House GOP Budget Cuts FWS 21%, EPA 18%, Allows 0% Increase For Parks Operations, Cuts NSF Funding

[hatrack]

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Following on April’s budget agreement, the Environmental Protection Agency is again a major target, and the reduced $7.15 billion EPA funding would mean a $1.53 billion or 18 percent cut from current spending, much of which would come at the expense of clean water programs.

The smaller but also environmentally sensitive Fish and Wildlife Service faces an even deeper 21 percent or $315 million cut, and elsewhere in the Interior Department, no increase is permitted for operation of the national parks.

With the full House taking up defense and war funding Wednesday, the release of the new numbers underscores the growing competition between the Pentagon and domestic agencies, all fighting for their share of a shrinking appropriations budget. As proposed by the House Appropriations Committee, Pentagon spending would grow by another $17 billion in 2012 even as the remaining agencies would get about $45 billion less than was agreed to in April for the current fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

The EPA and Western lands agencies are bundled in a $27.5 billion bill—released Wednesday— that represents a $2.1 billion cut from 2011 levels. The NSF is part of a second, more varied $50.2 billion measure which faces its own cuts of $3.1 billion— impacting an amalgam of science and space agencies as well as the Departments of Justice and Commerce.

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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/58409.html

[XemaSab]

1. It's a good thing they didn't cut the NSFW funding