Hearing of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee - US Geological Survey FY12 Budget Hearing

Statement

The 2012 budget request for the USGS is one of those where I wish we could have someone from the White House come up, place a left hand on the Bible, raise his or her right hand, and proceed to explain himself, because this is a budget that does four things as I see it:

First, by cutting $89 million and 230 FTEs from core science programs, this budget runs counter to the President's commitment to "restore science to its rightful place."

Second, by proposing "Washington Monument"-type cuts to programs like endocrine disruptor research and streamgages that the American people deeply care about, the budget shows that this Administration is willing to play games with this Congress by testing our resolve during serious fiscal times.

Third, by inheriting the full funding responsibility for LandSat 9 and 10 from NASA without any of NASA's $19 billion budget, and by offsetting the $48 million increase for LandSat from other core science programs, this budget is a sign of the untenable situation we're likely to be in two years from now when the Administration sends up a budget request for LandSat that is nearly 10 times the increase proposed for FY12. We might just as well rename USGS to National Land Imaging Agency.

Lastly: Water is Life. How is it that the nation's premier science agency can claim that climate change is real and is happening rapidly, and that these changes are having profound effects on our nation's water supplies, and then go and cut its own water budget by 10 percent? What does it say about our nation when our priorities don't even include one of the most basic ingredients to human survival?

With the United States borrowing 40 cents on every federal dollar we spend, there is near universal, bipartisan agreement that we need to cut back on spending. But there are right ways to go about it, and there are ways that make absolutely no sense at all. This budget makes no sense at all.

The Administration has sent to this Committee a budget for the USGS that is simply unacceptable. We have a lot of work to do between now and October 1st. I look forward to our discussion today and I appreciate your help in providing the Committee with the information it needs to do its job.

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