http://archive.nytimes.com/2003/02/07/opinion/07FRI1.html
Shortchanging the Environment His State of the Union oratory to the contrary, President Bush wants to spend less money on the environment and clean energy programs than Congress gave him two years ago. In a way, that's not surprising. Domestic programs generally took their lumps in a budget weighted toward tax cuts and military spending. Even so, some of the president's proposals � including a reduction in the Environmental Protection Agency budget from $8.1 billion in 2002 to $7.6 billion this year � seemed downright peculiar, coming as they did on the heels of Mr. Bush's ringing pledges for a cleaner environment and reduced dependence on foreign oil. The president's clean-energy agenda is a prime example. Yesterday he again predicted great things for his proposed "Freedom Car," the hydrogen-powered vehicle to which he intends to devote about $1.7 billion in research money over the next five years. There is much to commend this program; hydrogen could well be the fuel of the distant future. But what of immediate needs? The numbers show that when the Freedom Car is removed from the equation, the money available for proven programs that could provide quick energy savings � and have an early impact on, say, urban smog and global warming � actually declines. No less perverse is a provision that would provide a $75,000 deduction for small businesses that buy huge gas-guzzling S.U.V.'s like the Lincoln Navigator. Mr. Bush's open-space programs are similarly disappointing. He boasts, for example, of "full funding" for the $900 million Land and Water Conservation Fund � all of which is supposed to go to land acquisition by the federal government and the states. In fact, only $187 million is devoted to federal land acquisition, less to state programs. The rest will subsidize 15 extraneous programs that, under any honest accounting, should be paid for elsewhere in the budget. Meanwhile, outlays for the national parks remain flat, and at present rates of spending, Mr. Bush cannot possibly satisfy his pledge to fix the system's infrastructure by 2006. The news for the country's rivers, lakes and streams is not much better. Indeed, the reduction in the E.P.A.'s budget results partly from cuts in various clean water programs. Moreover, the administration has chosen to take a huge, $100 million bite out of the Agriculture Department's demonstrably successful Wetlands Reserve Program � one of the few redeeming features of last year's grotesque farm subsidy bill. On the plus side, the budget eliminates or greatly reduces funding for many of the most wasteful and environmentally destructive projects planned by the Army Corps of Engineers. This is a welcome departure from the past. But it hardly compensates for the harmful cuts elsewhere in the budget. Congress should restore that money. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
