about the earth science held by the eight other centers—easily available to the scientific community.

NASA noncompetitively awarded the SEDAC contract to CIESIN in June 1994 for 1 year with up to four 1-year extensions. In June 1995, NASA exercised the first of these extensions, which runs to June 1996. NASA officials told us that, subject to an annual review, they plan to fund the SEDAC at about $5.7 million each year. This total amount is less than half of the average annual funding CIESIN received from federal agencies prior to fiscal year 1995.

CIESIN had an increasing flow of operating funds through fiscal year 1992. However, federal agencies’ funding has been decreasing in recent years, as shown in table 2.

As a result of decreasing funding and in anticipation of the pending loss of most of its current funding sources, CIESIN has been developing and implementing a strategy to find new customers from domestic, international, governmental, and commercial sources. As of June 1995, CIESIN had submitted 17 proposals and was preparing 12 more. The submitted proposals went to federal agencies, state and local government agencies, and the United Nations. The planned proposals would be funded by a mixture of private corporations, foreign countries, and state or federal agencies.

CIESIN has also competed for and won peer recognition. For example, CIESIN won a competition against 22 other nominees for the Computerworld Smithsonian Award in the category of Environment, Energy, and Agriculture for its Gateway software, which is briefly described in appendix I. This award honors creative and innovative uses of technology from throughout the world.

In addition, the National Research Council’s Committee on Geophysical and Environmental Data has recommended consideration of CIESIN as a World Data Center to the International Council of Scientific Unions. The recommendation was agreed to at an early 1995 meeting of the International Council of Scientific Unions.

Other awards that CIESIN has competed for, and/or won, are identified in CIESIN’s letter found in appendix III.

NASA’s Oversight of CIESIN

In 1994, NASA brought CIESIN under a contract, in place of a grant, to ensure the development and operation of a SEDAC. As the SEDAC operator, CIESIN is primarily responsible for providing users with access to HDGC data and information. It neither does nor sponsors basic HDGC research.

In early 1994, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Mission to Planet Earth wrote that “by rescoping CIESIN’s mission to include only SEDAC-related activities, NASA now possesses the necessary expertise to manage CIESIN. Because the context within which SEDAC will operate is data management and integration, NASA is more uniquely qualified for this role than any other federal agency.”

To help it oversee CIESIN’s management of the SEDAC, NASA established a SEDAC Users Working Group in November 1994. The working group consists of social scientists and other experts from universities, state and federal agencies, and environmental groups and other private institutions. According to one of the co-chairs of the working group, the working group has significant influence over the SEDAC, and it makes sure the SEDAC serves the needs of both the earth sciences and socioeconomic segments of the global change research community. The working group has thus far offered several recommendations for improvements.

National Science Foundation’s HDGC Centers

In the Conference Report explaining the Veterans Affairs and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 1995, Congress provided the National Science Foundation with $6 million “. . . for a global climate change initiative for a center or consortium for the human dimensions of global climate change.” In December 1994, the Foundation announced the special funding opportunity to facilitate HDGC research, promote HDGC education, and foster interdisciplinary research collaborations on HDGC issues. The Foundation intends to sponsor a variety of HDGC activities under the funding opportunity.

The Foundation received 52 proposals for its funding opportunity competition. One was from CIESIN, in which it proposed to provide a data archive and resource center for the HDGC research community. Thus, as HDGC researchers work under Foundation grants, CIESIN would provide electronic data and software support services. When the research is completed, CIESIN would archive and provide access to the research data.Consequently, there would be no duplication between the functions to be performed by the Foundation’s HDGC research centers and research teams and the functions CIESIN would perform.

CIESIN’s Building Requirements

Through the early part of fiscal year 1993, Congress had appropriated over $46 million for the proposed CIESIN building but in subsequent years gradually withdrew the funding. In the fiscal year 1993 Veteran Affairs and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, Congress earmarked $42 million for the CIESIN headquarters facility. Later, in July 1993, Congress reduced the amount of available appropriations to $37 million.In October of that same year, Congress directed that another $10 millionnot be used until completion of a NASA Inspector General report. The fiscal year 1995 appropriations act specifically rescinded $10 million. The balance of $27 million was recently rescinded by law. The earmarked items in NASA’s fiscal year 1991 and 1992 appropriations included a total of $4.4 million for planning and designing a headquarters facility for CIESIN. In February 1994, as a result of its Inspector General’s report, which questioned the need for the building, NASA issued a stop-work order on the engineering design work, freezing finalization of the building design. In all, over $3 million was spent on planning and designing the facility. Another $75,000 to $150,000 will be spent to terminate the facility contract. The balance of over $1 million will remain with NASA in the appropriate account for expired unobligated balances.

Although the question of federal funding of a headquarters facility for CIESIN is no longer applicable, the question of NASA’s support for CIESIN’s facilities infrastructure is still an open issue, primarily because, as previously noted, CIESIN’s support from federal agencies has been declining. Unless CIESIN is successful in its efforts to generate new business, further reductions will occur with the cessation of the current support CIESIN is receiving from the Departments of Agriculture and Defense and the Environmental Protection Agency. Such prospects raise the issue of the extent of NASA’s future support of CIESIN’s infrastructure under the SEDAC contract, especially under governmentwide guidance for federal agencies’ use in determining the cost of work performed by nonprofit organizations, such as CIESIN.

Under the government’s cost principles for nonprofit organizations, the costs of idle capacity are allowable for a reasonable period of time—ordinarily not to exceed 1 year—if the facilities were necessary when acquired but are now idle due to changes in program requirements. CIESIN is currently located in various leased facilities in Washington, D.C., and Ann Arbor and University Center, Michigan. NASA has not yet evaluated the extent to which it should support CIESIN’s infrastructure for SEDAC purposes once other federal agencies’ funding of CIESIN ceases. If NASA must reduce its support of CIESIN’s facilities, it could consider the cost/benefit of various alternatives, including reducing the overall space at currently leased facilities, consolidating activities at fewer existing facilities, and relocating to reasonably accessible vacant federally owned space.

NASA officials at the Goddard Space Flight Center told us they would be examining the continuing need for NASA’s support of CIESIN’s current management structure, as well as its facilities, under the SEDAC contract.

The Value and Future Use of CIESIN’s Completed Work Have Not Been Determined

Department of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency, and Department of Agriculture officials expressed general satisfaction with CIESIN’s performance, including the technical quality and timeliness of its work. These agencies will have spent over $15 million by the time they terminate their current relationships with CIESIN. The products they receive from CIESIN’s efforts have not been examined for their potential usefulness to the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Federal agency officials we spoke with said such an examination would be useful in identifying the products relevant to the needs and priorities of the global research community.

Noncompetitive SEDAC Contract Requires Rejustification

NASA’s award to CIESIN for the SEDAC was not competed. NASA based its justification for other than full and open competition on the belief that the award of a sole-source contract to CIESIN for the SEDAC was statutorily authorized and, therefore, was an appropriate exception to the competitive requirements set forth in the Competition in Contracting Act. However, we believe that the award to CIESIN was not directed by statute.

The Comptroller General has held that language in congressional committee reports and other legislative history about how funds are expected to be spent do not impose legal requirements on federal agencies. Only the language of the enacted law imposes such requirements. In this instance, the conference report, rather than the law, called for CIESIN to function as a SEDAC. Thus, the noncompetitive award to CIESIN could not properly be justified on the basis that it was statutorily authorized.

The next opportunity NASA will have to determine whether the noncompetitive award to CIESIN can be justified as an exception to the competitive requirements in the Competition in Contracting Act on a basis other than that it was statutorily authorized is prior to exercising the next 1-year option in June 1996.

Recommendations

We recommend that the NASA Administrator direct procurement officials at the Goddard Space Flight Center to determine, by the end of fiscal year 1996, the extent of the CIESIN infrastructure that should be supported under the SEDAC contract and, if this determination shows that a reduction in NASA’s support is warranted, NASA should examine the cost/benefit of various alternative actions, including relocating the SEDAC to excess federally owned space that is reasonably accessible to the SEDAC-user community; program officials, in conjunction with the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s Subcommittee on Global Change Research and other appropriate interested parties, to evaluate, and incorporate into Earth Observing System Data and Information System, any useful CIESIN products developed for the Departments of Agriculture and Defense and the Environmental Protection Agency; and procurement officials at the Goddard Space Flight Center to reexamine the Competition in Contracting Act exemptions to full and open competition and, prior to exercising the next 1-year option on the contract, determine whether an appropriate exemption justifies continuation of the noncompetitive award of the SEDAC contract to CIESIN.

Agency Comments

We obtained formal written comments from both NASA and CIESIN. NASA agreed with our recommendations. NASA officials stated that they appreciated our effort to review CIESIN. (See app. II for NASA’s comments.) CIESIN generally agreed with the report and elaborated on various points discussed in the report. (See app. III for CIESIN’s comments.)

Scope and Methodology

Our methodology included examining applicable laws, regulations, and policies; interviewing CIESIN and federal agency officials; reviewing plans, contract files, and financial and program reports; and accessing and testing CIESIN’s databases. Specifically, we discussed the nature of CIESIN’s mission and its past, present, and potential future activities with CIESIN officials. Also, we obtained documentation of its funding sources from CIESIN and the federal agencies involved. The material reviewed included federal awards audit reports, audited financial statements, Defense Contract Audit Agency reports, and NASA and Department of Agriculture Inspector General reports.

In evaluating CIESIN’s future funding level and building requirements, we discussed future funding plans for CIESIN with federal agency officials, obtained information on CIESIN’s ongoing and planned activities, and discussed the funding levels needed to perform the SEDAC mission with NASA headquarters and Goddard Space Flight Center officials. Further, we reviewed documents associated with the establishment and negotiation of the SEDAC contract, visited CIESIN’s main operating facilities, and obtained information on current and planned staffing levels from CIESIN officials.

We discussed NASA’s role in overseeing work on the human dimensions of global change with NASA, National Science Foundation, and Office of Science and Technology Policy officials. We also reviewed documents and held discussions with National Science Foundation and CIESIN officials related to (1) the National Science Foundation’s approach to carrying out congressional direction to establish HDGC centers or a consortium and (2) the relationship of such centers to CIESIN activities.

We conducted our review at CIESIN in University Center and Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Washington, D.C.; NASA headquarters, Washington, D.C., NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland; NASA Inspector General at the Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio; the Department of Defense, Washington, D.C.; Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., and Research Triangle Park, North Carolina; Department of Agriculture headquarters, Washington, D.C., and Greenbelt, Maryland; Office of Science and Technology Policy, Washington, D.C.; Office of Management and Budget, Washington, D.C.; National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia; and the U.S. Global Change Research Program, Arlington, Virginia. We conducted our review from October 1994 to August 1995 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Unless you announce its contents earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report for 30 days from its issue date. At that time, we will send copies to the Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees; the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President; the NASA Administrator; the Secretary of Agriculture; the Secretary of Defense; and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. We will also provide copies to others upon request.

Please contact me at (202) 512-8412 if you or your staff have any questions. The major contributors to this report are listed in appendix IV.

Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network’s Information Cooperative

The Information Cooperative has been developed and is being expanded by the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) to allow the cataloging of data archives worldwide, which will be shared over the Internet. The Information Cooperative facilitates CIESIN’s accomplishing its mission of providing access to worldwide information on human interactions in the environment. The data may be in the form of the actual data, or information about the data and how best to obtain the information from its original source. provides a means for communication and coordination between global change research organizations, fosters common standards to access data, and makes data available to nations with developing and transitional economies.

An important part of the Information Cooperative is the Gateway software, which is a single means of entry to a large number of databases by using state-of-the-art search software and Internet access. Because various databases around the world are often incompatible, the Gateway allows users to simultaneously search many different databases and to rapidly identify and obtain data from various database sources without knowing where the data are coming from—seamless searching.

Much of the Information Cooperative is still under development. The connection points currently online, in addition to CIESIN, include the SEDAC, the Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, U.S. Global Change Master Directory, Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, Great Lakes Regional Environment Information System, Great Lakes Information Management Resource, World Health Organization, Roper Center, World Bank, and the country of Estonia.

Further information about CIESIN can be obtained from CIESIN’s World Wide Web site on the Internet (http://www.ciesin.org).

Comments From the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Comments From the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network

The following are comments on the CIESIN letter dated September 11, 1995.

GAO Comments

1.Our focus was on the initial time period when CIESIN and the agencies began to have a technical and business relationship. Most agencies, at that time, had structured their on-going activities without considering a role for CIESIN. When funding for CIESIN was earmarked, they had to adjust their activities to do so. 2.The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and our office held numerous discussions about the basis of the justification NASA cited for exemption from the Competition in Contracting Act. However, any decision about the justification for exemption from other than free and open competition would be NASA’s.

Major Contributors to This Report

National Security and International Affairs Division, Washington, D.C.

Office of Information Management and Communications, Washington, D.C.

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