Department of Commerce Discretionary and IT Budget Observations

The Department of Commerce requests $15.7B in FY 2022, which includes USPTO’s request of $4.2B for authority to spend fee collections. Top bureaus at Commerce driving the discretionary request include:

*Figures in parenthesis denotes $ change from FY 2021 enacted

Source: DOC Budget in Brief

Discretionary Budget Observations

While the Bureau of Census faces increasing cuts in FY 2022, understandably so, as the 2020 Decennial Census ends, many Commerce bureaus see increases in existing investments and the creation of new programs related to the administration’s top priorities such as economic recovery, U.S. manufacturing and climate change.

For example, the budget funds Commerce’s manufacturing programs: the Manufacturing Innovation Institutes (MII) and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), to bolster U.S. manufacturing capabilities. The request calls for two new institutes under the MII, and an additional $275M at the MEP.

Requests for increases at NIST grow the agency’s research priorities, particularly in quantum science, artificial intelligence, engineering biology, and the Internet of Things. Moreover, an additional $20M is dedicated to the administration’s efforts to combat climate change, for research to help make buildings resilient to extreme weather, new ways to heat and cool low-energy buildings, improve greenhouse gas measurements, and so forth. At NOAA, the budget provides investments to expand climate research with better climate data, information and tools. For instance, the budget allots over $368M to improve comprehensive environmental observing and forecasting systems to support climate change-related decision-making.

In order to spur economic recovery, particularly in underserved communities, Commerce’s budget provides an additional $22M to the Minority Business Development Administration to expand opportunities to minority-owned business and eliminate barriers for the firms. Additionally, Commerce requests $382M for the U.S. Economic Development Assistance Programs, a $77M increase over FY 2021 levels.

In terms of supply chain and cybersecurity, the budget provides $12M to support actions under the Information and Communication Technology and Services Supply Chain (ICTS) Executive Order (EO 13873) with increased funding at Departmental Management, NTIA, and BIS to boost supply chain oversight and security. Commerce also requests $107M at its OCIO to support cybersecurity upgrades in a “whole of Commerce” approach to cybersecurity. Funding will target improvements to cloud security, Security Operations Center (SOC) enhancements, encryption, multifactor authentication, increased logging functions, and enhanced monitoring tools.

Additional discretionary budget observations:

• IT spending at the USPTO is lower because of transitions to the cloud, data center closures and recompeting major IT contracts with fair value/price
• Allocates $20M to the Business Application Solution program, which will acquire and consolidate new financial software, enterprise data warehouse and business intelligence applications supported by a Software-as-a-Service model
• Provides $152M at Census to formally begin the 2030 program
• Requests $89M, an increase of $44M at NTIA to advance communications research to develop and deploy broadband and 5G technologies with new approaches to spectrum sharing

IT Budget Observations

The Department of Commerce requests nearly $2.6B in its IT budget, an 8.1% decrease from the FY 2021 enacted level. The decommissioning of 52 IT systems at Census to a post-2020 Census state is driving the decrease with the 2020 Decennial Census IT investment requesting $115M, down $162M from FY 2021. Other major decreases include ITA Application (-$58M), NOAA IT Infrastructure – Application (-$32M), and NOAA R&D High Performance Computing System (-$20M).

Bureau breakdown under the IT budget includes:

*Figures in parenthesis denotes $ change from FY 2021 enacted

Source: IT Dashboard

Additional IT budget observations:

• Requests $60M for the new 2030 Decennial Census FY 2022 – 2026
• Allocates $22M for the new NTIS FedServices investment for reimbursable services support federal clients with information dissemination services
• Sustains funding for key enterprise cyber investments, including $9M for the Commerce Enterprise Security Operation Center, and $7M for Enterprise Cyber Security Monitoring and Operation