Editorial: Wrong place to cut the budget

Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007 | 7:02 a.m.

A federal panel has concluded that the government's ability to monitor and understand changes in climate and the environment is hindered by drastic budget cuts and delays in developing new technology to observe such changes.

According to a story by the Washington Post on Tuesday, a two-year study by the National Academy of Sciences shows that NASA's earth sciences budget, which increased during the 1990s, has been slashed 30 percent since 2000. It will continue to face cuts as the agency prepares for a manned mission to Mars, for which President Bush has called.

The study also reveals that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has faced huge cost overruns and delays in launching a satellite system that is to provide state-of-the-art global weather monitoring capabilities.

The result is that the federal government will not have the ability to adequately analyze such trends as drought, increased hurricane intensity, deforestation, declining fish populations and changes in sea ice.

Bush, who has always been reluctant to publicly acknowledge the link between greenhouse-gas emissions and climate change, seems bent on remaining ignorant.

But this is no time for budget cuts to these programs. Federal scientists say 2006 was the warmest year on record in the United States. We need to know more, rather than less, about what that means.

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