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Press Briefing by Tony Snow 2/07/07 (Topic: Budget)
— Thursday, February 08, 2007 — Q Tony, I'm curious about this Centennial Parks Initiative. This is a time of very tight budget constraints; even programs like Children's Health Insurance got only the smallest of increases. I'm wondering what brought on this sort of sudden bout of conservationism and a big increase for parks. MR. SNOW: Sheryl, you haven't been watching. You're talking about a $1-billion federal increase with a $1-billion matching grant. By the way, your characterization of CHIPS, the budget right now is $5 billion. It's going to be increased by -- we're putting $4.8 billion into it over the next five years. That is not an insubstantial increase. As a matter of fact, it's a significant one. Furthermore, there is a real focus right now on making sure that you're dealing with poor Americans. Q -- talking about the parks -- MR. SNOW: No, the first thing we've got to do is to talk about the assumption of the question, because it was an argumentative assumption that I think is worth at least trying to pick apart, as well. The President has been committed to conservationism since the beginning of this administration. Last year, for instance, we set aside the largest natural wildlife reserve on the face of the Earth. This is not new. Just as many people have been saying, wow, isn't the President -- isn't it nice that the President has finally agreed that global warming has manmade components, only to find out, because we've been telling you, that he first started talking about it in June of 2001. There's been a lot of misreporting, or perhaps it just hasn't -- perhaps folks have not taken notice of the fact that this is an administration that's been keenly committed, both to environmentalism and conservationism from the start. This is important -- this is also a plan to work on the national parks over a 10-year period. So what we're talking about is $1 billion over 10 years for the centennial of the U.S. Park Service, which will -- it seems to me that that's a pretty reasonable down payment. Q Well, you raise that point about reporting on the President's environmental record. People are starting to say, is George Bush waking up to the environment? MR. SNOW: Well, the fact is -- actually, the question is, are reporters waking up to his five-year record? The answer is, the long national slumber may be approaching an end. White House Press Corps | Press Briefing | Tony Snow | News Media | Bush Administration | Budget
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 12:05 AM
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