by Public Lands Council

After deferring shutdown fight to January, road looks no less rocky for Congress.

The first round of temporary government funding is set to expire later this month on January 19, resulting in the shutdown of USDA, FDA, and other key federal agencies.

However, the debate around passing appropriations bills seems to only be getting more heated as the deadline approaches. Whereas before the holidays, most House Republicans were insistent on steep but plausible cuts to federal spending, their demands now include policy changes on border security; something that will be extremely difficult to secure from Senate Democrats and the White House. The GOP, led by Speaker Mike Johnson, maintains that they will not pass any regular spending bills that do not include border language. Johnson has also said he will push for additional cuts to the IRS.

Why it matters: Despite buying themselves a few extra weeks, the four leaders in Congress are no closer to agreeing on numbers for all 12 regular spending bills — and on the House GOP side, wrangling the votes is no easier now than it was in December. In fact, the Republican majority in the House is set to shrink yet again with the departure of Rep. Bill Johnson later this month. That will leave Speaker Johnson with a razor-thin, two-seat majority by the time the second shutdown deadline — which includes the Department of the Interior — rolls around on February 2.

USFS preparing to amend management plans across the entire system.

In late December, USDA’s Forest Service announced that they are preparing an Environmental Impact Statement for their proposal to amend all 128 forest land management plans to ban logging in old-growth forests and prioritize old-growth forest conservation. This move could potentially increase the risk of catastrophic wildfires, and displays a prioritization of climate criteria over other equally as important characteristics of healthy, well-managed forests. Old-growth trees cover less than one-third of all the mature forest ground overseen by USDA.

Why it matters: This effort to amend every forest plan to limit management options on millions of acres of Forest Service land is unscientific and time-consuming. Active management of ALL forests is crucial for preventing catastrophic fire and maintaining healthy ecosystems that can store carbon and support multiple use. That work is no less important in the backcountry than it is near more urban areas, or areas with charismatic old-growth trees like the sequoia groves of California.

This effort will divert considerable agency attention away from planning fuel treatments and other wildfire mitigation efforts on all the other parcels of public land that are further from the public eye.

More than half of funds for recovery of ESA species goes to just two fish.

A recent analysis by the Associated Pressfound that the bulk of the annual federal money spent on recovery efforts for listed threatened and endangered species goes toward just two types of fish — salmon and steelhead trout. The article is creating waves among both policymakers and conservationists, with many questioning the huge disparity and disproportionate focus on just a few of the nearly 1,700 U.S. species that have been listed during the ESA’s 50 year lifespan.

The AP found that in 2020, fish species received 67% of all the federal ESA funding, with the majority of that pot going to salmon and steelhead. Mammals, including charismatic predators, received just 7% of funds.

Why does this matter? The disproportionate amounts of spending on the recovery and conservation of various listed species begs the question — do all of these species need to be on the ESA list? Answer: no. Failing to delist species that are fully recovered is a drain on already finite and unevenly-distributed tax dollars. It also begs the question of how science-based spending decisions truly are, and how large of a role public pressure plays in ESA decisions; the gray wolf, for example is a recovered species that remains on the list. Based on the attention the species gets in the media from USFWS officials and conservation group fundraisers, you’d think the species is a top priority for the agency — not an afterthought receiving less than 7% of funds.