At the same time, the budget proposes deep cuts to grants for community programs for the homeless and disadvantaged and a significant reduction in funding to counties with large amounts of federal land in their borders.
"It's tough to rein in spending, but we have to do it," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a statement. "I may not agree with everything the president's proposing, but he's got the right idea. He's focusing on key priorities and holding the line on everything else."
Some Utah officials, however, were concerned how the cuts, merely proposals now, could hurt people.
Jean Nielsen, director of Salt Lake County's Human Services Department, said she figures the reductions will mean $300,000 less for community grants that will hurt homeless shelters, low-income housing and food pantries in the state's most populous county.
"These cuts are impacting the people who are the most vulnerable," Nielsen said. "They don't have any other resources. There's nowhere else for them to go."
The county also will lose $350,000 in its youth programs, such as emergency shelters for children in cases of neglect.
Bush's funding cuts put further strain on the troubled relationship between the federal government and Utah, a leader in a growing backlash against the president's No Child Left Behind act.
"The promise was greater dollars and greater expectations," State Schools Superintendent Patti Harrington said. "They're breaking the promise."
The Education Department would get $54.4 billion for discretionary spending in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. That would amount to a cut of $3.7 billion, or 6.4 percent, from this year.
"It pretty much wiped out our Comprehensive School Reform Grant," which funds outside coaching to improve student achievement in several schools in Ogden, Harrington said. The state's efforts to create English language instruction programs for adults also were gutted by the cuts along with Even Start, an early-childhood preparation program in high-poverty areas.
The president proposed $198 million for the Payment-in-Lieu-of-Taxes program, created to compensate rural counties for property taxes lost because of large amounts of federal land in their borders. Congress approved $236 million last year.
Rep. Chris Cannon, a Utah Republican and chairman of the House Western Caucus, called the PILT funding level "totally inappropriate."
He said states were meant to control the federal lands but, "By keeping them, we're starving the counties. If you're not going to pay for it, then turn them over to the states."
The full funding of the commuter rail grant is a huge boost to the planned 44-mile commuter rail between northern Weber County and Salt Lake City.
The line is about 10 percent complete but is expected to cost some $581 million. The president proposed $80 million for the project for fiscal year 2007, and an additional $9 million to repay the state for its expenses.
Bush also proposed $500,000 for an extension of the Salt Lake Valley's light rail system in the western part of Salt Lake County.
The president also is pushing for a $26 million increase for the Bureau of Land Management's oil and gas program, an increase of nearly 30 percent over the 2006 funding.
"They're going to rename that agency the Bureau of Oil and Gas Development," said Dave Alberswerth, a public lands expert with The Wilderness Society. "There's no corner of the public domain that they don't think deserves an oil and gas rig on it."
The BLM expects to process nearly 12,000 applications to drill on federal land, a little more than three times the 3,892 that were processed in 2000.
Military programs that impact Utah would be cut slightly under the president's budget, though no major reductions were proposed.
The delegation cheered the budget lines for the F-22s and F-35 fighter jets; the proposal actually would increase the number of F-22s. The spending plan, though, capped the number for the C-17 Globemaster program at 188 planes, a move that impacts Boeing's Salt Lake City operations. The delegation had pushed for 220 planes.
Some of the highlights that would
impact the Beehive State:
l Full funding of an $80 million grant by the Federal Transit Authority for commuter rail line in northern Utah;
l A major cut to the Community Development Block Grant program that could leave the homeless and less fortunate without some programs;
l A $26 million increase in funding to help process oil and gas permits in the West and an additional $3 million to help develop oil shale deposits in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, a resource proponents say could yield millions of barrels of usable fuel;
l A boost to the number of F-22 Raptor jets and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters for the Air Force, jets that will be serviced at Hill Air Force Base;
l A reduction in the number of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, from 500 to 450, which are maintained at the Ogden Air Logistics Center;
l A significant reduction in the Payment-in-Lieu-of-Taxes program, created to compensate rural counties for property taxes lost because of large amounts of federal land in their borders. Congress approved $236 million last year; the president proposed $198 million.
