2010 was an historic year for environmental and sustainability education (ESE), with more legislative and policy activity than ever before. However, we were only able to capitalize on some of this activity and turn it into hard support before year end.
Appropriations: Congress has passed several "Continuing Resolutions" for FY2011 which fund a vast majority of federal programs at 2010 levels for the duration of the resolution (currently until March 4, 2011). This is mixed news: we should maintain our historic high levels of funding for environmental and sustainability education (see chart below), but we will have lost the additional increases which we worked hard over the past year to try to secure. It is not yet clear whether Congress will pass a new budget for FY2011 before March or pass another Continuing Resolution for the remainder of the year.
|
Federal Grant-making Programs |
FY07 |
FY08 |
FY09 |
FY10 |
FY11 |
|
NOAA Environmental Literacy Grants |
5,462 |
4,876 |
10,074 |
14,000 |
? |
|
NOAA B-WET Regional Programs |
4,200 |
9,664 |
9,664 |
9,700 |
? |
|
EPA EE Program |
8,900 |
9,100 |
9,100 |
9,000 |
? |
|
NASA Climate Change Education |
8,500 |
10,000 |
10,000 |
? |
|
|
NSF Climate Change Education |
10,000 |
10,000 |
? |
||
|
ED University Sustainability Program |
5,000* |
? |
|||
|
TOTALS: |
$18,562 |
$32,140 |
$48,838 |
$57,700 |
? |
Active Bills: More environmental education bills (3) were active in 2010 than ever before: the Ocean, Coastal, and Watershed Education Act (H.R. 3644), National Environmental Education Act (S. 3833, H.R. 6194) and the No Child Left Behind Act (H.R. 2054, S. 866). Thanks to a great deal of hard work by many, the House passed the Ocean, Coastal, and Watershed Education Act in March, the only bill of the three to get to a vote. However, none of the three bills were passed by both the House and Senate. They thus will die on January 1 and need to be reintroduced in a much more difficult political landscape in 2011.
Nonetheless, two pieces of legislation that impact environmental education did pass in 2010. First, the America COMPETES Act was passed and signed into law. While primarily focused on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and STEM education, this bill provides the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's education program with stronger authorizing language, which should help maintain and increase its appropriations. Second, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act made it all the way to become law in 2010. This bill connects more children to healthy produce from local farms by helping communities establish farm to school networks, create school gardens and use more local foods in cafeterias with $40 million in mandatory funding.
Finally, the Administration released its proposal for a new Elementary and Secondary Education Act, much of which was reflected in their FY2011 budget proposal to Congress. This proposal combines eight subject-specific grant programs into a single competitive grant program called A Well Rounded Education Fund at the Department of Education. No doubt as a result of all the advocacy and lobbying work in Congress and with the Administration noted above, environmental education was included as one of the eight subjects for the first time. This is a terrific step forward.
However, since this would be a competitive program, the various subjects would be pitted against each other for funding, making it impossible to know how much help this program might eventually provide to environmental education. Furthermore, unlike environmental education, most of these subjects already receive Department of Education funding, and many of their stakeholders are determined to fight the proposal.
In closing, I'd like to note that the Department of Education held a watershed Summit on Sustainability Education this past September, yet another first of its kind, at which Secretary Arne Duncan said: "Today, I promise that we will be a committed partner to advance a more environmentally literate and responsible society. Preparing our students to be good environmental citizens is some of the most important work we can do." Let's be sure to help him keep that promise in 2011.
