WASHINGTON - A Senate committee's version of the 2005 budget blueprint for the federal justice system includes nearly $4 million for Utah projects, including creating the state's first higher education program in the science of establishing cause of death and upgrading surveillance equipment to help rural police departments locate methamphetamine labs.

Requested by Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, the projects are included in the $40.5 billion spending bill approved unanimously this week by the Senate Appropriations Committee, of which Bennett is a member. The funds support the next fiscal year's operation of the federal departments of State, Justice and Commerce.

The committee's plan must still pass the full Senate and be reconciled with a House version before becoming law.

In announcing the Utah projects in the bill, Bennett said he is working to address Utah's unwanted position as one of the top five states in the nation for per capita methamphetamine production.

The spending bill includes $1.5 million for meth lab surveillance equipment in Box Elder, Rich, Wasatch, Tooele and Juab counties, plus $900,000 for rural Utah police departments to upgrade communications and technology equipment. Carbon County's drug enforcement program would receive $250,000 for better monitoring of offenders and the Granite School District would get $370,000 to expand an anti-violence program in junior high and elementary schools.

The bill also includes $852,500 to launch a new forensic science degree program at Utah Valley State College, only the second such college-level program in the Mountain West. The other is in Colorado.