President Obama signed the $32.2 billion Interior, Environment and Related Agencies fiscal year 2010 (FY10) appropriations bill into law on October 30. ?The bill provides a 17 percent increase in spending from last year's appropriation for most of the natural resources and environmental agencies in the federal government, reports the Wildlife Management Institute. Overall, the U.S. Department of the Interior was allocated nearly $11 billion, the Environmental Protection Agency $10.3 billion and USDA Forest Service $5.3 billion. Interior Department agencies saw a boost in funding. ?The Bureau of Land Management, for example, received $1.1 billion?an increase of nearly $100 million from last year's funding level. Within that allocation, land resource management programs were appropriated $246.5 million, and wildlife and fisheries management, including threatened and endangered species, received $73 million?an increase of nearly $3 million. The National Park Service was appropriated a total of $2.7 billion, including $346 million for resource stewardship, which is an increase of $30 million over last year. Land acquisition through the Land and Water Conservation Fund also saw a big boost from recent years. It?received $305 million, including $40 million for state and local parks and recreation programs.
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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allocation is just short of $1.7 billion?an increase of more than $200 million. ?Most notably, the increase includes almost $40 million for climate change-related activities. The Ecological Services Division was allocated $311 million, including $117 million for habitat conservation and $180 million for endangered species. The National Wildlife Refuge System operations and maintenance accounts received a nearly 8-percent bump in funding for a total of $503 million. Migratory bird management is funded at $54.5 million and the North American Wetlands Conservation Fund was given a $5 million increase to just under $48 million. Other programs of interest include $90 million for state and tribal wildlife grants (of which $7 million is for a competitive grant program for Indian tribes and $5 million for a competitive grant program for states, territories and other jurisdictions) and $11 million in grants to states for the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund.

Funding for research through the U.S. Geological Survey received a boost within the agency's overall $1.1 billion allocation. Biological research funding was given a nearly $20 million increase to $205 million, including $161 million for research and monitoring and $19.3 million for the cooperative research units. In addition, the bill provides substantial new funding for climate change research, including the establishment of a new National Global Warming and Wildlife Science Center funded at $15 million.

Excluding wildland fire funding, the USDA Forest Service will have a budget of $2.8 billion for FY10?an increase of more than $167 million from 2009. Forest and rangeland research was allocated $312 million (up nearly $16 million) including $32 million for new global climate change science programs. The agency's State and Private Forestry programs, including cooperative forestry, urban and community forestry and the Forest Legacy program, received $308 million. The National Forest System will be funded at $1.55 billion, including $143 million for fish and wildlife habitat management.

Wildland fire management efforts typically are huge budget items for both the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service. For 2010, Interior will receive $856 million, a decrease of nearly $70 million, and the Forest Service will receive $2.5 billion for wildfire suppression, hazardous fuel removal, burn rehabilitation and more. This year, however, the appropriations bill included an authorization for a new program called the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act (FLAME). The program will provide contingency funding to pay for the largest and most expensive wildfires, to address the situation faced in recent years whereby agencies ran out of firefighting money and had to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars from other programs to cover wildfire costs, causing major disruptions to other conservation efforts. The agencies will use regularly budgeted money for routine wildfire suppression effort, but may have access to the FLAME account if a wildfire is more than 300 acres or if the agencies deplete all of their regular wildfire-suppression funding. The FLAME account will have $75 million for DOI and $282 million for the Forest Service.

Last, the conference report accompanying the final spending bill included several policy-related measures addressing climate change, renewable energy and other issues. The conferees urged the Council on Environmental Quality to work closely with the Interior Department to develop a "national, government-wide strategy to address climate impacts on fish, wildlife, plants, and associated ecological processes" and requested a timeline and blueprint for completion of this strategic planning effort. The conference report also directs Interior and the Forest Service to submit a report on the criteria for siting renewable energy projects, a detailed strategic plan on how the agencies will coordinate the development of those projects, identification of which specific areas of the public lands and the outer continental shelf will be considered for projects, an analysis of the useful life of renewable energy sites, and description of how infrastructure will be removed when no longer functional. (jas)