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Panel says refuge budget dangerously low |
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The Bush administration's plans to flatline national wildlife refuge funds and lay off staff across the country could imperil the system and the wildlife that call it home, members of the House Resources Committee said Tuesday.
Leaders of the Fisheries, Conservation, Wildlife and Ocean Subcommittee told Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall that his agency's fiscal 2008 budget request will not provide enough for the 547 wildlife refuges in deserts, swamps, forests and wetlands across the United States.
"It is hard to see how you are going to conserve and protect fish, wildlife and plants under these budget realities," said subcommittee Chairwoman Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam).
The budget request would allot $394 million for operations and maintenance at wildlife refuges -- $12 million more than the refuges received in fiscal 2006 but still far below the amount needed to address the $1.5 billion maintenance backlog and rising operations costs, Bordallo said.
The refuge system's operations budget hit a high point for its centennial year in 2003 but has decreased since then. Operations costs have been outpacing the increases, as energy prices rise and 60 percent of the refuge staff reach a senior level with a higher pay-grade.
The administration has for the past three years squeezed the refuge budget, as it lost out to other priorities in the overall push for a balanced budget.
"I recognize we are living in difficult budget times, but the request for the refuge system is inadequate," said ranking member Henry Brown (R-S.C.).
Hall said each region is figuring out how to "live with" the budget crunch, and the agency will move forward this year with a restructuring plan for the refuges. He asked each FWS region to develop a management plan on how it could operate under the budget constraints, using less money and cutting some staff.
The restructuring will include creation of refuge "complexes," wherein multiple refuges in close proximity would draw from one pool of staff and equipment.
Some regions have already started their restructuring plans. The Northeast Region will lose 28 staff positions while the Southeast Region will cut 88 full-time jobs, including some at Florida's Pelican Island National Refuge (Land Letter, Nov. 16, 2006).
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