Obama’s budget good for Calif. parks, wildlife areas
By Michael Doyle, McClatchy Washington Bureau
California would get its share, and then some, from the Obama administration’s $4 trillion budget proposal delivered Monday to a skeptical, Republican-controlled Congress.
There’s money for restoring the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which is likely to survive congressional winnowing. Proposed upgrades at places including Yosemite National Park probably will find Capitol Hill favor, as well, along with funding for Central Valley flood control and dam improvements.
The budget, for instance, would offer $3.5 million to complete the Army Corps of Engineers’ design and engineering studies for protecting the Sacramento area’s Natomas Basin. It would provide tens of millions of dollars to upgrade Folsom Dam northeast of Sacramento and improve the safety of the earthen Isabella Dam in eastern Kern County. These projects enjoy bipartisan support.
But the president’s budget includes more fanciful proposals, including some familiar spending cuts and fee increases that invariably fail. A renewed proposal to eliminate the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, for instance, would cut federal reimbursements for prisons and jails that incarcerate undocumented immigrants.