"This budget not only shortchanges our environment, it challenges our nation's role as a global environmental leader. Virtually every environmental program under my committee's jurisdiction has been targeted for funding cuts. Congress will not let this stand."
According to an analysis by the Environment and Public Works Committee minority staff the President's 2005 Budget request:
* Cuts the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency by 7.2% and slashes clean water infrastructure funding by 37% or $492 million from the enacted fiscal year 2004 level.
* Cuts funding for EPA's clean air and global climate change programs by 3% or $21 million from year-ago levels.
* Pledges to clean up a paltry 40 superfund sites in FY 2005, down from an average of 87 sites a year cleaned up during the second Clinton Administration.
* Cuts the budget of the Army Corps. of Engineers by 13.1%, cancels funding for 43 ongoing projects in a seemingly random fashion, and delays close to 1,000 ongoing construction projects throughout the nation.
* Cuts the facility construction and facility improvement budget of the Fish and Wildlife Service by 63% or $38 million while imposing a 1% cut in the Service's main operations account.