To Protect Climate Money, Obama Stashed It Where Its Hard to Find

[babylonsister]

and


To Protect Climate Money, Obama Stashed It Where It’s Hard to Find
by Christopher Flavelle
March 15, 2017, 5:00 AM EDT March 15, 2017, 11:42 AM EDT


President Donald Trump will find the job of reining in spending on climate initiatives made harder by an Obama-era policy of dispersing billions of dollars in programs across dozens of agencies -- in part so they couldn’t easily be cut.

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"Given the relationship that existed with Congress on the issue of climate change, you will not readily find many programs that are entitled ‘climate change,’" Hill, who is now a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, said in an interview. At the Department of Defense, for example, anything with the word climate would have been "a target in the budget process," she said.

The range of climate programs is vast, stretching across the entire government.

The Department of Agriculture created "climate hubs" to help farmers and ranchers cope with extreme weather. The Department of Health and Human Services began analyzing the effects of climate change on occupational safety. The Bureau of Reclamation started a program called "West-Wide Climate Risk Assessments," measuring changes to water supply and demand. The Bureau of Indian Affairs created the Tribal Climate Resilience Program. The Agency for International Development created a program to help "glacier-dependent mountain areas" deal with the risk of those glaciers melting.

In other cases, agencies expanded existing programs to account for global warming. In 2012, the Federal Highway Administration made climate-adaptation projects eligible for federal aid. Last year, the Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded $1 billion through its Community Development Block Grant program to projects protecting against climate change-related natural disasters.

Meanwhile, a handful of lesser-known offices saw their funding increase while Obama was in office. The budget for NASA’s Earth Science program increased 50 percent, to $1.8 billion. Funding for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which is mandated by Congress to report every four years on the state of climate change, rose 45 percent to $2.6 billion. At the National Science Foundation, the geosciences program almost doubled to $1.3 billion.


more...

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-03-15/cutting-climate-spending-made-harder-by-obama-s-budget-tactics

[Tanuki]

1. I wish this had stayed under the radar. Now that the incumbent sociopaths

know where there are covert funds aimed at saving our civilization and our planet, they will come with a machete.

[blm]

2. This is where it shows how well-advised he was by his most trusted allies -

especially Biden and Kerry.

[lostnfound]

3. I'm sure it's not just for budget but avoids group think... fresh ideas from different disciplines

And the planting of seeds widely