This spring, State Wildlife Grants were cut from $90 million to $63 million nationally. In July, the House Appropriations Committee
passed an Interior Appropriations bill that included huge cuts to many conservation programs, including slashing State Wildlife Grants nearly 75% to only $22 million nationally. The debt ceiling discussions prevented this bill from being discussed on the House floor before August recess, however the future of State Wildlife Grants remains uncertain at best.
The House won't continue working on the Interior appropriations bill for 2012 until September at the earliest. It's likely that the bill will get rolled into a larger omnibus bill. The Debt Ceiling compromise is also worrisome. A bipartisan super committee will be tasked with reducing the deficit by nearly $1.5 trillion before Thanksgiving. Anything and everything is on the table for cuts, and it is likely that conservation and environmental programs will continue to see a disproportionally large amount of cuts.
The initial reduction to State Wildlife Grants this spring has already affected the amount that Missouri received, and as a consequence several Missouri Bird Conservation Initiative (MoBCI) grant projects approved last year are delayed until 2012 to determine if funding will be available. Because of this uncertainty in State Wildlife Grant funding, we are unable to announce a MoBCI Grant program for this fall.
We need to keep the pressure on our congress members - State Wildlife Grants are a proactive approach to keeping habitats healthy and species off the endangered species list. They are matched dollar for dollar by conservation partners and often provide work for on-the-ground conservation contractors. Read the "Prairie Superhero" article below for one example of how State Wildlife Grant funding is translating into a job and hundreds of acres of prairie habitat management.
Please take this opportunity to call your congress member and let them know that State Wildlife Grant funding is important. Tell them to oppose cuts to State Wildlife Grants and other conservation funding programs. Contact information for congress members can be found by entering your zipcode at www.house.gov.
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