Wednesday,
February 7, 2007
Early Review: White House FY08 Budget, Water & Rivers
Source: American Rivers
“America’s crumbling water and sewage system is making us sick. Enough raw and partially treated sewage ends up in our rivers and streams every year to cover Pennsylvania ankle-deep, and American’s spend at least four billion dollars a year on medical care when it sickens them. In the face of a growing sewage health crisis that simply shouldn’t be happening in the world’s richest country, the president’s budget doesn’t smell quite right.”
The budget line for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which supports needed water and sewer repairs and upgrades, was equal to the FY07 request at $688 million. Even as plants that were constructed in response to the Clean Water Act thirty years ago face needed repairs, this represents a cut of nearly half in the past ten years. The House Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee last week marked up legislation that would fund the program at $20 billion over five years.
Other water, river, and fish programs fared better in this budget.
“After six years of increasingly disastrous budgets for water and our nation’s rivers, the White House has finally taken tentative, baby steps in a new direction, toward restoring America’s free-flowing river heritage. They’re coming awfully late to the party, but with this budget they’ve at least RSVP’d,” Raabe said.
Raabe noted a number of positive signs in the budgets that affect America’s rivers most directly.
- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers construction funds would drop from $1.555 billion to $1.523 billion, while the Corps maintenance budget would increase from $2.258 billion to $2.471 billion.
- The Open Rivers Initiative (ORI), which funds dam removal and repairs that improve dams’ environmental performance, would be funded at $12 million, divided equally between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). The FWS Fish Passage program will be brought in as the partner to NOAA’s Community-based Restoration Program under the ORI with base funding of $5 million for their on going fish passage work and $6 million to implement the ORI at dams across the country.
- NOAA budget includes $8 million for dam acquisition and $2 million for technical assistance on removal of two major dams on Maine’s Penobscot River.
- The National Fish Habitat Initiative would increase by $3 million to a total budget of $5 million.
Additionally, for funding priorities and recommendations for national river restoration and protection please see the FY08 River Budget.
More information will be
available on Wednesday as part of the broader environmental community’s
response to the President’s budget request. Raabe will be offering his
analysis as the expert on environment programs in a media telephone
briefing by environmental organizations, Wednesday, February 7th 2007,
1:00PM EST
Call-in number: 1-800-901-1248
Contact:
Brad DeVries, National Media Director, (202) 243-7023