NGA in support of Civilian Agencies of the Federal Government

We have had some discussion on the pages of Directions Magazine regarding how some civilian federal agencies of the U.S. Government are tapping the geospatial resources of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), whose mission is to support intelligence ad military operations. Normally, these agencies might look to the USGS. I asked both the former direnctor, General James Clapper (ret.), and the current director, Vice Admiral Robert Murrett if they believed that the NGA was properly positioned to support the civilian agencies with respect to the stress already placed on the NGA for military/intel missions. Murrett believes they are properly balanced and that the agency is very proud of their work with FEMA and other embedded teams of NGA analysts in other agencies. Clapper believes that certain circumstances regarding funding of USGS operations is creating some impact on the NGA mission. He suggests that it may be wise to transfer some mapping capabilities that had been with the USGS to other agencies, perhaps the NGA. So, the question becomes: Is there a real concern that the USGS is still the lead agency, with the proper skill set, to support civilian mapping needs? Are we correctly focusing the necessary funding to keep the USGS "alive" given the problems besetting the agency’s organizational problems?