Friday, February 27, 2009

Agency Budgets: EPA up 35%, DOI up 6.2%

These summaries are from AP:

Agency: Environmental Protection Agency

2010 proposal: $10.5 billion

Change from 2009 estimate: 34.6 percent increase

Highlights: Obama's budget signaled that the environment is a priority by providing the biggest increase for the Environmental Protection Agency in eight years.

The proposal nearly triples — to $3.9 billion — funding for states, local governments and tribes. They can use the money to improve sewage treatment plants and drinking water systems and to protect drinking water sources. These programs already received $6 billion in the recently approved stimulus package.

The EPA budget also would provide families, communities and businesses billions to offset the higher energy prices expected if Congress passes legislation to control greenhouse gases.

Starting in 2012, the budget proposes to invest $15 billion a year in clean energy — money generated from auctioning permits to companies that emit the gases blamed for global warming. The rest of the climate cash will be returned to taxpayers.

But it is far from certain that legislation will pass this year.

In another move that could increase energy prices, the EPA budget calls for reinstating taxes on petroleum products, chemical feedstocks and crude oil to pay for cleaning the country's most hazardous waste sites. These taxes expired in 1995. They would start up again in 2011 under Obama's budget.

Agency: Interior

2010 proposal: $12 billion

Change from 2009 estimate: 6.2 percent increase

Highlights: The nation's public lands would produce cleaner energy and brace for global warming's effects on their plants and wildlife under Obama's budget.

The Interior Department plan would invest millions to spur construction of windmills, solar panels and other green-energy projects. It called for increased taxes and fees on oil and gas companies harvesting fossil fuels in the Gulf of Mexico and on other public property.

It would add more than $130 million to help land and wildlife managers monitor and prepare for global warming's toll. And the budget would set up a dedicated fund to address catastrophic wildfires, so agencies don't have to divert money budgeted for other purposes.

Communities would likely see more parks under Obama's budget. It would provide millions to purchase more land and forests and to establish programs that encourage young people to hunt, fish and get outdoors.

Agency: Energy

2010 proposal: $26.3 billion

Change from 2009 estimate: 0.4 percent decrease

Highlights: A dramatic shift away from support for fossil fuels to new "green" energy is at the core of Obama's first proposed budget.

The Energy Department's spending plan would pay for "significant increases in basic research" into developing clean and renewable energy including solar, wind and geothermal sources, and to make motor fuel from plants.

Overall spending for the department would change little from what Congress is providing now, but would be about 5 percent higher than what President George Bush proposed a year ago. Compared to the Bush budget, it proposes a major redirection of spending to reflect Obama's strong support for renewable energy and away from fossil fuels.

While the budget summary provides few specific numbers, it would pump more money into:

_ Creating a "smart" electric transmission grid.

_ Loan guarantees to bring solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable energy sources to market.

_ Determining commercial viability of capturing carbon from coal-burning power plants.

_ Helping low-income families improve the energy efficiency of their homes, a program the Bush administration wanted to eliminate.

While spending on nuclear weapons programs would remain about the same, Obama calls for scrapping a Bush administration program to build a new, more reliable warhead.

Obama would funnel more money to combat global nuclear proliferation, including safeguarding "loose nukes" in Russia.

The budget calls "a new strategy toward nuclear waste disposal" from commercial power plants and would cut spending on the proposed Yucca Mountain waste dump in Nevada.

Agency: Agriculture

2010 proposal: $26 billion

Change from 2009 estimate: 8.8 percent increase

Highlights: Big farms that receive large government subsidies would lose some of that money under Obama's budget.

Obama would break from the five-year farm bill that Congress enacted last year, with his support. He proposes eliminating what are known as direct payments — subsidies that are paid to farmers regardless of crop prices or how much they grow — for producers with more than $500,000 in annual sales revenues.

The budget also proposes eliminating other agricultural subsidies, putting a cap on the amount of money an individual farmer can receive. President George Bush made similar proposals to cut payments for the largest corporate farms in many of his annual budgets, but he was rebuffed each year by Congress.

Southern lawmakers in particular oppose cutting farm subsidies because cotton and rice crops there are more expensive to grow. The farm bill, enacted over Bush's veto, raised subsidies for some crops.

Nutrition would get a boost under this budget, with $1 billion more each year to improve child nutrition programs and enhance the nutritional quality of school meals. Obama also would direct more money to loans and grants for renewable fuels production.

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