Report Says Clinton Diverted Fire Prevention Funds to New Monuments, Land Purchases
Report Says Clinton Diverted Fire Prevention Funds to New Monuments, Land Purchases
By Fred Jackson, AFR News, August 21, 2000
(AgapePress) – While crews continue to battle forest fires across the Midwest, a report out of Washington says President Clinton recently redirected funds for such needs to some of his pet projects.
According to the The Washington Times, the White House cut this year’s Interior Department’s request for $322 million for fire preparedness, or prevention, to $305 million. At the same time, the Clinton Administration increased its budget request for such things as land acquisitions and monuments from $15 million to $49 million. The Times also reports that it has documents indicating even greater budget cuts are proposed for next year’s firefighting season, along with an increase in the land acquisition fund to $60 million.
A former director of the National Interagency Fire Center, Les Rosenkrance, says he put a memo out in January warning about the negative effects of cutting budgets that are needed to prepare for the fire season, including endangering people’s lives.
So far, eight people have died due to this year’s outbreak of fires across the West. Rosenkrance, who retired in April, says unfortunately the warnings in his memo have proven to be true.
The Times reports that Clinton’s land acquisitions initiative is the President’s conservation effort to purchase land and preserve it as open space. Since he took office in 1993, Clinton has declared almost a dozen new national monuments.
Copyright 2000, Agape Press. Used with permission.
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