AGENCY-SPECIFIC GOALS-Continued

To help ranchers fight and control invasive species, the 2006 Budget includes an increase of $10 million. The National Invasive Species Council has identified several invasive species that heavily impact western range lands, such as the yellow star thistle, leafy spurge, and tamarisk.

In the 2006 Budget, the Administration is requesting $274 million for the Conservation Security Program (CSP), a 35-percent increase. During the first year of enrollment in 2004, the Department signed long-term CSP contracts with 2,200 farmers and ranchers in 18 priority watersheds around the country. In 2005, the USDA will enlarge the program by

offering enrollment opportunities in about 200 watersheds, and in 2006, the Budget anticipates that USDA will continue to expand the program by delivering it in an additional 200 watersheds. The CSP rewards farmers and ranchers for their existing levels of conservation and provides incentives for them to enhance their environmental stewardship.

• Promoting economic growth and entrepreneurship in economically distressed areas by proposing the new Strengthening America's Communities Grant Program.

• Growing the economy by expanding access to foreign markets by helping nearly 900 U.S. firms export for the first time and facilitating over 6,000 transactions to new markets.

• Advancing science and technological leadership by improving the quality and processing times for patents and trademarks and enhancing standards research on emerging technologies.

Protecting America

• Efficiently protecting U.S. national security through programs that control the export of sensitive goods by ensuring up-to-date export control lists and timely processing of export licenses.

Making Government More Effective

• Improving fishery management and the accuracy of weather, climate, and ocean-conditions forecasts through targeted investments and improved program design.

PROMOTING ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY AND OWNERSHIP

Enhancing Economic Development and Trade

The President's 2006 Budget creates a new economic development program within the Department of Commerce, the Strengthening America's Communities Grant Program. The President's proposal replaces the current duplicative set of Federal community and economic development programs with a more consolidated approach that focuses resources on the creation of jobs and opportunities, encourages private sector investment, and includes rigorous accountability measures and incentives. The Strengthening America's Communities Grant Program is a targeted, results-oriented approach that will encourage innovation and economic opportunity. By streamlining the delivery of Federal economic development programs, taxpayers will see administrative savings. The President's Budget includes $3.7 billion for this program to provide economically distressed communities with a source of funding for planning, infrastructure development, and business financing to achieve long-term economic stability and growth (see table below).

Promoting Results-Oriented Economic Development

The 2006 Budget proposes a new approach, the Strengthening America's Communities Grant Program, for targeting assistance to needy communities and focusing on achieving tangible results for low-income persons and economically distressed areas:

Clear Purpose

Targeted to Need

Efficiency

Leverage Private
Sector

Results and
Accountability

Old Model

Programs lack clarity in purpose and
overlap in mission and function.

38 percent of Community Development
Block Grant funds go to States and
communities with poverty rates that are
lower than the national average.
The sprawling bureaucracy at
the Federal level has duplicated
bureaucracies at the local level with
funding provided to over 3,000 grantees
a year. As a result, funding is spread
thinly across the Nation with very little to
demonstrate relative to total investment.
Too little focus on whether economic
and community development projects
lead to sustained economic growth and
opportunity.

Focus on short-term outputs rather than
long-term outcomes that demonstrate
improvement toward community
self-sufficiency.

New Approach

Clear objectives focusing on: job
creation, homeownership, commercial
development, reducing blight, and
private sector investment.

Target resources only to communities
that need assistance, based on poverty
and job loss.

Streamline Federal programs to

eliminate inconsistent criteria and
reduce administrative burdens and red
tape.

Work with the private sector to identify opportunities for economic growth in distressed areas.

Hold grantees accountable for achieving results and make continued funding contingent upon demonstrating

progress.