The appropriations process is what Congress uses to make decisions about how the federal government will spend discretionary funds – funds that aren’t already designated to mandatory spending. The spending package that passed both chambers of Congress and was signed by the president in December 2019 accounts for $1.4 trillion in spending, from national defense to housing to climate science. Within that almost incomprehensible amount, there was a small, yet important $4 million earmark that merits scrutiny: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was given this money specifically to conduct solar geoengineering research, the first time in the United States that Congress has allocated money to a federal agency to do so. Read more >