madam chairman , i yield myself 6 minutes . 
first of all , i want to thank the gentleman from north carolina ( chairman taylor ) for his commendable work for putting together this interior , environment and related agencies appropriations bill for next year . 
this bill is basically good , considering the budget allocation that our subcommittee received . 
as always , the chairman and his staff have included me in the process of putting together the bill , and for that i am very appreciative . 
such cooperation is a hallmark of the interior subcommittee , and it is the chairman who sets the tone . 
while the bill we are considering today represents hard work all around , i must note that it falls short of properly funding many programs . 
the reason for this failure is the inadequate budget allocation we have . 
the shortfall compared to the 2005 interior bill adds up to more than $ 800 million . 
as you know , this is the first year that the interior subcommittee has funded the epa , and what a challenge it is proving to be with the president 's budget proposing a cut of more than $ 500 million from last year . 
these are very deep holes to fill . 
let me switch to a positive note by praising the decision by the administration and the chairman to fully fund uncontrollable costs such as pay colas and rent . 
now , this may sound like just a matter of fact , but it makes all of the difference in the world in our national parks on whether they can operate properly . 
over the last few years the administration has been proposing unrealistically low funding levels to pay for these uncontrollable costs . 
this year the budget did include the funding to meet these costs , and i applaud the chairman for including them in the bill , and i hope that the administration will continue to propose full coverage of uncontrollable costs in future budget submittals . 
i also want to express my gratitude to the gentleman from north carolina ( chairman taylor ) for the continued effort to increase funding for the operation of our national parks . 
i think we have a great team to make sure that the national parks , certainly the most beloved of our federal public lands , receive enough money to provide our constituents the visit they expect and deserve . 
the $ 30 million the gentleman from north carolina ( chairman taylor ) has added to the $ 22 million increase contained in the budget will mean a second consecutive year of very healthy increases in the park service operations budget , and i want to pledge to continue to help my chairman to make sure that the park service partnership program stays on track towards better management . 
the biggest concern that i have in this bill is the reduction in spending for clean water activities . 
first , i must commend the chairman for his decision 2 weeks ago to agree to add an extra $ 100 million to the clean water state revolving fund from unobligated epa funds from previous years . 
but even with this additional funding , the clean water revolving fund will be $ 240 million lower than this year . 
if you compare the proposed funding in 2006 to the level in 2004 , there is a decrease of nearly $ 500 million in just 2 years . 
i know that many of you are hearing from your state and local officials about the effect this cut will have on plans to construct and improve water treatment facilities . 
the federal government should not be retreating in this fashion from such an important responsibility . 
for that reason i am going to support an amendment to increase funding for the clean water state revolving fund . 
i must also register my disagreement with the decision to continue to retreat from the commitment made in 2000 to increase funding for the conservation trust fund . 
if the lands legacy conservation agreement was being followed , this bill would have $ 1.8 billion for the various conservation activities under our jurisdiction . 
instead the bill contains only $ 750 million . 
i wish this bill did not contain the president 's proposal to eliminate funding for the land and water conservation fund stateside grants program . 
i also disagree with the decision to provide no money for land acquisition within the land and water conservation fund , but i do sympathize that those decisions were tough due to the situation our allocation has caused . 
core programs , such as agency operations , must come before grant programs such as these . 
even though the awful fiscal situation we are faced with is the direct cause of these decisions , i do hope that we can better meet the obligations of the lands legacy agreement when we ultimately finish the 2006 interior and environment bill . 
it is gratifying to note that we seem to have come to a consensus on funding on the nea and the neh , in that this bill provides level funding compared to this year . 
i again will be joining with what i predict will be a majority of my colleagues in support of an amendment to increase both of these endowments . 
last year the interior subcommittee made a wise decision to be better prepared for the cost of firefighting . 
we provided $ 500 million for both fiscal year 2004 and 2005 in emergency funding to prevent the painful borrowing from other interior and forest service programs that has occurred in past years when more fires than were expected depleted the annual firefighting budget . 
although neither the president 's budget nor this bill contains such contingency funding for 2006 , there is an increase of $ 120 million over the nonemergency spending level in fiscal year 2005 . 
i hope this is sufficient to meet the challenge of what could be a busy fire season with estimates of higher than average threats in several areas of the country , including washington state and the northwest . 
i also agree with the decision to restore some of the cuts in the budget to the indian school and construction account . 
even with this added money , this bill contains a cut of $ 75 million to those important programs , and it is important that we are freezing the funding level for the indian trust accounting program . 
i believe we should not spend money at the expense of other indian programs on a historical accounting exercise that can not produce the desired results . 
again , i want to thank the gentleman from north carolina ( chairman taylor ) and his great staff , led by debbie weatherly for their hard work on the 2006 interior and environment appropriations bill . 
i also want to commend mike stephens on mr. obey 's staff and pete modaff of my staff for their part in helping to put together this bill . 
i hoped we could do better , but this is a difficult situation that we are in , and i appreciate the cooperation , the bipartisan spirit in which this bill was created . 
madam chairman , i reserve the balance of my time . 
