BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico drove call for a more robust regulatory effort
In a 2011 budget bill that Republicans say contains the "largest nondefense spending cuts in history," one exception to the reductions is the agency that oversees federal offshore drilling regulations.
View full sizeInterior Secretary Ken Salazar was photographed March 22 in Cheyenne, Wyo. Although Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the agency is still crunching the numbers, Rep. Norman Dicks, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement is financed at $239 million -- $58 million above 2010 and $14 million more than the original House GOP proposal.
The additional money is prompted by the Obama administration's call for a more robust regulatory effort after last year's BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The bureau, which replaced the Minerals Management Service, though with many of the same employees, has taken over permitting for the Interior Department.
"I'm happy to say that with the passage of a continuing resolution for the remainder of this fiscal year, we are going to be in a much better position to do all those things (regulatory changes) than we have been before," Salazar said.
The spending bill, which would finance the government through Sept. 30 with $38.5 billion in cuts, was agreed to Friday night, about 90 minutes before the government was set to run out of money. A shutdown would have put 800,000 federal workers on furlough.
"I'm voting no on this budget deal because we need a far more meaningful start to saving our country from fiscal ruin," Vitter said. "In the eight days leading up to this deal, we racked up $54 billion in new debt -- way more than the proposed cuts."
Despite objections from Vitter and some other conservatives who don't think the bill cuts enough and liberals who say it disproportionately targets programs that benefit the middle class and poor, the measure is likely to pass later this week.
Other agencies with a strong presence in Louisiana saw mixed results from the budget, details of which were released Tuesday.
The negotiations between Democrats and Republicans killed GOP riders that would have eliminated all financing for Planned Parenthood, which operates health centers in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Family planning services would get $300 million for the rest of the 2011 fiscal year, $17 million below current levels.
The Environmental Protection Agency, which was spared from a rider that sought to bar it from enforcing carbon standards designed to reduce global warming, was given a 16 percent cut in spending, the largest hit of any major federal department.
"The Gulf is ground zero for climate change impacts, so we'll pay the price of many of these cuts to Energy Star and other smart energy and global warming projects," said Aaron Viles, deputy director of the Gulf Restoration Network. "These cuts also jeopardize the ability of states to ensure functioning clean water infrastructure such as drinking water and sewerage treatment. Equally troubling are the cuts to the National Estuary Program, such as our own Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, Chesapeake and Great Lakes initiatives, as we work to ramp up our efforts around the Gulf."
Education also received a mixed bag. The Title 1 program, which provides grants to schools with large numbers of poor students, is financed at current levels, but a number of programs are eliminated. Among them: Teach for America, Educational Technology State Grants, Literacy Through School Libraries and Byrd Honors Scholarship Program.
The administration's key education initiative, Race for the Top, which rejected an application from Louisiana last year, gets another $700 million for a new round of financing.
Pell grants, which provide tuition assistance for low-income college students, were reduced by $500 million, though the reductions are secured by following an Obama proposal to bar payments for summer school programs. Maximum grants remain unchanged at $5,550. Proposed GOP cuts for Head Start were removed from the negotiated agreement.
The Army Corps of Engineers generally gets comparable financing to last year, meaning no expected disruption in final efforts to bring the New Orleans area to 100-year flood control standards.
Financing for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Public Radio, National Endowment for the Arts, AmeriCorps and state job-training grants, which had been targeted for elimination by House Republicans, are largely maintained.
Community Development Block Grants, which are important to New Orleans, will get $3.5 billion, a $950 million reduction, but $1.5 billion more than included in the House-passed spending bill.
The agreement restores the proposal by Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, to bar money for so-called White House czars, though some of the positions, including the president's advisers on climate change and urban affairs, have already been eliminated.
Washington bureau reporter Jonathan Tilove contributed to this story.
Bruce Alpert can be reached at balpert@timespicayune.com or 202.857.5131.