News Briefs
USFWS
Under the Bush Administration’s budget request for fiscal year 2005, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) would receive $919.8 million, a 2.7% increase over what the president proposed a year ago, but 1.9% below the levels approved by Congress for 2004. The $1.2 million in the proposed FY ‘05 budget for USGS includes funds for coping with endangered species like this Japanese honeysuckle at national parks and Department of Interior lands across the country.
Continuing concerns over defense, homeland security, and the economy forced across-the-board cuts for many federal agencies, explains Ike Kelley, a USGS budget officer. He notes, however, that this year’s net cut for USGS “is actually one of the lowest reductions that we’ve seen in a number of years.” Many of the cuts are a result of restructuring. “We’re proposing to consolidate activities dealing with information technology, information management, and information services into one program area” called enterprise information, Kelley says. Currently, these activities are distributed across all USGS program areas. This effort is part of the Bush Administration’s management agenda being spearheaded by the Office of Management and Budget, which seeks to improve government performance. However, some USGS base programs are taking significant hits under the budget proposal, including a $4 million cut to the agency’s minerals program and a $1.9 million cut to the mapping program, according to Kelley. Additionally, a $6.4 million cut to the Water Resources Research Act program and a $2.8 million cut to the fire science program will effectively eliminate both programs. On the brighter side, the Administration is earmarking $2.8
million for increased studies in the Klamath River Basin, a watershed straddling Oregon and California where agricultural, environmental, and recreational interests are competing for a diminished water supply. Likewise, the Administration is requesting $1 million for research supporting the Department of Interior’s (DOI) Water 2025 initiative, which is looking at ways to address western water shortages (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2003, 37, 317A–318A). The USGS studies will assess groundwater availability and use and develop improved methods for characterizing aquifers, according to Administration officials. “We’re requesting [an additional] $1.2 million to provide services to land and resource management bureaus within the DOI,” including the Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and Bureau of Land Management, Kelley points out. Another $500,000 in new monies would go toward geothermal energy assessments around the country. Although USGS fared better than some other agencies, many in the scientific field express disappointment over the continuing pattern of budget reductions for DOI’s science agency. Emily Lehr, a government affairs representative for the American Geological Institute, notes that total federal spending for non-defense research and development has risen by nearly half, from $37 billion to almost $55 billion in constant dollars over the past eight years. Meanwhile, USGS funding is not even keeping pace with inflation. “A lot of the science that USGS does goes well beyond the borders of DOI lands, whether it’s invasive species or earthquake issues,” which attests to the national significance of the agency’s works, says Robert Gropp, a senior public policy representative for the American Institute of Biological Sciences. —KRIS CHRISTEN
E-waste tsunami The failure of U.S. federal, state, and local governments to adequately address the rapidly growing volume of obsolete computers and televisions could soon result in an environmental and budgetary crisis, according to a new report by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, an environmental group. Poison PCs and Toxic TVs: E-waste tsunami to roll across the U.S.: Are we prepared? predicts that in 2006 some 163,420 computers and televisions will become obsolete every day and that the cost of properly disposing or recycling these electronics will reach $10.8 billion by 2015. Local agencies and taxpayers could end up being saddled with making up the $7.5 billion shortfall. For more information, go to www. svtc.org.
Belize dam appeal fails Environmental groups in Belize lost their battle to stop construction of a controversial hydroelectric dam in a Central American rain forest. After the government approved the dam, the groups took the case to the Privy Council in London, the appeals court of last resort for Commonwealth countries. The council, which had never previously considered an environmental issue, ruled against the groups’ claim that the environmental impact assessment was flawed. A Belizean subsidiary of the Canadian company Fortis plans to build the 50-meter-high, 5-megawatt dam on Belize’s upper Macal River, which would flood 2500 acres of forest by mid-2005. Environmentalists argue that the flood would wipe out the country’s last remaining scarlet macaws, jaguars, ocelots, pumas, and one frog species found nowhere else in the world.
APRIL 1, 2004 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ■ 125A
COREL
Proposed USGS funding remains flat for FY ’05
