Protecting and Increasing Funding for NOAA's Office of Education & Sustainable Development

Take Action: Tell Congress to Restore and Increase NOAA's Environmental Literacy Grants Program

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) oversees a number of education-related programs, ranging from the Sea Grant program to the Hollings Fellowships, and has been actively building these programs over the years. In 2004, NOAA received an additional $6.3 million in FY 2005 funding to spend on new "educational initiatives"; they subsequently decided to distribute $2.5 million of those funds to the field as competitive "Environmental Literacy Grants".

Since 2005, the Bush Administration has cut this funding and we have successfully appealed to Congress to restore these funds. The amount that NOAA has invested in the Environmental Literacy Grants program has risen over these years to about $5 million, which has successfully established new partnerships to deliver education materials to thousands of teachers and students. For more background on this program, click here.

In February, 2008, the Administration once again cut these funds for FY 2009. This year, the environmental education stakeholders have written a letter to Congressional appropriators asking them to restore and double the FY09 appropriation from $6 million to $12 million (click here for the House letter and here for the Senate letter).