President Bush is proposing to cut federal spending on coal-mine safety enforcement by about 6.5 percent, according to a new budget plan released Monday.

The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration's coal enforcement spending would be slashed by $10 million, to $145 million, under the president's proposal for the 2009 financial year.

MSHA officials said the cuts result from roughly $20 million in one-time expenditures - for everything from inspectors' overtime to new computers - during the current budget year that aren't needed next year.

But the cuts come after two years of increased focus on mine safety following the January 2006 Sago Mine disaster, the Aracoma Alma Mine fire, the Darby Mine disaster in Kentucky and last year's Crandall Canyon disaster in Utah.

MSHA has been scrambling to implement the 2006 Miner Act, to catch up on required quarterly underground mine inspections and figure out how thousands of safety citations were never assesses required monetary fines.

Along with the coal budget cuts, MSHA spending for industry training programs, agency technical support and information resources will be cut, according to White House budget documents made public Monday.

"It is absolutely absurd that the president is attempting to cut MSHA's budget while Congress is trying to help the agency back on its feet - absolutely absurd," said Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va.

The MSHA budget proposals were part of the president's spending plan for the 2009 financial year, which runs from Oct. 1, 2008, through Sept. 30, 2009.

In a news release, MSHA chief Richard Stickler contrasted the 2009 proposal to the president's 2008 financial year request. That comparison makes the new proposal look like an increase of $19 million, or 6 percent.