The Department of the Interior's budget would shrink to $10.6 billion, a drop of 1.1 percent from fiscal 2005. Funding for the National Park Service, which has one of the largest budgets under Interior, would be cut about $66 million, or nearly 3 percent from fiscal 2005, for a total budget of $2.3 billion.
Budget authority for the Fish and Wildlife Service would be increased about $31 million, or 2 percent, for a total of about $1.3 billion.
Bush proposes to extend the coal fee, which is set to expire in June, and to modify the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act to help pay for health and safety work at abandoned coal mines.
Although $109 million, or nearly 5 percent, was cut from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, other funds were included to help pay for sorting out Interior's troubled handling of Indian trust accounts.
-- Judy Sarasohn
The administration wants to cut Justice Department spending authority by $1.1 billion, or 5.5 percent, for a total of $19.1 billion, primarily by slashing popular grants to communities that hire extra police officers or shoulder a financial burden by jailing undocumented immigrants. The administration says it is not convinced that the former program -- begun by the Clinton administration -- has cut crime, and says the latter program has misspent funds.
The Office of Violence Against Women's current budget of $383 million would be cut by $19 million.
Within the overall budget, spending for the FBI would nonetheless grow by $556 million, or 10 percent, to finance the hiring of 500 new intelligence analysts for the war on terrorism, boost the number of FBI translators and improve the watchlisting of terrorist suspects. The Drug Enforcement Administration would get an extra $63 million, or 3.8 percent. Some of the new funds would come from a hefty new fee to be imposed on the use of imported and domestically produced explosives, which requires legislative approval.
-- R. Jeffrey Smith
The Labor Department budget would shrink 4.4 percent, with discretionary budget authority cut to $11.5 billion, in an overall $54.5 billion budget.
The four Workforce Investment Act state grant programs would be cut by $61.5 million, and would merge into a $3.9 billion program. The administration wants to eliminate the Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker job-training program, a savings of $76.2 million, and the Responsible Reintegration for Young Offenders program, a $49.6 million savings.
The budget calls for $250 million for the second year to fund Bush's Community College Initiative, and the prisoner re-entry initiative will increase by $15.2 million, to $35 million.
The department will receive a $4.2 million increase for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
-- Amy Joyce
