The Trump administration's proposal for the 2018 budget includes cutting a third of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) budget, eliminating programs for global warming research and ending financial aid to developing countries under the Paris Agreement. The proposal, which requires congressional approval, also includes extensive cuts in research and science budgets in other areas, such as medical research.
The administration of US President Trump published on Thursday the His baselines for the 2018 budget proposal. The full proposal, which will indicate the detailed funding of each program and ministry, will only be published in May.
It is important to emphasize that the last word regarding the budget is determined by the American Congress, and not by the president, so it is very likely that the final budget that will be approved will be different, and perhaps very different, from the proposed budget.
The budget proposal, under the title "America First", includes a drastic increase of 54 billion dollars in the defense budget. To balance it, it includes a cut of the same amount in the budgets of ministries and civil programs. As expected, science and environmental fields also suffered extensive cuts.
The director of the Office of Management and Budget in the White House, Mick Mulvaney, simply explained the Trump administration's policy regarding programs related to climate change: "We are not going to invest more money in this, we see it as a waste of your money."
Cutting a third of the Environmental Protection Agency's budget
The agency that suffered the biggest cut in relation to its current budget is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Its budget will decrease by 31%, from 8.2 to 5.7 billion dollars.
The budget proposal explains the cut in the desire to "focus on the basic legal requirements" of the agency, and to implement the "priority set by the president to ease the burden of unnecessary regulations, which impose significant costs on workers and consumers without justified environmental benefits."
Among the cuts in the Environmental Protection Agency's budget:
- Cessation of funding for the "Clean Power Program" (Clean Power Plan) initiated by the Obama administration, which aims to limit the carbon dioxide emissions of power plants.
- Support for "international climate change programs, climate change research, participation programs and related efforts" will cease. Together with the termination of the "clean power plan", this is a cut of 100 million dollars.
- A $233 million cut in the agency's central research arm's budget - half of the arm's total budget today. The cut will eliminate, among other things, Program for research grants that the arm divides.
- A $129 million cut in budgets for environmental crime enforcement missions (which will receive $419 million according to the proposal).
- A $427 million cut in regional environmental programs, arguing that these are the responsibility of the states and local authorities. Among other things, the program for "Restoration of the great seas” in North America andThe Chesapeake Bay Restoration Plan.
- Elimination of 50 different programs of the agency. The proposal does not specify the programs that will be canceled, but gives several examples, including them Energy Star, a program founded in the 90s to help develop energy efficient products.
- A cut of 3,200 jobs at the agency (out of about 15 employees employed there today).
The cessation of international aid in the field of climate change
The US State Department's budget will also suffer a very extensive cut, and among other things, the proposal will cut US international aid in the field of dealing with global warming:
- A complete cessation of the transfer of payments to the "Green Climate Fund", to which the USA has committed itself, as part of Paris Agreement in 2015, to transfer $3 billion to help developing countries comply with the agreement. So far, the Obama administration Enough transfer only one billion dollars to the fund. It should be noted that this is not about canceling the membership of the USA in the Paris Agreement - the Trump administration considering it, but no decision has yet been made on the matter.
- cancelation "Global Climate Change Initiative", which is included in the international aid of the United States (USAID).
Trump spared NASA
For extended information on the proposed budget for NASA
Remarkably, the budget proposal shields NASA's Earth exploration programs, which many feared would be significantly harmed by the Trump administration.
The proposal includes a cut of only about 102 million dollars in the agency's Earth exploration programs - a relatively small amount compared to the 1.8 billion dollars that will remain for these programs as part of the budget proposal. The cut will be made through the cancellation of a number of Earth exploration missions that are under development, some of which deal with climate change research:
- PACE: A satellite for the study of ecosystems in the oceans, the study of the atmosphere and understanding their connections to climate change. The total development budget of the satellite is estimated at 805 million dollars and it was planned for launch in 2022.
- OCO-3: a device that is supposed to operate on the International Space Station, and its purpose is to accurately measure the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The proposal for some reason mentions the cessation of funding, of only 1.2 million dollars, for the Earth's photographic devices in the spacecraft DSCOVR, which is already in operation. Its main function is the monitoring of solar flares, but its unique location inLagrange point L1 allows her to provide as well Spectacular photographs of the Earth (which are updated daily).
Ministry of Energy - less for renewable energy, more for nuclear energy
The budget proposal includes a $1.7 billion cut in the Ministry of Energy's budget, which will be reduced to $28 billion. Although the cut is not very large in relation to the overall budget, the distribution of the budget pie within the ministry will change significantly:
2 billion dollars will be cut from the research budgets of various ministries within the Ministry of Energy, intended for the development of innovative energy technologies, and 900 million dollars will be cut from the budget of the ministry's science department.
The proposal also includes cuts in programs for advanced research of cooperation with the private sector in the development of innovative technologies. The cut was made on the grounds that "the private sector is more suitable for funding research into disruptive energy technology and the commercialization of technological innovation."
Among other things, the ARPA-E program will be completely canceled, According to her official website Intended for investment in innovative technologies that are "too young for investment in the private sector". It is interesting to note that the new Secretary of the Department of Energy that Trump appointed, Rick Perry, just a few days ago Tweet on Twitter And expressed his support for the program: "Entrepreneurs like those supported by our ARPA-E project are the key to advancing America's energy economy."
In contrast to the fields of renewable energy, the proposal actually significantly increases budgets related to nuclear energy and nuclear weapons, and also adds funding for the treatment of nuclear waste. National Nuclear Security Agency You will see an 11% increase in its budget - an addition of 1.4 billion dollars. In addition, the offer Includes transfer of 120 million dollars to revive the activity of the nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain in Arizona, whose activity was stopped by the Obama administration in 2011.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Trump's budget proposal also includes a $250 million cut from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to programs dealing with coastal and marine research and conservation. The proposal does not go into detail about this particular agency, but the detailed proposal released in May may include additional cuts.
Medical research will also suffer
The proposal also includes cuts in many areas beyond environmental and energy issues, including research and science in general. Among other things, it includes extensive cuts in biomedical research: $5.8 billion will be cut from the agency's budget NIH (National Institutes of Health), about 18% of the organization's total budget.
9 תגובות
Shocking on another level! The proposed changes will lead to destruction and damage to our planet, and further deterioration, continued pollution and destruction due to global warming.
Employment and hunger will be the least bad thing in about two decades when we will already be at the tipping point. Go back because of his wrong political decisions!
Increasing the security budget can actually help prevent wars.
Some experts claim that the weakness and laxity of the US withdrawing forces from the Middle East encouraged the Muslim extremists to take advantage of this weakness, and it is this weakness that caused the rise of Muslim radicals in the first place, which caused all these wars.
And so the USA gives up its scientific-technological supremacy
Unfortunately he is right!
The only way to convince someone to become "green" is to release a cheap replacement product...
For example, Elon Musk sells photoelectric technology for generating electricity,
"In Germany they proved: wind and sun are enough..."
The only way is to sell a profitable product, save expenses!
Indeed my father...
In order to promote the "urgent issues", Trump increases the defense budget by 54 million.
That way they will need more workers in the army = less unemployed.
On the other hand, it will not help the unfortunates who are slaughtered because of religious wars, and the starving.
In short - it might help one thing: slightly increase the military power of the USA. I say maybe - because we haven't seen a large fleet help more in wars recently
With all due respect to science and technology, there are more urgent issues to invest in.
When half of the world's population is starving due to drought, when there are many homeless and unemployed people in the United States itself, and when half the earth is slaughtering the other half in crazy religious wars.
Really, perhaps it is appropriate to cut the budgets of a space telescope that will provide spectacular photographs of the Earth and solar flares and so on.
Trump made the right decision - less expensive renewable energy and more nuclear energy, which is also carbon-free but much cheaper, reliable, continuous and technologically proven. The reluctance to nuclear energy is mainly psychological, but despite all the shortcomings, nuclear energy is the only source of energy that is carbon-free and economically profitable. With all the sadness about the cuts, money doesn't grow on trees but comes from the taxpayers and considering the national debt of the USA, cutting the budget is a necessity after the debt accumulation of the Obama administration.
Wow, trash country, they have so many resources and they are wasting them on meaningless war machines instead of using them for progress and improving the quality of life of the world (or at least of the American citizen).