Bush budget cuts Conservation

Bush budget cuts Conservation

Feb 2007 - President George W. 
Bush today sent Congress a $2.9 trillion budget package for 
the fiscal year starting in October that includes big 
increases for defense spending, cuts in conservation programs 
and assumptions that tax revenues will increase and that the 
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will be leased for oil and gas 
development. 
Yet the administration said reducing U.S. dependence on 
petroleum imports and expanding incentives for clean energy 
technologies are central to the President's energy budget 
proposal. 
President George W. Bush meets with his Cabinet at the White 
House Monday to introduce his FY 2008 Budget.  
As part of $24.3 billion funding request for the Energy 
Department, the president is asking Congress to provide $2.7 
billion to accelerate research into power generation 
technologies based on coal, nuclear energy and renewable 
sources, as well as the development of efficient vehicles and 
biofuels. 
"This budget builds on our commitment to strengthen our 
nation’s energy security by diversifying our energy resources 
and reducing our reliance on foreign sources of energy," said 
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. 
But while the newly elected Congress now controlled by 
Democrats generally supports reducing dependence on foreign 
oil and increases in renewable energy sources, some parts of 
the president's budget are in for a rough ride. 
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada today took aim at 
the budget's half-billion dollar proposal to develop the 
nation's only high-level nuclear waste repository already 
approved by the President for Yucca Mountain, Nevada 90 miles 
northwest of Las Vegas. 
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid  
"Rather than sending Congress a budget that strengthens 
homeland security, energy independence, education, affordable 
health care and fiscal discipline, the president proposes 
nearly a half-billion dollars for the nuclear waste dump at 
Yucca Mountain," said Reid. "The proposed dump is a project 
whose time has passed. As majority leader of the Senate, I 
promise the highest Congressional scrutiny for this waste of 
taxpayer dollars." 
The president is requesting $114 million to support the 
planned expansion of the U.S. nuclear power industry and $405 
million for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, GNEP. Under 
this program, the United States would build a nuclear fuel 
reprocessing facility and sell fuel for nuclear reactors to 
nations that do not have the technology to manufacture their 
own nuclear fuel. 
In 2006, the administration asked for $250 million for the 
GNEP but lawmakers expressed doubts about the feasibility, the 
timeline and other aspects of the program. 
Senate Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico 
Democrat, said he is puzzled that the increase sought for 
spent fuel reprocessing as part of the GNEP funding is larger 
than the entire proposed research and development budget for 
solar energy. 
Bingaman welcomed the increases proposed by the administration 
for biomass and biofuels research and development programs but 
criticized the elimination of all research related to oil and 
natural gas and a lack of funding for geothermal research. 
The budget would fund expansion of the U.S. Strategic 
Petroleum Reserve over 20 years to more than double its 
current capacity of 727 million barrels. 
President George W. Bush attempts to woo Democrats Saturday at 
the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference in Williamsburg, 
Virginia.  
The president’s proposal calls for $385 million to fund 
coal-based clean power generation projects such as the 
near-zero emission coal power project FutureGen and 
large-scale carbon sequestration field tests. 
Advanced coal technologies will help the United States tap its 
huge coal reserves at reasonable cost without adding to 
greenhouse gas emissions, the administration said. 
Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who chairs the 
Environment and Public Works Committee today expressed 
disappointment in the president's budget for failing to set 
the right priorities for the American people and obscuring the 
true costs of the war in Iraq. 
"The American people voted for change last November, but 
instead of listening to them, the president is giving us more 
of the same - a blank check for this endless war and 
penny-pinching for critical domestic priorities like 
education, health care, energy independence, support for local 
law enforcement, and combating the threat of global warming," 
said Boxer. 
The Energy Department is seeking loan guarantee authority to 
provide $9 billion in financial backing for projects related 
to commercialization of more efficient biofuel production, 
advanced nuclear energy, and more efficient electricity 
transmission. 
In addition, $4.4 billion would go toward basic research in 
the physical sciences and bioenergy and nanotechnology 
research programs that carry a longer-term promise of 
improvements in energy use. 
But at the same time, the president's 2008 budget proposes a 
40 percent cut, a $98 million reduction, to the Weatherization 
Assistance Program, which conserves energy by helping low-wage 
workers and retirees on fixed incomes to insulate their homes. 

In 2005, President Bush stated his commitment to increase 
funding for the Weatherization Assistance Program by $1.4 
billion over the next 10 years in order to cut the utility 
bills of 1.2 million low-income families while conserving 
energy.  
National Community Action Foundation Executive Director David 
Bradley said the administration's plan unwisely elects energy 
experimentation over conservation. 
"The administration is proposing that all new energy resources 
go into research and development of new technologies for the 
future. We certainly need new breakthroughs, yet it is not 
wise to invest only in risky, long-range experiments and 
neglect more immediate and proven home energy-saving 
upgrades," Bradley said. Reducing energy use is the cheapest 
way for society to ease the demand for fuels." 
New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed 
disappointment that the budget cuts $44 million from clean 
water funding. She said the cuts slash funding by 36 percent 
to the revolving loan fund that cities and towns across New 
York rely on for funding to make improvements to sever and 
wastewater treatment facilities. 
There is a $9 million cut in research funding to the National 
Cancer Institute, and a $4 million cut to the National 
Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences. 
The most important environmental priority for the 110th 
Congress is the enactment of strong global climate change 
legislation - specifically, legislation that caps emissions of 
carbon dioxide and the other heat-trapping gases that are 
released through combustion of fossil fuels said a coalition 
of 21 national and regional environmental groups, introducing 
their Green Budget last week. 
Amtrak train pulls into a Wisconsin station.  
"Investing in the modernization of our country’s 
transportation infrastructure is critical to combating global 
climate change, whether by developing efficient and effective 
public transportation or passenger rail (one of the most fuel 
efficient forms of transportation using less energy per 
passenger-mile than most airplane and automobile travel), or 
by increasing the efficiency of car engines," the 
environmental groups said. 
But the president's budget proposal makes deep cuts to Amtrak 
funding to $900 million in 2008 from $1.3 billion estimated 
for 2007. This 83 percent cut jeopardizes Amtrak’s ability to 
serve many of its passenger lines and removes an alternative 
to automotive transportation fueled by gasoline and diesel. 
Natural Resources Funding Cuts 
In total, the president's budget cuts appropriated funding for 
natural resources and the environment by nearly $1.5 billion, 
a 4.8 percent cut. 
Director Rob Portman of the Office of Management and Budget 
presents the budget of the U.S. government for the 2008 fiscal 
year to the press.  
Briefing the media today, Rob Portman, director of the White 
House Office of Management and Budget attempted to introduce 
as "new" a plan to get the private sector to invest in the 
National Park System that was in fact introduced last August. 
"We are proposing today an exciting new plan, called the 
National Parks Centennial Initiative," said Portman. "This new 
program will provide up to $3 billion over the next 10 years 
in new federal and private spending to help achieve new levels 
of excellence in our national parks." 
But on August 25, 2006, the 90th anniversary of the National 
Park Service, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne launched the 
"National Parks Centennial Challenge," a 10 year initiative to 
improve the Park System in time for its 100th anniversary in 
2016 by selling private companies the right to name trails or 
other park facilities. 
Conservationists raised an outcry today over cuts to programs 
that protect land, water and wildlife. 
The budget figures for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, 
LWCF, alone show a cut of nearly $85 million below FY 2006 
levels, about a 60 percent cut. The fund was established in 
1964 to provide money to federal and state governments to 
purchase land, water and wetlands for the benefit of all 
Americans. Funded with receipts from oil and gas drilling off 
the outer continental shelf, the LWCF is authorized to receive 
$900 million a year. 
Already faced with a $2.5 billion budget backlog, the National 
Wildlife Refuge System received a small increase in the 
administration's request, but that still leaves the system 
more than $55 million behind the inflation adjusted 2004 
funding level. 
"Daily we are seeing reports of the impacts of severe budget 
shortfalls in the refuge system," said Jamie Rappaport Clark, 
executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife, who served 
as director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service during the 
Clinton administration. 
Jamie Rappaport Clark is executive vice president of Defenders 
of Wildlife.  
"Overall, the system is losing a fifth of its staff. Across 
the country refuges are eliminating active outreach, visitor 
programs, habitat maintenance, wildlife restoration and 
education programs. Without more funding the refuge system 
will not be able to fulfill its vital mission to conserve our 
nation's fish, wildlife and their habitats for generations to 
come," said Rappaport Clark. 
President Bush's budget also reduces the endangered species 
recovery program by 7.5 percent for a $5.5 million cut below 
FY 2006. 
In addition, funding for programs that help private landowners 
conserve at-risk wildlife were zeroed out. This cut to the 
Landowner Incentive and Private Stewardship Grants programs 
totals $29 million. 
"Programs that protect our nation's lands and wildlife are in 
structural collapse," said Clark. "We urge the new Congress to 
begin to reinvest in all critical lands and wildlife 
conservation programs, including those in the farm bill, so 
that we can leave a true conservation legacy for our children 
and grandchildren." 
Despite the president’s new goal of reducing U.S. gasoline 
usage by 20 percent in the next 10 years, the president’s 
budget reverts to old, dirty energy and assumes that the 
Arctic Refuge’s Coastal Plain will be leased to oil companies 
for $7 billion, warned the "Green Budget" environmental 
groups. 
The budget proposes a $5.8 million boost in funding for the 
Bureau of Land Management oil and gas program – from $115,308 
million appropriated in FY 2007 to $121,191 million requested 
for FY 2008 – but does not mention the BLM’s National 
Landscape Conservation System. 
Moose cow and calf on Colorado's Grand Mesa National Forest on 
the western slope of the Rocky Mountains.  
In addition, BLM’s wildlife program shows a slight decline, 
making it unclear how the administration proposes to fund its 
new $15 million Healthy Lands Initiative. 
"The Healthy Lands initiative is a tacit acknowledgement of 
the havoc wreaked by the administration’s oil and gas 
policies, but what we really need is a halt to new oil and gas 
leasing on sensitive lands, and adherence to protective 
wildlife stipulations on the leases that have already been 
issued," said The Wilderness Society's Senior Policy Advisor 
Dave Alberswerth. 
On a positive note, the environmental groups approved a budget 
increase for the National Park System of $258 million, 14.3 
percent, over requested fiscal year 2006 levels. 
"The increased National Park Service funding is a step in the 
right direction," said The Wilderness Society’s Kristen 
Brengel. "The funding would add nearly 500 permanent employees 
and several thousand seasonal employees. More rangers mean 
that parks visitors will experience these places in the way 
they were meant to, through ranger-led tours and active 
natural and cultural resource protection." 
For the second consecutive year, the President’s Forest 
Service budget includes a proposal to sell off up to $800 
million of National Forest lands. Although the full details of 
the land sale proposal are not yet available, there is every 
indication that it is nearly identical to the proposal made 
last February that would have sold up to 300,000 acres of 
National Forest lands across 35 states. 
The budget also once again proposes to sell up to 950 million 
acres of BLM lands to raise $334 million over 10 years. 
Similar Forest Service and BLM proposals announced last year 
met with strong and widespread opposition from hunters, 
anglers, locally-elected officials, businesses, governors, and 
both Democratic and Republican Members of Congress. 
The U.S. Forest Service's timber sale program helps fund 
schools in rural counties. Bob Douglas, president, of the 
National Forest Counties and Schools Coalition, a group of 
1,100 organizations, representing 37 states. Douglas also 
serves as county superintendent of schools, Tehama County, 
California. He said the president's budget proposal is 
inadequate to keep rural schools operating. 
Bob Douglas is president of the National Forest Counties and 
Schools Coalition and County Superintendent of Schools, Tehama 
County, California.  
Douglas says, "Although we appreciate that the administration 
has included a funding mechanism in the budget proposal that 
would partially fund the Secure Rural Schools and Communities 
Act for four years, our real and immediate priority is to 
obtain passage of a one-year extension of the Act so we can 
rationally discuss a long-term, bipartisan solution with the 
administration and Congress." 
"Frankly," Douglas said, "if we cannot get that commitment 
now, local governments will start sending out pink slips to 
between 12,000 and 16,000 teachers and county employees as 
early as March 15th. In our most rural counties, these layoffs 
will have a devastating effect on the quality of our schools 
and the level of county services. Some local school districts 
will be forced to declare bankruptcy." 
"We are truly facing an emergency of catastrophic proportions 
in our 800 forest counties and 4,400 forest county school 
districts. Without urgent action, over nine million forest 
county children will feel the effects of federal inaction." 

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