Cuts could hit Hanford cleanup, jobless training

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WASHINGTON — Northern border defense would get a boost under President Bush's new budget, but cuts elsewhere could hit Hanford cleanup, new transportation projects and worker training.

And while recent reports suggested Washington state landmarks were of particular interest to terrorists, homeland-security chief Tom Ridge said yesterday that preparedness funding is spread evenly across the nation.

"I haven't seen anything to suggest any one state is less or more vulnerable to terrorist attack,'' Ridge said.

The president's $2.1 trillion budget for fiscal 2003 emphasizes homeland security and the fight against terrorism abroad, boosting defense spending to $379 billion and the homeland-security budget to $37 billion.

In order to fund new priorities, it trimmed environmental, transportation and worker-training money. Still, critics noted that in part because of the president's $1.3 trillion tax cut last year, the package augured a return to deficit spending after years of budget surpluses.

"In wartime, other things do take second place,'' said Mitchell Daniels, the White House budget chief.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., criticized the administration for proposing a $262 million cut in funds to clean up the Hanford nuclear reservation. Murray fought off a proposed $440 million cut under the previous budget and warned that any cuts could threaten a cleanup agreement among state, federal and tribal governments.

In other environmental matters, the U.S. Forest Service would get an increase in discretionary funds compared with last year, though its overall budget is lower because of millions of dollars that went to wildfire cleanup and prevention last year.

The budget also says the administration plans to ask Congress to create new "charter forests." The arrangement would take control of certain national forests away from the Forest Service and put it in the hands of local advisory boards — a move environmentalists said they would oppose.

More money would go to salmon restoration in the Northwest, as well as to conservation programs in the Department of the Interior. As for transportation, Murray decried a projected $9 billion decrease in highway funds nationwide.

Daniels noted that money for highways was based on a formula derived from gas-tax revenues, which have slowed during the recession. He said that while there would be fewer new bridge and road projects, efforts already under way shouldn't be slowed by the new projections.

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., applauded the beefed-up security measures but criticized Bush for the proposed Hanford cut and for cutting $900 million from worker assistance and retraining programs when unemployment in Washington is 7.1 percent.

The cuts, Cantwell said, "were a step in the wrong direction.''

In addition to stepping up defenses against biowarfare and chemical attacks, the budget for homeland security provides an $11 billion boost for border security, including $380 million to devise a new visa system to facilitate crossings along the Canadian line.

Ridge said the program would aid security without blocking commerce. "More secure borders," he said, "but also smarter and better borders.''

Congress late last year doubled the number of Border Patrol and Immigration and Naturalization agents along the northern border. The new budget, Daniels said, would make those increases permanent.

Ridge said that states would have equal access to $3.5 billion in grants for equipment and training for fire and police departments and that while terrorists may seem to focus on high-profile targets, preparedness should be a must in every corner of the nation.

Material from Gannett News Service was used in this story.