Bush budget would hit Spokane USGS office
The U.S. Geological Survey’s field office in Spokane will face deep cuts – and maybe closure – if the proposed federal budget is passed as is.
Under that budget, the amount allocated to the USGS’s mineral resources program would be cut by more than half, from $54 million in 2005 to $25 million in 2006.
As a result, dozens of the program’s projects all over the country would have to be eliminated.
“Everyone in the Spokane office is supported by one or more of the projects that are going to be cut if the president’s budget is passed as proposed,” said Tom Frost, the scientist in charge in Spokane.
The local mineral resources program has had an office here since 1942 and is located in the U.S. Courthouse. It has 10 employees and eight contractors based in Spokane and one scientist at the University of Washington. Their projects include investigating the ramifications of metals being released into bodies of water through mining. Another project involves researching how lead and zinc deposits form in rock; miners use the information to guide their exploration of potential mines.
The program also lends its expertise, in the form of data, investigations and analyses, to federal agencies such as the Forest Service and Environmental Protection Agency.
President Bush has said his budget is designed to cull inefficient or redundant programs. But Frost said the minerals program is the only agency providing its particular services on the federal, public-lands level, and it has scored high consistently on federal program reviews.
“We deliver, no one else does what we do, so we must not be a priority,” he said.
While the proposed USGS budget as a whole remains level, projects within the agency focused on natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes and landslide hazards together would receive an increase of $5.6 million. The USGS’s satellite-mapping project, which works with NASA, would receive a $13.7 million increase in funding.
Kathleen Johnson, program coordinator for the mineral resources program in Washington, D.C., acknowledged the limited budget and emphasis on natural disasters, but pointed out the continued importance of the minerals program to the functioning of the country.
“If it can’t be grown, it has to be mined,” Johnson said, citing materials such as metal, concrete, water and petroleum. If the administration wanted to put buoys in the Pacific Ocean to provide warning of unusual waves, for example, the buoys would be made out a material that’s mined, she said.
“Our job is to make sure that this nation has the information it requires to make wise decisions about sources of mineral commodities from which we build everything,” Johnson said.
In the past few years, Congress has disagreed with the administration on proposed cuts to the mineral program, and has passed budgets giving it amounts in the $50 million range. The USGS director will testify today in front of the U.S. House appropriations committee about the proposed 2006 budget. The hearing will be the first indication of where Congress stands on the issue this year.