![](media/image1.png){width="0.9326388888888889in"
height="0.9326388888888889in"}**Department of the Interior**

**[healthy lands, thriving communities, and dynamic
economies]{.smallcaps}**

**2005 Budget**

**President's 2005 Budget for Interior Emphasizes Cooperative
Conservation,**

**Commitments and Solutions**

The largest request in the department's history, the 2005 budget enables
the Department of the Interior to develop stronger conservation
partnerships with states, tribes, local communities, and citizens to
develop healthy lands, thriving communities, and dynamic economies.
President Bush\'s goal\--and our goal at Interior\--is to empower
citizens to do what the government cannot do alone. Citizen-stewards
embody the President's vision of a new environmentalism\--one built upon
principles of entrepreneurship, local action and respect for private
property. The budget plays a key role expanding opportunities for
cooperative conservation, accelerating the cleanup of abandoned mine
lands, mitigating water problems in the West through Water 2025, and
advancing trust reform. It also helps meet the President's pledge to
fully fund the Land and Water Conservation fund, address the backlog of
park repairs and maintenance needs, fix Bureau of Indian Affairs
schools, and reestablish healthy forests and rangelands," Secretary
Norton said.

**Promoting Cooperative Conservation**

**Cooperative Conservation Programs:** Through conservation
partnerships, Interior works with individuals, alone and together, on
farms and in factories, in backyards and in neighborhoods, to restore
riverbank habitat, replant native grasses and innovate to prevent
pollution. These citizen stewards embody President Bush's vision of a
new environmentalism---one built upon principles of entrepreneurship,
cooperation and local action.

-   The President's budget calls for \$507.3 million for Interior's
    cooperative conservation programs, an increase of \$84.2 million or
    20 percent above the 2004 enacted level.

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**Cooperative Conservation Initiative:** The grants fund creative
conservation projects that leverage federal dollars through
partnerships. Invested in several conservation grant programs, CCI funds
help Interior extend a hand to work with the nation's many citizen
stewards, who often are the nation's most effective conservationists.
Projects will be conducted in partnership with states, tribes, local
governments, and nonprofit organizations and require a one-to-one match
or better so as to leverage federal dollars.

-   The proposal includes \$129.5 million for the Cooperative
    Conservation Initiative, a \$25.5 million increase over 2004 for
    seven innovative Interior programs.

-   The budget proposes \$29.6 million for challenge cost-share grants
    to fund natural resource restoration and species protection.

**Fully Funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund**

The Cooperative Conservation Initiative is also an important component
of the Land and Water Conservation Fund budget request, which the
President proposes to fund fully again in 2005.

-   The department's \$660.6 million LWCF proposal, combined with
    similar programs in the U.S. Forest Service, brings the total
    government-wide LWCF request to \$900.2 million.

-   Included in Interior's LWCF proposal is \$93.8 million for state
    conservation and recreation grants.

-   About \$153.3 million for federal land acquisition will emphasize
    innovative alternatives to fee simple title purchases for
    conservation easements, land exchanges, and other options that make
    effective and efficient use of federal funds, promote cooperative
    alliances, leave land on state tax roles, and achieve
    citizen-steward conservation goals.

**Addressing the NPS Maintenance Backlog**

Between 2002 and 2004, \$2.8 billion has been appropriated to address
the National Park Service's backlog of facility maintenance work. The
2005 budget proposal would bring the total investment in park facilities
during this Administration to \$3.9 billion.

-   The President's 2005 budget will provide another \$1.1 billion,
    including \$724.7 million for park facility maintenance and
    construction and \$310.0 million for park road rebuilding under the
    Administration's proposed reauthorization of the Transportation
    Equity Act for the 21^st^ century.

The NPS has also implemented a management reform process to provide a
comprehensive asset inventory and established a service-wide baseline
for facility conditions.  For the first time in its history, NPS is now
able to measure the condition of its facilities and monitor and
prioritize ongoing maintenance needs.

**Wildfire Fighting and Healthy Forests Initiative**

On Dec. 3, 2003, the President signed the Healthy Forests Restoration
Act of 2003, which was supported by a bipartisan coalition of Members of
Congress and builds on the President's Healthy Forests Initiative. The
President's budget would advance his commitment to restore healthy
forests and rangelands, reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfires that
have also devastated numerous communities, harmed threatened and
endangered species, and cost the lives of firefighters and civilians.

The 2005 budget supports the President's commitment by calling for
\$209.3 million for hazardous fuels funding in the wildland fire
program, an increase of \$25.0 million or 14 percent. The money, when
combined with funds for forest and range improvements in Interior land
management agencies and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, will provide a
total of \$311 million in 2005 to reduce the buildup of hazardous fuels
in the nation's forests and rangelands, reduce the risk of catastrophic
fire to communities, save the lives of firefighters and citizens,
protect threatened and endangered species, and encourage public
participation in selecting and carrying out fuel reduction projects.

For the Wildland Fire program, the 2005 budget also proposes an increase
of \$28.6 million to fund suppression activities at the 10-year average
and \$6.5 million more in preparedness activities to help cover the
rising costs of aviation contracts and fund the fire program analysis
system. In total, the 2005 budget for wildland fire management is
\$743.1 million, a \$57.9 million increase over the 2004 enacted level.

**Reform the Abandoned Mine Lands Program**

The budget proposes a \$53.3 increase for the Office of Surface Mining
to support a reauthorized Abandoned Mine Lands program that would
rehabilitate the most critical and vulnerable abandoned mines sites
within 25 years, eliminating the significant health and safety problems
posed by these lands. Under the current AML program, it would take
almost half a century to rehabilitate the most dangerous sites because
most of the program's funds currently flow to states with few or no
priority areas. This increased investment is expected to yield a savings
of \$3.2 billion over the life of the program.

**Accelerating Indian Trust Reform**

The budget proposal would provide \$157.8 million in new funding to
strengthen Interior's ongoing efforts to reform management of its trust
obligations to tribes and individual Indians, to continue historical
account efforts and to reduce the exponentially growing costs of
maintaining fractionated interests of Indian lands.

-   The budget would provide \$322.7 million, an increase of \$113.6
    million or 54.4 percent, for the Office of Special Trustee for
    American Indians.

-   Funding for historical accounting by the Office of Historical Trust
    Accounting is increased by \$65.0 million to a total of \$109.4
    million.

-   OHTA will spend \$80.0 million in 2005 to carry out accounting for
    individual Indian money accounts and \$29.4 million to account for
    funds in tribal accounts.

**2005 Budget Highlights**

![](media/image3.jpeg){width="1.7583333333333333in"
height="1.3611111111111112in"}**[Managing Park Resources:]{.underline}**
Through the National Park Service Natural Resource Challenge, the
department monitors conditions within park boundaries.

-   The 2005 budget proposes increases of \$4.1 million to measure the
    health of park ecosystems and specific flora and fauna along with an
    increase of \$528,000 for water quality monitoring in parks and
    surrounding areas. With these increases, cumulative increases in the
    Natural Resource Challenge over the 2001 level will be \$149.4
    million, fulfilling a presidential commitment to improve park
    management of natural resources.

**[Western Water: Klamath Projects and Water 2025:]{.underline}**
President Bush's commitment to help western communities hard hit by
chronic water shortages is exemplified by the 2005 budget, which
includes an unprecedented level of habitat restoration and water
improvement projects and programs for the Klamath River Basin.

-   Interior's proposed budget for this difficult problem would provide
    about \$67.6 million, spread across several bureaus, of the nearly
    \$105 million proposed for the federal-government wide initiative.
    Interior's share is an increase of \$17.9 million from 2004.

-   The budget also proposes \$21.0 million for Water 2025 projects that
    would invest in desalination technology, water-saving techniques for
    irrigation systems, and strategies to improve water management and
    stretch existing water supplies, including water-marketing projects.
    The Water 2025 proposal represents an increase of \$13.3 million
    over last year's funding level.

**[Invasive Species Initiatives:]{.underline}** In conjunction with the
National Invasive Species Council, the department will focus on working
with states and communities in the Southwest on tamarisk (saltcedar),
and in other regions on leafy spurge and star thistle, controlling Asian
carp and other fresh water habitat invaders, and controlling and
responding to brown tree snake infestations in the U.S.-affiliated
Pacific islands.

-   The 2005 proposal calls for a \$58.3 million budget for programs to
    assist in research, early detection, rapid response, and control of
    invasive species, which pose a major threat to native plant species,
    wildlife habitat, and land and water resources.

**[Indian Education:]{.underline}** The Bureau of Indian Affairs \$2.3
billion budget includes \$229.1 million for school construction to fund
the remaining five replacement schools on the current priority list, as
well as several major repair and improvement projects. BIA is making
significant progress in addressing the Indian school maintenance
backlog. Together with funding provided in previous appropriations, the
2005 budget will significantly improve the condition of BIA schools.

-   The budget request also includes \$522.4 million for elementary and
    secondary school operations to maintain the President's commitment
    to Leave No Child Behind. The school operations request also would
    fund FOCUS, a school achievement program with demonstrable results.

**[National Park Service:]{.underline}** The budget request for the
National Park Service is \$2.4 billion, an increase of \$102.0 million
over the 2004 enacted level.

-   The budget seeks \$1.7 billion for park operations, a net increase
    of \$76.5 million above 2004.

-   The operations budget also proposes a \$22.0 million increase for
    specific park needs, including \$8.3 million for new park
    responsibilities.

-   The Historic Preservation Fund request is \$77.5 million, including
    \$30.0 million for the Save America's Treasures program.

**[Bureau of Land Management:]{.underline}** The budget request for the
BLM's two main operating accounts is \$953.5 million, an increase of
\$8.3 million over the 2004 enacted level.

-   The 2005 budget for BLM also includes a \$4.0 million increase to
    strengthen resource monitoring and \$8.8 million in new funding for
    timber planning and management.

-   The request includes an increase of \$12.8 million for the Wild
    Horse and Burro program to enable the bureau to carry out a
    long-term strategy to bring the number of horses on the range to an
    appropriate management levels.

-   The request also includes increases of \$4.8 million for the
    challenge cost share program, \$3.2 million for sage grouse
    conservation, and \$5.6 million for BLM land acquisition.

**[Payments in Lieu of Taxes:]{.underline}** The 2005 budget seeks
\$226.0 million for PILT, the highest amount ever requested and a \$1.3
million increase over the enacted level. Cooperating with states and
localities is a departmental priority and Interior is committed to
improving PILT payment distributions, including an equitable
distribution of payments to eligible local governments.

**[Science for a Changing World:]{.underline}** With a request of
\$919.8 million, the U.S. Geological Survey will maintain a robust
science program through providing \$16.1 million for new and expanded
programs.

-   The budget also seeks an increase of \$1.2 million for Science on
    the DOI Landscape, \$2.7 million for Klamath Basin-related science,
    \$1.0 million for Water 2025, and \$1.0 million in invasive species
    research.

-   An additional \$4.5 million will improve financial management
    performance and information technology services.

**[Fish and Wildlife Service:]{.underline}** The 2005 request proposes
\$1.3 billion, an increase of \$22.6 million over the 2004 level.

-   Resource Management includes increases of \$5.0 million for the
    endangered species listing program to meet litigation-driven
    workloads, \$7.5 million for the Partners for Fish and Wildlife
    program, and \$4.4 million for the Migratory Bird program.

-   The budget proposes significant increases for FWS cooperative grant
    programs, including a \$20.4 million increase for the Landowner
    Incentive Program, a \$2.6 million increase for the Private
    Stewardship Grants program, and an \$8.4 million increase for the
    Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund.

-   The budget also proposes an increase of \$16.5 million for the
    migratory waterfowl projects funded by the North American Wetlands
    Conservation Fund.

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**[Bureau of Reclamation:]{.underline}** The budget request is \$956.3
million, a \$13.5 million increase over the 2004 enacted level.

-   In addition to emphasizing Reclamation's core missions of delivering
    water and power, the 2005 budget also focuses on endangered
    species-related water management issues, requesting \$72.2 million,
    or a \$15.7 million increase, for Columbia/Snake River salmon
    recovery, Klamath Basin projects, Columbia Basin projects, and
    Endangered Species Act recovery programs.

-   About \$67.5 million is requested for rural water supply projects
    and \$43.2 million for upgrading security at Reclamation facilities,
    an increase of \$15.4 million.

-   The \$162.9 million request for the Central Valley Project in
    California includes a \$9.6 million increase for CVP replacements,
    additions, and extraordinary maintenance program.

**[Minerals Management Service:]{.underline}** In 2005, direct
appropriations and collections for MMS will provide \$282.4 million in
total funding. The request for direct appropriations is \$178.7 million,
a net increase of \$8.4 million while collections from Outer Continental
Shelf rents and other fees total \$103.7 million.

-   Supporting the National Energy Policy through increasing and
    diversifying the nation's sources of traditional and alternative
    fuels, the budget proposes \$16 million, an increase of \$4 million,
    for the third year of the OCS Connect E-Government project to reform
    and streamline offshore business operations.

-   A request for \$1.9 million would acquire new interpretive tools to
    support Gulf of Mexico oil and gas evaluations and estimates.

**[Office of Insular Affairs:]{.underline}** The budget requests \$78.9
million in current funding, including a \$1.0 million increase to
strengthen core performance measurement and assessment.

-   The budget also seeks an increase of \$379,000 to expand brown tree
    snake research, control, and rapid-response team coverage.

-   Permanent appropriations will total \$303.0 million, including
    \$195.0 million for payments to the freely associated states under a
    recently ratified Compact of Free Association.

**[Preserve America:]{.underline}** On March 3, 2003, First Lady Laura
Bush introduced Preserve America, The budget includes \$10.0 million for
this initiative that will advance both the protection and contemporary
use of historic properties while stimulating local economies through
heritage tourism.

**For more information on the DOI 2005 BUDGET visit
[www.doi.gov](http://www.doi.gov/) or call the DOI Office of External
and Intergovernmental Affairs at 202-208-1923**