Trump s Budget Slashes Protections for Wildlife, the Environment

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1 Trump s Budget Slashes Protections for Wildlife, the Environment DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR The Department of the Interior s (DOI) proposed cuts would have damaging impacts on maintaining wildlife habitat, protecting endangered species, preserving national wildlife refuges and other public lands across the country, and the prevention of wildlife crimes. Adding salt to the wound of all the budget cuts, the DOI is slated to get an increase in funding to update the 5-year Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program to jump-start leasing of sales set to begin in This push would open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the most remote and pristine wilderness havens we have left, to the harmful and polluting oil industry. 15% Land and Water Conservation Fund National Park Service 13% 84% 13.6% 11% U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 14.2% ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY Deep cuts to the (EPA) include elimination of 25 percent of its staff (3,800 people). As a percent of the total federal budget, this would be the least funding the EPA has ever had since its founding in % DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE The president s proposed budget for the Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the lowest in at least 40 years. U.S. Forest Service 13.8% 7.3% DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY The Department of Energy (DOE) is the single largest funder of physical sciences in the U.S. The budget cuts to DOE seem less egregious, but upon closer inspection, they revel the administration s clear agenda to put the interests of the polluting fossil fuel industry above clean energy initiatives and climate change science. 9%

2 DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 15.2% The budget for the Department of Commerce would be cut by $1.4 billion. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 16% U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Funding for cooperative, international climate change programs would be gutted under the president s budget. 29.2% DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY Even as the Trump budget decimates funding for programs that conserve our natural heritage and even cuts overall funding for Homeland Security, it proposes $2.6 billion in funding for a border wall and other damaging infrastructure along our southwest border that would cause irreparable harm to communities, land and wildlife. The wall could affect 89 threatened or endangered species, including critically endangered jaguars and Mexican gray wolves, 108 species of migratory birds and national parks, wildlife refuges, wilderness areas and other public lands. 10.5% 11.3% DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE Overall, Defense spending is estimated to increase by 11.3 percent ($58.4 billion), but that money represents a greater investment in traditional defense spending and an actual decrease in funding for areas like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which helps gather critical climate change data. Programming for climate science under the NASA would get stamped out, despite the DOD s own official identification of climate change as a potentially destabilizing force. National Aeronautics and Space Administration 3% National Science Foundation The NSF is the major funding source for nearly one fourth of all federally supported basic research conducted by U.S. colleges and universities in areas from engineering to mathematics, astronomy to zoology and beyond. 10.6%

3 WILDLIFE & HABITAT U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Overall funding for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, our nation s premier wildlife conservation agency would be cut by $216 million or 14.2 percent. Resource Management, the principal operating account of the FWS, would be cut by $108 million or 8.6 percent. Ecological Services that conserve, protect, enhance listed and at-risk fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats would be cut by $14.8 million or 6.2 percent. Funding for recovery of listed species would be reduced by 5.2 percent, even though the agency currently receives less than 25 percent of the funding it needs to implement recovery actions for threatened and endangered species. In addition, more than 400 listed species do not even have recovery plans these include birds like the least Bell s Vireo, fish like the Topeka shiner, insects like the Miami blue butterfly, and many dozens of highly endangered plants. Funding to protect new species under the Endangered Species Act would be cut by $3.4 million, nearly 17 percent, a reduction that would severely hinder the FWS from making progress with its seven-year listing workplan to prioritize over 350 species for listing decisions. Critical programs that address wildlife trafficking, International Affairs and the Office of Law Enforcement (OLE) would be reduced by $1.6 million or 10.1 percent and $2.1 million or 2.8 percent respectively. The OLE budget explicitly states that the numbers of special agents the expert agents that work to stop wildlife crimes both domestically and internationally would be reduced. Migratory Bird Management, which supports research, permitting and enforcement to conserve our migratory bird populations, would be cut by $4.1 million or 8.1 percent. The Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program would be cut by $1.9 million or 3.7 percent. The Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund which provides funds to states for conservation of threatened and endangered species would be cut by $34.2 million or 63.9 percent, and funds would be eliminated for land acquisition. Multinational Species Conservation Fund, which provides resources to conserve rhinoceros, elephants, tigers and great apes would be cut by $2.1 million or 18.9 percent. State and Tribal Wildlife Grants, which support and leverage state and tribal management of non-game species and helps to reduce the risk of them becoming imperiled, would be cut by $9.8 million or 15.6 percent. The budget would cut funding for our National Wildlife Refuge System, America s only network of public lands and waters dedicated to wildlife conservation by $13.8 million or 2.8 percent. This would put funding for the Refuge System at more than $90 million below the level needed just to keep up with the FY 2010 level adjusted for inflation. The Refuge System, which extends across more than 855 million acres of land and water, protects vital wildlife habitat, offers endless recreational opportunities and generates more than $2.4 billion to local economies. Refuge law enforcement, already operating at an all-time low, would be further reduced by $2.1 million. Funding for Cooperative Landscape Conservation which has been focused on addressing complex challenges across large landscapes such as climate change would be eliminated as would funding for key FWS science programs. Land Acquisition would be cut by $32.9 million, or 66 percent. The North American Wetlands Conservation Fund would be cut by $4.5 million or 11.8 percent. The National Wildlife Refuge Fund, a revenue sharing program for counties and local governments, would be eliminated. The manages more fish and wildlife habitat than any other federal agency. This habitat supports more than 3,000 species of fish and wildlife including over 420 species listed under the Endangered Species Act 110 species that are candidates for listing and more than 1,000 rare plant species yet funding for fish and wildlife management would be severely cut. BLM s Threatened and Endangered Species Management program, which is needed to support work the agency is required to do to recovery listed species on BLM lands would be cut by $1.3 million or 6 percent. The Wildlife and Fisheries Management program would be reduced by $28.9 million. Included in that 25 percent cut to the Wildlife and Fisheries program is an $11.5 million cut to the Sagebrush Conservation Implementation Strategy. This cut will severely undermine the largest landscape level conservation and restoration effort in U.S. history to conserve the greater sage-grouse and more than 350 other sage brush dependent species of conservation concern. The 11.2 million or 14.2 percent cut to BLM s Rangeland Management program would allow renewal of some grazing permits without full environmental review and curtail inventories and treatments of invasive plants. The BLM s land acquisition budget would take a massive cut of $27.9 million or 88.5 percent! The USGS Ecosystems program supports development of crucial scientific information for sound management of our nation s biological resources, yet it is cut by $27.6 million or 17.3 percent. Included within the proposed cutbacks is the elimination of the captive breeding program for the critically endangered whooping crane! The budget explicitly states that this eliminates the largest dedicated captive breeding effort for Endangered Species Act-listed cranes and eliminates capacity within Interior for avian studies that require controlled studies with large, rare birds.

4 Wildlife & Habitat Cont. U.S. Forest Service The Forest Service manages over 193 million acres of public land in 44 States and Puerto Rico, collectively known as the National Forest Service (NFS). These lands are managed for multiple uses and on a sustained-use basis and represent a vital natural legacy. The budget would cut funding for the NFS by $117 million. National Forest System lands are also home to more than 420 species listed under the ESA and an additional 3,100 sensitive or at-risk species are found on Forest Service lands. These lands also encompass most of the remaining habitat for rare wide-ranging species such as the grizzly bear, Canada lynx and wolverine. Key Forest Service programs that help to support management of wildlife and fish are hollowed similar to BLM and FWS. The Forest Service s Wildlife and Fish Habitat Management Program faces cuts of $15.5 million or roughly 11 percent. Among other key conservation functions, the program funds recovery actions for the hundreds of imperiled fish and wildlife populations that rely upon National Forest lands for survival. The Legacy Roads and Trails Program, which restores habitat for at-risk fish and other wildlife, would be terminated. The budget proposes just $7 million for Land Acquisition accounts a reduction of 87.1 percent! The budget also proposes to eliminate the widely popular and effective Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program which was established to restore forest and watershed health, improve wildlife habitat, and reduce the costs of fire suppression in overgrown forests and the risk of uncharacteristic wildfires. The Forest Service s State and Private Forestry Program which helps manage the more than 60 percent of the nation s forests not owned by the federal government, would be cut by $98.9 million or45.6 percent. The budget also proposes the elimination of the Forest Legacy Program, which addresses the rapid and significant loss of working forestlands. The proposed $29.5 million or 13.9 percent cut to the Forest Service s Research and Development program, includes a 15 percent cut to the Wildlife and Fish strategic program area. Land and Water Conservation Fund The Land and Water Conservation Fund would be cut by nearly 85 percent! LWCF is the main source of funding for land acquisition for our national wildlife refuges, parks, forests and other public lands. The LWCF is desperately needed to save some of the 6,000 acres of open space, including wildlife habitat, that are lost each day in the U.S. National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS), already operates at a deficit with a backlog of roughly $12 billion in maintenance requests. NPS covers 84.7 million acres and comprises 417 sites, 129 historical parks or sites, 87 national monuments, 59 national parks, 30 national memorials, 25 battlefields or military parks and 87 otherwise designated national park units. Under the proposed budget, NPS s Land Acquisition and State Assistance funding would be cut by $27.2 million, or nearly 65 percent. The Heritage Partnership Program would be terminated. The program provides financial and technical assistance to congressionally designated National Heritage Areas, which are conserved for their natural historic, scenic, and cultural resources. Department of Agriculture The USDA s Natural Resources Conservation Service, which helps farmers implement water and soil conservation practices, would see its funding cut by 11.4 percent. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA s Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund and its genomics program at the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory which supports coral restoration and Bluefin tuna, would be eliminated. NOAA s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) program would face a nearly 27 percent decrease in funding, including the elimination of arctic research focused on sea ice modeling and predictions. Cuts to NOAA would include the elimination of the $73 million Sea Grant program that supports research and education to help communities adapt to climate change and manage coastal and lakeshore resources. It would also include the elimination of the National Estuarine Research Reserve System, Coastal Zone Management Grants, the Air Resources Laboratory, Vortex-Southeast (a program that detects, responds to and warns of tornadoes in the Southeastern U.S.), and all but one tsunami warning center. The budget would eliminate dozens of programs and projects, including all the regional cleanup and restoration programs that that are helping to improve the quality of some of our most iconic waters, like the Chesapeake Bay and the Great Lakes.

5 CLIMATE and ENERGY U.S. Department of State Funding for the United Nations Global Climate Change Initiative would be eliminated as would contributions to the Green Climate Fund and its precursor Climate Investment Funds. Department of Energy The DOE s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), a bipartisan initiative that funds cutting-edge energy research and development would be eliminated. The Department of Energy s (DOE) Office of Science, would be axed by 17 percent. Among the budget s biggest targets in the DOE are those programs dealing with biological and environmental research whose funding would fall by 43 percent. The DOE s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy would take a 69.6 percent cut it s funding would be reduced from $2.09 billion to $636 million. The budget would terminate the popular EnergyStar program, assistance to protect people from lead, radon and radiation, and environmental education and environmental justice programs, to name a few. The Global Change Research program, that provides information to lawmakers, agencies and the public on how to respond to climate change, would be up for elimination. In addition, 15 other climate-related programs which the EPA partners on, like the State and Local Climate Energy Program and the Global Methane Initiative, would similarly be axed. The USGS would see a 31.2 percent cut to the National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center and Climate Science Centers which conducts research into the impacts of climate change on wildlife and develops adaptation strategies. Defenders of Wildlife worked with members of Congress to establish this needed climate research effort in Additionally, the budget would reorganize the Climate and Land Use Change program. The reshuffling of which would shrink funding for carbon sequestration research and transfer $1.5 million from the Land Resources budget to the Energy Resources program to promote fossil fuel resource recovery. The budget would eliminate funding for the BLM s climate change program. This is in keeping with the budget s new priorities set forth for the department which include prioritizing harmful fossil fuel development on public lands and in fragile marine areas offshore. It would slash funding for the BLM s renewable energy program by $12.8 million, or 44 percent, while increasing funding for programs that support oil and gas drilling on public lands and coal management. Other Environmental Protections The core functions of the EPA, falling under the Environmental Program and Management program area, would take a 34 percent hit. Similarly, the budget proposes cutting $263 million, or 36.8 percent, of the EPA s Science and Technology budget, which funds research on pesticide and chemical safety, supports enforcement and homeland security protections, and, of course, clean air research and reporting. C Mary Price