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. |