While President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget proposal is headlining the news today, a coalition of conservation and environmental groups has offered its own approach to federal spending when it comes to the environment, one that would focus on coping with climate change, developing clean energy, and protecting natural resources.

The 17 groups, which range from the American Hiking Society and American Rivers to The Wilderness Society and the World Wildlife Fund, recognize the tough economic times the country currently is facing. But they also believe strategic funding could not only improve the environment but also help move the economy forward.

Providing these critical funds for important energy, water, marine, and natural resource programs will be no easy task as budget deficits and unemployment continue to rise while our country fights two wars in the Middle East. The solutions to our country’s recession require economic reforms and the creation of new jobs. Our outdated energy policies and accelerated global warming add additional challenges. However, they also provide a solution. As President Obama said during his speech at the recent climate summit in Copenhagen, “We are convinced that changing the way that we produce and use energy is essential to America’s economic future – that it will create millions of new jobs, power new industry, keep us competitive, and spark new innovation.”

In addition to enacting meaningful climate legislation, the government must take care of existing programs. Programs that protect the nation’s air, water, wildlife, and communities and support a safe and healthy environment were cut drastically during the previous Administration. These devastating cuts must continue to be reversed to provide necessary environmental protections. These investments also provide an additional opportunity to address infrastructure needs, grow our economy and put people back to work.

When it comes to national parks, the groups point to the value the park system serves when it comes to endangered species, protecting archaeological sites, and historic preservation. With the National Park Service's centennial arriving in 2016, investment in the parks not only will help the system overall, but also contribute to economic revitalization in gateway communities, the groups say. Funding priorities for the parks in the green group's budget include:

* A Park Service budget totaling $2.4 billion, an increase of $140 million over the FY2010 appropriation.

The National Park Service (NPS) protects and preserves the nation‘s most treasured natural and cultural resources. Providing the NPS with a strong operating budget is critical to enabling the agency to protect these resources and provide visitor services and education at the 392 units of the National Park System. Congress has responded with consistent increases in the ONPS account of $100 million above inflation. The result is that the operations shortfall has decreased from $800 million to less than $600 million over the period. This trend must be maintained in order to extinguish the operations shortfall by 2016.

* $573 million towards the $9.2 billion backlog in maintenance across the park system, an increase of $340 million over the current $233 appropriation.

At the start of FY 09, the deferred maintenance backlog was an estimated $9.2 billion. At current levels of investment, the backlog will continue to increase in perpetuity. Within this mammoth deferred maintenance backlog lies a core of projects that are vital to the continued function of parks across the country and the health and safety of park staff and the visiting public. These ―critical systems include building roofs, plumbing and piping, safety systems and the pavement that covers many park roads.

* $50 million for use in attracting private dollars, on a dollar-for-dollar basis, for investment in the parks.

(This is a vestige of the Bush administration's "Centennial Challenge," a program that envisioned a $3 billion investment in the parks by 2016.)

Creative, productive partnerships greatly benefit the Park Service. The process of joining philanthropic resources with federal funds in a planned, system-wide program has proven challenging but no less valuable for NPS and for its many philanthropic partners. The program was originally conceived at $100 million per year in philanthropic contributions matched against $100 million in federal funds. Thanks to Congress, the first year of the program saw $25 million in federal funds matched against another $25 million in philanthropic contributions. One of the program‘s challenges has been matching the pace of the federal budget process with the pace of interested foundations and charities.

* $25 million for climate change work, an increase of $15 million for FY2010.

NPS has a critical responsibility both to park resources and to the general public in the area of climate change. The parks are uniquely positioned as a point of communication, as living classrooms, as models for climate and energy innovation, all creating a focus for the public on the impact of climate change upon cultural and natural resource environment. In addition, the Park Service is differentiated from USGS in that NPS is focused on monitoring changes and applying science on the ground, rather than providing research services. Funding is badly needed to provide the appropriate resources to the agency to continue building its climate change monitoring capacity, develop land, water and wildlife adaptation strategies and fund the agency‘s basic response capacity.

* $20 million towards removal of the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams in Olympic National Park.

The Glines Canyon and Elwha dams located inside Olympic National Park in Washington state have nearly wiped out once abundant salmon and steelhead trout populations in the Elwha River, fisheries to which the Elwha Klallam Tribe are guaranteed rights in perpetuity through an 1855 treaty agreement. In 1992, Congress approved federal purchase of the dams and directed the Department of the Interior to study how the river and native fisheries could be completely restored. DOI reported that only dam removal could fully restore the ecosystem. Removal of the two Elwha dams will restore salmon access to the Elwha River‘s wilderness heart in the Olympic National Park for the first time in 100 years. This dam removal will produce a landmark in river restoration for our national parks and an unprecedented opportunity to study a large dam removal and its impact on the river and wild salmon populations.

The green groups also cite various ways of how to generate savings for the federal government. Among them are:

* Removing the tertiary injection deduction oil companies can claim related to "any cost or expense for advanced oil recovery." Ending the deduction would save $62 million over nine years, according to the budget.

* Repeal of the "Ultra-deepwater drilling research and development subsidy," a subsidy that benefits "an oil consortium in former-Representative Tom DeLay’s home district of Sugarland, TX," the groups said. Such a repeal would generate $210 million in savings.

* Repeal of a tax break "created in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (that) allows companies to deduct the costs associated with searching for oil." Repeal would generate $1.2 billion in savings over nine years, according to the green groups.

* "Require fair market returns to taxpayers for extraction of publicly owned minerals. A gross royalty of 4 percent on existing mines and eight percent on future mines could raise $30.0 million annually in FY 11, based on Congressional Budget Office mineral estimates."

* Stop subsidies to "Concentrated Animal Farming Operations," a move that would save $500 million over the next five years.

You can find the entire budget and its contents at this site.