12/27/06 Gregoire`s budget and WSU ag

Washington Ag December 27, 2006 Washington State University had requested that Governor Chris Gregoire include 10.8 million dollars in her biennial budget proposal for the Unified Agriculture Initiative. Agricultural lobbyist Heather Hansen says that request was supported by all the commodity groups in the state. Hansen: "And we really, really need to get some money back into that system. For a while we were referring to it as a re-hydrating the research and extension system at WSU." But of the 10.8 million WSU requested for the Initiative, the governor included only three million dollars in her budget proposal to the legislature. The two provisions Gregoire funded were 1.4 million dollars for Competitive Agriculture Grants, which she delayed implementation of for one year. She also included 1.2 million dollars for operating support for WSU's research and extension centers around the state. A request by WSU in partnership with Pacific Northwest National Lab and the Washington State Department of Agriculture for 6.7 million dollars was funded at four million dollars in the governor's budget. Two million would go to complete a team of scientists at the new Bioproducts, Science and Engineering Lab at WSU Tri-Cities and two million is for targeting Washington grown crops that could be used for biofuels and byproducts. I'm Bob Hoff.