Bureau Of Mines Could Be Cut Today

The uncertain future of Spokane’s two Bureau of Mines offices could become clearer today as congressional negotiators take up the bureau’s proposed elimination.

Also up for discussion are contentious cuts to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, as well as funding for the Forest Service and geological programs.

All of these are included in the Interior Department appropriations bill, which would distribute $12 billion to 30 agencies, offices and institutions for the budget year beginning in October.

The House and Senate approved drastically different versions of the plan. Now lawmakers from both chambers meet this morning to draft its final form.

Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., and Senate conferee chairman, said senators and House members already have struck numerous behind-the-scenes deals.

“There will be compromises everywhere,” Gorton said of today’s meeting. But he refused to discuss specifics.

Of prime concern to Spokane is the flip-flopping fate of the Bureau of Mines, which employs about 170 people locally at the Western Field Operations Center and the Spokane Research Center.

The president’s budget recommended closing the Spokane sites and numerous others. But the House voted to eliminate the Bureau of Mines altogether.

The Senate plan would keep the bureau, but combine Spokane’s offices with a 25 percent cut in jobs.

The final bill probably will fall somewhere between the House and Senate versions. This means there is little hope for both Spokane offices to remain open, but plenty of room for compromise.

“We’re still very much up in the air,” said Dave Brown, the bureau’s director of external affairs.

House and Senate conferees also must strike an accord between two widely divergent versions of the Bureau of Indian Affairs budget.

The House approved a 3 percent cut in Indian Affairs. But the Senate, at the urging of Gorton, sliced nearly 15 percent from its 1995 budget.

Gorton’s proposed cuts sparked protests by American Indians on the steps of the Capitol. And bureaucrats said they would be forced to fire as many as 4,000 employees.

But Gorton said American Indi an programs, when taken as a whole, received “one of the smallest reductions” - 8 percent, compared to an 11 percent decrease in the total appropriations bill.

Also at today’s meeting, conferees will decide how much money to give to the Forest Service for purchasing land.

The House voted to allot $14 million - far shy of the president’s $65 million request.

The Senate approved $41 million for buying new forest property, including $4 million for land along the Columbia River Gorge on the Washington-Oregon border and $350,000 for land in central Washington’s Wenatchee National Forest.

, DataTimes