Posted on 03/14/2004 11:37:02 AM PST by Paladin2
Daschle, administration at odds over forest funds By Bill Harlan, Journal Staff Writer
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and the Bush administration are at odds over how much money should be spent to thin the nation's forests.
The Senate passed its budget resolution early Friday. It includes a provision Daschle pushed that would spend $343 million more than the Bush administration to remove excess trees, brush and debris from fire-prone forests.
"The Bush administration was wrong to underfund programs designed to protect our communities from the threat of forest fires in the legislation we passed last year," Daschle said in a written statement Friday.
The Healthy Forest Restoration Act, which the president signed in December, called for spending $760 million to thin overgrown forests during fiscal year 2005, which begins Oct. 1.
A top administration official disagreed that the president's budget proposal shorts the forest-thinning budget. "Congress authorized $760 million for the full range of hazardous-fuel reduction activities," Mark Rey said Friday. "Our total is $760.4 million."
Rey is Agriculture Department undersecretary for natural resources and the environment, and he oversees the U.S. Forest Service. He said the administration budget would increase thinning money by $80 million to $100 million over last year.
But Rey and Daschle disagree on how to count money for "hazardous-fuel reduction."
The administration includes money spent for forest thinning in 17 separate budget line items — including the line item called "hazardous fuels reduction." That program includes noncommercial thinning, brush removal and prescribed burning.
In fiscal 2004, the Forest Service will spend $233 million on its hazardous-fuels reduction program. The Interior Department will spend $184 million for its hazardous fuels program.
The two programs total $417 million, which is $343 million short of $760 million. Daschle spokesman Nick Pappas said that is how the Senate arrived at its budget resolution.
The administration argued that other programs — including habitat improvement, watershed restoration and even parts of the Forest Service's commercial timber program — also include legitimate hazardous-fuel reduction activities.
The total of those programs for fiscal 2004, Rey said, was about $681 million. The
administration added about $80 million in new spending to get slightly more than $760 million.
Daschle said the Senate's additional $343 million was needed to fully fund the authorization that he and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., pushed for in the Healthy Forest Act.
Rey disagreed. "Congress can, obviously, change its mind, but that's not what they wrote," he said.
Rey pointed out that the language of the Healthy Forest Act does, in fact, allow for spending in a range of programs. The act even says some of the money can go to states and tribes for their forest-thinning programs.
Rey added that the administration was not necessarily opposed to spending more money to thin forests, but he warned that if Congress appropriated $343 million more than the administration requested, the Forest Service and various Interior Department agencies likely could not spend it all in fiscal 2005. "I'm quite confident we don't have the physical capability," he said. "It's our judgment that $760 million is what we can and should spend in 2005."
Pappas said Daschle was equally confident that money could be put to good use next year.
The issue might not be settled until early next year, even though fiscal 2005 begins Oct. 1.
Here is what has to happen before hazardous-fuels money gets to the nation's forests.
- The House of Representatives must pass its own budget resolution.
- A House-Senate conference committee will have to iron out differences in the two resolutions.
- The joint resolution will go to various appropriations committees, which will convert general spending goals into specific spending programs.
- More conference committees will resolve differences in those appropriations bills.
- Finally, the appropriations bills go to the White House for the president's signature.
During the past two years, that process has not been completed until well after the first of the year. In fact, officials for Black Hills National Forest expect to get their official fiscal 2004 hazardous-fuels appropriation next week
Also, note that Daschle is keeping a low National profile while suddenly addressing SD's needs/issues. I'd say he wants to be re-elected.
He needs to have more light shown on him as the elections approach.
More than anything, I want to see that little troll defeated!!
Send your donations to.....
JOHN THUNE FOR US SENATE
P.O. BOX 3308
SIOUX FALLS, SD 57101
Unfortunately, existing appropriations laws prohibit the government from "making money" in many if not most instances like this. The DOD for example is not allowed to assess fees in excess of the amount of funds required to administer their "timber harvest" program. Use of excess funds by any DOD entity would constitute appropriation augmentation which is against the law.
For real! And maybe we could get lumber costs back down where they belong while poking a finger in the eye of the anti-capitalist tree huggers. Last week I paid over $18 for a sheet of 1/2" CDX (lowest quality grade) of plywood that a year ago would have cost about 10 bucks. Lumber costs are obscene and they are beginning to have a negative effect on construction.
Compliments :-) Now, if I can just get that John Galt thing going in Pocatello...
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