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House Interior Appropriations Budget Carries Ill Winds for National Park System

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With all the drama surrounding the White House negotiations to raise the nation's debt limit without doing further damage to the country's fiscal profile, legislation still working its way through the House of Representatives understandably takes a backseat.

But as crafted, the proposal concerning Fiscal Year 2012 funding for the Interior Department stands to do more than a little harm to the National Park Service's fiscal fitness, and also threatens to degrade the watersheds that drain into the Colorado River as it runs through Grand Canyon National Park.

"In its current form, it's deeply damaging to our national parks, Grand Canyon in particular," John Garder, the National Parks Conservation Association's budget and appropriations legislative representative, said Monday.

As it stands, the bill would, if enacted, reduce overall funding for the Park Service, weaken air and water regulations that are needed to protect park resources, and stall efforts to let the agency acquire a private 1,400-acre inholding in Grand Teton National Park.

The legislation, which was scheduled to be considered by the full House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, has drawn criticism from a number of groups concerned about its environmental impact.

Trout Unlimited issued a release last week that condemned the bill, saying it "cuts funding for essential conservation programs like the Land and Water Conservation Fund and North American Wetlands Conservation Act, and contains harmful riders that undermine the Clean Water Act and other protective rules for rivers and streams."

“Fishing and hunting generate $76.7 billion annually in economic activity in the U.S.,” said Steve Moyer, vice president for government affairs at Trout Unlimited.  “We can’t expect to sustain this powerful economic engine if we’re removing the very conservation programs that make it run.”

At the Natural Resources Defense Fund, Scott Slesinger, the group's legislative director, said the legislation "is a contract on America masquerading as a spending bill. It’s nothing short of a declaration of war on our most basic health protections."

"It would do away with fundamental safeguards that keep our air, water and lands clean. Worse than making deep budget cuts, the bill is chock full of gratuitous policy riders that are unprecedented in number and scope. They have no place in a budget -- or anywhere else.”

Back at NPCA, Mr. Garder said one of the most egregious riders, or amendments, to the bill would block efforts to continue a moratorium on new mining claims on 1 million acres surrounding Grand Canyon National Park for 20 years.

“What really put us over in the edge in opposing this bill were the policy riders, in particular one that would undermine protections for the Grand Canyon," he said during a phone call from his Washington, D.C., office.

The proposed 1 million-acre buffer was identified "through a public process that allowed for public comment, and 300,000 people commented and the determination was that it is appropriate for the protection of Grand Canyon and for the 25 or so million people who rely on the Colordao River for drinking water and their uses," said Mr. Garder.

If the moratorium is not put in place and uranium mining claims are allowed, “It is not unfathomable to imagine that those who are hiking around the Grand Canyon would have to note in which streams there is uranium contamination and carry their own water," he added.

Conservation groups are not the only organizations that support the 20-year moratorium, said Mr. Garder, noting support for it from the Metropolitan Water District of Los Angeles, the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the Central Arizona Project, and Native American tribes in the Southwest.

Other sections of the proposed legislation the NPCA takes issue with include:

* Efforts to weaken or remove Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gases;

* Efforts to weaken EPA regulation of coal ash;

* Efforts to weaken oversight of stormwater discharges, something that can lead to degredation of waters such as the Chesapeake Bay;

* Cuts to the Land and Water Conservation Fund that would zero out funding for Park Service lands acquisition;

* A $7 million cut in National Park Service funding.

“That is less than 1 percent," Mr. Garder said of the $7 million, "but it is on top of the cuts that park operations received last year. Something that concerns us is backtracking on funding for an account that is essential to ensuring our parks operate essentially.”

The Park Service already is underfunded by roughly $600 million a year, according to the NPCA, and this proposed cut, while small, would nevertheless have to be absorbed by the parks, he said.

Without the LCWF land acquisition funding, the Park Service also might not be able to move forward with the $107 million purchase from the state of Wyoming of 1,400 acres inside Grand Teton. The administration had been counting on the LCWF funds to start the purchase with a $10 million downpayment in the coming fiscal year, according to Mr. Garder.

“But when there is an effort to prevent any new land acquisition projects in FY12, that’s going to seriously undermine that multi-year effort, and the threat of development there should not be underestimated," said Mr. Garder. "It’s critical that this bill go through if we’re going to prevent the building of trophy mansions or subdivisions in the middle of Grand Teton National Park.”

The House measure also carries an 18 percent cut to the Park Service's construction budget, which the president had already reduced by $50 million in his budget proposal, said the NPCA budget analyst.

“If you look at the suite of those (construction) needs, there are some projects in there that are clearly very important for the protection of visitor safety and the protection of the historic and natural resources,” Mr. Garder said.

For instance, at Grand Canyon National Park there's a $16 million need for a storage system for potable water for park visitors, and at the Statue of Liberty National Monument there's a need for asbestos abatement work, roofing, sidewalk repairs, and seawall repairs that alone are estimated to cost nearly $11 million, he said.

“Many of those jobs are contracted to businesses, and so there is a direct jobs loss component when you are reducing the ability for the Park Serivce to engage in some of those contracts to do some of those basic repairs,” said Mr. Garder.

How the legislation will fare after the House Appropriations Committee deals with it remains to be seen, he said. The full House might take it up next week, or possibly not until September. And the Senate has not even started its work on the Interior Appropriations measure, he said.

Of course, the lawmakers could find themselves having to go back to square one, depending on how negotiations over the nation's debt limit go with the White House.

Comments

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Reality Check wrote,

"EPA does not effect budgetary issues?"

Take another look at what my post actually says.


C'mon, ecbuck, even the SEC has recommended ending taxpayer subsidies to oil companies.


No, ecbuck, the Oil Depletion Allowance is NOT like the depreciation write off that all other companies pay.

At the same time oil companies promote the most rapid possible development and consumption of oil, these same guys are moaning that the government should give them a write off because as they use oil THERE IS LESS OF IT IN THE GROUND !  This is not at all the same as the wear and tear depreciation you get, say, on a fleet of vehicles.

According to the late Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn of Texas (of all places) the way the oil companies got this tax break was to blackmail President FD Roosevelt.  With America going into war and needing maximum production, the oil companies said tough -- we won't produce the oil you need.  We won't support the war effort until you give us a break for all the oil we develop.  Rayburn said Roosevelt was totally blackmailed, and had to agree to give them the break so American troops could have the oil they needed to fight effectively.  Rayburn said he would never trust the loyality of the oil companies to the United States again.

I would like to get a tax break:  for every lungfull of air I breathe, the government should give me money because now there is not as much air as there was before.  Or, the fisherman consuming the last of a remaining species should get your tax break because as they overfish, fewer and fewer fish are there.  Do you think gold miners can write off taxes because with every ounce of gold, there is one ounce less left in the world?

This is not depreciation, and it is not a normal tax break.

And this break does not even cover another hidden benefit.  Pro-oil Administration;s, like Bush and Reagan, would flood the market with oil lease opportunities  by opening up simultaneously as many oil fields as they can.  This means fewer companies bid on individual leases, and the leases then go for the bottom dollar.  I am not accusing the oil companies of colluding in structuring bids, but this has sometimes also been suggested.  So rather than a market-rate lease share coming to the federal government's coffers, the oil companies get bargain rates.  Then, the oil companies in fact only develop the easiest to get at oil in these leases, meaning they are wasting oil and the federal lease share of those undeveloped leases,  only to get the most profit.  It used to be that the US Government would only let parcels be leased gradually to make sure they are fully developed and to get the best competition of bidding and prices available.  Reagan, Watt, Cheney and 'drill, baby drill' killed that.  So billions of totally unseen dollars alone go to oil that way.  It was estimated that Reagan and Watt in just one program of lease sales basically gave away over $30 Billion in value to oil companies, in 1983 dollars.

On top of that of course, the money lost from the federal outer continental shelf leases is money lost to land conservation, because that is the source of funds for buying land for parks, for wildlife refuges, for conservation. 

ecbuck, don't worry too much about oil companies ensnared by tax and spend liberals.  With the vast amount of resources oil companies pay in their escalating lobbying effort on both naive or complicit federal, state and local politicians, they clearly have the money to blow to make the rules.  It is a new meaning of the word 'payback.'


"even the SEC has recommended ending taxpayer subsidies to oil companies."

They have?  Since when has the SEC been formulating tax policy?  Please site where the SEC has done that and then explain how a company that pays more in taxes than it has in net earnings is "subsidized".


Well d-2 - maybe you can explain how companies that pay more in taxes then they have in net income are subsidized.  You may not believe that oil depletion is the equivalent to depreciation - on that we will disagree.  However, bottom line, they pay far more in taxes than they take home in net income - a situation that hardly constitutes a subsidy.

Of course the best answer would be to totally eliminate ALL corporate taxes.  After all - they don't pay them, they merely pass them along out of your pocket.  Eliminating corporate taxes would get rid of a massive IRS bureaucracy, remove internal expenses that show up as higher prices and remove incentives to ship operations and investments (i.e  jobs) overseas.


ecbuck,

"Recommending" and "formulating" aren't the same.  This shouldn't be too hard to google.  (You'll also find that there's plenty of public bipartisan support to end the subsidies.)

But this is all off-point anyway; your original question asked, "what are you willing to give up instead?"  My answer (still) is that I'd rather have my taxes go to protect and preserve the national parks than to oil companies that annually enjoy record-breaking profits.


" This shouldn't be too hard to google"

Which means you can't provide it.

" I'd rather have my taxes go to protect and preserve the national parks
than to oil companies that annually enjoy record-breaking profits."

I see 50-60%+ of their income isn't enough?  Well then lets just confiscate all their profits.  Then you can walk to your favorite park.

Oh and for d-2 gold miners do get depletion allowance - in fact anyone that has a mineral or timber activity is eligible - though large integrated oil companies are limited.


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