Slash and Burn: Proposed Federal Budget Would Cut Environmental Programs Under Fire by Schwarzenegger Administration

By Traci Sheehan
Executive Director
Planning and Conservation League

The United States Congress is poised to decide on the fiscal 2009 Budget Resolution. This decision will have a major effect on California's environment which is already reeling from the massive cuts in the state budget. California needs federal funding to ensure key environmental programs remain viable.

Programs currently slated for significant federal cuts include fire protection services; water quality controls; and ecosystem, fish, and wildlife restoration programs - the very same programs being hit hard in the Governor's proposed budget.

For example, the Governor proposes a $52 million cut from the fire protection program while the current federal budget calls for cuts in wildland fire management of $548 million.

Similarly, the Governor's budget proposes cuts of $4.3 million from the State Water Resources Control Board, impairing the Board's ability to protect water quality for California's wildlife and 37 million residents. The federal budget proposes a $134 million cut to the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which the Board distributes to local jurisdictions.

The Governor's budget also proposes to slash the Department of Fish and Game's Biodiversity Conservation Program by $1.4 million. This reduction will reduce funding for the Fisheries Restoration Grant Program, used to support Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund projects. The federal budget also slashes funding for this program by nearly fifty percent to only $35 million. These cuts come at a time of an unprecedented collapse of Chinook salmon in the Sacramento River. Increased funding is vital to the survival and management of salmon in California.

Now that the House and Senate have each passed their own budget resolution, members of both houses will meet over the next two weeks to come up with a compromise resolution. Congress will vote on this joint resolution later this month.

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