CAPITOL FLYER

At the National Conservation Training Center, in Shepherdstown, WV, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) hosted the "Conservation in Action Summit" May 24-27. The event involved 250 FWS employees and representatives of partner organizations, state agencies, "Friends" groups and others, working together to identify measurable priorities to guide the Refuge System for the next five to 15 years.

FY05
The fiscal 2005 (FY05) appropriations season advances this week with a markup scheduled for the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies on Thursday, June 3. As is customary, committee staff are not releasing details of the draft bill, which includes funding for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, before the markup.

The Subcommittee's allocation (referred to as a 302(b) allocation) has also not been released and will not be formally adopted until the first full committee markup. But the total appropriations allocation of $821.3 billion is almost $2 billion below the Bush Administration's budget request. Due to increases anticipated for defense and homeland security, funding for discretionary programs is expected to be well below the requested levels. The $1.3 billion budget proposal for the FWS requested increases for the Secretary of the Interior's Challenge Cost Share program that provides matching grants for conservation projects on refuges, but includes cuts in many key National Wildlife Refuge System accounts, such as Visitor Services and Facility Enhancements.

According to sources, appropriators expect most FY05 spending bills will be folded into an omnibus spending package, most likely after the November election. However, there is a chance Interior appropriations legislation could be passed earlier, as a stand-alone bill.

FY06
The White House has informed government agencies that if President Bush is reelected, his budget for FY06 may include spending cuts for virtually all agencies in charge of domestic programs, including the FWS.

According to a May 19 White House budget memorandum obtained by the Washington Post, agencies should assume spending levels in that document when they prepare their FY06 budgets. The FWS is currently in the process of developing its budget for FY06. The memo informs agencies, "If you propose to increase funding above that level for any account, it must be offset within your agency by proposing to decrease funding below that level in other accounts."

The NWRA sent out an Action Alert on its listserve regarding FY06 funding on April 21. For more information, please contact Michael Woodbridge, Assistant Director of Government Affairs, at (202) 333-9075.

As mentioned in the May 2004 issue of Capitol Flyer, Congress is currently debating the six-year Transportation Equity Act, a bill that will fund highway projects across the country. The Senate passed its version of the transportation bill, funding refuge roads at $30 million, while the House passed its version, funding refuge roads at $20 million.

As a result of the differences between the House and Senate versions of the Transportation Equity Act, a conference committee must be appointed to work out the differences. The Senate named conferees to the Transportation bill May 20, including 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats (see list below). The House plans to name conferees after the Memorial Day recess.

Although one hurdle facing the Transportation Act has been cleared, deep divisions remain concerning the size of the bill. The White House has threatened to veto the legislation due to its large cost. Some in the transportation community predict Congress will pass a longer-term continuation prior to the current expiration date of June 30, rather than a fourth short-term extension, leaving the legislation until after the November elections.

Republican conferees include: Sens. James Inhofe (OK); John Warner (VA); Christopher "Kit" Bond (MO); George Voinovich (OH); Orrin Hatch (UT); Charles Grassley (IA); Don Nickles (OK); Trent Lott (MS); Richard Shelby (AL); John McCain (AZ); and Mitch McConnell (KY).

Democratic conferees include: Sens. Tom Daschle (SD); Harry Reid (NV); Bob Graham (FL); Joseph Lieberman (CT); Barbara Boxer (CA); Ernest Hollings (SC); Paul Sarbanes (MD); Max Baucus (MT); Kent Conrad (ND); and Independent Sen. James Jeffords (VT), who caucuses with the Democrats.

Two bills affecting NWRA supporters are currently being considered by the U.S. Senate. The first, H.R. 1204, would amend the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act of 1966 to establish requirements for the award of concessions in the Refuge System, to provide for maintenance and repair of properties located in the System by concessionaires authorized to use such properties, and for other purposes. Sponsored by Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), H.R. 1204 passed in the House November 18, 2003.

The second bill, H.R. 2408, would amend the Fish and Wildlife Act of 1956 to reauthorize volunteer programs and community partnerships for national wildlife refuges (NWR) and for other purposes. H.R. 2408, sponsored by Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ), passed in the U.S. House of Representatives March 23, 2004.

NWRA President Evan Hirsche testified at a June 26, 2003, hearing on both bills before the House Resources Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans. Many of the recommendations made by the NWRA were adopted in the bills passed by the House, including the addition of language regarding "Friends" groups at refuges.

According to sources, the legislation may be considered by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee this summer.

On April 29, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton approved an agreement between the Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments (CATG) and the FWS. The Annual Funding Agreement (AFA), the first ever for a national wildlife refuge, will enable the CATG to perform a number of activities at the Yukon Flats NWR, including: locating and marking public easements across private lands within the Refuge boundary; assisting with environmental education and outreach in local villages; monitoring wildlife harvest; surveying moose populations; and maintaining federal property in and around Fort Yukon.

The Yukon Flats NWR is the third largest of the 544 conservation units in the National Wildlife Refuge System. Established in 1980, the Refuge includes more than 8.5 million acres of wetland and boreal forest habitat along 300 miles of the Yukon River, north of Fairbanks, AK.

The AFA is a result of almost two years of negotiations. In addition, during a 60-day comment period, the NWRA submitted a comment letter dated March 17, expressing concerns about the agreement. Under the authority of the Indian Self-determination and Education Assistance Act, qualifying Indian Tribes may request to perform activities administered by the Department of the Interior that are of geographic, historic, or cultural significance to the participating tribe making the request. Also, required by the Act, a list of programs and refuges eligible for AFAs are printed in the Federal Register on an annual basis. Yukon Flats and the National Bison Range, among others, are included on the list of 34 eligible refuges.

After the signing ceremony for the Yukon Flats AFA, Secretary Norton sent the agreement to the U.S. Congress for a 90-day review period. Once the review period is over, the agreement will officially go into effect.

On May 19, the Senate passed S. 1107, legislation to permanently allow the National Park Service (NPS) to charge entrance fees. The legislation was objected to by the Bush Administration, which favors legislation in the House that would extend fee authority to the other agencies. S. 1107, sponsored by Senator Craig Thomas (R-WY), was one of several public lands and water resources bills the Senate approved unanimously.

S. 1107 is independent of the Recreational Fee Demonstration (Rec Fee) Program, established by Congress in a 1996 spending bill as a three-year experiment. The Rec Fee Program has been reauthorized several times despite some concerns. The Program allows the agencies to charge entrance and user fees for recreational activities like camping and recreational vehicle access in order to raise money not tied to the annual appropriations process in Congress.

The Program has produced additional revenue for the Department of the Interior land management agencies. Administration budget requests indicate the Interior expects to collect $138 million in FY05, mostly from the Park Service. The majority of funding stays in the area of collection and is used for maintenance and visitor improvements.

Opponents of the Fee Demo Program have cited unfair and haphazard implementation in their arguments against the Program. Although opponents claim that it is wrong for the government to collect user fees for access to public lands that are already funded through taxes, they have supported Thomas' bill because it singles out the Park Service, which has traditionally charged entrance fees.

The fate of fee collection in the House is still unclear. The administration has given its support to a bill under consideration in the House Resources Committee that would establish permanent fee collection authority for the NPS, FWS, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Forest Service. The bill, H.R. 3283, sponsored by Rep. Ralph Regula (R-OH), would establish three fee levels, including basic, expanded, and social, as well as authorize an "America the Beautiful Pass," which would allow the user access to any basic fee area nationwide, across all participating agencies.

Craig Manson, the Interior Department's Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, announced that the American bald eagle will be taken off the threatened species list this year. The bald eagle, a national symbol whose decline helped spur the Endangered Species Act and a ban on the pesticide DDT, will still be safeguarded under the Federal Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940. This Act prohibits the killing or selling of bald eagles. Today there are more than 7,678 breeding pairs of bald eagles in the contiguous United States.

While the de-listing process should only take one year, the de-listing of the bald eagle has taken over four years because of the extensive work required and the large range of the eagle. Drafting a post-recovery plan for such a huge range requires updated counts of the bird in each state and state eagle-protection rules have made the bureaucratic process more difficult.

On May 15, an angler caught a northern snakehead in Occoquan Bay, a Virginia tributary to the Potomac River, making this the fourth snakehead discovery since May 7. The tributary is in the area of Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge, which is part of the Potomac River National Wildlife Refuge Complex.

The snakehead is an Asian fish that can decimate native fish populations. The first snakehead was found in a pond in Crofton, MD, in 2002. Maryland officials, concerned that the snakehead's ability to walk on land would permit its travel to other waterways, poured herbicides into three nearby ponds to kill the dense grass and lily pads. The poison rotenone was then dumped into the pond and killed more than 120 juvenile snakeheads. Experts are not confident that they can eradicate this predator from the area.

Secretary Gale Norton has promoted Julie MacDonald to Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks in the Department of the Interior. MacDonald was previously the senior advisor to Assistant Secretary Craig Manson, who she will continue to report to in her new position.

MacDonald is a civil engineer with a master's degree in management and came to the Department of the Interior in 2002. She started her federal career as a hydraulic engineer with Interior's Bureau of Reclamation in 1979. MacDonald has been a staff consultant in the California Legislature and served as senior staff to the California Senate minority leader. She was later appointed as Associate Secretary of the state Health and Welfare Agency by then-Governor Pete Wilson and served as Deputy Secretary for Legislative Affairs in the California Resources Agency in 1996, where she was responsible for gaining bipartisan passage of new provisions in the California Endangered Species Act.

Federal officials announced that the United States Army and a contractor were fined nearly $52,000 for releasing a deadly chemical weapon on a national wildlife refuge in the Pacific Ocean. An unknown quantity of VX nerve agent was released in August 2002 when a tray holding remnants of a VX shell was improperly loaded into an incinerator at a chemical weapons disposal facility on Johnston Atoll, part of Johnston Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Johnston Island NWR is located in the central Pacific Ocean and is home to a coral reef, 14 species of breeding sea birds, 5 species of wintering shorebirds and diverse marine organisms, including the threatened green sea turtle. The Refuge was established in 1926, and there has been a military presence on the atoll since 1934. The U.S. Air Force is the current host management agency and has operational control of the atoll. The infrastructure at Johnston Island has grown to support the workforces necessary for various military missions, with more than 1,000 people currently living and working there.

More than six percent of the nation's stockpile of chemical weapons was held at Johnston Island, and disposal began in 1990 at a facility jointly operated by the Army and its contractor, Washington Group International of Boise, Idaho. More than four million pounds of chemical weapons and agents have been destroyed on Johnston Atoll since 1990. The military mission is almost complete and numerous closure and cleanup issues are being discussed. The Army is in the process of restoring the site to its natural role as a wildlife refuge and the atoll will eventually be returned to the FWS.