7 U.S.C. § 3222 — Agricultural research at 1890 land-grant colleges, including Tuskegee University

(a) Authorization of appropriations. (1) Each year, Congress may appropriate whatever amounts it decides are needed to continue agricultural research at colleges eligible under the Act of August 30, 1890, including Tuskegee University. This section calls these colleges “eligible institutions.” This section does not define that quoted term beyond this reference. (2) Starting with fiscal year 2003, the amount appropriated under this section each year must be at least 30 percent of the total amount appropriated that year under section 361c of this title. (3) The money may pay for conducting agricultural research; printing and sharing its results; contributions to retirement for employees covered by section 331 of this title; administrative planning and direction; buying or renting land; and constructing, acquiring, changing, or repairing buildings needed for agricultural research. (4) Eligible institutions may plan and conduct research together and with agencies, institutions, and people who may help solve agricultural problems. The money may pay the necessary costs of planning, coordinating, and conducting that cooperative research. (5)(A) An eligible institution may carry an unspent balance of its annual funds from one fiscal year into the next fiscal year. (B)(i) If that carried-over balance is still unspent at the end of the second fiscal year, the next annual amount allotted to the institution must be reduced by the same amount. (ii) For that fiscal year, the Secretary must redistribute the deducted federal money under the formula in subsection (b)(2)(B) to eligible institutions whose allotments were not reduced under clause (i). (b) Distribution of funds. (1) Money available under this section must be distributed among eligible institutions as this subsection provides. (2) Three percent must be available to the Secretary to administer this section. The Secretary may use that administrative money to transport scientists who are not United States officers or employees to research meetings held to assess research opportunities or plan research. (3)(A) After the amount under paragraph (2) is set aside, the rest must be allotted among eligible institutions under this paragraph. (B) Money up to the total amount made available to all eligible institutions for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1978, under section 3157 of this title must be allocated in the same proportions used for those institutions under section 3157 for that fiscal year, with the institutions identified as they were then. (C) Except as subparagraph (D) provides, money above the amount allocated under subparagraph (A) must be divided as follows: 20 percent in equal shares; 40 percent according to each institution State’s share of the total rural population of all States with eligible institutions, using the most recent decennial census in effect when the extra money is first appropriated; and the remaining money according to each State’s share of the total farm population of those States, using that same census. For this calculation, Tuskegee University and Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University are treated as if each were in its own State. (D)(i) This subparagraph defines “covered fiscal year” as the fiscal year in which the “qualified eligible institution” first received $3,000,000 under clause (ii)(I). “Other eligible institution” means an eligible institution other than that qualified institution that receives money under this section. “Qualified eligible institution” means the institution described in clause (ii)(I). (ii)(I) In one of fiscal years 2019 through 2022, if the calculation under subparagraph (C) would give an eligible institution less than $3,000,000, the institution must receive $3,000,000 for that year if it first received money under this section after February 7, 2014, and before September 30, 2018. (II) This rule applies only if the appropriation is large enough that every other institution receiving money that year gets at least what it received under this section in the preceding fiscal year. (iii)(I) For every fiscal year after the covered fiscal year, subject to (II) and (III), the qualified institution must receive at least $3,000,000 under this paragraph, and every other institution must receive at least the amount it received under this subsection for the covered fiscal year. (II)(aa) This clause applies after the covered fiscal year when the total appropriation is too small to provide those minimum amounts. (bb) In that situation, each allocation must be reduced proportionally, based on the increase, if any, that each institution received in the covered fiscal year compared with the immediately preceding fiscal year. (III) These minimum and reduction rules do not apply in a year when the shortfall is caused by new census data being included in the calculation under paragraph (3)(C), as the Secretary determines. (c) Program and plans of work. (1) In each State where an eligible institution is located, the State agricultural experiment station director and the research director named in subsection (d) for each eligible institution in that State must jointly develop, by agreement, a comprehensive State agricultural-research program. They must submit it to the Secretary for approval within one year after September 29, 1977. (2) Before an institution may receive money for a fiscal year, its research director must submit a plan of work for that year, and the Secretary must approve it. (3) The plan must describe (A) a summary of planned State projects or programs using formula funds, and (B) the State matching funds provided for the preceding fiscal year. (4)(A) The Secretary must develop protocols for evaluating how well multistate, multi-institution, multidisciplinary, and joint research-and-extension activities address critical agricultural issues identified in the plans. (B) The Secretary must develop the protocols in consultation with the Advisory Board and land-grant colleges and universities. This section does not otherwise define “Advisory Board.” (5) To the greatest practical extent, the Secretary must treat a plan submitted under paragraph (2) as satisfying other suitable federal reporting requirements. (d) The money allotted to eligible institutions must be paid in equal quarterly payments beginning on or about October 1 each year, using vouchers approved by the Secretary. Each institution’s president must appoint a research director responsible for administering this program. Each institution must appoint a treasurer or other officer to receive and account for its money. With the research director’s approval, that officer must report to the Secretary by December 1 each year, on the Secretary’s schedules, the amount received in the preceding fiscal year and how it was spent. If any allotted money is reduced, lost, or misused because of any action or event, the institution must replace it. Until it does, it may receive no later allotment or payment. The money may not pay negotiated overhead or indirect-cost rates. (e) Bulletins, reports, periodicals, reprints or articles, and other publications needed to share the results of research and experiments funded under this section, including lists of publications available from eligible institutions, must be sent through the United States mail. They may be mailed from an institution’s main business location or an established subunit. (f) The Secretary is responsible for properly administering this section and must prescribe rules and regulations needed to carry it out. The Secretary must give advice and assistance that best advances this section’s purposes, including helping coordinate eligible institutions’ research, periodically identifying research topics the Secretary considers most important, and encouraging and helping cooperation among eligible institutions, State agricultural experiment stations, and the Department of Agriculture. (g) By October 1 each year after September 29, 1977, the Secretary must determine whether each eligible institution is entitled to its share of the annual appropriations and the amount it is entitled to receive. (h) Nothing in this section changes or harms the existing legal relationship between an eligible institution and the government of its State.