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Juneau's new Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute - still under construction - ultimately is not considered a target, but running it could result in reduced spending on other Alaska projects.

The Bush administration's current proposed $3.684 billion National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration budget for 2007 does not add new money to the Alaska marine research budget to run the new institute next year. Running the center will likely cost about $2 million annually.

"We're not losing sleep right now, but it's worrisome," said Steve Ignell, deputy director of the Auke Bay Lab, a Juneau-based research center for the National Marine Fisheries Service's Alaska Region.

The lab staff plans to move into the new institute - a replacement for the aging Auke Bay Lab - this fall. Unlike some other ongoing federal scientific projects in Alaska that are not even funded in the proposed 2007 NOAA budget, the institute has not been slated for a cut, said Courtney Boone, a spokeswoman for Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.

The institute in Juneau is a top priority for Alaska and will not be harmed, officials at the National Marine Fisheries Service's Maryland headquarters said Friday.

"If we have to take money from elsewhere in the budget, then we'll do that," said Susan Buchanan, an agency spokeswoman.

The money needed to operate the institute will be funneled through the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, based in Seattle, federal officials said Friday.

The juggling of dollars for the institute is just one example of the tightening belt around marine research programs in Alaska.

If Congress approves reduced spending for the Alaska research programs, it will have ripple effects for Juneau, the headquarters of the National Marine Fisheries Service's Alaska Region.

The regional office and the Auke Bay Lab combined employ nearly 200 people. They also serve as a major hub for federal fisheries research and management in Alaska.

"We have less money than we had (in 2005)" at the lab for scientific research, Ignell said Friday. "Given the numbers I've been told, the squeeze is going to be a lot worse next year ... to the point that some of our real critical research could get cut," he said.

Stevens blasted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 2007 budget request at a Senate committee hearing last month, saying it would cut spending on Alaska research by 50 percent.

NOAA - which controls the purse strings of the National Marine Fisheries Service, the National Weather Service and a number of other agencies - proposes to "zero out" funding next year for critical projects in Alaska, including a new interagency climate research center in Barrow, the state's tsunami warning system and a program to assess coastal communities' vulnerability to climate change, Boone said.

"It seems that Alaska was affected greater than most others in NOAA's budget this year," Boone added.

With the 2007 budget still in flux, federal officials in Juneau and Seattle said they have no idea how they will allocate the marine research dollars for Alaska next year. But unless Congress significantly ups the spending level - as it did last year - they likely face some tough decisions.

For example, if the Ted Stevens institute's new operating expenses of $2 million were simply deducted from the Auke Bay Lab's current $9.1 million budget, it would wipe out nearly all of the lab's operating budget. The lab's payroll is roughly $7.2 million.

A more likely scenario that is actually outlined in the federal budget: huge cuts to the state of Alaska's marine research projects.

Under the agency's 2007 budget request, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game will get hit with an 80 percent decrease in marine research funding from its current level, said David Bedford, deputy commissioner for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

"It's like watching a marble roll off the table," Bedford said Friday.

State-run projects that would be harmed by a lack of federal money include rockfish and Bering Sea crab assessments, and Steller sea lion studies, Bedford said.

The rockfish studies are now critical in Alaska because of longliner bycatch and a recent problem with sport fishermen exceeding their allowable catch, Bedford explained. Alaska doesn't want to end up with the same devastating rockfish population decline that occurred in the Lower 48, he said.

Bedford is also annoyed because much of the Alaska research occurs in federal waters.

"When we are doing research on crab in the Bering Sea, outside of three miles (of the state's coast)- that is a federal resource and Alaska is doing work. There is little excuse for not having those items incorporated in the agency's base budget," Bedford said.

In recent years, NOAA has offered Congress a much more conservative budget request for Alaska than it actually ended up receiving.

"This has been an issue for us, where Congress has added money over and above what the president has requested," said Gary Reisner, the chief financial officer for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Reisner pointed out that NOAA's Alaska research funding request has remained roughly the same for the last few years, even though Congress has added millions to the final amount.

That's like playing a game of chicken with Congress, said David Benton, executive director of Alaska's Marine Conservation Alliance, a non-profit that represents the groundfish industry.

Benton said it could backfire this year, with Congress less inclined to put large sums of money toward Alaska projects.

"In the climate of anti-earmarks back in the Congress, it's going to be harder and harder for Sen. Stevens to solve the problem that (NOAA) has created for themselves," Benton said.

Boone, the spokeswoman for Stevens, said last week that the state's senior senator is keeping "watchful" eye on the NOAA budget this spring from his seat on a key Senate appropriations subcommittee.

Until 2005, Stevens chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee and steered federal spending bills through Congress. He had to step down from the coveted seat due to term limits.

• Elizabeth Bluemink can be reached at elizabeth.bluemink@juneauempire.com.