"This bill reflects the kinds of choices made in recent years by this Administration and the Majority in Congress which made this clash of growing needs and shrinking budgets unavoidable. The effect is that the Interior Department and our other departments and agencies are being put on a crazy fad diet that is harmful to the health of the nation," stated Rahall during debate on the floor of the House.

     One of the hardest hit programs in this bill for the Department of the Interior and related agencies is the Land and Water Conservation Fund. For the last forty years, this grant program has provided State and Local Parks and Recreation Directors with desperately needed funding to help them preserve open space and develop recreational facilities.

     This year, the President eliminated stateside funding for the program in his budget, and then the Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee recommended the Federal share be axed. For Fiscal Year 2005, Congress allotted $255.5 million for both sides of the program; the bill being considered today is recommending $43.1 million.

     "While the President may have conducted a tummy tuck, this bill calls for something close to an amputation," declared Rahall.

     The maintenance needs in our National Parks are shortchanged in this bill. On the campaign trail in 2000, then-candidate Bush promised that he would eliminate the maintenance backlog in the National Parks. As National Park Service Director Fran Mainella testified before the Resources Committee Parks Subcommittee in February 2004, the backlog has actually risen under the Bush Administration and the full amount will likely never be completely erased at the pace this Administration is funding the problem.

     "As the summer travel season is about to start, our National Parks should be safe places where parents and children can roam and relax, where they can picnic and hike and raft. But this bill fails to meet this responsibility," said Rahall.

     Forest Service programs that help to promote safety and job creation in rural America are also underfunded in ths bill. Economic Action Programs which enable rural communities and businesses to become more economically self-sufficient through the use of forest resources were zeroed out.

     And in an unjust move to the Nation’s coalfield communities, the appropriations bill flat lines monies for the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund. This program cleans up high-priority human health and safety threats at abandoned mine sites in the Nation’s coalfields. The money is raised by a fee assessed on the coal industry, and the unspent balance in the Fund is approaching $2 billion.

     "This bill does not keep the federal government’s promise to coalfield communities, which have given so much to the progress of this Nation," stated Rahall. "All of these cuts for all of these programs undermine the well-being of our natural treasures and our heritage,"concluded Rahall.