U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, pledged his support and signature today to a series of budget amendments intended to fight chronic wasting disease.
The amendments, proposed by U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., and attached to the 2003 Interior Appropriations Bill, require that $3 million be appropriated for research into the disease and $4 million for technical resources and personnel training.
\I am pleased to join Senator Wellstone's efforts to secure funding to fight chronic wasting disease,"" said Feingold, who cosigned the bill. ""The senate must not let the Interior bill go by without addressing CWD.""
In recent months, CWD has been found in both Wisconsin's domesticated deer herds and wild populations. CWD infects the brain of the deer, causing fatal, mad cow-like symptoms. It has not yet been linked to similar ailments in humans, but officials are not taking any chances. The Department of Natural Resources has slaughtered more than 1,000 deer in its efforts to determine infection ratios and eliminate the disease from wild populations.
Once passed, the bill's funds will be held by the Department of the Interior, which will then distribute them to states applying for grants. The bill's success is not likely to be hindered by the amendments, which reallocate funds rather than ask for more. Senators of states suffering from chronic wasting disease, however, may look more favorably on the bill.
The proposed $7 million is a significant increase from the previous $2.7 million offered by the House bill, but far less than the $17 million President Bush decided to withhold from the states allocated in a previous bill.
In addition, Wisconsin faces potential competition from several western states for the funds, among them Colorado and Wyoming. Because the presidential budget was submitted in January, before CWD was considered a threat, no funds were appropriated to its management at that time, nor were any provided in the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill, now closed for amendation and set to be passed by Sept. 30.
The current Interior Appropriations Bill will be reviewed for presidential approval in October 2003, but both the delay and currently allocated funds have some officials concerned that it will be too little, too late.
""It certainly can't hurt; I hope it does [pass]. ... But we can't wait for Congress; we're going to have to move ahead,"" said State Senate President Fred Risser, D-Madison, said. ""It's just not enough. I suspect we'll be spending far more than that.\
