Bush Budget Plan May Fan the Fire Over His Priorities

The Bush administration will send Congress a budget Monday that would scale back a broad range of domestic programs--including work force training, renewable energy and health care access--that have grown rapidly in recent years.

The proposed cuts are expected to fuel a growing dispute over President Bush’s spending priorities at a time of widespread concern over energy shortages and an economic downturn.

“When the administration is talking about an energy crisis, we should be greatly increasing--not cutting--the funding for these kinds of programs,” said Dan Reicher, a Clinton administration energy official, providing a taste of the coming debate.

Bush is expected to recommend cutting programs for dislocated workers next year by about $200 million, or 12%; cutting certain energy-efficiency and renewable-energy programs by about $180 million, or 15%; and shifting some responsibility from Washington to the states for enforcing federal pollution control laws.

The proposed cutbacks are needed to offset the costs of a large tax cut and spending increases in certain areas of the budget, such as defense, education and medical research, according to budget experts.

Overall, Bush is proposing a 4% increase for the “discretionary” part of the budget, which must be funded annually, unlike such benefit programs as Social Security. But to accommodate the new priorities, officials also are expected to propose at least $8.4 billion in specific reductions.

“There are going to be a lot more cuts than people are anticipating,” said Stanley E. Collender, a budget consultant with the public relations firm of Fleishman Hillard.

White House officials say they seek moderate growth in overall spending while weeding out programs they consider wasteful or obsolete. The pursuit of that aim is crystallizing a conflict between advocates and opponents of activist government.

Training efforts, for example, have shown little long-term financial benefit for participants, some research has found. Yet in a weakening economy, advocates are troubled at the notion of reducing such efforts. Similarly, alternative energy sources--solar, geothermal and wind--provide just a small share of U.S. energy needs. But proponents maintain that the nation’s recent energy woes underscore the need for a growing federal commitment.

“What does this budget show us about the Bush energy strategy?” asked David Nemtzow, president of the Washington-based Alliance to Save Energy, a coalition of business, consumer, government and environmental leaders. “It shows us they like drilling in Alaska. They think there’s an energy crisis. But they don’t think energy efficiency and renewable energy should be part of the solution.”

Close observers of labor policy--who requested anonymity to retain their White House ties--say Labor Department officials parried with White House budget-cutters in a largely successful bid to protect funding for unemployment insurance. Ultimately, the budget knife was aimed at training and related services for the unskilled and unemployed. In addition to the $200-million cut for dislocated workers--which includes such expenses as training and outplacement services--White House officials are pushing for a cut of about $100 million, or 10%, from state jobs programs for young people.

They also hope to reduce “earmarked” labor projects, often derided as pork for the districts of particular lawmakers, by perhaps $75 million or more--a reduction of about 50%. The administration settled on a smaller cut of $25 million, or 9%, for youth opportunity grants aimed at introducing disadvantaged young people to the work force, the observers said.

“We are adamantly opposed to these cuts,” said Neil Bomberg, associate legislative director at the National Assn. of Counties. “At a time when thousands of people are losing their jobs--about every day, it seems--if anything, we have to invest more in the mechanisms that can get them back into the work force.”

But others point out that the cuts may be less dramatic than they seem, coming after a period of dramatic growth. The youth opportunity grants, for example, would in effect return to the spending level of two years ago.

“There’s been an explosion in discretionary spending in the past three years, which is not sustainable,” said Chris Ullman, spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, speaking about the president’s overall spending plan.

In the health care arena, Bush would sharply pare efforts to shore up the safety net for the uninsured.

A Clinton-era grant program of $140 million aimed at helping certain health care providers coordinate care for the uninsured would be eliminated. Instead, the White House would provide the states $20 million to plan access programs for the uninsured, Ullman said.

A program to help train doctors and other health care providers through the National Health Resources and Services Administration would be cut by more than half. The program was funded at $353 million this year and in the first Bush budget will be funded at $140 million. The remaining money will target training for nurses and minorities, Ullman said.

The White House drive to shift control of programs from Washington to the states is also apparent at the Environmental Protection Agency, which has been targeted for an overall cut of $500 million.

In the name of efficiency, the administration plans to shift money to the states to enforce pollution controls, according to Administrator Christie Whitman. “I don’t look on it as a cut of enforcement as much as a redirection,” she said.

The president has proposed a $700-million cut in the overall $19.7-billion Energy Department budget. When the administration details its proposed reductions on Monday, the nearly $1.2-billion energy-efficiency and renewable-energy program is expected to take about a 15% cut, an administration official confirmed. Some critics fear that cuts in specific programs could amount to 40% or more.

At the same time, Bush has proposed a $120-million increase in a program that helps elderly and low-income people insulate homes and reduce utility bills.

Bush aides said they were not abandoning research programs to promote energy efficiency and alternative energy sources. Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said he expected energy-efficiency and alternative-fuels programs to be part of a national energy strategy. “It’s worthwhile,” he said.

The Energy Department budget includes Clinton initiatives to produce 5% of the nation’s electricity by wind by 2020 and to install solar energy systems on 1 million buildings by 2010.

* Times staff writers Eric Lichtblau, Alissa J. Rubin and Elizabeth Shogren contributed to this story.