US House of Representatives panel cuts BLM funding by $4-mil

US House of Representatives panel cuts BLM funding by $4-mil

Washington (Platts)--5May2005


A US House of Representatives appropriations panel slashed the Bush
administration's request for fiscal year 2006 funding for the Bureau of Land
Management by $4-mil late Wednesday. A press release on the committee's web
site did not explain why the subcommittee on interior, environment and related
agencies cut the administration's proposal for BLM to $1.8-bil, and a staffer
with the subcommittee did not return a call for comment. But the
administration has been criticized by congressional appropriators and
authorizers for its proposal to reduce its backlog of drilling permits to 120
by the end of 2006 from nearly 1,700 in March through the collection of $9-mil
in permit fees from oil and natural gas operators. Sen Craig Thomas
(Republican-Wyoming) said in a March Energy and Natural Resources oversight
hearing on the budget request that it was "strange" for BLM to propose
charging producers for "administrative costs."

The administration's FY-06 proposal for the Forest Service, whose budget also
falls within the interior bill, includes $1.7-mil for reducing the agency's
backlog of drilling permit applications. The subcommittee raised the forest
agency's budget to $4.2-bil, $182-mil above the administration request.

This story was originally published in Platts Global Alert
http://www.globalalert.platts.com

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