The proposed budget for the Energy Department makes deep cuts in programs meant to get more work from a gallon of gas or a kilowatt-hour of electricity, and to make electricity from the wind or sun.

"The taxpayers sent us here to weed out the waste and to address growing problems of energy supply," said Spencer Abraham, the energy secretary. "The weeding begins in this budget."

The budget also cuts money for cleaning up pollution from nuclear weapons production, but adds financing for restoring the nation's capability to make nuclear bombs. The budget request is $19.2 billion, compared with actual expenditures of $19.3 billion this year. Mr. Abraham said the numbers were essentially the same after taking into account a one-time expense in the current year for the department's response to a fire at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

A program spearheaded by Al Gore when he was vice president, the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, would receive $40 million less than the $141.4 million in federal funds it got last year, Mr. Abraham said. Under the current setup contributions similar to the government money come from Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler.

The program's goal is to produce a mid- size sedan that goes three times as far on a gallon of gas, but Mr. Abraham said the research was "really not in focus with where the industry was going," because sedans were being replaced by sport utility vehicles and light trucks.

In fact, while the goal was stated in terms of a sedan, all three manufacturers are now planning light trucks using the research's dominant principle, a mating of internal combustion engines with electric motors. And industry officials say some technologies developed in the course of the program are already in vehicles now in dealer showrooms.

Mr. Bush's budget reduces spending for research in solar, wind and hydroelectric energy by about half, but some spending could be restored in 2004 with money earned by the government from oil leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if drilling is allowed there. The money available for solar research would drop to $42.9 million, from $92.7 million, and wind research would decrease to $20.5 million, from $39.6 million. Advocates for these programs argue that the cuts are inconsistent with Mr. Bush's suggestion that the country is in an energy crisis.

The budget provides $82 million, an increase from $71 million, for "clean coal" technology, although some previous appropriations, which require matching financing from private industry, have gone unspent.

The budget also adds money for weatherizing the homes of the poor. It does not propose to add any oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but it would pay for maintenance of the reserve out of tax dollars, rather than sales of oil, as Congress has approved in some previous years.

The budget would cut spending for "environmental management," or the cleanup of weapons sites, by $354.1 million, leaving $5.91 billion for that purpose.    MATTHEW L. WALD

Environment

Officials at the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency defended President Bush's requests for a combined 5 percent cut from this year's spending levels, saying that they represented reversions to historically normal levels after an unusual surge in environmental spending this year that was due in part to pork- barrel Congressional appropriations and to emergency spending on wildfires.

Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton said the $10 billion request for her department, a reduction of 3.5 percent, was "compassionate in the way it protects our environment and conservative in how it spends taxpayers' money."

In terms of new spending, some of the biggest increases proposed by the administration would try to give the states a bigger role in land conservation programs and in the enforcement of environmental laws. A grant of $450 million, up from $90 million this year, would go to states for programs designed to enhance recreation and conserve wildlife habitat as part of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. A separate grant of $25 million would help to finance state efforts to enforce environmental laws, as part of an E.P.A. effort to shift some of that responsibility from the federal government to the states.

Other big increases would help support initiatives that have alarmed environmentalists: the stepped-up energy exploration the administration is proposing on federal lands, both onshore and offshore. Some $5 million would be set aside for studies intended to make preparations for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by 2004, a goal that is supported by the administration but faces an uphill battle in Congress. At the Bureau of Land Management and the Marine Minerals Management Service, spending related to oil, gas and coal exploration would increase by 19 percent and 12 percent, respectively.

But even those agencies would face significant overall cuts, as would others including the United States Geological Service, whose budget would drop by 8 percent. Overall spending on clean air, clean water, safe food, waste management and other environmental goals would also decline, as would, though only slightly, the money set aside for the reduction of heat- trapping gases that contribute to global warming.

For one program, a Treasury Department fund designed to promote conservation of tropical forests, the administration is proposing $13 million in spending, the same as this year's level. But the figure is considerably less than the $100 million President Bush promised in his fall campaign.

At the E.P.A., whose $7.3 billion budget request includes a 6.4 percent spending cut, Christie Whitman, the agency's administrator, noted that the new figure was still $56 million higher than the Clinton administration's last budget request. For the most part, Mrs. Whitman said, the cuts reflected a carving of Congressionally mandated programs that had "not necessarily been a priority of the agency."   DOUGLAS JEHL 

Transportation

With a grab bag of new safety and security initiatives, the transportation budget would increase 6 percent under the Bush administration's proposal, not counting the special one-time projects added by Congress last year.

The budget proposal is for $59.5 billion, 6 percent higher than last year if the $2.8 billion for the one-time projects is excluded. There is a strong possibility, however, that this year's Congress will find its own one-time projects to support.

The president's budget proposes $1.9 billion for "national security" programs, including seizures of drugs and illegal immigrants, up 5.7 percent from the previous year.

At the Federal Aviation Administration, the budget includes $112 million for equipment and training meant to prevent accidents on runways, up 13 percent from 2001. The money would go for new radar equipment for monitoring surface movements, more work on an automatic system that is supposed to predict when a conflict is going to occur on a runway and further analysis of runway incursions.

In 1999, Congress approved a five-year infusion of money for improvements to airports and other air transportation infrastructure. A budget summary issued today pointed out that the number of passengers in 2000 was 208 million higher than in 1991, "a number nearly equal to the entire population of the United States."

"Given the fact that it is impossible to quickly expand air traffic control capacity, airport capacity and airline capacity," the summary said, "it is not surprising that the result is an increase in the numbers of delays at large airports."

An increase was also scheduled for the budget of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which includes money for developing new tire standards and laboratory tests for measuring the tendency of vehicles to roll over, both mandated by Congress after the discovery of fatal rollover accidents involving Ford Explorers with Firestone tires.

The budget also calls for reducing the federal contribution to mass transit capital projects to 50 percent, from 80 percent. Norman Y. Mineta, the transportation secretary, said today that in recent years the exact percentage had been subject to negotiation, project by project, with every city having to "arm wrestle with the Federal Transit Administration." Lowering the percentage to 50 percent would spread the money more widely and weed out bad projects, Mr. Mineta said.   MATTHEW L. WALD 

Health

Tommy G. Thompson, secretary of health and human services, unveiled a budget today that would provide a big boost to the National Institutes of Health, more money for community health centers and a new prescription drug benefit for the elderly.

But to help meet those priorities and stay within overall spending limits, the budget proposal would shave money from an array of programs, including federal aid for medical training and a program to coordinate care for the uninsured.

"The president's budget is responsive to children and families who need a helping hand, while being responsible to the taxpayers who offer that hand," Mr. Thompson said.

But Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a consumer advocacy group, said, "The president's budget proposal literally shortchanges Americans' health care by providing too little support and reaching too few people."

Rather than using the budget surplus to shore up Medicare and cover the uninsured, Mr. Pollack said, the budget "siphons off billions of dollars for tax reductions."

The Bush budget would provide $156 billion over 10 years to pay for prescription drug benefits and restructuring Medicare. The amount is widely considered inadequate.

Mr. Thompson acknowledged that estimates of the cost differed greatly, but he said the administration was committed to providing the benefits and hoped to help offset their cost with savings from restructuring Medicare.

The department's discretionary spending (outside the entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid) would grow by 5 percent under the Bush proposal, an increase of $2.7 billion over the 2001 fiscal year's. The National Institutes of Health was the major winner in this "redirection of resources," as the budget called the shifting of money among programs. The institutes would get $23.1 billion for the 2002 fiscal year, an increase of $2.75 billion or 13.5 percent.

Mr. Thompson acknowledged some "grumbling" in his department about the amount of money going to the institutes and medical research. But he asked: "What's more important than finding a cure for cancer? What's more important than finding a cure for Alzheimer's?"

The administration's main proposals for the uninsured include the expansion of community health centers, which serve 11 million people, about 4.4 million of them uninsured, and a tax credit to help the uninsured buy coverage in the private market. About 42.5 million Americans do not have health insurance.   ROBIN TONER 

Military

The $310 billion that President Bush proposed for the Department of Defense today amounted to little more than what Pentagon officials said was a rough draft of a final defense budget to be unveiled next month.

Mr. Bush included a promised $1.39 billion increase in military pay and benefits and $2.6 billion for new research and development, but the proposal provided few other details of how he intended to reshape the nation's military.

The president's proposal was so scant on details, in fact, that budget officials from the four armed services did not even bother to stage their traditional budget briefings to outline the effect on weapons production and other programs.

At the Pentagon, officials said Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld would unveil a detailed budget once he completed reviews of the nation's military strategy and structure.

That is now expected around mid-May, which is still enough time for the Congressional debate over appropriations bills and, Pentagon officials believe, for a significant increase in military spending.

The $310 billion budget outlined today largely reflected the last spending projection made by President Bill Clinton, whom Mr. Bush repeatedly criticized during the 2000 campaign as eroding the nation's armed services.

While many other federal agencies faced spending cuts, the proposal for the Department of Defense represented a 4.8 percent increase over its $290 billion budget this year. The increases largely reflected inflation and the pay and research proposals already detailed by Mr. Bush.

The proposal included only one area of significant cuts: spending for the purchase of weapons, which Mr. Bush proposed dropping to $59 billion from $62 billion. Pentagon officials, eager to expand weapons purchases, said the cut should be disregarded and predicted that Mr. Rumsfeld's review would result in a large increase for new weapons.

The overall defense budget also included $14 billion in spending on nuclear weapons by the Department of Energy and another $1.4 billion in other areas of the government, for a total of $325 billion.

The Department of Energy's weapons budget would remain essentially flat, but Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said he planned to re-establish the capacity to produce plutonium pits, a crucial component in nuclear weapons. STEVEN LEE MYERS

State Department

International affairs funding would increase by 5 percent over the 2001 budget under the Bush administration's budget proposal, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said he intended to build more embassies, refurbish old ones and hire more foreign service workers.

The $23.8 billion in international financing includes $731 million to fight the drug trade in South America. Much of the aid will be directed to Colombia, but neighboring countries will also receive considerable assistance to prevent the drug war from spreading into their territories.

Of the total foreign affairs budget, the State Department would receive $7.5 billion, an increase of almost 14 percent over current funding.

The budget calls for the hiring of more than 600 State Department employees, including 186 security personnel to be stationed at embassies around the world. Funding is also set aside to design and construct seven new embassies or consulates. Brazil, China, Indonesia and South Africa are among the possible sites.

The administration is also requesting $151 million to beef up security around 28 vulnerable posts, a program that gained increased urgency after the terrorist bombing of two United States Embassies in East Africa in 1998.

The Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid programs, would receive $7.7 billion, a decrease of $100 million from current funding. Assistance to Egypt and Israel, the two largest recipients of economic support, would decrease. Israel would receive $720 million under the proposed budget, compared with $840 million in the current budget. Egypt's share would drop to $655 million from $692 million.

Ecuador's economic aid would increase significantly, to $30 million under the proposed 2002 budget from $5 million this year. Officials said the money would go to secure Ecuador's northern border, which abuts Colombia, and to help the country with an ongoing economic crisis.

The Export-Import Bank will see its budget shrink from $909 million in the 2001 budget to $687 million.

The State Department budget sets aside $210 million to improve the department's antiquated computer systems. The goal is to provide all employees with Internet access in the next year. Another objective is to provide classified computer linkups at overseas posts.

Secretary Powell, who has vowed to increase morale among State Department employees, said the funding would help revamp and reinvigorate the department.

"The president's budget provides for a major investment in the people, the instruments and the infrastructure of America's foreign policy establishment," he said.   MARC LACEY

Justice

President Bush's proposed budget for the Justice Department would retain but trim a Clinton program to help local governments hire new police officers, increase the federal tariffs on international travelers and provide $180 million for hundreds of new school security officers.

The administration is seeking authority to spend $20.94 billion on Justice Department programs for fiscal 2002, nearly the same as this year's $20.93 billion. Paul McNulty, an acting deputy attorney general, said the proposed budget added about $2 billion in new programs, so sought a corresponding reduction in some programs, mostly from the Clinton era.

The first Justice Department budget under Attorney General John Ashcroft adds some programs in keeping with Mr. Bush's campaign promises on controlling gun violence. The administration is proposing spending $75 million for the first year of a five-year program to pay for the buying and distribution of trigger locks for handguns. Unlike proposals intended to require manufacturers to provide trigger locks, the Bush program would simply make the locks available to people who request them.

Mr. Bush, who also campaigned on the theme that there were sufficient gun laws on the books to curb gun violence if they were enforced, has requested $9 million in additional spending to add 94 new federal prosecutors devoted to that issue.

The administration has also changed the Clinton administration's much-debated Community Oriented Policing Services grant program, which promised to place 100,000 new officers on the streets. Justice Department officials said that the program would be trimmed to about $885 million from $1 billion, and that none of the money would be allotted for hiring new officers.

Instead, the money would allow local police departments to improve their technology. Justice Department officials said that the program has so far put about 70,000 new officers on the streets and that the goal of 100,000 would eventually be realized.

The administration would increase airport fees to pay for immigration inspectors to $7 each time a traveler enters the country from $6 and impose, for the first time, a $3 fee on cruise ship travelers.   NEIL A. LEWIS

Housing

President Bush's proposed $30.4 billion budget for the Department of Housing and Urban Development includes a 6.8 percent increase intended to expand programs for new homeowners and provide better housing for low-income renters.

In presenting the budget, Housing Secretary Mel Martinez announced two new programs that he said were intended to enable more members of minorities to become homeowners.

"The sad fact is only 46 percent of Hispanic and African-American families own their own homes," Mr. Martinez said. "And we must do better."

The first program is a $1.7 billion tax credit over five years to encourage investors to build housing for low-income families. Mr. Martinez said the tax credit could help build 100,000 homes in low-income areas.

The second program is intended to provide low-income families with money for a down payment. The American Dream Fund would provide $1 billion over five years which, HUD officials said, could help 650,000 low-income families to become homeowners.

In addition, the president's budget would add $3 million to church-based and community programs like Habitat for Humanity that build or repair homes for new homeowners.

As promised, the budget includes increases of $197 million for 34,000 more housing vouchers and $150 million to help cover higher utility costs in public housing.

Other proposals include spending $20 million to house 3,700 people living with AIDS and $10 million for a 10-year program to eliminate lead paint hazards in 2.3 million low-income households with children.

The budget discontinues several programs, including the $309 million drug- elimination program for public housing, which had helped pay for policing in public housing compounds. Mr. Martinez said this program duplicated other efforts.

The $25 million rural housing and economic development program was eliminated because officials said it duplicated many Agriculture Department programs.   ELIZABETH BECKER 

Education

The proposed increase for spending on education in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 would be the largest in President Bush's overall budget, 11.5 percent to $44.5 billiion.

While federal dollars make up only 7 percent of the nation's education budget — most of the money comes from local property taxes — President Bush made improving schools a major priority of his campaign.

But Mr. Bush's detractors said today that the president proposed only modest increases in education at a time of swelling enrollment and they criticized him for spending more money on tax cuts than on schools.

About 20 percent of the $44.5 billion in the education budget would go to the country's poorest children through federally funded Title I programs, an increase of 5 percent. A total of $900 million would be set aside for Mr. Bush's reading initiative, which seeks to improve the reading skills of children in kindergarten through third grade.

Mr. Bush hopes to make failing schools more accountable and give parents more "school choice" — including the option of transferring their children from such schools to other public schools, charter institutions or private schools.

To measure a school's standing, he calls for yearly testing in grades 3 to 8, and proposes giving states $320 million to develop those tests. He also recommends consolidating a number of programs and creating a $472 million fund for states to pursue his vision for greater school choice.

Special-education programs would receive an increase of $1 billion, to $7.3 billion. Another $2.6 billion would go to the states for training and recruiting teachers.

Democrats, who were buoyed early on by Mr. Bush's desire to focus on education, expressed deep disappointment today over his proposed budget. "He will not be able to turn around failing schools with his anemic education budget," said Representative George Miller of California, the ranking Democrat on the House education committee.

Other Democrats accused Mr. Bush of overestimating his proposed spending increase on education for next year by underestimating the numbers for this year's education budget.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the ranking Democrat on the Senate education committee, said that the proposed increase was closer to 5.7 percent, far behind this year's 18 percent increase.    LIZETTE ALVAREZ

Agriculture

With foot-and-mouth disease still out of control in Britain, President Bush's agriculture budget would add $32 million to improve inspection at ports and borders to help ensure that the highly infectious animal disease does not spread to this country.

Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman said she would increase financing for the study and eradication of other animal and plant diseases as part of the department's emphasis on protecting American livestock and plants in an era of rapidly growing trade, tourism and immigration. In particular, the secretary said that the budget allocated $5 million for the study of mad cow disease, also in response to the spread of that disease in Europe.

"Given current situations around the world, we need to continue reviewing program needs and take every possible action to strengthen our pest- and disease-prevention systems," Ms. Veneman said. "Increasing personnel at critical ports of entry is an important step."

Money for the additional 262 inspectors is to come from a tax of $3 an airplane ticket for every person arriving in the United States.

Over all, the fiscal 2002 budget for the Department of Agriculture was cut by $6.3 billion, to $63.2 billion. Most of the reductions came from closing or merging some of the 5,600 local offices across the country as well as ending $1.1 billion in programs no longer needed, department officials said, or emergency programs like fire-fighting.

The budget also does not include a bailout plan for farmers who are facing low grain prices again. Last week, the Senate proposed $9 billion in emergency aid for farmers this year, even though Mr. Bush has said that a general contingency fund of nearly $1 trillion could underwrite emergency relief for farmers.

Other increases in the agriculture budget include the food stamp program, which grew $1.4 billion, to $21 billion.

The secretary said she was adding $106.4 million to try to expand overseas markets for American agricultural products, and $21 million for the department's meat inspection program, raising it to $716 million.    ELIZABETH BECKER

Research

The Bush administration's proposed spending on science next year, with the exception of biomedical research, is generally characterized by either flat budgets or small increases that barely keep up with inflation.

NASA would get a modest increase but would have to cancel some programs.

Proposed budgets for most scientific agencies contain some new initiatives, but money for new programs generally comes from reducing existing programs and working within the confines of this year's levels.

The National Science Foundation, which sponsors most of the nation's university research and science education programs, would get a 1.3 percent increase, raising its budget to about $4.5 billion. The agency's money for science and engineering research would increase only 0.5 percent, to $3.3 billion, but its education budget would increase 11 percent to $870 million.

Smaller scientific agencies also saw the same modest proposed increases. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of the Department of Commerce, saw its research spending request increase from $312 million to $347 million, with increases going to materials science and physics programs. The U.S. Geological Survey, the Department of Interior agency that maps the nation and supports land and resource research, would have about a 6 percent budget reduction to $814 million.

NASA's administrator, Daniel S. Goldin, characterized the situation of research agencies today at a budget briefing, saying: "The president has told us that we must live within our means. Doing so will require some difficult decisions."

Under the proposal, NASA would receive a 1.5 percent increase to $14.5 billion, a level that requires canceling several programs, including one that would send a robot craft to Pluto, and stretching out others, like an orbiting infrared telescope. As another belt- tightening measure, Mr. Goldin said the new budget would no longer cover so-called earmarked programs mandated by Congress but not accompanied by extra money.

The budget allots $2.1 billion for the International Space Station, about the same as last year. But it requires NASA to curtail future spending on the project, including canceling planned sections of the station, to absorb an estimated $4 billion in cost overruns expected over the next five years.

Even with these financial constraints, the agency said it would begin about 50 new projects, including research on an aircraft that can change its shape in flight, much like a bird that stretches or contracts its wings and feathers to optimize its performance in the air.   

WARREN E. LEARY - The New York Times - April 10, 2001