Defenders Magazine

Defenders View: Help on the Way for Federal Conservation?

by Rodger Schlickeisen

© Jim Clark

At a recent Defenders of Wildlife reception on Capitol Hill, Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), who chairs the committee that funds federal land and environmental agencies, predicted that his committee would approve a next year’s budget for those agencies that will be the best since George W. Bush took office. The crowd responded with applause and cheers, for these agencies have been starved for funding for six straight years.

But the words were barely out of Dicks’ mouth when the White House announced that the president would likely veto any funding approved by Congress that is above his miserly request.

My goodness. Are there no political appointees in the Bush administration who care or give a damn about what kind of environmental legacy they will leave behind? The administration’s 2008 funding request for environment and conservation is laughably inadequate, and seems clearly to have been singled out for unwarranted funding abuse. And, to make matters worse, it comes after six years of Bush policies that have so starved our federal land agencies that some believe they’ve entered into a death spiral.

Consider for a moment what’s at stake. The four federal land agencies—the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management—are together responsible for the stewardship of more than 600 million acres of valuable natural landscape. That’s an area roughly equal to the combined acreage of Alaska and Texas, and it’s owned by the American public.

The backlog of land acquisition needs for these agencies to satisfy their mission of protecting our natural resources is probably well above $20 billion, and the maintenance backlog was recently estimated by the Congressional Research Service’s experts at between $14 billion and $21 billion! Operations needs are equally daunting. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service alone has lost 600 employees in the last two years and is eliminating staff from entire refuges, cutting education and invasive species programs, ignoring wildlife recovery needs and closing visitor centers.

Driftless Area National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa and Mountain Longleaf National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama, for example, are being forced to halt all recovery programs for several endangered species. Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin expects that with additional staff cuts, invasive plants “will expand unchecked across [r]efuge prairies and wetlands” and that education programs for 10,000 students and visitors will be completely eliminated. In Rep. Dicks’ home state of Washington, by the start of this year, there were only 96 staff positions remaining to oversee 22 refuges, which together host more than 2 million visitors a year. But the Bush administration recently announced plans to cut an additional 26 positions, leaving only 70 in the whole state—which would even further reduce or eliminate habitat restoration and invasive species control programs on 343,000 acres of refuge lands, and abolish interpretive and education programs for the visiting public, including area schoolchildren. Last one out, put up the “closed” sign!

While the federal land agencies and their dedicated career staff are barely on life support, the need for their conservation work has never been greater. More than 1,000 species are at risk of extinction in the United States alone and the country loses a staggering 6,000 acres of open space per day, stressing natural systems and diminishing recreational opportunities and quality of life. Over the decades several national commissions have pointed out the desperate and growing need for more recreational and conservation investments, and repeatedly called for a commitment of new, major dedicated funding. Population growth and the new need for habitat protection to help wildlife cope with global warming’s damage will only make matters more desperate.

Fortunately, Dicks and his committee ignored the veto threat and approved funding for federal land and environmental agencies that is $2 billion above the president’s request. While the need is even higher, this funding would provide them a much-needed shot in the arm. For the sake of our public lands and wildlife, and our children’s future, Congress should follow Dicks’ lead and dare the president to follow through on his veto threat. Surely there must be a limit to anti-environmental madness even in a Bush White House.

Rodger Schlickeisen is the president of Defenders of Wildlife. To send him an e-mail, write Rodger@Defenders.org.