Clinton Proposes Spending More On Forest Plan Budget Blueprint Gives 23% Increase To Nw Forests, Restores Spending To Fish And Wildlife

President Clinton on Tuesday proposed spending nearly $400 million on his Northwest forest plan next year, a 23 percent increase over the level Congress approved this year.

The president’s budget blueprint for the next fiscal year restores spending cuts the Republican-led Congress made this year at the Forest Service, National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service.

Clinton proposed about $5.9 billion for cleanup of nuclear waste at Energy Department sites nationwide, a cut of about 2 percent from this year.

DOE spending at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation would fall about 4 percent to $1.297 billion next year, said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash.

Clinton’s spending plan also calls for $111 million to continue work on a controversial plan to demolish two dams on the Elwha River and restore salmon runs on the Olympic Peninsula.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., supports that plan; Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., opposes it.

“He is proposing that we sacrifice Hanford jobs in the Tri-Cities but spend millions and millions of dollars to tear down dams on the peninsula,” Gorton said Wednesday.

In 1995, the Pacific Northwest received more than $350 million in grants, loans and other economic assistance tied to Clinton’s forest plan. Congress cut that back to $318 million for the current fiscal year, which ends September 30.

Clinton proposed a boost to $391 million for fiscal 1997, beginning Oct. 1.

The sum includes $16 million for the president’s “Jobs in the Woods” program, which he anticipates would put 400 jobless timber workers to work restoring streams, maintaining roads and making other forest improvements. The $6 million Congress approved for the program this year created 194 jobs and the $10 million approved in 1995 created 300 jobs, Clinton said.

A special entry in a supplemental report the White House issued with Clinton’s budget trumpeted the success to date of his Northwest forest plan:

“The administration has begun refilling the timber pipeline with hundreds of millions of board feet of timber for the first time in years; restored thousands of acres of key habitat and watersheds while providing short-term employment opportunities for displaced timber workers, spurred small business through grants and job training and strengthened local economies.”

The proposed $1.3 billion operating budget for the Forest Service, a 3 percent increase over the current year, calls for 4.2 billion board feet of timber to be sold on national forests nationwide next year.

That compares with 4.5 billion board feet this year and 4 billion board feet in 1995.

The operating budget for the Bureau of Land Management would be increased 4 percent to $685 million and the one for Fish and Wildlife Service increased 8 percent to $540 million.

Clinton proposed $1.2 billion be spent on the operation of national parks, a 1 percent increase from the level Congress approved this year.

His proposal for the National Marine Fisheries Service includes a 9 percent increase, to a proposed $306 million, to manage fisheries and protect endangered species.

That includes $10 million to rebuild Northwest salmon populations, the same level as this year and up from $6 million in 1995.