madam chairman , i thank the distinguished ranking member of the subcommittee for yielding me this time . 
madam chairman , we all recognize that the committee on appropriations must work within the constraints of a budget that is completely inadequate to meet the nation 's needs . 
i acknowledge that . 
but the fiscal year 2006 interior and environment appropriation bill also reflects the kinds of choices made in recent years by this administration and the majority in congress , which made this clash of growing needs and shrinking budgets unavoidable . 
the effect is that the department of the interior and our other departments and agencies are being put on a crazy fad diet that is harmful to the health of the nation . 
i am troubled , for example , by the continued underfunding of maintenance needs to our national parks . 
the committee has seen fit to provide $ 20 million over the president 's request for operations , an increase i support , but our national parks should be safe places , where parents and children can roam and relax , where they can picnic and hike and raft . 
instead , our parks are falling apart , and against a huge backlog of maintenance needs , this bill cuts funds for park construction projects , a critical component of our park maintenance efforts . 
forest service programs that help to promote safety and job creation in rural america are also underfunded in this bill . 
economic action programs , which enable rural communities and businesses to become more economically self-sufficient through the use of forest resources were zeroed out . 
the situation here goes well beyond trimming fat . 
we can talk all we want about the need for a lean government , but this is not belt tightening , as some would suggest . 
this is more like being shoved into scarlet o'hara 's corset . 
the president eliminated statewide funding for the land and water conservation fund in his budget . 
those monies are indispensable to states across the nation that rely on those matching monies for their parks and recreation budgets . 
but while the president may have conducted a tummy tuck , this bill calls for something close to an amputation . 
even the federal share is axed . 
i am especially troubled by the flat lining of the appropriation from the abandoned mine reclamation fund . 
there continues to exist a large inventory of high priority human health and safety threatening sites in our nation 's coalfields . 
the unspent balance in the fund is approaching $ 2 billion , yet this money from a fee assessed on the coal industry is not being adequately deployed to combat these threats to coalfield citizens and their communities . 
madam chairman , this bill is not a case of an overweight agency being squeezed into a slimmer , trimmer budget . 
this is a case of a starving agency trying to survive on the crumbs of a fiscal mess . 
i regret that i can not support this bill . 
