FY95 Cuts to Defense Cleanup

[gkripke@Essential.ORG]

Posting from Gawain Kripke <gkripke@Essential.ORG>

Budget news flash:

It's official: Unless the President vetoes the supplemental defense 
spending bill, the fiscal year 1995 (this year) defense cleanup 
budget will be cut by $300 million. The House and Senate conference 
Committee concluded yesterday afternoon and took the higher Senate number 
of $300 million rather than the lower House cut of $150 million. For 
comparison, the total approved budget of the Defense Environmental 
Restoration Account (DERA) for FY95 was $1,780 million. So Congress just 
cut more than 15 percent of the cleanup budget. And, to make matters 
worse, this cut can really only be applied in the second half of the 
fiscal year (since we're six months into it already). So the impact may 
be larger.

The final conference also specifies that cleanup at bases listed for closure 
should not be cut disproportionately from operating facilities. This is 
a revision of a Feinstein amendment in the Senate which said that the 
budget cuts should hold harmless bases listed for for closure or 
realignment. As I read the language, it means little except that cleanup 
at closing bases shouldn't be cut more than every body else.

I'll try to post more information later. The House is likely to pass 
this today.

GAWAIN KRIPKE
Friends of the Earth
Internet: gkripke@essential.org