WASHINGTON – Environmental Protection Agency officials praised Chesapeake Bay cleanup efforts Wednesday, but stood by President Bush’s fiscal 2006 budget which cuts overall bay funding.
“The Chesapeake Bay is an excellent example of a regional collaboration that brings patrons together and focuses on results,” said Benjamin H. Grumbles, EPA assistant administrator for water, at a hearing before an environmental subcommittee of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
“There have been modest improvements in some areas and others still have a long way to go,” Grumbles said.
Under the president’s fiscal 2006 budget proposal, the Chesapeake Bay Program would get a $100,000 more than this year, bringing funding for the program next year up to $20.9 million.
But his budget falls well short of the $1 billion effort lawmakers called for in the fall. And it reduces funding for other programs, eliminating this year’s $10 million watershed grants and cutting a $4 million for oyster restoration by more than 75 percent.
“Oyster restoration cuts are a real shame, we’re seeing some great signs of success and if these programs were increased on a scale that fit the Chesapeake Bay size more, I think you’d begin to see some real positive results,” said Karl Mattson, spokesman for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
Federally funded research for Asian oysters, striped bass, blue crab and shoreline mapping was not included in Bush’s proposal.
By comparison, Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, R-Kennedyville, said that the states in the bay watershed — which stretches from Cooperstown, N.Y. to the James River in Virginia — spend a total of $800 million a year on the bay.
Gilchrest said at the hearing Wednesday that he is frustrated that restoration is still slow moving after the decades of research. He said bay spending is “diffuse” with “no specific goals,” and that it is time to direct funding away from administrative costs and to focus it on restoration.
“We’ve reached the point where we pretty much know what we have to do. We need more buffers, more open space, more forest areas, more wetlands,” Gilchrest said.
“Money needs to be spent on actual results, not the research bureaucracy,” he said. “Only a fraction is spent in grants for actual projects.”
Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., was part of a bipartisan group in November that requested $1 billion for the bay, asking that its restoration be a top federal priority.
“The senator believes that the Bush budget fails to deliver on funding for the bay,” said Jesse Jacobs, a spokesman for Sarbanes. “We’re going to do what we can to restore some of the funding.”
Gilchrest said later Wednesday that if he wrote the budget for bay funding, “It’d be $2 billion! The bay would be restored.”
-30- CNS 02-16-05