THE PRESIDENT’S SPENDING PLAN : $1-Billion Global-Warming Study Urged : Environment: The aim is to better understand and confront the threat. The EPA would get a 12% increase to protect the nation’s air and water.

President Bush asked Congress on Monday to lay out more than $1 billion in the coming fiscal year to better understand and begin confronting the threat of global warming.

The initiatives on climate change accounted for half of a $2-billion increase requested for environmental protection.

“President Bush means business when he says he is an environmental President,” said Environmental Protection Administrator William K. Reilly, whose agency stands to get a 12% increase to police the protection of the nation’s air and water.

Proposals included:

--$237 million to begin developing giant new polar orbiting satellites for a 15-year program designed to glean more accurate data on the oceans, clouds and land.

--$630 million for a new “America the Beautiful” program whose centerpiece will be an effort to plant a billion trees per year on private lands across the country, plus another 30 million along streets and in parks of the nation’s communities. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, a leading pollutant linked to global warming. In its first year, Bush is asking Congress for $175 million for the tree program.

--A $200-million increase for continued cleanup of abandoned hazardous waste sites.

--A 24% increase--to $460 million--for protection of wetlands.

--Establishment of $5,000 presidential awards to two teachers in each state who “design and implement the most innovative and effective programs to teach students about the environment.”

Like Reilly, agency chiefs in charge of the programs enjoying elevated priority hailed the budget.

“President Bush is committed to creating a new environmental ethic in America.” said Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr., who has been frequently accused of siding with exploitation at the expense of environmental protection.

Environmental activists were not unanimously enthusiastic.

“It comes up far short of what is needed to address the urgent national and international environmental problems that we face,” Friends of the Earth Vice President Brent Blackwelder said of the environmental budget.

“He proposes to spend $2 billion on new environmental programs, but at the same time he is cutting out $2 billion in important programs such as sewage treatment grants and energy efficient transportation.”

Others, however, found much to commend in the new proposals.

“President Bush has turned the environmental ship around and now all we need to do is to get it moving at a sufficient rate of speed,” said Paul C. Pritchard, president of the National Parks and Conservation Assn.

“The President’s budget on the environment shows a marked departure from nearly a decade of decline and destruction of America’s environmental programs,” he added.

Besides the tree planting program, the new budget proposes to reduce below-cost timber sales in 12 national forests.

By asking Congress to provide the National Aeronautics and Space Administration with $237 million for its new Earth Observation system, intended to study global warming, the Administration would make the space agency the government’s biggest spender on the environment.

Under Bush’s proposal, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would get an increase in its budget for research on global climate change--from $18 million to $87 million.

The President also recommended boosting the budget of the Council on Environmental Quality from $1.46 million to $2.78 million.

The Council on Environmental Quality, an independent policy adviser to the President, was consigned to oblivion in the Ronald Reagan Administration. But Monday, it was recommended that its budget be, in effect, doubled for the second year in a row.

Council Chairman Michael DeLand said nearly all of his budget increase will go into rebuilding his staff, enabling it to have input in nearly all Administration policy issues for the first time in years.

Staff writer Shawn Pogatchnik contributed to this story.