Beilenson Asks $4.3 Million for Santa Monicas : Recreation: He tells House appropriations panel that much more is actually needed for park expansion.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), appearing before a House appropriations subcommittee Wednesday, requested $4.3 million for continued expansion of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

Beilenson’s request, the first step in the congressional budget process, exceeded the $3 million in land-acquisition funding that President Clinton included in his 1996 budget request last month.

Beilenson said the recreation area actually needs $8 million this year to buy land in Zuma and Trancas canyons, along the Backbone Trail and in other areas, but he offered $4.3 million as a fall-back position.

Fiscal pressures are expected to make competition for park funding especially intense this year. Also, Republicans are pushing a plan, still being formulated, aimed at reducing park service holdings by transferring some units to state or local governments.

In 1994, Clinton proposed $5 million for the Santa Monicas and Congress approved that amount. But land-acquisition money for the vast mountain corridor--which cuts a swath from eastern Ventura County to Griffith Park in Los Angeles--has fallen significantly from the early 1990s, when the recreation area received more funds than any other park in the nation.

The Santa Monicas still have a long way to go to reach the official goal of 35,000 acres. Over the past 15 years, Congress has appropriated more than $150 million and purchased roughly 21,000 acres.

Beilenson’s request, an annual rite for the author of the 1978 legislation creating the Santa Monicas, was one of dozens the subcommittee received Wednesday in a daylong session devoted to congressional testimony. One after another, lawmakers plugged their favorite local parks and presented the case for additional federal funding.

“I think I’m probably here with the most modest request anyone will make,” said Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), lobbying for $200,000 for the Stones River National Battlefield.

Rep. Bill Goodling (R-Pa.), seeking to repair sewage system at the Eisenhower National Historic Site, said, “If you have $2.5 million that you don’t know what to do with, it will be used very well.”

Beilenson also requested support on behalf of conservation programs for African elephants, tigers and rhinoceroses.