[Ben Ficklin]

Bush can only do what he can do with the consent of Congress and not be sruck down by the courts. The boldest thing he has tried to do was what was described in your post above. He tried to defund the listing process of ESA. Congress shot that down quickly.

Generally speaking, Bush has requested spending increases from Congress while trying to shift how the money is spent. Increase the portion of money that goes to the states from LWCF. Shifting some of the federal portion of LWCF into private grants such as the Landowners Incentive Program, Private Stewardship Grants, the Co-operative Conservation Initiative which a sizable chunk and came on line this past Oct, as well as others. He has also increased spending on the maintanance backlog. All in all, he has reduced the amount the feds have had to squander. This assesment of his 2003 budget from last spring is accurate.

As for the the EPA he requested and recieved a sizable amount to study global climate change as outlined in the National Academy report from June 01. That money was passed out in Nov to the 5000 scientists at the big pow wow in Washington. Note that that study is being administered by the Dept of Commerce and the White House Office of Enviro Quality.

[FreeReign]

On February 4, President Bush released his $735 billion budget request for discretionary spending in fiscal year 2003. His budget includes $44.1 billion for the Natural Resources and Environment funding category--a 3-percent increase (or $1.1 billion) above the current spending level. This increase, however, may reflect the President’s legislative proposal to shift oversight of accruing costs for retirement and post-retirement health benefits of current federal employees from the Office of Personnel Management to each federal agency.

According to your link, green discretionary spending is flat.