Along with the cherry blossoms and the start of another season of futility for the Nationals, one of Washington’s main springtime traditions is the release of the President’s budget request for the upcoming fiscal year.
The budget proposal released by the Trump White House on Friday envisions massive increases in defense spending, accompanying huge cuts to non-defense programs, resulting in a radical transformation of Uncle Sam’s spending priorities.
But it’s not likely to happen. Much like the cherry blossoms and the Nats’ playoff hopes, the odds of a President’s budget proposal surviving into the summer are usually quite dismal. It’s often been said that Congress takes the White House’s budget suggestions and promptly files them int the circular filing cabinet. That was certainly the case last year when Congress – despite being controlled by Republicans – rejected many of President Trump’s proposed cuts to domestic programs.
With the midterm elections looming and Republicans fretting their precarious polling numbers, it is almost a certainty that they will do the same this year – that is, if they are able to agree on budget numbers at all before the election.
For the record, Trump is proposing $2.2 trillion in spending on so-called discretionary programs (basically, everything except for entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare) in fiscal 2027. While that would be 21 percent more than the current fiscal year, the lion’s share would go to defense, for which the White House is proposing a 42-percent jump in spending.
Non-defense programs would see an overall 10-percent cut, including a 52-percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a 67-percent cut to the Small Business Administration.
Threats to Preservation Funding
Like last year, the White House also is proposing a massive cut to the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF), asking Congress to provide zero money to state and Tribal historic preservation offices, and spending just $11 million to help Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) preserve historic buildings. A year ago, the White House justified the same cut by arguing that “many historic preservation projects have matching funds from State, local, and private sources, rendering the Historic Preservation Fund highly duplicative. Further, the projects are often of local, rather than national, significance.”
Congress did not see things the same way. Following a concerted advocacy effort by ACRA and its allies, Congress appropriated $181 million from the HPF for S/THPOs, HBCUs and other competitive grant programs.
It’s far too early to predict what Congress will do with regard to HPF funding in FY2027. But nearly 100 House members from both parties recently signed a letter to the House Appropriations Committee urging it to provide $250 million for the HPF, including funding for technology upgrades for S/THPOs.
A bipartisan group of Senators is organizing a similar letter. Please contact your Senators to urge them to join in to back HPF funding.
Judge Blocks White House Ballroom, While Key Commission OKs It.
Last week was a busy one for the planned White House ballroom.
Last Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon issued a preliminary injunction blocking construction of the $400 million ballroom in a case brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Ruling that construction “must stop” because no law “comes close” to giving Trump legal authority to build such a structure without congressional authorization, Leon wrote that “[t]he President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!”
Leon suspended enforcement of his order for 14 days, acknowledging that the case “raises novel and weighty issues, that halting an ongoing construction project may raise logistical issues.” The Trump administration filed an appeal with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals within hours of the ruling.
Just two days later, the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) moved forward with its own vote on the project. The commission, headed by White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf and stocked with Trump loyalists, voted 8-1 to proceed, with Phil Mendelson, chair of the D.C. Council, casting the lone dissenting vote.
So where does this leave the project? The judge’s ruling will stall progress on the project, but the ongoing legal battle is far from over.
BLM Proposes Cutting Chaco Canyon Buffer Zone
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has proposed shrinking or even eliminating outright the 20-year, 10-mile buffer zone around New Mexico’s Chaco Culture National Historical Park that prohibits new mineral leasing.
Thousands of sacred, ancestral sites of indigenous peoples including the Hopi, Navajo and Zuni are located in the Chaco Canyon region, which was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987.
BLM says that they are considering three options: leaving the current buffer zone intact, shrinking it to five miles around Chaco Canyon, or striking the protections altogether – which it says is its proposed preference.
The 20-year withdrawal of more than 336,000 acres of federal land around Chaco Canyon from mineral leases was put in place during the Biden administration; it does not apply to existing oil and gas leases or private or tribal lands in the area.
The comment period, which ends April 7, is intended to identify issues that should be included in a forthcoming environmental assessment. Another comment period will open when the assessment is made available to the public, the agency said.
The move has raised concerns among Pueblo people with ties to the area and drew sharp criticism among environmental advocates and New Mexico’s congressional delegation, with U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) accusing BLM of “jamming a comment period into Holy Week and limiting public participation to online-only access, all while Pueblos are in the midst of preparations for sensitive cultural activities.”