7 U.S.C. § 361c — Authorization of appropriations and allotments of grants

(a) Authorization Congress can appropriate whatever amount it decides is needed, from year to year, to fund sections 361a through 361i. (b) Allotments to States; authorization of appropriations for Virgin Islands and Guam; limitation (1) Each year, every state gets at least as much money as it received in federal funds for the 1955 fiscal year, under the same rules for how it must be used for marketing research. A special "Regional research fund" continues to support cooperative regional research projects (defined in subsection (c)(3)) — it's renamed the "Regional research fund, State agricultural experiment stations." The Secretary of Agriculture also gets at least as much as was available for administering this program in fiscal year 1955. If total funding in any year is less than the 1955 amount, every state's share — and the amounts for federal administration and the regional research fund — gets reduced proportionally. (2) Starting with fiscal year 1973, Congress also authorizes $100,000 each year for the Virgin Islands and Guam, on top of what other states and Puerto Rico get. Except for fiscal years 1971 and 1972 (when this money could cover their entire program cost), federal payments to the Virgin Islands and Guam under this rule can't exceed what each territory has actually budgeted to spend on this program that year. (c) Allotment of additional sums Any extra money Congress appropriates, beyond what's described in subsection (b), gets divided this way: (1) 20% is split equally among all states; (2) at least 52% is split based on population — half according to each state's share of the country's total rural population (from the latest census), and half according to each state's share of the country's total farm population; (3) at least 25% goes to states for cooperative, multi-disciplinary research — where one state's experiment station works with another state's station, with the Agricultural Research Service, or with a college or university, to solve problems affecting more than one state; this money (together with related funds under subsection (b)) is called the "Multistate Research Fund"; and (4) 3% goes to the Secretary of Agriculture to administer this program, which can include paying travel costs for outside scientists attending research-planning meetings. (d) Matching funds (1) Normally, a state cannot receive its full allotment under subsections (b) or (c) unless it matches that amount with its own non-federal money, spent on agricultural research and related facilities. (2) If a state doesn't provide enough matching funds in a given year, the Secretary withholds the difference between what the state would have received with full matching, and what it actually provided. (3) The Secretary then redistributes that withheld money to other states that did meet their matching requirement that year — those states must still meet the matching rule for the redistributed amount too. (4) Exception: starting in fiscal year 2003, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia only need to match 50% of their formula funds (instead of the full matching rule), and the Secretary can waive even that requirement for a given year if it looks unlikely they can meet it. (e) "Administration" defined "Administration," as used in this section, includes planning and coordinating the cooperative regional research described in subsection (c)(3). (f) Adjustment of payments The Secretary of Agriculture can round any payment to a state to the nearest dollar. (g) Reductions and reapportionments If a state cuts its own funding (including revenue-sharing money) to its experiment station because its federal allotment went up, then that state's allotment gets cut by the same amount the following year — and the Secretary redistributes that cut amount to other states' experiment stations. (h) Peer review Research done under the multistate cooperative program (subsection (c)(3)) must go through scientific peer review. Passing that review also satisfies a separate merit-review requirement found in section 7613(e). (i) Integration of research and extension (1) Each year, a state must spend a minimum share of its federal formula funds — from this program and from a related section 343 program — on activities that combine cooperative research with agricultural extension work ("integrated activities"). (2)(A) The Secretary figured out, for fiscal year 1997, what percentage of each state's formula funds actually went toward integrated activities. (B) Starting in fiscal year 2000, each state must spend at least the lesser of: 25%, or twice its 1997 percentage, on integrated activities. (C) The Secretary can lower this minimum for a state facing hardship, impossibility, or similar circumstances beyond its control. (3) This requirement doesn't apply to: (A) state or local matching funds; (B) funds going to a "1994 Institution" (a specific category of land-grant college defined elsewhere); or (C) funds going to Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, or Guam. (4) Funds a state spends on integrated activities to meet this requirement can also count toward the separate multistate-research requirements in subsection (c)(3) and in section 343(h), for the same year.