Related Items Full Coverage: White House Releases New Budget

By David Safford
LEGI-SLATE News Service
Monday, Feb. 2, 1998

Cutting into the massive maintenance backlogs on public lands nationwide is a top priority in the Clinton administration's $8.1 billion budget request for the Department of the Interior, administration officials said Monday.

The request seeks a six percent increase over last year's funding, not including the one-time $699 million expenditure last year from the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

The president's budget would kick off a five-year effort to repair the crumbling infrastructure in the National Parks, on Bureau of Land Management lands, on Indian reservations, and in other federal facilities managed by the Interior Department.

About $546 million would be earmarked for these projects, an increase of $82 million, with the National Park Service almost doubling its spending on repair and rehabilitation projects.

The request also includes $165 million to repair and rebuild roads in the national parks, and $200 million for roads on Indian reservations.

"The department will give the highest priority to ensuring the safety of our visitors and our employees, and to preserving critical natural and cultural resources," said assistant secretary John Berry.

Officials also cited reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act as a top goal for the coming year; Congress is expected to act on the ESA this year, but the effort already is igniting controversy.

"ESA will be a major subject this year," Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said. "We have figured out how to make it work."

Therefore, under the president's plan $100 million will be set aside to protect species and habitat, with a $39 million increase for implementing the ESA. This would pay for 20 new candidate conservation agreements, up to 100 habitat conservation plans, and up to 100 safe harbor agreements, according to Fish and Wildlife Service Director Jamie Rappaport Clark.

Although last year saw a massive expenditure from the Land and Water Conservation Fund to purchase the New World Mine on the outskirts of Yellowstone National Park and a stand of old-growth redwood trees in California, the budget request this year calls for only $214 million to be spent from that account.

In the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the agency would receive a $142 million increase to $1.8 billion, mostly to focus on tribal priority allocations. The BIA also plans to address neglected infrastructure, by repairing old schools and building new ones, according to Kevin Gover, assistant secretary for Indian Affairs.

The BIA also will be requesting, along with the Department of Justice, a doubling of federal funds to help fight crime on Indian reservations. Murder rates in some parts of Indian land now rival those of some large metropolitan areas, Gover said.

Overall, the Bureau of Land Management would receive $1.234 billion in budget authority; the National Park Service would receive $1.753 billion; the Fish and Wildlife Service would receive $826 million; the U.S. Geological Survey would receive $807 million; the Bureau of Reclamation would receive $934 million; the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement would receive $277 million; the Minerals Management Service would receive $129 million.