For Immediate Release

Statement of Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt re: The Senate's Interior Spending Plan and Congressional Budget Cuts

I am disappointed that the Congress has not shown the will to address both the nation's natural resource needs and ourresponsibility towards the Indian people.

The Senate spending plan turns our back on the First Americans: American Indians. It punishes one of our country'spoorest groups and could create a permanent divide between Indians and their neighbors.

The earlier budget approved by the House continues the roll back of 25 years of strong environmental standards.

This is not a choice the American people want to make or have to make. This country is big enough to take care ofboth our natural resources and our responsibilities to tribes.

The only solution is for Congress to restore the overall allocation to the level of the President's balanced budget plan.

The President's balanced budget plan protects the environment and keeps our trust with Indian tribes -- whilesaving money and balancing the budget in 10 years.

I am urging the President to veto any bill that produces devastating effects to our natural heritage and to theIndian people.

At the very time when our nation has achieved some of its greatest successes -- when the Great Lakes are comingback, when the Bald Eagle is being taken off the Endangered Species list, when smog alerts are on the decline andwater quality is on the rise -- an attack on our natural heritage is under way.

Programs that are designed to increase self-sufficiency for American Indians are being eliminated or ripped apart.Educational aid for children, housing and assistance for tribal governments are all eviscerated by a $400 million cutfrom the President's budget request.

When it comes to protecting the environment, Congress is responding to the needs of lobbyists instead of the needs of Americans. Opponents of environmental protection haveworked under cover of this budget process to ruin the progress we have made over the last 25 years.

Why are they doing this? Because the wealthy lobbyists are lining up at their doors -- the same lobbyists who fundedtheir election campaigns -- and demanding special favors that amount to these programs being gutted.

These cuts are extreme and radical.

The American public does not want to see its natural heritage or the Indian people abandoned, and that is preciselywhat these budgets do.

We all want to get to the ground floor on government spending. The President's way is to take the stairs. Congress'way is to jump out the window.

Selected Budget Snapshots

The Senate has failed to stop a mining patent giveaway of valuable mineral reserves owned by Americantaxpayers.

The Senate failed to include the moratorium on mining patents passed last month by the House. Instead, it hasincluded a sham, "fair market" provision which would allow mining companies to acquire valuable subsurfacemineral deposits for the price of nearly worthless surface rights. This falls far short of what is owed the Americantaxpayer for the extraction of precious commodities from public lands.

Indian people, among America's poorest, will see their money for housing, Indian child protection and othertribal programs drastically reduced. Does this make sense for a population group with one of the highestunemployment rates in the country?

The Senate has cut over $400 million from the president's request for American Indian programs, which will crippletribal governments and their services to tribal members. The Senate also cuts $30 million from the President's budgetfor Indian education. Because of these cuts, teachers won't be hired and schools will lose their accreditations, the keyto insuring quality education. It also means many students will attend classes in crowded and potentially unsafeschool buildings.

The cuts also jeopardize some of the smallest students. Kindergarten might be cancelled permanently because ofthese cuts.

The repeal of the Endangered Species Act has begun with this budget's drastic cuts of funding to put plantsand animals on the Enda

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