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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
The President’s 2009 Budget will:
• Advance technological innovation through the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative;
• Open new markets for U.S. exporters, protect intellectual property rights, obtain compliance
with trade agreements, and enforce unfair trade laws;
• Support critical demographic and economic statistics, including the 2010 Decennial Census;
• Enhance understanding of the planet’s weather and climate;
• Improve stewardship of ocean and coastal resources and wildlife; and
• Restrain spending in lower-priority areas.

Advancing U.S. Competitiveness through Technological Innovation, Free Trade,
and Intellectual Property Protection
• Supports the American Competitiveness Initiative. Provides $634 million for investments in
quantum and neutron research, nanotechnology, and related scientific work at the National
Institute of Standards and Technology, a 20-percent increase over the 2008 enacted level,
excluding earmarks and unrequested grants.
• Facilitates the transition to digital television broadcasts. Ensures a smooth transition from
analog to digital television broadcasts by February 18, 2009, through information and assistance
efforts, thereby clearing valuable radio spectrum to enhance the capabilities of first responders
and bring greater choice to media and telecommunications consumers.
• Advances free trade. Opens and expands new markets for U.S. goods and services, helps develop
and enforce free trade agreements with other nations, eliminates barriers to sales of U.S.
products, and improves the competitiveness of U.S. firms. Disseminates advanced U.S. clean
energy technologies throughout the Asia-Pacific region by hosting trade missions and other
outreach events.
• Protects intellectual property rights. Combats global piracy and counterfeiting, and strengthens
the United States Patent and Trademark Office to support efforts to safeguard the value
of intellectual property through more efficient and higher quality patent and trademark
examinations.

41

42

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Improving Public and Private-Sector Decisions with Enhanced Data
• Prepares for the 2010 Decennial Census. Opens field offices and finalizes systems for the
population count in spring 2010, which is called for in Article I of the Constitution.
• Improves economic data. Promotes more accurate data on the contributions of the health care
sector and research and development to gross domestic product (GDP), and also significantly
improves measurement of the service sector.

Enhancing the Ability to Observe,
Protect, and Manage the Earth’s
Resources

Number of Fish Stocks for which
Overfishing has been Eliminated
70

Target

Actual

60
• Improves weather forecasting and global
climate monitoring. Provides $981 mil50
lion to develop and acquire vital weather
40
satellites and climate sensors (an increase
of $175 million over the 2008 request and
30
$220 million over the enacted level) and
20
$31 million over the 2008 request in new
10
initiatives to improve forecasts of severe
weather, fires, and droughts.
0
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
2012
• Protects oceans and manages natural
Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
resources.
Increases funding for last
year’s initiative supporting the Ocean
Action Plan by $31 million over the 2008 request, to $154 million. These funds will enhance
fisheries management and support the Magnuson-Stevens Act requirement of eliminating
overfishing by 2011, as well as strengthen efforts to advance ocean observing networks, study
ocean acidification, reduce harmful marine debris, support maritime commerce, and protect
marine mammals.

Major Savings and Reforms
• Six programs representing $375 million have been identified for termination or reduction,
including:
¡ Federal funding for Manufacturing Extension Partnership centers, which will become
independent, as intended when the program began.
¡ Economic Development Administration grants, which will be reduced and re-focused on
economic adjustment assistance, to respond to sudden and severe economic events.
¡ Public Telecommunications Facilities, Planning, and Construction grants, which in recent
years have supported public broadcasters’ transition to digital broadcasts—a transition that
is now largely complete.

Since 2001, the Department of Commerce has:
• Vigorously contributed to the Administration’s free-trade agenda, leading to the signing or completion of free trade agreements with 17 countries that feature increased intellectual property
protections and expanded access for U.S. products and services. From 2001 to 2006, annual
U.S. exports increased by $440 billion (nearly 30 percent in constant dollars), which benefits
businesses of all sizes and American workers.

THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2009

43

• Enforced trade agreements by initiating 286 antidumping or countervailing duty investigations and applied anti-subsidy countervailing duty investigations on imports from emerging
non-market economies for the first time in 23 years.
• Enhanced the quality and timeliness of key economic data; for example, making GDP information on a State-by-State basis available 12 months earlier.
• Supported sound management of fisheries and related ocean resources, including protecting
over 7,000 species within the world’s largest marine protected area—the Papahanaumokuakea
Marine National Monument in Hawaii.
• Improved weather forecasting and climate science capabilities, such as increasing the lead time
for winter storm warnings from 9 hours in 2000 to 19 hours in 2007.

Department of Commerce
(Dollar amounts in millions)
Estimate

2007
Actual

2008

2009

Spending
Discretionary Budget Authority:
Departmental Management:
Salaries and Expenses ..................................................................................
Emergency Steel Guaranteed Loan Program ......................................
Headquarters Renovation .............................................................................

49
—
—

44
—
4

61
49
7

National Intellectual Property Law Enforcement Coordination
Council.............................................................................................................
Office of the Inspector General ...................................................................
Subtotal, Departmental Management ...........................................................

—
23
72

—
22
70

1
25
45

281
893
80
402
75
30

274
1,230
80
405
73
29

133
2,605
91
420
84
29

2,821

2,933

2,913

1,085
11
4,065

971
68
3,972

1,239
42
4,110

1,779
1,791
12
2

1,916
1,916
—
—

2,075
2,075
—
—

Economic Development Administration ........................................................
Bureau of the Census .........................................................................................
Economics and Statistics Administration .....................................................
International Trade Administration ..................................................................
Bureau of Industry and Security .....................................................................
Minority Business Development Agency......................................................
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):
Operations, Research, and Facilities ........................................................
Procurement, Acquisition and Construction ...........................................
Other accounts..................................................................................................
Subtotal, NOAA .....................................................................................................
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO):
Program level .....................................................................................................
Fees ......................................................................................................................
Subtotal, PTO.........................................................................................................
Technology Administration ................................................................................

44

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Department of Commerce—Continued
(Dollar amounts in millions)
Estimate

2007
Actual

2008

2009

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST):
Scientific and Technical Research and Services..................................
Industrial Technology Services ...................................................................

439
177

446
136

539
4

Construction of Research Facilities ...........................................................
Subtotal, NIST .......................................................................................................
National Telecommunications and Information Administration ............
Discretionary offsetting receipts ......................................................................

59
675
40
23

160
742
36
4

99
642
19
1

Total, Discretionary budget authority .................................................................

6,410

6,907

8,177

...............

170

—

—

Total, Discretionary outlays ...................................................................................

6,418

7,145

8,072

Mandatory Outlays:
Digital Television Fund programs:
Public Safety Interoperable Communications grants ..........................
Digital Television Converter Box program ...............................................

24
36

296
404

396
534

Other programs .................................................................................................
All other ....................................................................................................................
Mandatory offsetting receipts 1 ......................................................................
Total, Mandatory outlays ........................................................................................

—
8
—
68

152
162
852
162

102
151
1,032
151

Total, Outlays ..............................................................................................................

6,486

7,327

8,223

Credit activity
Direct Loan Disbursements:
Fisheries Finance Direct Loan Financing account ...................................

84

52

39

Memorandum: Budget authority from enacted supplementals

Major Savings, Discretionary
Terminations ....................................................................................................................
Reductions .......................................................................................................................
1

Number of
Programs

2009
Savings

4
2

200
175

Mandatory offsetting receipts include spectrum auction receipts that fund mandatory programs in the National Telecommunications and Information Administration created by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.