Last week, the House passed its FY25 Interior-Environment Appropriations bill by a narrow vote of 210-205, before cancelling votes on any further appropriations bills for this week. The following day, the Senate reported its version of the bill out of Committee.
The Senate’s bill provides $44.6 billion in total to fund the Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and other related agencies. Early in the Senate’s report, the Committee provides a list of multi-agency directives that outline major policy concerns and areas of interest, including “Responding to Climate-Driven Wildfires,” “Federal Firefighter Workforce,” “Deferred Maintenance,” “Workforce Housing on Public Lands,” and more. The report also notes great concern with “the recruitment and retention challenges facing the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the Bureau of Reclamation, the National Park Service (NPS), and the Forest Service.”
In contrast to the cuts made in the House’s bill, the Senate’s bill provides modest increases to agencies like the EPA ($9.28 billion - a 1.5% increase from FY24) and Council on Environmental Quality ($4.74 million - a 2.5% increase from FY24). The bill provides increases to environmental grant programs, like state and local air quality management, Brownfields projects, and the Wildfire Smoke Grant program.
The bill also provides $15.8 billion for the Department of Interior (excluding additional funding for the Wildfire Suppression Operations Reserve). This includes:
For BLM: $1.47 billion, $1.34 billion of which is for management of lands and resources (a 2.8% increase from FY24). The bill’s report outlines funding minimums for things like resource management planning and National Conservation Lands, and includes language directing BLM to utilize contracts with Tribes “to enable greater collaboration and co-stewardship of public land and natural resources with Indian Tribes.”
For FWS: $1.76 billion, $1.549 billion of which is for resource management (a 1.9% increase). The report provides direction on dozens of individual wildlife refugees and species conservation. There’s also direction for BLM to prioritize Tribal knowledge in Endangered Species Act planning and implementation.
For NPS: $3.49 billion, $2.99 million of which is for the operation of the National Park System (a 3.8% increase). The report prioritizes funding for park protection, visitor services, and resource stewardship, and directs NPS to partner with external organizations to provide adaptive recreation equipment and improve park accessibility.
The bill provides $6.45 billion for the Forest Service (excluding additional funding for the Wildfire Suppression Operations Reserve), $4 billion of which is for the Forest Service’ non-wildland fire management operations and staffing. This includes increased funding for State, Private, and Tribal Forestry (3.6%) and capital improvement and maintenance of facilities, roads, and trails (14.7%). Funding levels provided for the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP - $34 million), Wood Innovation Grants ($30 million), Community Wood Energy Program ($15 million), and Southwest Ecological Restoration Institutes ($6.6 million) are unchanged from FY24.
In the wildfire space, the bill provides $4.14 billion for wildfire suppression, of which $2.75 billion is for the Wildfire Suppression Operations Reserve Fund. It also notably provides a permanent pay raise for federal wildland firefighters and creates a $4 million health and wellness program. It also directs agencies to prioritize improvements to fire facilities and to spend at least $8 million on firefighter housing.
The vast majority of projects – almost $600 million in funding - included in the Senate’s Congressionally-Directed Spending (CDS – a.k.a. earmarks) table are water system improvement projects funded by the EPA’s State and Tribal Assistance Grant (STAG) program. There are also a few dozen Historic Preservation Fund projects for historic buildings, non-water STAG projects, and “special initiatives.”
Stakeholders tracking funding in the Interior-Environment space should compare funding levels for programs of interest across the House and Senate bills to get a better sense of the final amounts that will likely be negotiated and enacted after elections.
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