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Earth Night

M-E-M-O-R-A-N-D-U-M

To: Budget Conference Committee
Chairman Therese Murray
Chairman John Rogers
Senator Stephen Panagiotakos
Senator Michael Knapik
Representative Peter Larkin
Representative Vinny deMacedo

From: Appalachian Mountain Club, Charles River Watershed Assocation, Environmental League of Massachusetts, Organization for the Assabet River, Saugus River Watershed Council

Date: June 11, 2003

RE: Environmental Budget Items

From the start of this budget season, we have followed the funding discussions closely, providing input along the way, and alerting citizens around the commonwealth about the potential impacts of the various FiscalYear 2004 budget proposals. Our members care deeply about the health of Massachusetts' land, air, and water. They count on the legislature to continue the commonwealth's tradition of strong public health protections. And they look to you for protection of our resources even in tough fiscal times.

Below we review the primary areas of disagreement between the House and Senate on environmental spending and policy in the line items, outside sections, and reorganization of environmental agencies and our recommendations. We hope that this will be useful to you as you develop a consensus budget for FY2004.

Budget Line Items

Line Item 2220-2221
This line item funds implementation of the Clean Air Act (CAA) with federally mandated requirements for permitting, inspections, and program implementation. The state is required by that law to charge fees that fully fund the program, and the state must carefully track the fee schedule and its ability to cover CAA implementation at the Department of Environmental Protection. We are already falling behind, with the removal of ambient air monitors around the Commonwealth. We urge you to fund this line item at the level set by the House, $ 2,079,377.

Line Item 2260-8881
Board of Registration of Hazardous Waste Site Cleanup Professionals (the LSP Board), a small state agency that licenses and disciplines professionals who oversee the cleanup of hazardous waste sites in Massachusetts. This six-person agency is an integral part of the state's program to ensure that contaminated properties are cleaned up to safe levels. Our oversight of the hazardous waste site cleanup professionals is crucial to maintaining the credibility of the Commonwealth's privatized hazardous waste cleanup program. The Senate, during floor debates, maintained the status quo for the LSP Board by funding it at $347,683. This will allow the Board to continue its important work helping to return contaminated land to productive use with adequate environmental and public health protections.

Line Item 2650-0100/2030-1000
The Environmental Police force has been consistently underfunded for several years, to the point that they are more than 28 positions short and have little in the way of dependable equipment. We urge you to fund this line item at the higher level voted by the House of $10,086,175.

Line Item 2610-0301
We urge the Committee to include a separate line item for the commonwealth's Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program. The House funded this program at a level a full 25 percent lower than FY2002. This should be the minimum funding for this line item.

Department of Conservation and Recreation Funding
The commonwealth's park system has not shrunk, the number of visitors has not decreased, the metropolitan parks have not rehabilitated themselves - and so a consolidation of the Department of Environmental Management and the Metropolitan District Commission should not be funded at levels significantly lower than those in the past. We urge you to look closely to determine the real savings gained by the merger, and to do your best to maintain level funding for on-the-ground work in our forests and parks.

Outside Sections

Bills requiring additional cost-benefit analyses have been turned down by the Committee on Natural Resources many times in the past. It has always been, and still is, a bad idea. The measure adopted by the House (Amendment 275) should not be part of the final FY04 budget.

We have grave concerns about House outside section 454 which would lower the bond cap from $1.2 billion annually to $800 million. Given that $400 million of the state's capital spending must be dedicated to pre-existing transportation commitments, this decrease really translates into a cut of 50% for all other bond spending. This decrease in the bond cap would be disastrous and would undermine to a great degree the environmental bond bill that the legislature passed last session.

We are opposed to the measure adopted by the House that facilitates future selling of naming rights to our state parks (Amendment 203).

We commend the House for its decision to include a provision directing the environmental agencies to apply for national historic site designation of the metropolitan parks system.

Finally, we are pleased that both the House and Senate passed provisions that allow the state to deny grants or contracts to repeat violators of environmental laws (House Amendment 84 and Senate Floor Amendment 455, Sections 50K and 50L). The Senate went further in its effort to deter future civil and criminal violations of environmental laws by increasing penalties. We urge the Committee to include these provisions in the final budget.

Reorganization proposals

In terms of agency reorganization, we strongly support outside section 16 of the Senate budget which establishes growth management goals and policies for the Commonwealth and a commonwealth development coordinating council, and Senator Lees' amendment 503 which establishes an Executive Office for Commonwealth Development for the purposes of protecting, improving and ensuring sustainable development and utilization of the natural and built environment, and of coordinating the environmental, transportation, housing and community development and energy policies and programs of the Commonwealth. These are important steps in ensuring that the Commonwealth promotes economic development while not sacrificing environmental quality or our quality of life.

Specifically, in terms of the proposed reorganization of the environmental agencies, we generally support the Senate version of the reorganization. Our concerns with the House version of the agency reorganization include the following:

• The role of the new Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) in terms of land acquisition and protection is unclear in the House proposal. Currently, both the Department of Environmental Management and the Metropolitan District Commission (which would be merged to form the DPR) have outstanding land acquisition programs. However, in the House version, it appears that land preservation would now be part of the responsibilities of a newly formed Division of Food, Agriculture and Land Preservation under a new Dept. of Conservation and Agriculture. The land protection community feels strongly that the land acquisition and protection mission of the park agencies' work needs to be continued and that land acquisition in both urban and non-urban communities is critical.
• While we support the merging of the DEM and MDC, it is unclear how the House's proposal differs from the status quo, except for a new Board and name change. We heartily endorse the concept of a Stewardship Council included in the Senate's budget with some members nominated by a number of environmental organizations that would act as an independent body and provide much needed oversight and transparency in agency decisionmaking.
• In the House budget, responsibility for our forests will be moved from DEM to the new Division of Food, Agriculture and Land Preservation. We are concerned about this transfer of responsibility and urge you to keep the forests and parks system intact. Several of our state forests also serve the recreational needs of the public and in addition to our concern that forests not be viewed solely as a commodity -- but also as important habitat -- we believe it will be difficult to cleanly make a distinction between forests and recreation lands.

We do support the House's language which would require the development of management plans for all state forests and parks.

We also support moving environmental law enforcement to the office of the Secretary of Environmental Affairs as contained in the Senate budget. However, we urge that the legislature keep the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife as a stand alone Department on a par with a merged parks agency. The missions of the parks' agencies and the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife are markedly different and do not lend themselves to being under the same management umbrella. Unfortunately, both the House and Senate versions of the budget would eliminate a separate Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. The Senate chose to locate the Department as a Division in the Department of Conservation and Recreation and the House chose to locate it as a Division under the Department of Conservation and Agriculture.

Thank you for your consideration.