White House proposes EPA cuts, clean energy and conservation increases -- By Zack Colman, The Washington Examiner

President Obama moved more money into his climate-change priorities in his fiscal 2015 budget proposal, although the Environmental Protection Agency overall would receive less money.

The EPA would see spending bumps in areas key to implementing Obama's climate agenda, which has involved a suite of executive actions such as proposed greenhouse gas emissions limits on power plants. Grants to states and native tribes, for example, would increase by $76 million, up to $1.1 billion, which includes a $20 million fund to help those entities comply with the president's climate plan.

The EPA budget also includes funds for the $1 billion "climate resiliency fund" that Obama proposed last month, a program that will stretch across several agencies. The fund, which would be designed to help communities adapt to extreme weather events associated with climate change, would require congressional approval.

But overall, Obama would give the EPA $7.9 billion, a $300 million drop from last year's proposal.

Of the proposed cuts, $581 million would come through reductions to a state grant program for water infrastructure projects. The president's budget also calls for moving the EPA toward an electronic-based management system to coordinate grants and other efforts with states, which it estimates would save $75 million. Other savings would come through restructuring to "reflect the current era of data-driven analysis," the budget proposal said.

Meanwhile, spending for the Energy Department would rise by 2.6 percent, to $27.9 billion.

On the energy side of the agency — about half its budget is dedicated to nuclear non-proliferation — research funds would see an increase, while Obama took shots at fossil fuels.

The president repeated a call for ending $4 billion of annual tax incentives awarded to the oil and gas industry. And his budget would arm the Fossil Energy Research and Development program with $476 billion, which is $86 million less than 2014 enacted levels.

On clean energy, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy program, which seeks to fund breakthrough technology, would get $325 million, which is $51 million more than last year's proposal. And the DOE's Office of Science would get more than $5 billion to fund basic research.

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