President Obama's Proposed Budget: Cuts to EPA and Great Lakes Restoration Fund

[cali]

President Obama recently released his administration’s budget, kicking off the annual national discussion about how to invest federal dollars. Ultimately, this process will end in legislation that funds specific programs throughout the government for the fiscal year that begins in October. I’ve taken a look the proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (PDF) from a clean water perspective, and it’s disappointing.

The bottom line is that if the President’s proposal were adopted, EPA’s efforts to protect the nation’s waterways would be cut by a little more than half a billion bucks. That decision is hard to square with the administration’s acknowledgement that “America’s waters remain imperiled.”

The single biggest proposed cut is to the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which provides capital to state-managed funds that make low-interest loans available to municipalities for infrastructure projects, like needed upgrades to sewage treatment and stormwater management systems. Increasingly, these funds are used to support green infrastructure projects, which include a suite of design approaches that reduce runoff from streets, parking lots, buildings and other hard surfaces by replicating natural conditions. Despite the budget’s stated support for green infrastructure, though, the President would slash the grants to states for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund by almost $431 million. President Obama would also cut the sister program – the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund – by about $150 million.

So, how does the administration justify failing to put its money where its mouth is? As follows:

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http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jdevine/president_obamas_budget_short-.html

Obama budget slashes Great Lakes restoration funds

resident Barack Obama reined in funding for restoration of the Great Lakes in his budget released this week, spurring a backlash among environmentalists from Minnesota and a half dozen other states.

Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal 2015 slashes $25 million from the current funding level for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which has supported dozens of projects in Minnesota aimed at controlling and monitoring pollutants and preserving and restoring fish and wildlife habitats in Lake Superior.

The president’s budget cuts another $430 million from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which helps communities repair wastewater infrastructure to prevent sewage runoff into the Great Lakes and the rivers and streams that lead into them.

“This is not the time to cut Great Lakes programs that are producing solid economic and environmental benefits for people and communities across the region,” said Todd Ambs, campaign director of the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, which represents 120 environmental groups from across the region. “A lot of work remains to restore the Great Lakes to health. Cutting funding now will only cost us more later, because projects will get harder and more expensive the longer we wait.”

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http://www.sctimes.com/article/20140305/LIFE03/303050057/Obama-budget-slashes-Great-Lakes-restoration-funds

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. $52bn to the "Intelligence" agencies including NSA.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/44/post/federal-budget-2013-intelligence-agencies-would-get-44-percent-less/2012/02/13/gIQAEvFDBR_blog.html

[jsr]

4. The Intelligence-Security Industrial Complex has needs

[woo me with science]

6. ...

[cali]

2. kick

[Demo_Chris]

3. Drones and wars and domestic spy agencies aren't FREE. They cost money. A lot of money...

So be grateful for whatever clean water you get.

[ProSense]

5. President Obama’s New Budget Is Peppered With Efforts To Tackle Climate Change

President Obama’s New Budget Is Peppered With Efforts To Tackle Climate Change

By Jeff Spross

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The centerpiece of that effort is continued funding for regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency to cut carbon dioxide emissions from the nation’s power plants. The agency has already revealed the rules for new plants, and should release its rules for existing plants in June of this year.

But there’s plenty else on climate and green energy issues in the budget. Here are some of the major items:

Clean Energy Tax Credits. This includes a permanent extension of the production tax credit for wind — a cost of $19.2 billion over ten years — which expired at the end of 2013. There’s also $401 million over that time period for alternative-fuel trucks tax credits, and $1.7 billion for cellulosic biofuel.

Cutting Fossil Fuel Tax Breaks. The budget would axe about $4 billion in tax breaks that are currently available to the oil and natural gas industries, and another $3.9 billion in tax preferences for coal.

Climate Resiliency Fund. Obama announced last month he would ask Congress for $1 billion to fund new technology and infrastructure to prepare for climate change, aid for communities, and new research. The budget makes good on that promise.

NOAA Satellites. Obama wants $2 billion to fully fund a new fleet of weather satellites for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Fighting Wildfires. The cost of tackling wildfires in 2012 was 23 percent higher than the 10-year average. So Obama’s budget boosts the U.S. Forest Service’s budget 4.7 percent to $2.3 billion, in order to suppress and research wildfires.

Infrastructure vulnerabilities. The budget would give the Department of Homeland Security an extra $400 million to track down “critical infrastructure vulnerabilities” to climate change.

Clean Energy Technology. The National Science Foundation would get $362 million under the budget to research advanced forms of green energy.

Energy Networks. Overall, the budget boosts funding for the Energy Department to $27.9 billion in 2015 — an increase of 2.6 percent over 2014. That includes $355 million to beef up the robustness of the electrical grid and fuel transportation infrastructure.

Obama’s budget must be passed by Congress, which is pretty unlikely. “It’s a great place to begin this discussion, but will the Republican-led House of Representatives fund anything with the word ‘climate’ in it?” asked Daniel J. Weiss, director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress, in an interview with Bloomberg.

Of course, Congresses rarely pass any President’s proposed budget as is, usually writing their own that the President then signs.

But the Union of Concerned Scientists is on board with Obama’s priorities. “The president is confronting members of Congress with a reality they need to face: climate change is already hurting us economically,” said Angela Anderson, the director of the group’s Climate and Energy Program. “Resilience funding is essential to confront the consequences of climate change already being felt. Beyond that, Congress needs to get serious about reducing the risks of the changing climate. Unless and until we start cutting emissions that cause global warming, the problems communities are facing, and their price tags, will continue to grow.”
- more -

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/05/3366331/obama-2015-budget-climate/

Thank President Obama for protecting Point Arena-Stornetta Public Lands!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024650005