This Statement of Administration Policy provides the
Administration's views on the Department of the Interior and Related
Agencies Appropriations Bill, FY 2001, as approved by the House
Committee. As the Committee develops its version of the bill, your
consideration of the Administration's views would be appreciated.
The President's FY 2001 Budget is based on a balanced approach that
maintains fiscal discipline, eliminates the national debt, extends the
solvency of Social Security and Medicare, provides for an appropriately
sized tax cut, establishes a new voluntary Medicare prescription drug
benefit in the context of broader reforms, expands health care coverage
to more families, and funds critical investments for our future. An
essential element of this approach is ensuring adequate funding for
discretionary programs. To this end, the President has proposed
discretionary spending limits at levels that we believe are necessary to
serve the American people.
Unfortunately, the FY 2001 congressional budget resolution provides
inadequate resources for discretionary investments. We need realistic
levels of funding for critical government functions that the American
people expect their government to perform well, including education,
national security, law enforcement, environmental protection, natural
resource conservation, preservation of our global leadership, air
safety, food safety, economic assistance for the less fortunate,
research and technology, and the administration of Social Security and
Medicare. Based on the inadequate budget resolution, this bill fails to
address critical needs of the American people.
The Administration appreciates the efforts by the Committee to
accommodate a part of the President's priorities within the 302(b)
allocation, such as increased funding over the FY 2000 enacted levels
for national park and other land management operations. However, the
allocation is simply insufficient to make the necessary investments in
programs funded by this bill. As a result, the bill severely underfunds
the President's Lands Legacy Initiative, the Native American Initiative,
the Clean Water Action Plan, programs for clean and efficient energy,
National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities, and other critical
programs discussed below. The bill also includes several legislative
riders that are highly objectionable to the Administration, such as
provisions concerning the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management
Project and the prohibition of funding for the management of or planning
related to national monuments designated by the President. The
Committee's failure to fund key programs sufficiently and its inclusion
of damaging riders would lead the President's senior advisors to
recommend a veto if the bill were presented to the President in its
current form.
Below is a discussion of our specific concerns with the Committee
mark-up. We look forward to working with the Committee to resolve these
concerns as the bill moves forward.
Objectionable Legislative Riders
The Administration strongly opposes the environmental and other
authorization provisions in the Committee bill, which are inappropriate
for inclusion in an appropriations act. Such riders rarely receive the
level of congressional and public review required of authorization
language, and they often override existing environmental and natural
resource protections.
The Administration believes that the following are among the most
objectionable provisions.
- National Monument Designation (Sec. 335). This rider would
undermine long-standing Presidential authority by denying funds for
any national monuments designated after 1999. It represents a
back-door attempt to nullify five recent designations, which the
American public has strongly endorsed, and to prevent the President
from moving decisively in the future to protect and preserve other
sites for future generations.
- Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project (ICBEMP)
(Sec. 334). This provision would unnecessarily block ICBEMP
completion, after seven years of work and approximately $50 million
invested in scientific analyses and public hearings. The rider would
halt the improvement in Federal land management in the Columbia River
Basin designed to protect rangeland, forestland, wildlife, and fish
habitat.
- American Heritage Rivers (Sec. 327). The provision would
diminish opportunities for inter-agency coordination and cooperation,
thereby preventing the participating Federal agencies funded in this
bill from offering the most effective assistance to river communities
throughout the country.
- Urban Resource Partnership. This language would prohibit
funding for the Urban Resource Partnership, an innovative
environmental justice initiative, that delivers needed technical
assistance and funding for natural resource projects in under-served
urban communities.
- Kyoto Protocol (Sec. 330). This section purports to
prohibit Federal agencies funded in this bill from implementing the
Kyoto Protocol. It is unnecessary, as the Administration has no intent
to implement the Protocol prior to congressional ratification. To the
extent this language might reach expenditures for negotiations with
foreign governments, it would raise serious constitutional concerns,
because the Constitution commits to the President the power to decide
whether to engage in such negotiations.
- Prohibit Establishment of Two National Wildlife Refuges (Secs.
119 and 122). By preventing the use of funds to establish new
National Wildlife Refuges on the Kankakee River in Illinois and
Indiana, and in the Yolo Bypass of the San Francisco Bay in
California, these provisions would infringe on the Interior
Department's ability under current law to protect and preserve
migratory birds and endangered species. The Fish and Wildlife Service
is working on both of these proposals with the Army Corps of Engineers
and many State and local groups.
- Tribal Contract Moratorium (Sec. 331). The House would
again place a one-year moratorium on the Bureau of Indian Affairs and
the Indian Health Service from entering into new or expanded
self-determination contracts, grants, or compacts with Tribes. This
provision would interfere with the long-standing objective of tribal
self-determination and self-governance and would be contrary to the
government-to-government policy the Federal Government has with
Tribes. A moratorium provision was introduced in the Senate in FY
2000, but later dropped during final negotiations.
- Grazing Permits (Sec. 116). This rider would automatically
extend for up to 10 years any permit to graze livestock on public
lands that expires in FY 2001, unless the Interior Secretary has
completed environmental reviews under the National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA). There is no demonstrated need for this provision,
because the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will complete in FY 2001
the processing of all permits scheduled to expire in that fiscal year.
This provision would give an incentive for grazing operations with a
poor environmental record to delay processing compliance in hopes of
winning an automatic renewal.
- Infringement on Executive Authority. The Administration
objects to a number of provisions in the bill that would require
congressional approval before Executive Branch execution. The
Administration will interpret these provisions to require only
notification of Congress, since any other interpretation would
contradict the Supreme Court ruling in INS v. Chadha.
The Administration urges the Committee to report a clean bill that
does not attempt to roll back environmental protections or tribal
policies, benefit special interests, or circumvent authorization or
administrative procedures by attaching riders to appropriations bills.
Lands Legacy Initiative/Land and Water Conservation Fund
(LWCF)
The Administration strongly opposes the Committee decisions not to
fund major portions of the President's Lands Legacy Initiative. Such
reductions are unacceptable. The FY 2001 congressional budget resolution
has placed these important conservation programs in jeopardy by
rejecting the Administration's request for a dedicated funding stream.
The Committee has followed with a insufficient overall funding level for
the initiative that represents a 75-percent cut to the Administration's
request and a 56-percent reduction from the FY 2000 enacted level. These
reductions would undermine Federal land conservation efforts to protect
national treasures, such as the Everglades, Lewis and Clark National
Historic Trail, California Desert, Lake Tahoe Basin, Giant Sequoia
groves, Silver Mountain tundra, Colorado Sand Dunes, and various Civil
War Battlefields. State and community conservation efforts would also
suffer due to inadequate Federal support for State and local programs to
acquire and protect environmentally-sensitive lands, enhance forests and
wildlife habitat, promote urban forests and outdoor recreation, and
address sprawl. These reductions would foreclose opportunities to
protect those priority locations, such as the great Northern Forests,
that are vulnerable to development pressures. It would be short-sighted
not to provide adequate support for the important Lands Legacy
Initiative, given the bipartisan recognition of the need for the Federal
Government, the States, and the private sector to protect open spaces
and preserve America's great places.
Department of Energy
The Administration strongly opposes the Committee's decision to
underfund critical programs at the Department of Energy to enhance our
energy efficiency. The Committee funds these programs at a level below
even last year's level and $120 million below the President's request.
Particularly at this time of increased focus on our energy security and
energy infrastructure, it would be irresponsible for the Congress not to
adequately fund this important part of the Administration's energy
policy. The important breakthroughs in energy efficiency technologies
and practices that these programs support will help make America more
energy independent, enhance reliability, and save money for businesses
and consumers. Examples of important programs seriously affected include
efforts to increase the energy efficiency of vehicles and home
weatherization assistance to help reduce energy bills for low-income
households.
In the past several years, the Committee has repeatedly attempted to
mask dramatic cuts below the Administration's budget for energy
conservation by moving programs between the Fossil Energy R&D and
Energy Conservation accounts. This year, the Committee is proposing to
merge those two accounts completely. Such a merger would make budgeting
and financial management more difficult and appears primarily intended
to mask once again severe cuts to the Energy Conservation request. The
Administration opposes the merger of these accounts.
Native American Programs
The Administration appreciates the Committee's continued support for
Indian trust funds management improvements but is concerned over the
Committee's limited allocations for critical Native American programs.
Although the Committee provides a modest $18 million increase over the
FY 2000 enacted level for the operations of the Bureau of Indian Affairs
(BIA), this level is simply inadequate to fund the current level of
services and undercuts the Administration's Government-wide Native
American Programs Initiative. Of particular concern is the Committee's
decision to reduce funding for BIA construction $13 million below the FY
2000 enacted level and $182 million below the President's request. The
Committee's funding reduction would seriously undercut BIA's ongoing
efforts to maintain safe schools, provide enhanced educational
opportunities for nearly 50,000 Indian children, improve school
accountability and performance, strengthen tribal college operations,
improve public safety throughout Indian Country, and assist in improving
quality of life on reservations through the housing improvement and road
maintenance programs. The Administration urges the Committee to support
the Native American Programs Initiative.
The Administration is very concerned that the Committee has
significantly underfunded health care services to Native Americans and
Alaska Natives. Native Americans continue to experience health
disparities -- mortality rates for alcoholism, tuberculosis, diabetes,
and accidents are all more than three times higher for Indian people
than they are for all Americans. The Indian Health Service (IHS)
finances access to health care for 1.5 million Native Americans. The
Committee has included only $30 million of the $230 million increase
requested to improve access to health care for Native Americans. The
President's FY 2001 Budget proposes to support an additional 1,460
hospitals days and 57,200 additional visits to doctors and dentists
purchased from the private sector through Contract Health Services. The
budget also seeks increased support for tribally-operated facilities and
services for diabetes, cancer, heart diseases, emergency medical
services, and dental and mental health. The Committee allocation would
force IHS to absorb anticipated cost increases in FY 2001 and cause a
further reduction in health services.
Clean Water Action Plan
The Administration is concerned with reductions to other key
programs, including Clean Water Action Plan (CWAP). Such reductions
would halt the substantial progress made to date in improving water
quality and watershed health. Efforts to improve or restore over 11,000
miles of stream corridor by FY 2005, accelerate range allotment
planning, and clean up miles of polluted streams caused by past coal
mining practices under the Administration's Appalachian Clean Stream
Initiative would be in jeopardy. Further, the reductions in science
assistance to Federal, State, and local agencies would hinder efforts to
assess water quality and meet responsibilities for water quality
protection. Similarly, the decrease in Forest Service CWAP funding would
dramatically affect road maintenance and decommissioning, rangeland
vegetation management, fish habitat and wildlife inventory and
monitoring activities, watershed improvements, and the Stewardship
Incentive Program.
Land Management Operations
The Administration commends the Committee for taking steps to address
some operational and maintenance needs of land management agencies in
the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service in the Department
of Agriculture. The funding levels provided, however, still fail to
address adequately many priority maintenance and operational needs
identified in the President's budget, including the Forest Service
recreation and tourism initiative, the National Park Service's Natural
Resource Challenge, Fish and Wildlife Service law enforcement, and BLM
management of the Headwaters Forest and other specially designated
areas.
In addition, by failing to include the requested funds for forest
planning, the bill would contribute to the backlog of land management
plans needing revision and prevent the Forest Service from integrating
current science and public priorities into forest plans. Species
inventory and monitoring funding would be reduced by 27 percent from the
President's budget. This reduction could undermine the credibility and
legal defensibility of natural resource projects that provide goods and
services to the American people. Furthermore, adequate funding for
survey and manage activities, a requirement for most projects in the
Pacific Northwest, has not been incorporated. The bill funds forest
products at a level of $25 million, or eleven percent, above the
request, at the expense of the wildlife management and ecosystem
planning programs. The Administration urges the Committee to redirect
unrequested funds to these high priority programs.
Construction Priorities
The Administration commends the Committee for directing most
construction funds towards agency priorities. Unfortunately, the
Committee's allocation is insufficient to maintain existing facilities,
such as Indian schools and park historic structures, or to address new
responsibilities, such as the National Constitution Center in
Philadelphia. The Administration urges the House to provide additional
funds to support the construction, major repair, and rehabilitation
projects identified in the agencies' five-year priority lists.
Millennium Initiative to Save America's Treasures
The Administration objects to the Committee decision not to fund the
$30 million Presidential initiative to commemorate the Millennium by
preserving the Nation's historic sites and cultural artifacts that are
America's treasures. We urge the Committee to restore funding for this
highly successful program.
U.S. Territory Programs
The Administration objects to the Committee's decision not to provide
the full $10 million reimbursement to Guam for costs imposed upon it by
the U.S. Compact of Free Association with the Micronesian nations. The
territorial government is incurring significant health, education, and
other costs in providing essential services to citizens of the nations
living in Guam by virtue of the compact. In addition, the Administration
is disappointed that the Committee has refused to support the proposed
$10 million advance appropriation for the Virgin Islands. This funding
would provide the fiscally hard-pressed territorial government with
needed aid and an incentive to continue reforming its budget practices.
National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities
The Administration strongly objects to the Committee-proposed funding
levels for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National
Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute for Museum and
Library Services (IMLS). The Committee freezes these important cultural
programs at their FY 2000 enacted level. This level would prevent NEA
from moving forward with its Challenge America program to support,
directly or in partnership with States, arts education and access to the
arts in thousands of under-served communities throughout the country.
NEH would not be able to expand its summer seminar series to provide
professional development opportunities to our Nation's teachers, nor
broaden the reach of its Rediscover America initiative to bring the
humanities to more communities nationwide. IMLS would be precluded from
moving forward on digitization efforts, and from expanding after-school
programs in museums and on-line access to museums. We urge the Committee
to provide the Administration's request for these important cultural,
educational, and artistic programs for communities across America. The
Administration supports an amendment expected to be offered to increase
funding for NEA and NEH.
Smithsonian and Other Cultural Agencies
The Committee's $423 million overall funding level for the
Smithsonian, which is $40 million less than the Administration's request
and $15 million below the FY 2000 enacted level, would prevent the
Institution from addressing critical repair and restoration needs. The
National Gallery of Art and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum have
similar maintenance needs and should be funded at the President's
requested levels. The Administration seeks to preserve and protect our
Nation's treasures, as well as to provide safe and continued access to
the public, and will work with the Committee to fund these important
programs.
The Administration is concerned that the Committee provides no
funding for continued operation of the Institute of American Indian Arts
in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and cuts nearly in half the $15 million request
for the Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation. We urge the
Committee to fund the new $1 million District of Columbia Arts and
Education Grants program within the Commission of Fine Arts, which is a
community-based arts education program that will provide training and
exposure in the arts to under-served young people and reinforce the
importance of the arts as basic to education.
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