Interior chief slams ‘short-sighted’ GOP cuts

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell took a swipe at House Republicans on Monday for proposing cuts to her department that she said would impair federal services and kill jobs. “I keep hearing when I testify about how slow we are on permits,” Jewell said in a Monday media call. “This takes that out even further. It really shoots ourselves in the foot, and the taxpayer in the foot.” The House Environment and Interior spending bill would provide $24.3 billion in funding to 19 agencies, which is a cut of $5.5 billion. The $10.5 billion in proposed funding for Interior falls short of the $11.9 billion that the White House requested. Jewell said that funding level “threatens to undo our forward progress on everything.”...more