Money for Nothin'

Bush's 2007 budget includes Arctic Refuge drilling, cuts EPA funding

Unsurprisingly, greens will find little to love in President Bush's proposed $2.77 trillion budget for fiscal year 2007. It calls for oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, estimating $7 billion in revenue by 2008 from leasing drilling rights -- nearly triple the $2.4 billion forecast in last year's budget (how'd that work out?). The U.S. EPA's allocation would decrease by 4 percent to about $7 billion, with cuts to many clean-water programs -- that would be the fourth annual decrease to EPA's budget in a row. $10.8 million would be slashed from clean-air and climate-change research, but grants to promote less-polluting off-road diesel engines would rise dramatically, from $7 million to $50 million. The budget includes an expected initiative to revivify nuclear power, via $250 million for research into the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. Sadly, the $10 million in funding for scrappy little environmental internet magazines again failed to pan out.