WASHINGTON – A congressional subcommittee led by Rep. Norm Dicks of Belfair provided $15 million in federal funding Wednesday as a “down payment” to help clean up Puget Sound.

The money was included in a $27.6 billion spending bill approved by the House interior appropriations subcommittee, the first produced by the panel since Dicks became its chairman earlier this year when Democrats took control of Congress.

The measure also sets up a $65 million program to repair deteriorating Forest Service roads in environmentally sensitive areas. Washington state will have to compete with other states for that funding.

Washington officials estimate the state needs $300 million over the next 10 years to fix old logging roads that are threatening to wash out, impeding efforts to restore dwindling salmon runs in the rivers and streams flowing into Puget Sound.

The congressional subcommittee’s action comes weeks after the Washington Legislature agreed to spend $226 million over the next two years to rehabilitate Puget Sound and restore salmon runs. The funding is part of a Puget Sound cleanup initiative launched by Gov. Chris Gregoire that could cost $8 billion between now and 2020.

With the Puget Sound area projected to grow by another 1 million residents over the next decade, problems are mounting.

Salmon, steelhead and orcas are protected under the Endangered Species Act. An estimated 80 percent of the Sound’s estuary habitat has disappeared. Storm runoff and seepage from failing septic systems add to the mix of toxic and unhealthy chemicals already polluting the Sound.

During the current fiscal year, Congress provided $1 million to the Environmental Protection Agency, mostly to study pollution problems in the Sound. The White House requested $1 million for the coming fiscal year.

“It’s a down payment, a start,” Dicks said of the $15 million his subcommittee approved.

The money comes from a national program that provides cleanup funding for Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes and Long Island Sound. Eventually, Dicks would like to provide the same level of cleanup funding for Puget Sound – the second largest estuary in the country – as the Chesapeake Bay and Great Lakes receive, between $25 million and $30 million annually.

Overall, the interior appropriations bill approved by the committee provides almost $1.2 billion more than current funding levels and almost $2 billion more than the White House requested. The bill funds the Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Smithsonian.

In defending the funding levels, Dicks said that since 2001 the budget for the Interior Department and its agencies has been cut by 16 percent, and the EPA budget has been sliced by 29 percent.

The 4.5 percent increase in funding for those agencies and others within the subcommittee’s jurisdiction were overdue, Dicks said.

“We have been hammered,” Dicks said. “This is a good bill, and I can justify every dollar in it.”

Republicans on the subcommittee called the bill’s spending levels “excessive.”

The White House has threatened to veto any bill that exceeds its spending proposals.

“Too little money can do real harm. So can too much money,” said Kansas Rep. Todd Tiahrt, the top Republican on the subcommittee, adding the increased funding in the bill was “unnecessary and unsustainable.”

Spending bill At a glance

A bill approved by Rep. Norm Dicks’ interior appropriations subcommittee would:

 • Provide more than $8 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency, or $361 million more than current funding and almost $890 million more than the president requested.

 • Provide $10.1 billion to the Interior Department and such agencies as the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the National Park Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. That’s $262 million more than current levels and $454 million more than the president requested.

 • Give $2.5 billion to the National Park Service, which should allow for the hiring of 3,000 summer employees and 1,000 full-time employees including at Mount Rainier, Olympic and North Cascades national parks.

 • Provide $160 million in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, which is $35 million more than current levels and $32 million more than the president requested.

 • Create a temporary Commission on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation that would be chaired by the head of the National Science Foundation to explore how to adapt to a warming planet.

Les Blumenthal: 202-383-0008

lblumenthal@mcclatchydc.com