President Bush has submitted his first pass at a budget, according to the Environment News Service. From the article, "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. 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...
"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...
"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...
"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. National Community Action Foundation Executive Director David Bradley said the administration's plan unwisely elects energy experimentation over conservation...
"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 sewer 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...
"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...
"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...
"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. 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...
"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."
"2008 pres"
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