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BLM Budget Falls Short for Fish and Wildlife

Press Room

Press Release

For Immediate Release
February 28, 2007
For more information contact:
Tim Zink, (202) 654-4625

BLM Budget Falls Short for Fish and Wildlife

WASHINGTON - In the recent Department of the Interior budget proposal for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which was defended on Capitol Hill yesterday by BLM Acting Director James Hughes, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) finds cause for concern regarding attention to fish and wildlife. One of the core tenets of the TRCP Fish, Wildlife and Energy Working Group is the belief that BLM funding for fish and wildlife management has been insufficient for some time, and has become more pronounced as oil and gas development on BLM land has increased dramatically in recent years. Funding increases to address fish and wildlife impacts from development have not been commensurate with funding increases to expedite and expand development.

“We are especially concerned about a proposed $3 million cut to resource management planning,” said Steven Belinda, TRCP Policy Initiative Manager. “Resource Management Plans seek to balance the concerns of those who would develop energy resources and those who would conserve fish and wildlife, so the planning stage is where many populations of elk, mule deer and trout receive consideration and, ultimately, protection. To sell short the resource management planning process is to do the same to fish and wildlife populations.”

The TRCP welcomed the concept behind a proposed new program, the Healthy Lands Initiative, which would bring in other resource agencies to help design monitoring, assess and map habitats, conduct new research, and identify habitats for improvement – all things that should have happened before development.  But the TRCP criticized its proposed funding level as being inadequate and its focus too narrow. Much of it would be spread among projects in seven states, leaving only small amounts for each.

“It’s positive that they want to give Healthy Lands funding in heavily impacted places like Wyoming’s Green River Basin to restore degraded habitats, but a greater benefit to wildlife would be to more effectively plan and manage development to avoid damage to renewable resources like wildlife,” said Dr. Rollin D. Sparrowe, who chairs the Fish, Wildlife and Energy Working Group. “Why should hunters and anglers, under-funded wildlife agencies or even the Congress pay for remediation work when we’re seeing such a lucrative frenzy of development?”

Sparrowe continued: “Had the agency really listened to the concerns of our community, it would be moving to reduce the pressures of development to improve the conservation of our fish and wildlife, not just looking for funding to repair damage that didn’t have to happen. This proposal shows that BLM’s first priorities lean toward making sure fossil fuels are extracted from beneath public lands rather than ensuring that healthy fish and wildlife populations persist atop them.”

The TRCP also welcomed the proposed rollback of the prohibition on cost recovery for energy permitting that had had been passed in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the agency could recognize an influx of about $20 million to pay for the increased costs of applications of permits to drill.

On a final note of concern, the TRCP also expressed reservations about provisions in the budget proposal that would clear the way for the sale of certain tracts of public land. “On every acre of public land that is being proposed for sale, we need to see proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is not necessary to fish and wildlife populations,” said Belinda.

“Through license fees, excise taxes and personal contributions, America’s sportsmen have proven for generations that they are willing and capable stewards of wildlife,” said Dr. Sparrowe. “Many of the very populations affected by the BLM budget are those that sportsmen have worked to bring back from the brink. We don’t want to have to do it again because of poor planning and improper budget priorities on the part of a federal agency.”  

The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership is a coalition of leading hunting, fishing and conservation organizations and individual partners working together to guarantee access to places to hunt and fish, conserve fish and wildlife habitat, and increase funding for conservation.