With the U.S. House of Representatives, if not the entire Congress, determined to shrink the federal deficit as quickly as politically feasible, expect the National Park Service to take a pretty good hit.
Figures released by the House Appropriations Committee last week identified a $51 million cut in the Park Service's budget, and when President Obama's FY12 budget proposal comes out this week it very likely will show a decrease in the agency's funding.
With an overall budget of around $2.2 billion, $51 million might not seem like much, but remember that the Park Service has a maintenance backlog of about $9 billion, so any cut could be tough to handle.
According to the World Socialist Web Site, the president's budget will reduce the Park Service's construction budget and feature "reductions in battlefield preservation grants, Native American Graves Protection Act grants, and Heritage Area funds for the National Park Service."
With that writing on the wall, at least one park advocacy group, Friends of Acadia, is trying to rally public support to lobby Congress on behalf of the parks.
Specifically, the friends group is warning that cuts in the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund could jeopardize efforts to buy a 37-acre tract with the boundaries of Acadia National Park.
Friends of Acadia and Maine Coast Heritage Trust have been working together to protect 37 acres of undeveloped land on Lower Hadlock Pond, to hold them until Acadia National Park can obtain funding to acquire the lands in February 2012. These undeveloped lands are within the Acadia’s boundary and important to the park because several trails traverse the parcel and the pond is important habitat for birds and aquatic species. Additionally, the lands help preserve the watershed for Mount Desert’s water supply.
Acadia National Park needs $2.35 million in order to purchase the entire 37 acres for inclusion in the park. President Obama’s FY 2011 budget included $1.76M for this project, and all four members of Maine’s delegation supported the project. However, Congress is operating under a continuing resolution through March 4, 2011, and has not yet taken action on the FY 2011 Interior Appropriations Bill. The House of Representatives recently released its FY 2011 appropriations recommendations, reducing LWCF levels to $348M, which would jeopardize the FY 2011 funding for Lower Hadlock Pond in Acadia. Please contact your Representatives today to encourage them to fully fund LWCF, including the $1.76 million for Acadia that was in President Obama’s FY 2011 budget.
To write to members of Congress, please visit: https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml.
Meanwhile, over at Defenders of Wildlife, President Rodger Schlickeisen doesn't deny the need for fiscal control in Washington. But he does question some of the choices being made.
"The public should be able to trust Congress to demonstrate a sense of fairness and rationality in the cutting process. The House leadership’s Continuing Resolution proves otherwise," he said in a statement released Saturday. "Vital programs that keep our air and water clean and protect our wildlife and public lands have been axed while massive subsidies for big international oil corporations remain in place. Where’s the sense in that?
“It’s clear that the House leadership’s budget-cutting zeal is confined to programs that they oppose on ideological grounds, including environmental protection," continued Mr. Schlickeisen. "Unwarranted taxpayer subsidies for the biggest special interests are left untouched. Stewardship of our nation’s magnificent and unique natural heritage should rank far above fiscal handouts to the favored undeserving, but apparently not in the minds of this House leadership. If they have their way, future generations will have to pay for not only an enormous budget deficit but also a lost natural legacy. ”
Among the cuts he questioned were those aimed at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, efforts to maintain water flows into California's Bay Delta, and federal protection of gray wolves in the Rocky Mountains.
“Do the American people want cuts? Yes," said the Defenders president. "Decimation of our precious environment and natural resources? No. Clearly, the new House majority is using the Continuing Resolution as an opening salvo in an extremely broad and dangerous attack on our country’s most important environmental safeguards. We can only expect the proposals to get worse when the measure comes before the full House.”
Comments
Seriously, ecbuck? The Constitution obviously allows for both revenue and spending. Whether the issue is too much spending or not enough revenue depends on what you imagine the role of gov't should be. There's nothing unConstitutional about disagreeing about tax rates or spending priorities.
Yes, its money. Not sure why the personal pronoun is an issue here. The gov't is elected by the people, so its money is our money , and we're always going to disagree about whether there's too much spending and/or not enough revenue. It's why we have elections.
When we Americans are reduced to quibbling over the meaning of a word like "caring," we're in trouble. It shows that we are allowing ourselves to be ruled by emotion rather than reason. The division produced by this kind of thing have paralyzed our entire country.
One more good example of why we all need to sit down, take a few deep breaths, and start thinking and reasoning together. As long as we are shouting at one another there will be no solutions available.
Another example of why everyone should thoughtfully read Tom Brokaw's book.
Just to inject a little reality into the discussion, the Bush tax cuts did in fact decrease revenue (i'm sensing the emergence a new right wing myth that will be repreated endlessly by right wing personalities invited onto morning and primetime news shows. Of course, the shows anchor people will never offer a correction). The tax cuts, combined with excessive "defense" spending has created a situations where we have to begin sacrificing things that make this country great.
Of course, we don't really have to make those sacrifices. All we have to do is reduce military spending and rescind the Bush tax cuts. Even just doing one of those things would be an improvement.
Think a good project for the Left and Right Wings should be to put them on mules that I hear about going into the Grand Canyon or put them behind a raft and drag them repeatedly through Lava Falls until they get an attitude adjustment or just leave the rest of us the hell alone.
Eliminating the Bush Tax Cuts would be a huge tax increase on the the people and only serve as more of a re-election slush fund going to selected adinistration donors. You know who you are.
Oddly enough I find myself agreeing in the basics of your post, Lee. Reality is a good teacher as are the tests that are unavoidable. A humbled attitude usually always comes after facing something that is understood as something that is bigger than all our own wishes and concerns and are able to get to the point you broached. Bring on the humbling! Whatever it takes cause it's coming whether we like it or not.
Thanks, Hopeful. If we don't humble ourselve voluntarily, it will be done for us. And when that happens, it ain't a-gonna be nice.
Trouble is, the ones who cause the collapse will probably weather it just fine because they have enough wealth behind them. But for the rest of us . . . .
Anon: If you have a Cancer it's usually preferably to cut it out. The images of these Black Friday Shoppers come to mind. Just imagine what it'd be like if they were spending other peoples money. I guess we know that already, don't we.
Coyote,
I would love to see your math. Tax receipts in the year of the tax rate cuts were 1.8 trillion. 5 years later, they were 2.5 trillion. Can you explain to me how that equates to a decrease in revenue?