Order Code RL34329
Crosscut Budgets in Ecosystem Restoration
Initiatives: Examples and Issues for Congress
January 22, 2008
Pervaze A. Sheikh
Analyst in Natural Resources Policy
Resources, Science, and Industry Division
Clinton T. Brass
Analyst in Government Organization and Management
Government and Finance Division
Crosscut Budgets in Ecosystem Restoration Initiatives:
Examples and Issues for Congress
Summary
In the last 30 years, the United States has devoted enormous effort and
committed billions of dollars toward restoring large ecosystems such as the
Chesapeake Bay and the Great Lakes. These ecosystem restoration initiatives
generally address multiple objectives that go beyond restoring the ecosystem, such
as water conveyance and levee stability. Consequently, these initiatives involve
many stakeholders conducting and implementing a variety of restoration activities
and other projects. Coordinating and overseeing the implementation and funding of
such projects and activities can be challenging, and sometimes controversial. To
address the complexity of organizing, managing, and implementing ecosystem
restoration initiatives, some agencies involved in restoration initiatives have
implemented crosscut budgets.
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 related policy goals. Crosscut budgets can assist in making data from
multiple agencies more understandable, and could be used to inform congressional
oversight committees, participating agencies, and stakeholders implementing an
ecosystem initiative. A crosscut budget may also be used to track program
accomplishments, measure progress towards achieving program goals, or compare
activities conducted by various agencies aimed at the same goal.
When designing a crosscut budget, there are several potential elements that can
be considered, including the scope of the crosscut, or which types of programs and
activities should be included in the crosscut; levels of aggregation within the
crosscut; stages of funding tracked by the crosscut (e.g., appropriations or outlays);
time frame covered; timing of submission and updates; assigning responsibility for
gathering the data for the crosscut; and tracking progress of restoration activities and
projects.
The variability in the design and implementation of crosscut budgets for
ecosystem restoration initiatives generates several design questions. For example,
some believe that funding amounts should be portrayed in relation to progress toward
achieving restoration goals. Other issues include determining what programs to
include or exclude in a crosscut budget, assigning accountability, and coordinating
projects in an ecosystem restoration initiative.
Crosscut budgets can help address coordination and organizational issues in
restoration initiatives. Some contend that expanding their breadth to track progress
or evaluate success in restoration initiatives may make them more effective. Others,
however, suggest that if crosscuts become too unwieldy and complex, or are not
designed to address the needs of specific audiences and stakeholders, they may not
communicate information in an effective and timely manner.
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Potential Elements of a Crosscut Budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Purposes, Stakeholders, and Audiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Design Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Potential Crosscut Budget Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Defining Crosscut Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Levels of Aggregation in Tracking Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Stages of Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Time Frame Covered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Timing Requirements of Submissions and Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Data Accuracy, Consistency, and Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Tracking Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Examples of Crosscut Budgets for Ecosystem Restoration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Everglades Crosscut Budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
CALFED Bay-Delta Program Crosscut Budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Crosscut Budget: Issues for Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Accountability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Tracking Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Project Management Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
End Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Outputs and Intermediate Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Funding as Proxy Indicator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Funding Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
List of Figures
Figure 1. Difficulty of Associating Activities and Funding with
Outcomes of Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Crosscut Budgets in
Ecosystem Restoration Initiatives:
Examples and Issues for Congress
Introduction
In the last 30 years, the United States has devoted enormous effort 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 some observers. They contend that
some restoration initiatives are loosely coordinated and organized, and lack
comprehensive plans and tools for measuring progress.1 To temper some of these
1 For example, see U.S. General Accounting Office, Great Lakes: An Overall Strategy and
Indicators for Measuring Progress Are Needed to Better Achieve Restoration Goals, GAO-
03-515 (Washington, DC: Apr. 2003), and U.S. Government Accountability Office,
Chesapeake Bay Program, Improved Strategies Are Needed to Better Assess, Report, and
Manage Restoration Progress, GAO-06-96 (Washington, DC: Oct. 2005). Concerns about
coordination of federal government natural resources-related activities are not new. A 1949
report from what became known as the First Hoover Commission focused, for example, on
how several federal agencies undertook activities related to water development. See U.S.
(continued...)
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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
initative (CALFED; P.L. 108-361, §106) and the Great Lakes restoration initiative
(P.L. 110-161; Title VII, §744).
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.2 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.
1 (...continued)
Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, Concluding
Report (Washington: GPO, May 1949), pp. 27-29.
2 In other policy areas, crosscut budgets also sometimes bridge several related activities and
initiatives, even if they are not explicitly called crosscut budgets. For example, Sec. 889 of
the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-296; 116 Stat. 2250; codified at 31 U.S.C. §
1105) required the President to submit, as part of the President’s annual budget proposal to
Congress, a crosscut of funding “that contribute[s] to homeland security,” broken out by
budget function, agency, and “initiative area.”
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Potential Elements of a Crosscut Budget
Purposes, Stakeholders, and Audiences
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.
Design Questions
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?
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! 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
initative?
! 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?
Potential Crosscut Budget Elements
The following paragraphs describe potential elements of crosscut budgets and
discuss how they might be used in the context of ecosystem restoration initiatives.
Defining Crosscut Scope. 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).3 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.
Levels of Aggregation in Tracking Funding. 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
3 For an example of the latter, large-scale restoration initiatives receive indirect benefits
from nationwide programs that have large budgets, such as agricultural conservation
programs and water infrastructure construction programs, among others.
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issue. A complication often arises when some activities are reorganized or packaged
together differently, making it difficult to compare funding from year to year.
Stages of Funding. Funding may be tracked in terms of appropriations,
obligations, and outlays.4 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).5 Within each of these categories, it may be necessary for
some stakeholders to track the fiscal year in which funds were authorized (especially
funds that are available to be expended for periods longer than a year, such as multi-
year and no-year funds). Because the stages are chronological, obligations and
outlays from an appropriation may or may not occur in the same fiscal year as the
appropriation. That is, an FY2003 appropriation may or may not be fully obligated
and outlayed in FY2003. For example, an account that pays for salaries may obligate
all of its FY2003 appropriation in FY2003. In this case, measuring the obligations
in FY2003 would provide a reliable measure of the effort in paying salaries. In
contrast, a construction account may not obligate or outlay all of its FY2003
appropriation in FY2003, because construction projects are typically multi-year
efforts that often use multi-year funds instead of funds available for only a year
(annual funds). In this case, obligations and outlays are not directly comparable to
annual appropriations, and it is possible that obligations and outlays for some
activities will contain funds from more than one appropriation. This challenge is
compounded when tracking different programs, many of which expend funds at
different rates in multiple agencies.
Time Frame Covered. It is necessary to define which years of funding will
be included in the crosscut budget. Often, funding is tracked from program inception,
or from some milestone date at which the federal government formally recognized
the program. Historical information can also be useful, if related activities may have
occurred in the past. As noted earlier, data from earlier years may not be directly
comparable to recent data simply because agencies may not have categorized
programs or organized budget-related data in a consistent manner over time. Annual
crosscut budgets may also be helpful in years when consolidated appropriations laws
are passed. Information would be available in one document as opposed to being
spread out throughout a law or explanatory statement, or hidden under a larger
program.
Timing Requirements of Submissions and Updates. Congress might
decide whether crosscut budgets must be submitted to Congress and, if so, when and
4 For definitions and more extensive explanation of these terms, see U.S. Government
Accountability Office, A Glossary of Terms Used in the Federal Budget Process, GAO-05-
734SP (Washington, DC: Sept. 2005).
5 The level of obligations and outlays depend on the rate at which agencies expend funds
from their available budget authority, which in turn depends on the rate at which activities
supported by the appropriation require funding.
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how frequently they must be submitted. For example, requiring submission of a
crosscut budget concurrently with the President’s annual budget request may seem
logical. However, many agencies do not determine their allocations for individual
programs within a budget account until four to six weeks (or longer) after the
President’s request is submitted, so agency data may be adjusted after submission of
the President’s budget. Therefore, the time frame for submitting the crosscut budget
may affect the accuracy or currency of the data. Also, state fiscal years and budget
cycles often differ from federal budget time frames, and the crosscut budget may
need to account for any such differences. A crosscut budget that comes out very late
in the fiscal year, however, may not be useful for Congress as it considers federal
appropriations bills. Requiring periodic updates (e.g., quarterly) might address many
of these complications and compel participating agencies to coordinate more closely
throughout the year, but at increased cost in terms of reporting requirements.
Data Accuracy, Consistency, and Responsibility. Accurate budget data
are necessary for a compiling a crosscut budget. Both state and federal data would
need to be linked to agency-wide budget accounts, therefore, to ensure data accuracy.
Furthermore, without some coordination or centralized effort, data submitted by
various parties might be provided in inconsistent formats or using inconsistent
definitions. One option to address data consistency (and corresponding accuracy)
may be to assign responsibility for the crosscut budget to a single federal agency.
Some potential disadvantages of this option are that the assigned federal agency may
not receive timely data submission from other agencies; that it may not have good
access to non-federal sources of data; and that it may not be able to evaluate the
accuracy of data from all sources. A second option may be to place responsibility for
a crosscut budget with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Involving
OMB can bring an initiative under greater White House control, as opposed to
agency control, which might or might not have implications for how information is
presented and perceived (e.g., the White House perspective versus an agency’s
perspective, which can differ). Nevertheless, OMB might not have access to data
from non-federal sources. A third option is to place responsibility for the crosscut
budget with an intergovernmental task force.6 This may facilitate access to more
sources of data, and increase coordination, but the taskforce may have less authority
or influence (e.g., to enforce accuracy, consistency, or prevent bias) and technical
budget knowledge than either a single federal agency or OMB.
Tracking Progress. The progress of ecosystem restoration initiatives has
been assessed from two perspectives. First, an assessment of progress can reflect
whether a restoration initiative is implementing its projects and activities. In the
Everglades, for example, many judge the progress of the restoration initiative based
on the implementation of component restoration projects. There are 68 projects that
constitute the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), of which 20
were authorized in the Water Resources Development Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-
541§601; WRDA 2000). Seven years after the enactment of WRDA 2000, Congress
authorized two additional projects. Many argued that the delay in authorizing
6 For example, the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force is responsible for the
Everglades restoration crosscut budget. See [http://www.sfrestore.org/], accessed Mar. 29,
2007, for more information.
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additional projects under CERP constituted a lack of progress in the restoration
initiative. A second method for assessing progress is by measuring whether projects
and activities are accomplishing overall restoration goals. Under the CALFED
restoration initiative (P.L. 108-361, §106), progress is sometimes viewed in terms of
how objectives (e.g., levee integrity and surface storage capacity) are being reached.
Progress is mandated by law to proceed in a balanced manner. How to measure
balanced progress, however is not clear. For objectives that are not quantifiable,
sometimes indicators that represent the goals of the restoration initiative could be
measured to estimate progress. If the indicator or set of indicators improves under
a goal, positive progress would be reported. Typically, crosscut budgets for
restoration initiatives have not included information that tracks the progress of
ecosystem restoration efforts.7 Further discussion on how crosscut budgets can
incorporate measures of progress is provided later in this report.
Examples of Crosscut Budgets
for Ecosystem Restoration
The Everglades and CALFED ecosystem restoration initiatives submit crosscut
budgets annually. Their crosscut budget documents share similarities, but differ with
respect to the characteristics of their programs. Both crosscut budgets may provide
Congress with ideas on how to tailor a crosscut budget for a restoration initiative, and
provide a precedent for authorizing the use of crosscut budgets.8
Everglades Crosscut Budget
The Everglades crosscut budget describes activities to be funded by the
President’s budget request and provides a brief description and some context for
agency programs.9 The Everglades crosscut budget is produced by the staff of the
South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, which coordinates the activities of
its federal, state, tribal and local members that implement Everglades restoration
programs. The authorization for the crosscut budget is in the Water Resources
Development Act of 1996 (WRDA 1996; P.L. 104-303,§528(f)).10
7 Overall progress of a program is sometimes addressed in an annual report, which is
separate from a crosscut budget. This report generally will describe the activities being
done for the current fiscal year and sometimes for the following year. For the Everglades
restoration initiative, a progress report is written every five years.
8 For more information on the Everglades restoration program, see CRS Report RS20702,
South Florida Ecosystem Restoration and the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan,
by Pervaze A. Sheikh and Nicole T. Carter. For information on the CALFED restoration
initiative, see CRS Report RL31975, CALFED Bay-Delta Program: Overview of
Institutional and Water Issues, by Pervaze A. Sheikh and Betsy A. Cody.
9 The Everglades crosscut budget is authorized in P.L. 104-303, §528(f)(1)(I).
10 This statute authorizes the task force to prepare an integrated financial plan and a biennial
report to Congress detailing activities and progress made toward restoration goals.
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The Everglades crosscut budget tracks annual appropriations for programs
within the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), and agencies of the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), located within the U.S. Department of Commerce. It also provides
information on state programs and appropriated and requested state funding for the
same time frame, although it notes that the state fiscal year differs from the federal
fiscal year. County and local funding is not included in this crosscut budget. The
annual Everglades crosscut budget includes enacted appropriation levels from some
previous fiscal years.
There is no information on overall milestones and progress toward Everglades
ecosystem restoration in this crosscut budget, and little linkage between funding and
milestones.11 The budget does not attempt to track progress or how much total
funding has been allocated to a project or is needed to finish the project. Other
reports associated with the restoration initiative attempt to track progress toward
meeting restoration goals, including a progress report that is required not less than
every five years from October 2005.12
The Everglades crosscut budget has two categories. The first includes programs
specifically authorized in the Water Resources Development Act of 2000 (WRDA
2000; P.L 106-541, Title VI, §601) for the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration
Plan. The second includes programs and projects separate from WRDA 2000 that
directly affect restoration program goals, as well as overhead funding in some
agencies (such as operational expenses for national parks in the region) that may
indirectly affect program goals. Although the criteria for inclusion in the first
category are clear, the budget documents do not state why the second category
includes overhead funding for some agencies and not others. The funding totals in
the crosscut budget are associated with a detailed description of the projects funded
(including a description and location of the project) and funds matched to individual
projects within a program in several cases. Unique to this crosscut budget is the
reporting of specific funds from nationwide programs that apply to the Everglades
ecosystem. For example, funding from the USDA’s Environmental Quality
Incentives Program (EQIP) for the Everglades ecosystem is given. EQIP is a
nationwide program that provides financial and technical assistance to farmers for
implementing soil and water conservation practices.
Since the inception of the Everglades crosscut budget there has been discussion
about the utility of the budget. Some contend that the budget is a useful tool for
organizing and reporting both federal and state funding totals annually. Some others,
however, state that the timing of the budget document release is not useful for the
federal appropriations cycle. The crosscut budget is usually released at the beginning
of each fiscal year with the previous year’s data. For example, the FY2008 request
for funding and FY2007 funding totals were not available until January 2008, which
was after the FY2008 funding deliberation in Congress.
11 This crosscut budget can be found at [http://www.sfrestore.org/documents/index.html],
accessed Mar. 29, 2007.
12 P.L. 106-541, §601(l).
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CALFED Bay-Delta Program Crosscut Budget
The California Bay-Delta Program (CALFED) was initiated in 1995 to resolve
water resource conflicts in the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento/San Joaquin
Rivers Delta (Bay-Delta) in California. The program was reauthorized in 2004 with
specifications for creating a crosscut budget (P.L. 108-361, §106). The crosscut
budget contains a short discussion of criteria used to categorize projects, and includes
over 80 pages of tables that identify federal and state agency funding by program
element.
The CALFED crosscut budget is produced annually and includes the
Administration’s request for federal funds for the upcoming fiscal year, and previous
fiscal year funding for federal and state agencies involved in the initiative. Included
are funds for projects or programs conducted by federal agencies such as the Corps,
EPA, and agencies under the DOI and USDA.
Although funding for each federal and state agency was organized by CALFED
program elements (e.g., water quality, conveyance), no other evaluations or measures
of progress toward restoration goals or linkages between funding and restoration
milestones are included. A separate annual report that tracks the progress and the
status of the CALFED components is also required (P.L. 108-361, §105). This report
provides a summary of the accomplishments and future activities within each of the
components of the program. The annual report does not contain funding information
or descriptions of individual projects and activities, which are found in the crosscut
budget.
The CALFED crosscut budget tracks funding for activities that fall into either
of two categories. Category A programs and funds are those consistent with the
CALFED Bay-Delta Program Record of Decision and P.L. 108-361 in terms of
program goals, objectives and priorities, and geographical area.13 Category B
programs and funds have related and overlapping program objectives and a
geographical area that overlaps with the CALFED solution area. Category A
programs appear to directly address CALFED elements, whereas Category B
programs are related to the elements, and may indirectly benefit them. Larger,
nationwide programs such as USDA agricultural conservation programs and EPA’s
Clean Water State Revolving Funds to states are generally grouped in Category B.
For the most part, descriptions of individual projects are not included in the crosscut
budget. For some projects, the funding source or authorization is identified.
The crosscut budget is submitted to Congress by OMB and reflects a
collaboration between the EPA, DOI, Corps, and USDA. The crosscut budget states
that the information submitted is the best available, but that because some programs’
data were not complete (e.g., final grants had not yet been awarded in some
programs), the numbers could change in the future. The budget also stated that the
13 The geographical area of the program encompasses both the problem area, which is the
area that includes the Legal Delta and Suisan Bay, and the solution area, which extends
beyond the problem area but lies completely within the State of California.
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organization of the data may differ from that of past or future CALFED crosscut
budget data.
There have been few comments on any positive or negative aspects of the
CALFED crosscut budget. Some have suggested that its length may become
unwieldy in future years if it keeps growing.
Crosscut Budget: Issues for Congress
This report concludes with a discussion of how crosscut budgets address
selected issues related to large-scale ecosystem restoration initiatives.
Accountability
Congressional oversight of large-scale restoration initiatives typically generates
questions on agency responsibility and accountability for restoration programs and
activities. In some cases, a single agency or administrator cannot be identified. (For
example, if the objective is improving water quality, there may be several activities
conducted under different agencies that could improve water quality, but no one
agency is responsible for achieving the objective.)
In practice, most crosscut budgets in ecosystem restoration connect specific
projects to accountable agencies, but few relate projects or activities to overall
objectives, thereby making it difficult to assign accountability for the restoration
initiative to a responsible agency. Congress could establish requirements or provide
direction in order to address this issue. Some have suggested including a separate
directory within a crosscut budget that provides a lead agency to each objective of the
restoration initiative. For example, improving water quality may be assigned to the
EPA, or scientific research on restoration may be assigned to the U.S. Geological
Survey (USGS). This type of directory would only be possible if individual projects
and activities could be linked to restoration objectives. This may require the creation
of a comprehensive restoration plan, which is lacking in some current restoration
initiatives.
At the same time, relating a specific project or activity (along with its funding)
exclusively to a specific goal or objective can be difficult or impossible. As noted
earlier and further illustrated in Figure 1, a single restoration activity might
contribute to the achievement of multiple goals. In the figure, activity “A” and its
funding “$a” are considered (perhaps on the basis of previous scientific studies) to
influence two “outcomes of interest” (“1” and “2”), which might be considered to
be explicit programmatic goals by some stakeholders. However, without
sophisticated program evaluation techniques, it is often impossible to estimate the
impact of program activities on outcomes, compared to what would have happened
without the program activities. Furthermore, even with program evaluation
techniques, it is often difficult to estimate what proportion of any changes in an
outcome (e.g., outcome “2”) are attributable to activity “A” versus activity “B”
Furthermore, the funding that supports activity “A” might not be easily divisible into
two groups exclusive to “1” and “2,” respectively. In contrast, a complex restoration
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initiative might have many activities contributing toward achievement of a single
goal. This can undermine attempts to report budget information and activities in
relation to only a single goal. As an alternative, some have suggested evaluating each
of the goals of a restoration initiative based on a suite of activities, or evaluating each
restoration activity based on achieving a set of goals.
Figure 1. Difficulty of Associating Activities and Funding with
Outcomes of Interest
Source: CRS.
Tracking Progress
Many contend that restoration initiatives need to track progress so that
stakeholders can determine what projects or activities are giving the “biggest bang
for the buck.” Some cite methods of evaluating and monitoring individual programs
that are being done at the federal level. For example, with enactment of the
Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA), Congress directed
agencies to use evaluations and performance information to inform the planning and
operation of annual activities, as well as to think and plan strategically beyond a
single year.14 In an annual context, Congress called for agencies to provide snapshots
of this thinking and information in annual performance plans, to accompany their
budget requests, and also in annual program performance reports after a fiscal year
is completed. Others suggest that combining crosscut budgets with annual reports
may provide a mechanism to track progress and funding simultaneously. For
example, the CALFED Program has an annual report with detailed project schedules
and quantitative milestones for each of its eleven elements that could be used to track
14 P.L. 103-62; 107 Stat. 285.
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progress within the crosscut budget.15 Some options for tracking progress with
certain kinds of evaluations and metrics, including project management metrics, are
outlined below.
Project Management Approach. One option to track progress might be to
relate funding requested for a given year to milestones planned to be achieved in that
year (i.e., within a “project management” orientation), and to place those milestones
within the overall context of the program to which it contributes. This might allow
congressional authorizers and appropriators to see what the funding is intended to
accomplish and whether project outputs are on schedule and to revisit the milestones
as the following year’s appropriation request is considered. Alternatively, if funding
cannot be linked to milestones, overall progress on achieving goals within an
initiative may be rated. For example, a program might be rated “red” for project
implementation delays considered serious, “yellow” for delays considered slight, and
“green” for projects on schedule, with explanatory notes included about any delays
or schedule changes.16 Some may contend, however, that it is difficult to smoothly
link funding with project milestones for a program as multifaceted as a large-scale
ecosystem restoration initiative, since it requires detailed knowledge of each agency’s
budget as well as each agency’s projects, and would require extensive coordination
among many agencies.
End Outcomes. Some contend that one way to track progress of an
ecosystem restoration initiative is to assess whether it is achieving its goals, or end
outcomes.17 Measuring the direct impact of restoration activities on achieving end
outcomes, compared to what would have happened without the restoration activities,
can be difficult. Several factors that are beyond the activities or projects being
assessed may contribute toward achieving ecosystem restoration goals (e.g.,
modernizing wastewater treatment plants so that they release less toxic effluents).
In order to estimate the impact of restoration activities, after controlling for the other
15 For example, the annual CALFED report states that water supply reliability could
increase to 3 million acre-feet annually by 2010 through a combination of water
conservation, water recycling, conveyance and operations improvements, and new water
storage, and it has annual figures for each of these elements that accumulate to that total.
The report also includes milestone accomplishments for 2002.
16 For projects that involve developing and acquiring major capital assets, a technique
known as “earned value management” (EVM) could be used to assess whether an asset is
delivered according to budget, schedule, and intended functionality. For discussion of
EVM, see CRS Report RL34257, Earned Value Management (EVM) as an Oversight Tool
for Major Capital Investments, by Clinton T. Brass.
17 Many stakeholders care about what they believe should be the end outcome of an
ecosystem (i.e., the state that they desire for it). For example, some might aspire to achieve
a pre-industrial state, while others might wish to maintain an ecosystem’s current status.
There will typically be many points of view on this subject. In this sense, each stakeholder
might be described as having an “end outcome” that is desired for an ecosystem. However,
this report discusses “end outcomes” in terms of the desired changes that would result from
an ecosystem restoration initiative.
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factors, more sophisticated evaluations must often be conducted.18 Further,
stakeholders can disagree on the most important goals and criteria for judging
“success.” This may result in progress being defined in different ways depending on
the perspectives of the stakeholders. Disagreement about goals, or relative priorities
among goals, does not necessarily compromise the tracking of progress in a crosscut
budget effort if all major perspectives are included, but selective inclusion or
omission of some perspectives could provoke claims of bias.
An alternative approach to measure progress of a restoration initiative is to
measure overall change in the ecosystem (i.e., change due to the restoration initiative
and other factors). Some managers may use indicators of ecosystem components to
track the state of the ecosystem over time. These indicators may include water
clarity, population size of endangered or threatened species, or acres of underwater
seagrass in an ecosystem. Generally, these indicators are not directly related to
restoration activities, but provide an overall context for whether, or how, ecosystem
conditions are changing over time. An example of this approach is used to measure
the condition of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. Several ecosystem indicators are
measured on a point scale annually and graded. The measurements are from 0 to
100, with a 100 representing the state of the Chesapeake Bay at the healthiest point
that can be described. Indicators are given a letter grade based on their point total
within the scale. An average of all indicators is presented as the “state of the bay.”
The indicators do not necessarily reflect restoration goals or efforts, rather
components of the ecosystem. For 2007, the Chesapeake Bay was graded at 28.
Progress can also be measured using this approach by comparing the point total of
indicators over time.19 Some are critical of this method and contend that the use of
indicators that aim to measure an initiative’s “performance” might be affected by a
host of other factors in addition to the program being considered (e.g., coastal habitat
restoration can be improved by planting native species under a restoration program
and by changes in climate that promote plant growth).20 If this is widespread, then
measuring progress with indicators becomes dissociated from evaluating the progress
of the restoration program.
Outputs and Intermediate Outcomes. Some evaluation efforts focus on
what have been called outputs and intermediate outcomes. Specifically, these
approaches could measure outputs (e.g., direct measurements of project-related
activities or efforts) and intermediate outcomes (e.g., consequences of project
activities and efforts, including progress toward goals, that are expected to lead to the
18 These evaluations are often called impact evaluations. For brief discussion, see U.S.
Government Accountability Office, Performance Measurement and Evaluation: Definitions
and Relationships, GAO-05-739SP (Washington, DC: May 2005).
19 For more information on the State of the Bay report, see [http://www.cbf.org/site/
DocServer/2007SOTBReport.pdf?docID=10923], accessed Dec. 17, 2007.
20 See CRS Report RL33301, Congress and Program Evaluation: An Overview of
Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) and Related Issues, by Clinton T. Brass, Blas Nuñez-
Neto, and Erin D. Williams.
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ends desired but are not themselves ends).21 In some cases, outputs (such as acres of
water storage) can be directly related to outcomes (increased water storage). In other
cases, outcomes (such as raising the number of breeding pairs of birds) may be one
component of, or an intermediate outcome leading toward, a desired end outcome
(such as improved ecosystem health).22 As with end outcomes, it is often necessary
to use more sophisticated evaluations to assess the impact of a restoration initiative
on intermediate outcomes, compared to what would have happened without the
restoration initiative, because other factors might also influence what happens with
the intermediate outcomes.
Funding as Proxy Indicator. Funding itself could be tracked as a proxy to
indicate progress in a restoration effort, if the underlying activities have been shown
to have or are widely regarded as having a high probability of achieving the desired
outcomes. Consistent levels of funding are presumed to relate to consistent progress
toward achieving the desired outcome of a project. For example, maintenance
projects may require the same level of funds from year to year to fix annual
problems. Funding may not always be related to progress. For example, construction
projects typically require little funding in early years as preliminary studies are
completed, but need more funding later when actual construction occurs. Therefore,
little funding initially and more funding later for construction projects may indicate
consistent progress towards the completion of a project.
Funding Categories
Defining what programs should be included in an assessment of restoration
activities and their funding has been controversial for several restoration initiatives.
Depending on what programs are included in the crosscut budget, some could argue
that the funding for a restoration initiative is or is not sufficient. Including funding
from nationwide programs that indirectly support ecosystem restoration can increase
funding estimates drastically. For example, the Great Lakes Interagency Task Force
estimated that $524 million is spent annually to restore water quality in the Great
Lakes. Of this amount, $314 million comes from five nationwide programs (four
agricultural conservation programs and the EPA’s Clean Water State Revolving
Fund) that do not specifically address Great Lakes restoration as their mission.
Attempts have been made to identify funding for specific ecosystems from total
funding amounts of nationwide programs, but criteria and methodologies for
distinguishing funding is unclear. For example, in some cases, funding from national
programs is organized according to county lines, which rarely correspond to
21 For discussion of these terms, see Harry P. Hatry, Performance Measurement: Getting
Results (Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 1999), pp. 11-24.
22 If a restoration initiative had quantifiable output and intermediate outcome goals, it would
be possible to assess the percentage of the goals that were reached. For example, if 250,000
acres of wetlands have been created through a program that has a goal of creating 500,000
acres of wetlands, 50% of the goal would have been achieved. These measurements could
be related to funding by reporting the amount of funds used per unit measured. If $100
million was used to create 250,000 acres of wetlands in one fiscal year, then $400 was spent
per acre toward achieving the goal.
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ecosystem or watershed boundaries. This discrepancy can create large variability in
funding totals.
Before determining what activities to include in a crosscut budget, some
restoration initiatives have defined the geographical area of the ecosystem and
determined what activities constitute ecosystem restoration. A defined ecosystem
area is useful for determining what activities can affect the ecosystem. For example,
funding for wastewater treatment plants that are located in the ecosystem or upstream
from the ecosystem could be included in a crosscut budget. An understanding of
what is a restoration activity can help to determine what gets included in a crosscut
budget.
One approach for deciding which programs to include in a crosscut budget is to
separate programs by whether they directly or indirectly fund activities that promote
restoration goals and objectives. Direct funding for restoration usually is authorized
through restoration programs that target the ecosystem in question. Indirect funding
is generally from programs that focus on one aspect of restoration but could apply to
several ecosystems (e.g., a program that monitors the water quality of streamflows).
Defining direct and indirect funding can be difficult. One option is to determine if
restoration of the ecosystem, or part of the ecosystem, is explicitly authorized in law
as a purpose of a program in question. If so, this would constitute a program that
directly funds activities for restoration. Funding for program activities that could
address the restoration of the ecosystem but are not explicitly linked to a specific
ecosystem would constitute indirect funding. The crosscut budget for CALFED uses
this approach to organize and report its activities.
An alternative approach would be to include only programs or activities that are
limited to the defined area of the ecosystem. For example, funding from agricultural
conservation programs would be included in a crosscut budget only for those funds
given to farmers that have farms within the ecosystem boundaries, as opposed to the
entire state or county that may include a portion of the ecosystem. Another approach
to separate indirect and direct funding would be to classify indirect funding as
funding that would exist in the absence of a restoration effort, and direct funding as
funding that exists because a restoration initiative is in place.23
Coordination
Ecosystem restoration initiatives encompass the activities of multiple
stakeholders. Therefore coordination among stakeholders and activities is important
for an initiative’s success. Coordination is often related to how an ecosystem
restoration initiative is governed, and in some initiatives, the adequacy of governance
and coordination have been questioned. Problems related to coordination include not
being able to assign accountability, to determine funding gaps, or to identify
overlapping or repeating restoration activities. A crosscut budget might help address
coordination issues by listing responsible agencies with restoration objectives or
activities; might enable mangers to find funding gaps by providing a list of activities
23 U.S. Government Accountability Office, Chesapeake Bay Program, GAO-06-96
(Washington, DC: Oct. 2005).
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under each objective and by reporting progress; and might prevent project overlap by
including activities from all stakeholders working at the federal, state, and local
levels. A crosscut budget would likely require some additional cost for the
administrative and analytical work required to produce and maintain it.
Conclusion
Some who are critical of large-scale ecosystem restoration initiatives contend
that some initiatives are loosely coordinated, do not have comprehensive plans and
tools for measuring progress, and do not have defined methods for assessing funding
totals. In response, some have suggested implementing crosscut budgets as part of
the reporting requirements of ecosystem restoration initiatives. Crosscut budgets,
such as those in use for restoring the Everglades and the California Bay-Delta,
address some concerns by reporting restoration activities, their funding, and federal
and state agencies responsible for the restoration. However, these crosscut budgets
do not attempt to define ecosystem restoration activities or measure progress toward
the goals of the restoration initiative as related to funding. Expanding the breadth
of crosscut budgets by incorporating these functions, according to some, will temper
some criticisms of large-scale ecosystem restoration initiatives. However, if
crosscuts become too unwieldy and large, or are not designed to address the needs
of specific audiences and stakeholders, some believe that they will not communicate
information in an effective and timely manner and will result in a wasted investment
of resources.