Utahns are wary of Bush cuts

Monday's budget release kicks off the annual federal spending process for the next fiscal year. The House and Senate budget committees will begin working on a budget resolution that will set limits for the 13 different spending bills. Then in May, the House members and senators who sit on the appropriations committees will begin directing money to specific projects and federal programs.

Congress is supposed to have this all wrapped up by Oct. 1, when fiscal 2007 technically begins, but work on the spending bills often spills over and Congress must pass resolutions funding the government at current levels until the new bills can be passed.

Other items in the budget of interest in Utah include:

• A $6.1 million increase to the Central Utah Project through the Interior Department, which aims to create a system of dams and aqueducts designed to bring water from the Uinta Basin to the Wasatch Front. Bush requested $40.2 million for the project, up from $34 million in fiscal 2006. This includes $37.1 million for planning and construction activities, $1.6 million for program administration and $519,000 for mitigation and conservation activities.

• The Bureau of Land Management included $113,000 to design and construct an interpretive trail through the Uinta Basin's Pariette Wetlands, a waterfowl area; and $501,000 for facility planning, survey and design work on the first phase of reconstruction at the Vernal District Warehouse Yards, used to house the bureau's vehicles and other supplies. It also lists $500,000 for the Colorado River Special Recreation Management Area in Utah.

• The Bureau of Reclamation included no new money for the Deer Creek Dam, Provo River project or the Weber Basin project because those projects are near completion, according to Robert Wolf, director of the bureau's program and budget office.

Meanwhile, the Energy Department launched a Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a $250 million program dedicated to increase the use of nuclear energy here and abroad. This includes a push to develop a nuclear-waste recycling program that would eliminate the dangerous side effect of weapons-grade material

The department is still pushing for the Yucca Mountain project, a proposed federal nuclear-waste storage site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Yucca project is long overdue. As a result, several utilities wanted to temporarily store waste on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Tooele County, but some have opted to wait and see what happens with the Yucca project.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous agency within the Energy Department that handles nuclear weapons issues, requested $14.8 million for "Test Readiness," which would require the government to be ready to renew nuclear weapons testing within 24 months of the president ordering testing to resume.

Numerous hearings will begin this week in House and Senate committees, where administration officials will testify about the president's request and answer questions from members of Congress.

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E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com