In the last 30 years, the United States has devoted resources and committed billions of dollars toward restoring large ecosystems such as the Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes, the Florida Everglades, and the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers Delta (California Bay-Delta). These initiatives generally cover large areas in one or more states and affect millions of people. Ecosystem restoration in a policy context has gone beyond just restoring the natural environment, and encompasses other objectives such as improving water supply and conveyance, managing natural resources, and restoring endangered species. Because of these wide-ranging objectives, large-scale ecosystem restoration initiatives involve many stakeholders, including federal, state, and local agencies, and private and nongovernmental organizations. Most of the large-scale ecosystem restoration initiatives are ongoing, and many decision makers evaluate their progress (or lack thereof) to uncover lessons learned and implement changes. Congress plays a key role in large-scale ecosystem restoration efforts. Congress is generally responsible for authorizing federal agency involvement in restoration efforts and establishing guidelines for managing and implementing ecosystem restoration projects. Congress is also interested in the progress of ecosystem restoration initiatives because many restoration activities and projects are funded by federal appropriations. Congressional oversight of ecosystem restoration initiatives has generated questions on the status of restoration initiatives, such as what projects or activities are included in a restoration initiative, whether there is overlap among projects and activities, whether funds are being used efficiently, and the extent to which a restoration initiative is progressing towards its goals. Answers to these questions sometimes generate criticism from observers. They contend that some restoration initiatives are loosely coordinated and organized, and lack comprehensive plans and tools for measuring progress. To temper some of these criticisms and address congressional concerns, some agencies implementing ecosystem restoration initiatives have proposed and constructed what have been called crosscut budgets . Federal laws have authorized crosscut budgets for ecosystem restoration initiatives, including the California Bay-Delta restoration initiative (CALFED; P.L. 108-361 , § 106) and the Great Lakes restoration initiative ( P.L. 111-117 , Division C, Title VII, § 739, extended by P.L. 112-10 , Division B, Title I, § 1101(a)(6)). In the context of ecosystem restoration, a crosscut budget is typically a document that organizes and reports the activities and funding of several entities working within the same broad initiative in a way that "cuts across" organizational boundaries. The primary purpose of a crosscut budget is to characterize and organize funding for an initiative in one document in a timely manner that is useful for decision makers. For example, the crosscut budget for the Florida Everglades restoration initiative lists funding and provides a description of federal and state activities contributing toward restoration. A crosscut budget can be developed and organized in several ways. It could be a document that goes into considerable detail, or, alternatively, a crosscut budget could simply present budget and other information in a table or spreadsheet format. Characteristics of a more comprehensive crosscut budget might include, for example, how much has been spent (and under what authority) for projects, what has been accomplished with the funds, how much is left to be implemented and the cost of doing so, and proposed milestones for the next round of funding. Conceivably, a crosscut budget could also track a restoration initiative's overall progress, provide transparency about coordination of the initiative's activities, and function as a coordinating and oversight document for Congress, relevant federal, state, and local agencies, and other stakeholders. Crosscut budgets do not answer all of the criticisms of how large-scale ecosystem restoration initiatives are planned and implemented. For example, although they are typically used to show budgetary allocations across organizational boundaries, crosscut budgets often do not present information about desired outcomes or programmatic impacts. They may provide stakeholders, however, with a tool for organizing, planning, and working with funds and goals for these initiatives, albeit at a cost in terms of requiring additional analytical work and executive attention by participating agencies, which are typically scarce commodities. This report discusses typical and potential elements of a crosscut budget, provides examples of enacted legislation that authorizes the use of crosscut budgets, and examines some crosscut budgeting issues that Congress might consider. At its most basic level, a crosscut budget is often used to present budget information from two or more agencies whose activities are targeted at a common policy goal or, alternatively, related policy goals. This can assist in making data from multiple agencies more understandable (e.g., putting levels of effort into perspective, showing how different efforts relate to each other) and might be used as a tool for congressional oversight committees, participating agencies, and stakeholders implementing an ecosystem restoration program or initiative. A crosscut budget may be used to track program accomplishments, measure progress toward achieving program goals, or compare activities conducted by various agencies aimed at the same goal. Creating a crosscut budget for a complex ecosystem restoration initiative, such as that in the Everglades, can be challenging. On one level, getting multiple agencies to construct a budget together or to cooperate closely can be difficult, given competing demands for the attention of agency leaders and scarce analytical resources in budget and programmatic staffs. Indeed, compelling multiple agencies to work together might be part of the goal of requiring a crosscut budget, insofar as a crosscut budget requires communication and might facilitate broader coordination of efforts. On another level, creating useful crosscut budget information can be challenging because stakeholders have different needs and no one format will necessarily be helpful to all. Creating (or requiring) a crosscut budget, therefore, could involve (1) deciding the purpose(s) for which, and the audience(s) for whom, the crosscut budget is intended; (2) balancing the need for brevity to make the crosscut useful, while still including sufficient project data to track funding and progress; and (3) ensuring there is sufficient analytical capacity within participating agencies to produce quality information. There is no standard design for a crosscut budget. The design depends on the questions to be answered, the audience to be served, and the desired extent of coordination among agencies. Crosscut budgets usually are designed to track funding. However, sometimes they are viewed as a tool for organizing and tracking the progress of complex program elements, planning for the implementation of future activities, and helping to establish a framework for conducting program evaluations. When designing a crosscut budget, questions to consider include: How closely related to the overall program goal must an activity be to be included in the crosscut budget? Tracking funds for large-scale ecosystem restoration initiatives is complex, because there are rarely any definitions of what types of activities and programs should be included (and excluded). At what levels should funding be tracked: by project, by agency, by multiple measures, by overall program goal, or by some other measure? Should funding be tracked using appropriations, obligations, or outlays? Should in-kind contributions, private funding, or other non-budgetary efforts (e.g., regulatory changes) be represented somehow? How many years should a crosscut budget cover (e.g., retrospectively, currently, and prospectively)? Should a crosscut budget track progress in achieving policy and programmatic outcomes, as well as funding? If so, which evaluation techniques should be used to measure progress of a restoration initiative? Congress may consider whether crosscut budgets should be submitted to Congress; if so, how often? What entity should be tasked with producing the crosscut budget? In making that choice, would there be implications for data accuracy, comprehensiveness, or bias? The following paragraphs describe potential elements of crosscut budgets and discuss how they might be used in the context of ecosystem restoration initiatives. A crosscut budget attempts to capture funding related to overall program purposes and goals. Because a crosscut may involve multiple federal, state, and local agencies, it is typically important to have criteria that determine which projects and programs a crosscut budget will track. Deciding on criteria for inclusion may be difficult, however, because there are many ways to categorize funding, and different agencies may have different definitions of whether a project or activity is "related" fully or partially to a program goal. The criteria that are used will determine whether the crosscut budget captures funding that is directly related (including all projects and programs specifically authorized to achieve one or more ecosystem restoration goals) or indirectly related (inclusive of all projects and programs that affect or support the restoration goal, regardless of their primary purposes or authorization). Each perspective may be useful, depending on what the crosscut budget is intended to capture. Once categories are defined, maintaining consistent definitions will ideally allow projects, programs, and funding to be compared reliably from year to year. Funding categories may be tracked at various levels of aggregation or disaggregation, each of which has its advantages and disadvantages, depending on stakeholder needs. For example, tracking funding by program goal will show the level of effort over time dedicated to each goal. Because some activities might make impacts upon several goals, tracking by goal is oftentimes imprecise. (See " Tracking Progress ," below.) Tracking funding at the individual project level may be more useful for some stakeholders, but unwieldy for others when the number of projects is large or complexity becomes an issue. A complication often arises when some activities are reorganized or packaged together differently, making it difficult to compare funding from year to year. Funding may be tracked in terms of appropriations, obligations, and outlays. These terms describe different stages in the expenditure of federal funds and are in some ways similar to the stages of using a credit card. Appropriations provide budget authority that limits how much an agency can spend (like a credit card limit); obligations occur when agencies enter into contracts or otherwise are legally liable to pay for goods and services (similar to signing a credit card receipt); and outlays occur when funds are expended to fulfill obligations (like paying a credit card bill).