[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
RECENT TRENDS CONCERNING
ANNUAL BUDGETS FOR THE
NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE
SYSTEM AND IMPLICATIONS FOR
MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES
=======================================================================
OVERSIGHT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES, WILDLIFE
AND OCEANS
of the
COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
__________
Serial No. 110-88
__________
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COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, Chairman
DON YOUNG, Alaska, Ranking Republican Member
Dale E. Kildee, Michigan Jim Saxton, New Jersey
Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, American Elton Gallegly, California
Samoa John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee
Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii Wayne T. Gilchrest, Maryland
Solomon P. Ortiz, Texas Chris Cannon, Utah
Frank Pallone, Jr., New Jersey Thomas G. Tancredo, Colorado
Donna M. Christensen, Virgin Jeff Flake, Arizona
Islands Stevan Pearce, New Mexico
Grace F. Napolitano, California Henry E. Brown, Jr., South
Rush D. Holt, New Jersey Carolina
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Luis G. Fortuno, Puerto Rico
Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Guam Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington
Jim Costa, California Louie Gohmert, Texas
Dan Boren, Oklahoma Tom Cole, Oklahoma
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Rob Bishop, Utah
George Miller, California Bill Shuster, Pennsylvania
Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts Bill Sali, Idaho
Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon Doug Lamborn, Colorado
Maurice D. Hinchey, New York Mary Fallin, Oklahoma
Patrick J. Kennedy, Rhode Island Adrian Smith, Nebraska
Ron Kind, Wisconsin Robert J. Wittman, Virginia
Lois Capps, California Steve Scalise, Louisiana
Jay Inslee, Washington
Mark Udall, Colorado
Joe Baca, California
Hilda L. Solis, California
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, South
Dakota
Heath Shuler, North Carolina
James H. Zoia, Chief of Staff
Rick Healy, Chief Counsel
Christopher N. Fluhr, Republican Staff Director
Lisa Pittman, Republican Chief Counsel
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES, WILDLIFE AND OCEANS
MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam, Chairwoman
HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina, Ranking Republican Member
Dale E. Kildee, Michigan Jim Saxton, New Jersey
Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, American Wayne T. Gilchrest, Maryland
Samoa Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington
Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii Tom Cole, Oklahoma
Solomon P. Ortiz, Texas Bill Sali, Idaho
Frank Pallone, Jr., New Jersey Robert J. Wittman, Virginia
Patrick J. Kennedy, Rhode Island Don Young, Alaska, ex officio
Ron Kind, Wisconsin
Lois Capps, California
Nick J. Rahall, II, West Virginia,
ex officio
------
CONTENTS
----------
Page
Hearing held on Wednesday, September 24, 2008.................... 1
Statement of Members:
Bordallo, Hon. Madeleine Z., a Delegate in Congress from Guam 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Brown, Hon. Henry E., Jr., a Representative in Congress from
the State of South Carolina, Prepared statement of......... 56
Kind, Hon. Ron, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Wisconsin............................................... 24
Statement of Witnesses:
Callihan, David, Director, Management Systems International.. 14
Prepared statement of.................................... 16
Horn, William P., Counsel, U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance......... 40
Prepared statement of.................................... 41
Kurth, James, Acting Assistant Director of the National
Wildlife Refuge System, Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S.
Department of the Interior................................. 25
Prepared statement of.................................... 26
Matson, Noah, Vice President for Land Conservation, Defenders
of Wildlife................................................ 31
Prepared statement of.................................... 33
Nazzaro, Robin M., Director, Natural Resources and
Environment, U.S. Government Accountability Office......... 3
Prepared statement of.................................... 5
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON RECENT TRENDS CONCERNING ANNUAL BUDGETS FOR THE
NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE SYSTEM AND IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGEMENT
ACTIVITIES.
----------
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans
Committee on Natural Resources
Washington, D.C.
----------
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m. in
Room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Madeleine Z.
Bordallo [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Bordallo, Kildee, Kind, and
Wittman.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, A DELEGATE IN
CONGRESS FROM GUAM
Ms. Bordallo. Good morning, everyone. The oversight hearing
by the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans will now
come to order.
The Subcommittee is meeting today concerning two reports
regarding budget trends and the effects of recent levels on the
performance of the National Wildlife Refuge System. This
morning's hearing is a follow-up to the hearing the
Subcommittee held last October concerning the efforts of the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service to implement the
National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act.
We will hear testimony this morning regarding a report
being released today by the U.S. Government Accountability
Office investigating recent budget trends affecting the Refuge
System and a second report released in June by Management
Systems International that evaluated the performance of the
Refuge System in meeting its own strategic goals.
As we learned last year, all is not well with the Refuge
System. Testimony provided by former Secretary of the Interior,
Bruce Babbitt, former EPA Administrator, Carol Browner, and
other witnesses painted the picture of a Refuge System
stretched thin by insufficient funding, staff cuts and numerous
major new challenges such as climate change, invasive species
and water shortages.
Regrettably, the two reports before us today, while not
entirely negative, corroborate many of the criticisms made
during last year's hearing. Most importantly, it appears that
the effects of insufficient funding have had a ripple effect
across the Refuge System, forcing the Fish and Wildlife Service
to further scale back operations at many refuges, or even close
refuges to public use altogether.
Permanent staffing levels have fallen by 7.5 percent from
peak staffing levels in 2003. Not surprisingly, habitat quality
in many refuges has fallen between seven and 20 percent.
Additionally, many visitor services programs, especially
environmental education and interpretation, have noticeably
declined in availability and quality.
Perhaps what will be most disturbing to many Members is
that both reports emphasize that funding for law enforcement
remains severely insufficient. Consequently, law enforcement
operations are woefully inadequate to cover a system of public
lands that includes some of the most rugged and isolated
terrain in the United States--and compromise public safety
throughout the entire 98 million acre Refuge System.
In closing, the sum of these two reports is clear: The
Refuge System has reached a tipping point where it faces an
uncertain future, yet before we can act intelligently to
rectify this decline, we need to understand the facts. To the
extent that this hearing helps draw attention to the current
plight facing our National Wildlife Refuges, it will have been
a constructive first step in our important work to rebuild the
Refuge System and to bequeath to our children a wildlife legacy
that is both abundant and diverse.
As Chairwoman, I would like to mention the fact that our
Ranking Member is at a very important meeting at this time. I
am sure he has an opening statement, so when he does arrive he
will address us.
So, at this time, I would like to recognize our panel of
witnesses this morning. The first is Ms. Robin Nazzaro,
Director, Natural Resources and Environment, the U.S.
Government Accountability Office; Mr. David Callihan, Director,
Management Systems International; Mr. James Kurth, Acting
Assistant Director for Refuges, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service;
Mr. Noah Matson, Vice President for Land Conservation,
Defenders of Wildlife; and The Honorable William P. Horn,
General Counsel, U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance, former chairman of
the National Wildlife Refuge Centennial Commission and former
Interior Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks.
Before recognizing Ms. Nazzaro to testify, I would note for
all witnesses that the red timing light on the table will
indicate when your time has concluded, and we would appreciate
your cooperation in complying with these limits. Please be
assured that your full written statement will be submitted for
the hearing record.
And now I recognize Ms. Nazzaro to please begin.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bordallo follows:]
Statement of The Honorable Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Chairwoman,
Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans
This morning's hearing is a follow-up to the hearing the
Subcommittee held last October concerning the efforts of the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service to implement the National Wildlife Refuge System
Improvement Act.
We will hear testimony regarding a report being released today by
the U.S. Government Accountability Office investigating recent budget
trends affecting the Refuge System, and a second report released in
June by Management Systems International that evaluated the performance
of the Refuge System in meeting its own strategic goals.
As we learned last year, all is not well with the Refuge System.
Testimony provided by former Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt,
former EPA Administrator, Carol Browner, and other witnesses painted
the picture of a Refuge System stretched thin by insufficient funding,
staff cuts and numerous major new challenges such as climate change,
invasive species, and water shortages.
Regrettably, the two reports before us today, while not entirely
negative, corroborate many of the criticisms made during last year's
hearing. Most importantly, it appears that the effects of insufficient
funding have had a ripple effect across the Refuge System, forcing the
Fish and Wildlife Service to further scale back operations at many
refuges, or even close refuges to public use altogether.
Permanent staffing levels have fallen by 7.5 percent from peak
staffing levels in 2003. Not surprisingly, habitat quality in many
refuges has fallen between seven and twenty percent. Additionally, many
visitor services programs, especially environmental education and
interpretation, have noticeably declined in availability and quality.
Perhaps what will be most disturbing to many members is that both
reports emphasize that funding for law enforcement remains severely
insufficient. Consequently, law enforcement operations are woefully
inadequate to cover a system of public lands that includes some of the
most rugged and isolated terrain in the United States, and compromise
public safety throughout the entire 98 million acre Refuge System.
In closing, the sum of these two reports is clear: the Refuge
System has reached a tipping point where it faces an uncertain future.
Yet before we can act intelligently to rectify this decline, we need to
understand the facts. To the extent that this hearing helps draw
attention to the current plight facing our National Wildlife Refuges,
it will have been a constructive first step in our important work to
rebuild the Refuge System, and to bequeath to our children a wildlife
legacy that is both abundant and diverse.
______
STATEMENT OF ROBIN M. NAZZARO, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES AND
ENVIRONMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Ms. Nazzaro. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am pleased to be
here today to discuss our nation's wildlife refuges.
The National Wildlife Refuge System, administered by the
Department of the Interior's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
comprises about 585 refuges and wetland management districts on
more than 96 million acres of land and water that provide
habitat for millions of waterfowl, other migratory birds,
endangered species and other plants and wildlife.
In addition, refuges host about 40 million visitors each
year who take part in one or more of the Refuge System's six
wildlife-dependent visitor activities--hunting, fishing,
wildlife observation, wildlife photography, environmental
education and environmental interpretation--and other
recreation activities.
My testimony today is based on the GAO report that is being
released today which describes changing factors that the Refuge
System experienced from Fiscal Years 2002 through 2007 and how
habitat management and visitor services changed during this
period.
In summary, we found that funding for the Refuge System
fluctuated. Refuge System obligations for core activities,
which include refuge operations, maintenance and fire
management, peaked in Fiscal Year 2003, then declined until
Fiscal Year 2005, before increasing again in Fiscal Year 2007
when funding adjusted for inflation was 2.3 percent below peak
levels and 4.3 percent above 2002 levels.
At the refuge level, funding varied considerably with about
as many refuges losing funding as gaining and 39 refuges
decreasing by more than 25 percent during this period.
Staffing levels between Fiscal Years 2002 through 2007 for
core refuge activities also fluctuated, peaking in Fiscal Year
2004 and then declining through Fiscal Year 2007, although
ending the period 5.5 percent above 2002 levels.
The number of employees on board also declined after
peaking in Fiscal Year 2004. Though 38 complex and stand-alone
refuges increased their permanent staff by more than five
percent since 2004, more than three times as many lost at least
five percent.
During this period, Refuge System officials initiated
several new policies that categorized refuges into tiers for
the purpose of prioritizing funding and staffing allocations,
required refuge staff to focus on completing refuge
conservation plans by 2012, placed a greater emphasis on
constructing smaller visitor facility structures to help
visitor services funds across more refuges, increased the
number of full-time law enforcement officers to improve safety
and resulted in increased administrative requirements for
nonadministrative staff.
Also, the influence of external factors, including extreme
weather and development on adjacent lands, increased over this
period.
During this time, several changes also occurred in habitat
management and visitor services. Refuge managers reported that
habitats for key species improved about two times as often as
they worsened, but between seven percent and 20 percent of
habitats were of poor quality in 2007.
Also, certain habitat management problems increased at more
than half of the refuges, and managers reported that they
increased the time spent on activities such as invasive plant
species and habitat fragmentation.
According to most refuge managers, the quality of all six
wildlife-dependent visitor services programs was stable or
improving between Fiscal Years 2002 and 2007. Four of these
programs were of moderate or better quality at more than three-
quarters of the refuges in 2007, and even though environmental
education and interpretation programs showed the most
improvement since 2002, these programs were still reported to
be of low quality at about one-third of the refuges.
Refuge managers expressed concerns about their abilities to
sustain or improve current habitat conditions for wildlife and
to provide quality visitor services into the future.
In conclusion, maintaining the Refuge System as envisioned
by law where the biological integrity, diversity and
environmental health of the system are maintained, priority
visitor services are provided and the strategic growth of the
system is continued may be difficult in light of continuing
Federal fiscal constraints and an ever-expanding list of
challenges facing refuges.
If threats and problems afflicting refuges continue to grow
as expected, it will be important for the Refuge System to
monitor how shifts in funding and staffing levels are affecting
refuge conditions.
Madam Chair, this concludes my prepared statement. I would
be pleased to respond to any questions that you may have at
this time.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Nazzaro follows:]
Statement of Robin M. Nazzaro, Director, Natural Resources and
Environment, U.S. Government Accountability Office
GAO HIGHLIGHTS
Why GAO Did This Study
The National Wildlife Refuge System, which is administered by the
Fish and Wildlife Service in the Department of the Interior, comprises
585 refuges on more than 96 million acres of land and water that
preserve habitat for waterfowl and other migratory birds, threatened
and endangered species, and other wildlife. Refuges also provide
wildlife-related activities such as hunting and fishing to nearly 40
million visitors every year.
GAO was asked to testify on a report that is being released today,
Wildlife Refuges: Changes in Funding, Staffing, and Other Factors
Create Concerns about Future Sustainability (GAO-08-797), which (1)
describes changing factors that the refuge system experienced from
Fiscal Years 2002 through 2007, including funding and staffing changes,
and (2) examines how habitat management and visitor services changed
during this period. For this report, GAO surveyed all refuges, visited
19 refuges in four regions, and interviewed refuge, regional, and
national officials.
September 24. 2008
WILDLIFE REFUGES
Trends in Funding, Staffing, Habitat Management, and Visitor Services
for Fiscal Years 2002 through 2007
What GAO Found
In its September 2008 report, GAO reports that for Fiscal Years
2002 through 2007, the refuge system experienced funding and staffing
fluctuations, the introduction of several new policy initiatives, and
the increased influence of external factors such as extreme weather
that threaten wildlife habitat and visitor infrastructure. Although
core funding--measured as obligations for refuge operations,
maintenance, and fire management--increased each year, inflation-
adjusted core funding peaked in Fiscal Year 2003 at about $391
million--6.8 percent above Fiscal Year 2002 funding. Inflation-adjusted
core funding ended the period 2.3 percent below peak levels, but 4.3
percent above Fiscal Year 2002 levels by Fiscal Year 2007. Core refuge
staffing levels peaked in Fiscal Year 2004 at 3,610 full-time
equivalents--10.0 percent above the Fiscal Year 2002 level--and then
declined more slowly than funding levels. By Fiscal Year 2007, staffing
levels fell to 4.0 percent below peak levels, but 5.5 percent above
Fiscal Year 2002 levels. Through Fiscal Year 2007, the number of
permanent employees utilized by the refuge system declined to 7.5
percent below peak levels. During this period, refuge system officials
initiated new policies that: (1) reduced staff positions and
reconsidered how they allocate funds and staff among refuges to better
align staff levels with funding; (2) required refuge staff to focus on
a legislative mandate to complete refuge conservation plans by 2012;
(3) shifted to constructing a larger number of smaller visitor
structures, such as informational kiosks, and fewer large visitor
centers to spread visitor service funds across more refuges; (4)
increased the number of full-time law enforcement officers and their
associated training requirements; and (5) resulted in additional
administrative work. During this period, external factors, such as
severe storms, that complicate refuge staffs' ability to protect and
restore habitat quality also increased.
GAO's survey of refuge managers showed that changes in the quality
of habitat management and visitor service programs varied across
refuges during the study period. Habitat conditions for key types of
species improved about two times more often than they worsened, but
between 7 percent and 20 percent of habitats were of poor quality in
2007. Certain habitat problems increased at more than half of refuges
during this period, and managers reported that they increased the time
spent on certain habitat management activities, such as addressing
invasive plants, despite declining staffing levels. However, several
managers GAO interviewed said that staff were working longer hours
without extra pay to get work done, and managers expressed concern
about their ability to sustain habitat conditions. While the quality of
all six visitor service programs was reported to be stable or improving
between Fiscal Years 2002 and 2007 at most refuges, two programs--
environmental education and interpretation--were considered poor
quality at one-third of refuges in 2007. Changes in the time spent on
visitor services varied considerably across refuges, and managers noted
that visitor services generally are cut before habitat management
activities when resources are limited. Managers are concerned about
their ability to provide high-quality visitor services in the future
given staffing and funding constraints.
______
Madam Chair and Members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss our work on our nation's
wildlife refuges. The National Wildlife Refuge System, administered by
the Department of the Interior's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS),
comprises about 585 refuges and wetland management districts on more
than 96 million acres of land and water that provide habitat for
millions of waterfowl, other migratory birds, endangered species, and
other plants and wildlife. In addition, refuges host about 40 million
visitors each year who take part in one or more of the refuge system's
six wildlife-dependent visitor activities--hunting, fishing, wildlife
observation, wildlife photography, environmental education, and
environmental interpretation--and other recreational activities. The
refuge system employs more than 4,000 staff dispersed in its offices
across the country and spans all 50 states and several U.S.
territories. FWS manages its refuges through its headquarters office in
Washington D.C., eight regional offices, and hundreds of field offices
located on or near refuge lands. Individual refuge offices may report
directly to a regional office (we refer to these as ``stand-alone''
refuges), or may be grouped with other offices into a ``complex.''
My testimony is based on a report that is being released today,
Wildlife Refuges: Changes in Funding, Staffing, and Other Factors
Create Concerns about Future Sustainability (GAO-08-797), which
describes changing factors that the refuge system experienced from
Fiscal Years 2002 through 2007 and how habitat management and visitor
services changed during this period. For that report, we obtained and
analyzed funding and staffing data; surveyed stand-alone refuges and
refuges within complexes and received an 81 percent response rate;
visited headquarters, 4 regional offices, and 19 refuges; and conducted
phone interviews with officials at the other 4 regional offices and
about 50 additional refuges. We conducted this performance audit from
July 2007 to September 2008 in accordance with generally accepted
government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and
perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide
a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit
objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable
basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
In summary, we found the following:
For Fiscal Years 2002 through 2007, funding and staffing
levels for the refuge system fluctuated, several new refuge system
policy initiatives were introduced, and the influence of external
factors such as extreme weather and human development that affect
refuge operations increased.
Survey responses and interviews with refuge managers
indicated that the change in the quality of habitat and visitor service
programs, as well as changes in the amount of time devoted to these
activities, varied across refuges during our study period. Given recent
funding and staffing changes, and other factors affecting refuges,
managers expressed concerns about their ability to provide quality
habitat and visitor service programs into the future.
Numerous Changes Affected Refuge Management
From Fiscal Years 2002 through 2007, several changes occurred that
affected refuge management including changes in funding and staffing
levels, refuge system policy initiatives, and the influence of external
factors, such as extreme weather and human development.
Fluctuations in refuge funding. Inflation-adjusted funding (in 2002
dollars) for core refuge system activities--measured as obligations for
refuge operations, maintenance, and fire management--peaked in Fiscal
Year 2003, for the celebration of the refuge system's centennial, at
about $391 million--6.8 percent above Fiscal Year 2002 levels--and then
declined quickly to 4.7 percent below peak levels by Fiscal Year 2005,
before increasing again to 2.3 percent below peak levels in Fiscal Year
2007; it ended 4.3 percent above Fiscal Year 2002 levels. 1
In nominal dollars, core funding increased each year over the time
period from about $366 million in Fiscal Year 2002 to about $468
million in Fiscal Year 2007.
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\1\ We adjusted nominal dollars using the Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) Price Index for Government Consumption Expenditures and Gross
Investment (federal nondefense sector), with 2002 as the base year,
which assigns greater weight to changes in federal workers'
compensation than do other indices.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the refuge level, inflation-adjusted core funding at refuges
varied considerably during the time period, with about as many losing
funding as gaining funding since Fiscal Year 2002. Specifically, from
Fiscal Year 2002 through Fiscal Year 2007, core inflation-adjusted
funding decreased for 96 of 222 complexes and stand-alone refuges and
increased for 92, with funding remaining about the same for 34.
2 The magnitude of the changes in core funding at the refuge
level were also more pronounced than for the trend overall.
Specifically, core funding for 39 complexes and stand-alone refuges
decreased by more than 25 percent during this time period.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ We defined funding increasing or decreasing by 5 percent or
less over the time period as staying about the same. Four refuges
incurred no obligations during the Fiscal Year 2002 to 2007 time
period.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fluctuations in staffing levels. Staffing levels for core refuge
activities (core staffing), as measured by full-time equivalents (FTE)
the refuge system actually used, peaked one year later than core
inflation-adjusted funding and then declined more slowly. 3
Specifically, core staffing, which includes operations, maintenance,
and fire management, peaked in Fiscal Year 2004 at a level 10.0 percent
higher than in Fiscal Year 2002, but declined after that to 4.0 percent
below peak staffing levels in Fiscal Year 2007. This level, however,
was still 5.5 percent higher than the staffing level in Fiscal Year
2002. While operations and maintenance FTEs increased 3.6 percent
overall during our study period, they ended the period down 6.9 percent
from their 2004 peak. Fire management FTEs, on the other hand,
increased 14.3 percent over Fiscal Year 2002 levels. 4
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Actual FTEs, representing staff time charged to specific
activities at complexes and stand-alone refuges, are reported in the
Federal Financial System. They differ from budgeted FTEs, which
generally represent the operations and maintenance staffing ceiling for
the refuge system in a given fiscal year and are reported in the annual
Fish and Wildlife Service budget justifications.
\4\ About 38 percent of the increase in fire management activities
over the study period was due to an increase in emergency wildfire
suppression, prevention of further degradation, and rehabilitation of
burned areas.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Similar to FTEs, the number of employees on board in refuge system
positions also declined after peaking in Fiscal Year 2004. Through
Fiscal Year 2007, nearly 375 employees were lost from the refuge
system's peak staffing levels, a reduction of 8.4 percent over this
period. About three-quarters of this loss came through a reduction in
permanent employees (a 7.5 percent reduction), which refuge managers
and regional and headquarters officials told us are a key measure of
the effective strength of the workforce available to conduct core
refuge activities because they represent employees on board
indefinitely. Though 38 complexes and stand-alone refuges increased
their permanent staff by more than 5 percent since 2004, more than
three times as many lost at least 5 percent. Figure 1 compares the
trends in the refuge system's core funding, staffing, and permanent
employee levels during our study period.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4614.001
New policy initiatives. Several new refuge system policy
initiatives were implemented during this period:
Recognizing that funding declines after 2003 were
exacerbating an already high proportion of staff costs in refuge
budgets, regional offices began to (1) reduce staff positions through
attrition and by further consolidating some stand-alone refuges into
complexes, and (2) categorize refuges into three tiers for the purpose
of prioritizing funding and staffing allocations among refuges. These
measures are primarily responsible for the decline in FTEs and
permanent employees from Fiscal Year 2004 peak levels and the shifts in
staffing among complexes and stand-alone refuges.
Recognizing that the refuge system was not on pace to
meet a mandate in the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act
of 1997 to complete conservation plans for each refuge by 2012, refuge
system officials created a completion schedule and, beginning in 2004,
began requiring staff at refuges to turn their attention to completing
the plans. While refuge officials believe that they can meet the
deadline, current information shows that some plans are behind
schedule.
To help spread visitor service funds across as many
refuges as possible, refuge officials began placing a greater emphasis
on constructing smaller visitor facility structures, such as
informational kiosks and restrooms, at a larger number of refuges
rather than constructing a smaller number of traditional visitor
centers.
To improve safety and address other concerns, refuge
system management began an initiative to increase the number of full-
time law enforcement officers and their associated training and
experience requirements. However, refuge officials told us that they
need to hire about 200 additional officers in order to reach the
minimum number needed to provide adequate protection to refuge
resources and visitors.
Various refuge system, FWS, and Interior policies
increased requirements on nonadministrative staff to enter additional
data into certain systems and respond to numerous data calls. Refuge
system officials are beginning to implement changes to reduce some of
these administrative burdens.
Increasing external factors. The influence of external factors----
those outside the control of the refuge system that complicate refuges'
abilities to protect and restore habitat quality, including extreme
weather and development on adjacent lands--increased over this period.
For example, refuge managers reported that between Fiscal Years 2002
and 2007, the influence of development--such as the expansion of urban
areas and the conversion of off-refuge land near refuges to agriculture
or industrial use--increased around refuges and contributed to refuge
habitat problems for almost one half of the refuges. Such development
can pollute refuge lands and waters and make it more difficult to
maintain viable, interconnected habitat in and around a refuge's
borders.
Changes in Habitat Management and Visitor Services
From Fiscal Years 2002 through 2007, several changes occurred in
refuges' habitat management and visitor services, creating concerns
about the refuges' abilities to maintain high quality habitat and
visitor services in the future.
Habitat management. Habitats on refuges for five types of key
species--waterfowl, other migratory birds, threatened and endangered
species, candidate threatened and endangered species, and state species
of concern--improved between Fiscal Years 2002 and 2007--about two
times as often as they worsened (see table 1).
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4614.002
Refuge managers reported two to nearly seven times as often
that habitats for several types of key species were of high quality
than low quality in 2007 (see table 2). Habitat quality is determined
by the availability of several key components, including fresh water,
food sources, and nesting cover, among other things, and the absence of
habitat problems, such as invasive species. High quality habitat
generally provides adequate amounts of each of these main habitat
components and is not significantly affected by habitat problems, while
low quality habitat generally lacks these components and may have
significant problems; moderate quality habitat has a mixture of these
attributes.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4614.003
Complicating habitat management is growing pressure from
increasing habitat problems occurring on refuges and the influence of
external factors. Our survey found that invasive plant species and
habitat fragmentation--the disruption of natural habitat corridors,
often caused by human development activities--were the leading
problems, affecting 55 percent and 44 percent of refuges, respectively,
and both were increasing on more than half of refuges. Managers at
refuges close to urban centers showed us busy roads adjacent to their
refuge that have cut off natural habitat corridors, leading to animals
trying to cross them or cutting them off from other members of their
species, leading to genetic homogeneity and inbreeding. Managers of
more rural refuges talked about increasing pressures to convert lands
to agricultural uses, citing factors such as the increasing price of
corn, or to industrial uses, such as oil and gas development.
At the same time, refuge managers reported increasing the time
spent on a number of key habitat management activities on many refuges
between Fiscal Years 2002 and 2007 (see table 3). Importantly, time
spent on developing comprehensive conservation plans, which are
required by the Improvement Act, increased for 59 percent of refuges
during our study period. In addition, refuges that increased the time
spent on habitat management activities were about three times more
likely to report that habitat quality for waterfowl and other migratory
birds improved rather than worsened.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4614.004
In light of increasing problems and threats affecting refuge
conditions, as well as recent funding and staffing constraints, refuge
managers and regional and headquarters officials expressed concern
about refuges' abilities to sustain or improve current habitat
conditions for wildlife into the future. Even though our survey showed
that a large number of refuges increased staff time on habitat
management activities, some refuge managers we interviewed explained
that staff were simply working longer hours to get the work done.
Several refuge managers repeatedly indicated that despite growing
habitat problems, an increasing administrative workload, and reduced
staffing, they are still trying to do everything possible to maintain
adequate habitat, especially habitats for key species, such as
waterfowl, other migratory birds, and threatened and endangered
species. Several managers said that attention to key habitats is the
last thing that will stop receiving management attention in the event
of declining funding. Several managers even said that they have to
limit the amount of time staff spend at the refuge, as these employees
are working overtime without extra pay.
Visitor services. Our survey found that the quality of all six
wildlife-dependent visitor services was stable or improving between
Fiscal Years 2002 and 2007, according to the vast majority of refuge
managers responding to our survey. Most notably, environmental
education and interpretation programs showed the largest percentage of
refuges reporting improvement, although these programs also showed the
largest percentage reporting declines as well, as compared to other
visitor services (see table 4).
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4614.005
Our survey found that four of the six key visitor services
provided to the public were of moderate or better quality at most
refuges in 2007, but environmental education and interpretation were
reported to be low quality at about one-third of refuges (see table 5).
Managers told us that education and interpretation are among the most
resource intensive visitor service programs and, for these reasons, the
programs are often among the first areas to be cut when a refuge faces
competing demands.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4614.006
A major factor influencing the quality of visitor services--
beyond the abundance of fish and wildlife populations--is the amount
and quality of refuge infrastructure and the availability of supplies.
For example, the availability of trails and tour routes is essential to
providing the public with access to what refuges have to offer and is
generally important for supporting any type of visitor service
activity. Hunting and fishing infrastructure depend largely on physical
structures such as duck blinds, boat launches, and fishing platforms.
Providing wildlife observation and photography opportunities simply
require adequate access to the refuge, but can be enhanced through
observation platforms and photography blinds. Environmental education
depends on physical infrastructure, such as classrooms, and supplies,
such as workbooks, handouts, and microscopes. Environmental
interpretation also depends on physical infrastructure such as
informational kiosks and interpretive signs along trails.
Some refuges reported that they expanded their visitor services
infrastructure between Fiscal Years 2002 and 2007, for example, by
adding informational kiosks and trails and tour routes, yet more than
one-half of refuges reported no change (see table 6). Most refuges also
reported that the quality of their visitor services infrastructure
stayed about the same or increased since 2002.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4614.007
Time spent by refuges on visitor services varied considerably
throughout the system. Overall, at least one in five refuges reported a
decrease in staff time for each visitor service area (see table 7).
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4614.008
Refuge managers indicated that staffing changes and a lack of
resources for increasing and maintaining infrastructure, raise concerns
about their ability to provide quality visitor services into the
future. Our survey results showed that the time spent by permanent
staff on visitor services had been reduced at more than one-third of
refuges and more than half of refuge managers reported increasing their
reliance on volunteers to help manage visitor centers and deliver
education programs, for example. Refuge managers are also concerned
about the impact that the increasing administrative workload incurred
by non-administrative refuge staff is having on the refuges' ability to
deliver visitor services. Refuge managers and regional and headquarters
officials expressed concern about the long-term implications of
declining and low quality visitor services. Many refuge managers cited
the importance of ensuring that the public has positive outdoor
experiences on refuges and providing them with meaningful educational
and interpretative services. Managers said that the availability of
visitor services is a way to get young people interested in future
careers with the refuge system and instill in children an appreciation
for wildlife and the outdoors as well as an interest in maintaining
these resources. In addition, visitor services are important for
developing and maintaining community relationships, as the refuge
system is increasingly turning toward partnerships with private
landowners and other agencies and organizations to maintain and improve
ecosystems both on and around wildlife refuges.
In conclusion, maintaining the refuge system as envisioned in law--
where the biological integrity, diversity and environmental health of
the refuge system are maintained; priority visitor services are
provided; and the strategic growth of the system is continued--may be
difficult in light of continuing federal fiscal constraints and an
ever-expanding list of challenges facing refuges. While some refuges
have high quality habitat and visitor service programs and others have
seen improvements since 2002, refuge managers are concerned about their
ability to sustain high quality refuge conditions and continue to
improve conditions where needed because of expected continuing
increases in external threats and habitat problems affecting refuges.
Already, FWS has had to make trade-offs among refuges with regard to
which habitats will be monitored and maintained, which visitor services
will be offered, and which refuges will receive adequate law
enforcement coverage. FWS's efforts to prioritize its use of funding
and staff through workforce planning have restored some balance between
refuge budgets and their associated staff costs. However, if threats
and problems afflicting refuges continue to grow as expected, it will
be important for the refuge system to monitor how these shifts in
resources are affecting refuge conditions.
Madam Chair, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be
pleased to answer any questions that you or other Members of the
Subcommittee may have at this time.
GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments
For further information about this testimony, please contact me at
(202) 512-3841 or [email protected]. Contact points for our offices of
Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last
page of this statement. Trish McClure, Assistant Director; Mark Braza;
David Brown; Stephen Cleary; Timothy J. Guinane; Carol Henn; Richard
Johnson; Michael Krafve; Alison O'Neill; George Quinn, Jr.; and
Stephanie Toby made key contributions to this statement.
______
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you very much, Ms. Nazzaro. We
appreciate your comprehensive assessment of the Refuge System
and the GAO's efforts to shine a bright light on the
substantial challenges brought about by the inadequate funding
of the system.
I now recognize Mr. Callihan to testify for five minutes
concerning his work heading up the MSI evaluation. Please
proceed.
STATEMENT OF DAVID CALLIHAN, DIRECTOR,
MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Callihan. Yes. Good morning, Madam Chairwoman. I just
want to go over a little bit some of the highlights and the
process of the evaluation that we undertook.
We were contracted in late 2006 to conduct an independent
evaluation of the effectiveness of the National Wildlife Refuge
System. Can you hear OK? It is coming through? Our evaluation
was looking at the effectiveness of the Refuge System in
accomplishing its mission and meeting and achieving each of the
12 strategic outcome goals contained in the 2007 Refuge System
strategic plan.
The evaluation that we undertook was a fairly comprehensive
evaluation. We conducted interviews with several hundred
people, including all the managers of the key Refuge System
programs, as well as most of the nongovernmental partners that
are most closely involved with the Refuge System.
We produced a report that is structured according to
findings, conclusions and recommendations. We tried to be as
objective as possible, and we provided findings, conclusions
and recommendations for each of the 12 strategic objective
outcomes, and we provided an overall effectiveness rating for
each of those outcomes.
In terms of the effectiveness ratings, they go from
ineffective to highly effective. There was one goal that was
rated highly effective that had to do with partnerships and
cooperative projects.
There were four strategic outcome goals rated as effective.
Those were the ones related to wildlife dependent recreation;
providing infrastructure and equipment adequate to address and
support the mission of the Refuge System; completing quality
and useful comprehensive conservation plans; and reducing
wildfire risks and improve habitats.
The strategic objective goals rated as partially effective
were----
Ms. Bordallo. Sir, would you move a little closer to the
microphone so we can----
Mr. Callihan. The strategic objective goals we rated as
partially effective were conserve management where appropriate;
restore fish, wildlife and plant resources; ensure the unique
values of wilderness and other special designation areas are
protected; welcome and orient visitors; promote and enhance
organizational excellence.
The two strategic objective goals that we rated as
ineffective were protect resources and visitors through law
enforcement and strategically grow the Refuge System.
A few of the highlights in terms of the accomplishments
that we came across that I would just like to note is in terms
of the CCP process. The Refuge System is supposed to have all
CCPs completed for refuges by 2012. While the rate of progress
was initially slow, it has picked up considerably in the last
few years, and it appears to us that the Refuge System is
pretty much on track to meet that objective.
In addition, it is mandated that the Refuge System work
with state fish and game agencies on the development of CCPs.
When we undertook a survey of state fish and game agencies, 94
percent had said they had been provided meaningful
opportunities to participate in that process, and 95 percent of
the respondents said that being involved in the CCP process had
improved communications and coordination between the state
agencies and the Refuge System.
Also during the period of the study between 1996 and 2000
there was a substantial increase in refuges that were providing
hunting and fishing opportunities. In fact, the number of
refuges providing hunting opportunities during this period
increased by 24 percent up to 366.
In addition, the one area that we rated as highly effective
was the Refuge System's strategic objective to facilitate
partnerships. We found that there has just been a tremendous
level of support from Refuge System partners. It hasn't been
accidental. The Refuge System has undertaken programs to
nurture this program.
In the latest year that information was available when we
were undertaking this study, there was $50 million brought into
the system in 2006 and $30 million of that was in direct cash
contributions, so that is a tremendous achievement in terms of
partner contributions.
A few areas that we felt were most affected by insufficient
financial support was the law enforcement program, which simply
has too few officers and it is unable to provide adequate
coverage within the Refuge System. We also noted that the pace
of realty acquisition has slowed dramatically in recent years
due to budget declines.
And I think the third area where we felt was most affected
by insufficient funding was the biological inventory and
monitoring work that was being conducted. We felt, and the
refuge managers agreed in the survey, and this was confirmed
through our field visits, that there was just an insufficient
level of inventory and monitoring being done.
Just in conclusion, I would just like to thank the Refuge
System for their open embrace of the process that we undertook.
We were given complete access to all staff and all information.
I think that it is not easy for an organization to undergo
an open and independent evaluation like this, but all of the
top managers in the Refuge System were very cooperative and
they were very sincere in their interest in using this to make
improvements where those improvements are possible.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Callihan follows:]
Statement of David Callihan, Director,
Management Systems International
The National Wildlife Refuge System contracted with Management
Systems International in September 2006 to conduct an independent
evaluation of the overall effectiveness of its program. The
evaluation's purpose was to identify program strengths and weaknesses,
and to determine whether and to what degree the Refuge System is
achieving its conservation mission.
This testimony document is principally drawn from the Executive
Summary of the MSI report entitled An Independent Evaluation of the
Effectiveness of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Wildlife
Refuge System, which was finalized in June 2008. In addition, some
material has also been included from the full report in order to cover
areas that are most pertinent to this hearing. The research for the
evaluation was conducted between October 2006 and September 2007 and
thus represents a snapshot in time; some of the report's findings and
budgetary figures are now out of date.
This report produced by MSI is an evaluation of the effectiveness
of the performance of the National Wildlife Refuge System and contains
analysis on the Refuge System's ability to effectively achieve the
twelve Strategic Outcome Goals contain in its 2007 Strategic Plan. The
summary of the complete evaluation includes an overall performance
rating, conclusions and recommendations for each of the Refuge System's
twelve strategic outcome goals. A complete set of evaluation findings
can be found in the full report--An Independent Evaluation of the
Effectiveness of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Wildlife
Refuge System (MSI, June 2008). In addition to findings, the complete
evaluation report contains response data from three surveys (refuge
managers, state fish and game agencies, and Friends Groups/partners), a
list of all persons interviewed approximately 250), references, and a
bibliography.
Budgetary Impacts on Program Performance
Over the period of performance that was examined by MSI (roughly
between the passage of the 1997 Refuge Impact Act and 2007) there was
an overall decline in the Refuge System's budget; purchasing power
declined by approximately 11% between the FY 2003 peak and the
requested FY 2008 budget. (Note: The FY08 enacted budget restored most,
but not all, of the decline in purchasing power.)
We believe that the following areas of operation were most severely
impacted by declining budget allocations:
The law enforcement program has too few officers and does
not have adequate resources to hire enough officers. As a result, there
is insufficient law enforcement coverage.
The pace of realty acquisition has slowed in recent years
as a result of budget declines.
Anecdotal and survey evidence suggests that biological
survey and monitoring work has declined.
Over the past five years or so, as real budgets have been
in decline, refuges in several administrative regions have found that
they had been expending upwards of 90% of their operations and
maintenance funds on personnel costs, which left insufficient funds for
operational tasks and projects, such as habitat restoration. The result
of this re-balancing exercise has been to revisit and reduce staff in
several regions, which also has meant reducing programs and operations.
Some illustrative impacts of the workforce planning exercise are
expected to include:
In Region 4, up to 20% of the workforce is expected to be
eliminated (from its peak in FY2003), which will result in a
significant cutback in some services. For example, these cutbacks will
include: reducing the number of days per week that some refuge visitor
centers are open; reducing trail maintenance; reducing biological
inventory and survey work; cutting back or eliminating visitor service
programs, such as environmental education; and operating some refuges
without any staff (de-staffing).
In Region 5, a number of refuges are being de-staffed as a
means to move forward with staff cuts, while full biological and public
use programs will be maintained only at select ``stay strong'' refuges.
In addition, recognizing the need to ``do less with less,'' the
Regional Office is asking all refuges to focus their visitor service
programs on two public uses, rather than on each of the ``Big 6''
activities.
A number of refuges are being de-staffed; for example, in
Region 5, 7 of 71 refuges were expected to be de-staffed within the a
year of the workforce plan's completion plan.
In other regions the staff cutbacks under workforce planning have
not been as severe. For example, the CNO and Alaska regions were not
expected to have to make any significant cut-backs in staffing.
In several regions, key services such as visitor
programs, environmental education, and biological monitoring are being
curtailed or eliminated.
As a counterbalance to the above, over the past ten years
the Refuge System has been able to significantly expand participation
by volunteers and Friends Groups. Partnerships with thousands of local
and national organizations make a significant contribution to the
accomplishment of the Refuge System's key objectives, particularly in
the areas of habitat restoration and visitor services; and partnerships
bring a tremendous amount of funding into the system--in 2005 alone the
total value of partnership contributions to the Refuge System exceeded
$50 million, with over $30 million of the total being in direct cash
contributions. The level of volunteer support increased dramatically
over the past ten years--from 383,983 hours in 1987 to 1,478,797 in
2005.
Background
The U.S. National Wildlife Refuge System was created by Executive
Order On March 14, 1903, when President Theodore Roosevelt established
the country's first wildlife refuge on Florida's central Atlantic
coast--the Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge (NWR). From its
modest beginning on Pelican Island the Refuge System has expanded into
a network of over 550 distinct units that encompasses over 95 million
acres. Alaska contains approximately 76.8 million acres of refuge
lands, or about 80% of the land in the total system.
To accomplish its mission the Refuge System finalized a strategic
plan in early 2007 that contains twelve strategic outcome goals (SOGs).
These goals cover the areas of habitat and wildlife conservation,
wildlife-dependent recreation, law enforcement, fire management,
welcoming and orienting visitors, wilderness management, conservation
planning, infrastructure and equipment maintenance, strategic growth
and organizational excellence. The Refuge System is part of the United
States Fish and Wildlife Service, which is managed by the Department of
Interior. The National Wildlife Refuge System collaborates closely with
other Fish and Wildlife Service programs, including the migratory
birds, endangered species and fisheries programs.
The MSI evaluation report reviews the Refuge System's twelve
strategic outcome goals and provides an assessment as to how well the
system is doing in accomplishing each goal. In addition, a section on
the Refuge System's operating context, which analyzes budget and
administrative trends over the past several years, has also been
included.
Evaluation Methodology
The evaluation was conducted between October 2006 and September
2007 and used a multi-method and multi-source data collection
methodology. 1 MSI used a multi-source methodology to
overcome the limitation of having to base analysis on a single source
of information as single-source data may have weaknesses or unduly bias
conclusions. In addition, a multi-method approach allows for a greater
depth of understanding of particular issues.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Expect for two surveys (partner survey and state fish and game
agency survey), evaluation activity was completed by September 2007;
the surveys were completed in April and May 2008.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The principal data collection processes used in this evaluation
included:
Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and Partner Interviews: More than
250 interviews were conducted as part of this evaluation. Those
interviewed included: Refuge System managers in Washington; a wide
range of FWS field staff, from both regional offices and field
stations; Refuge System stakeholders in Congress, the Department of the
Interior and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB); national and
local NGO partners; and staff from state fish and wildlife agencies.
Site Visits: The evaluation team visited all eight Refuge System
regional offices and at least two refuges in each region. Refuge and
regional office visits included meetings with refuge and regional
office staff, state fish and game officials and non-governmental
partners, such as representative from the Audubon Association, Ducks
Unlimited, the Nature Conservancy, Friends Groups and other local
partners.
Refuge Managers Survey: An on-line Refuge Manager's Survey was
conducted between March 21st and April 19, 2007. The survey was a
combination of close-ended and open-ended questions structured to
collect information on the implementation and effectiveness of the
Refuge System's twelve strategic outcome goals. A total of 312 refuge
managers completed the survey, which represents a survey completion
rate of over 90% of current refuge managers.
Partners and State Fish and Game Surveys: Two additional surveys
were conducted to solicit the views of Refuge System partners on the
quality of their partnerships with the Refuge System and on their views
of the Refuge System's effectiveness. These surveys were:
A survey of local Partners and Friends Groups was
undertaken from March 17-25, 2008. A total of 83 responses were
received from 98 potential respondents. The response rate was 85%.
A survey of officials from state fish and game agencies
was conducted from April 29-May 16, 2008. Responses were limited to one
response per state agency. A total of 32 states responded to the
survey, which constitutes a response rate of 64%.
Review of Existing Data: This included documents and databases,
both from the Refuge System and from other land management agencies--
the latter which provided context and benchmarking. Analysis included a
careful review of the Refuge System's annual performance monitoring
database--the Refuge Annual Performance Plan (RAPP).
Principal Findings and Conclusions
An overview of the performance of each Strategic Outcome Goal is
provided in the table below and a brief discussion of each SOG follows.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4614.009
Operating Context:
Budget Trends: NWRS budgets have declined over the past several
years, with actual purchasing power having declined about 11% between
the FY 2003 peak and the requested FY 2008 budget. (Note: The FY08
enacted budget restored most, but not all, of the decline in purchasing
power.) During this period of budget decline some Refuge System costs
have increased due to inflation and annual adjustments, e.g. salaries.
As a result, the Refuge System has not been able to maintain its level
of operational activity from one year to the next--services and
personnel have had to be cut back. Maintenance funding, however, has
significantly increased--with a jump of 436% over eight years (FY
1996--FY 2004).
Recent budget declines appear to have severely affected refuge
operations. This is evident based on a number of findings, including:
94% of refuge managers' survey comments indicated an
inability on the part of the NWRS to accomplish its mission due to
inadequate budgets and staffing;
Workforce planning exercises are leading to significant
cutbacks in personnel and services; for example, the Region 4 plan
calls for a 20% reduction in staff;
In several regions, key services such as visitor
programs, environmental education, and biological monitoring are being
curtailed or eliminated; and
A number of refuges are being de-staffed; for example, in
Region 5, 7 of 71 refuges will be de-staffed within the next year.
Administration/Workload: Refuge System administrative reporting has
reached an unbalanced and critical level and is diverting time and
resources away from mission-critical activities. There has been a clear
trend, particularly over the past five years, of increased workload
requirements and increased administrative reporting. While some of the
workload requirements, such as the need to produce CCPs, directly
support the core mission of the Refuge System, much of the work relates
to administrative requirements, such as the implementation of multiple
and apparently redundant timekeeping and accountability processes. Much
of the effort to address accountability concerns is disproportionate to
the resources involved; for example, small refuges must use the same
complex systems as large refuges even though their discretionary annual
operations budgets may be as a small as $20,000-$30,000 per year. The
Refuge System places an emphasis on accountability that often times
appears to be disproportionate to the level of resources being
monitored, which is not cost effective and is a distraction to a focus
on the organization's core conservation mission.
Overall Operating Context: The confluence of declining budgets,
declining staff, and a significant increase in administrative workload
has impaired the Refuge System's ability to focus on and accomplish its
core mission--that of conserving habitat and resources.
Concurrent with declining budgets, the Refuge System has also
experienced an increase in administrative requirements. Together, these
factors have had a negative effect on the Refuge System's ability to
achieve its core goals--refuge managers have less time, and less money,
to focus on the accomplishment of their mission than was the case five
years ago. The areas most impacted have included: the Refuge System's
ability to conduct adequate monitoring and inventory work; the law
enforcement program, which simply has too few officers to enable the
Refuge System to provide adequate law enforcement coverage; and the
rate of growth of the Refuge System, which has declined markedly over
the past five years.
SOG 1: Conserve Manage, and Where Appropriate, Restore Fish, Wildlife
and Plant Resources and Their Habitats.
Partially Effective: This objective is rated ``Partially
Effective'' because of the significant amount of refuge land that is
need of additional management attention and the inconsistent
application of science-based management across the Refuge System. As
per the Refuge System's RAPP performance reporting system, 89% of
refuge lands--76.5 million acres--are in Class I condition, which means
the land is receiving needed management action or does not require
additional management action at this time. Alaska's sixteen refuges
report that 98% of their habitats were in Class 1 condition in 2006 (as
per RAPP data reporting). However, for NWRS lands outside of Alaska, 59
% of the 18.9 million acres were reported as being in Class 1 condition
in 2006--meaning that 41% are in need of management attention.
A significant portion of refuges have not developed Habitat
Management Plans and there is an insufficient level of biological
inventory and monitoring work being done--only 11% of refuge managers
surveyed described the current level of inventory and monitoring work
as being mostly or fully sufficient.
SOG 2: Provide Quality Environments with Adequate Water.
Unable to Evaluate: This objective is rated ``Unable to Evaluate''
as a result of the limited information available against which to
undertake an assessment of this strategic goal. The Refuge System does
not currently operate a well defined and structured water resources
program. There is currently no individual or office designated to
coordinate the Refuge System's water rights and water quality
activities.
SOG 3: Ensure that Unique Values of Wilderness, other Special
Designation Areas, and Cultural Resources are protected.
Partially Effective: The NWRS contains about 20.7 million acres of
wilderness, of which approximately 90%, or 18.6 million acres, is in
Alaska. In addition, about 1.9 million of proposed acres of wilderness
exist in the NWRS. The NWRS currently operates under the 1986
Wilderness Stewardship Policy. This policy is outdated and does not
provide Refuge Managers adequate guidance regarding permissible
management actions. A new draft policy has been developed and was
released for public comment in 2001 but has never been finalized. The
NWRS has supported the development of wilderness training courses and
refuge managers overwhelmingly feel these courses have been effective
in enabling them to acquire the skills necessary to manage wilderness
areas; 64% of refuge managers who manage wilderness areas have
completed the required wilderness training.
SOG 4: Welcome and Orient Visitors.
Partially Effective: The NWRS is reasonably effective in terms of
informing and engaging refuge visitors but could easily improve its
performance in this area. Brochures are generally informative and
available at refuges, and refuge employees and volunteers are able to
provide helpful and informative answers to visitor questions. However,
videos and CDs--very engaging and effective means of providing
information to refuge visitors--are substantially underutilized. The
information provided on refuge websites is very inconsistent from
refuge to refuge and frequently provides only the most basic
information. The NWRS could do a substantially better job at orienting
visitors by improving its websites and making sure website content is
updated and consistent.
SOG 5: Provide Quality Wildlife-Dependent Recreation and Education
Opportunities.
Effective: The Refuge System has done a good job at expanding the
number of refuges that offer wildlife-dependent recreation
opportunities and, overall, the visitor satisfaction rate at refuges
appears to be very high ``above 90% in the 2002 and 2004 surveys (note:
the surveys were conducted only at fifty high visitation refuges). In
terms of the individual Big 6 recreational activities, the operation of
hunting, fishing, wildlife viewing, and photography programs are
generally operating at a satisfactory level in terms of the Refuge
System's ability to provide an adequate level of service and in terms
of the support provided to those programs by the Refuge System. The
environmental education and interpretive programs, on the other hand,
are not able to meet public demand and are not adequately supported by
the Refuge System. This latter conclusion is based solely on the view
of refuge managers: 55% of refuge managers surveyed indicated they are
not able to adequately meet the demand for environmental education
services and 48% indicated they are not able to meet the demand for
interpretive services.
SOG 6: Facilitate Partnerships and Cooperative Projects to Engage Other
Conservation Agencies, Volunteers, Friends, and Partners in the
NWRS Mission.
Highly Effective: This objective was rated highly effective for
several reasons: over the past ten years the Refuge System has been
able to significantly expand participation by volunteers and Friends
Groups; partnerships with thousands of local and national organizations
make a significant contribution to the accomplishment of the Refuge
System's key objectives, particularly in the areas of habitat
restoration and visitor services; and partnerships bring a tremendous
amount of funding into the system--in 2005 alone the total value of
partnership contributions to the Refuge System exceeded $50 million,
with over $30 million of the total being in direct cash contributions.
State Fish and Game Agencies: 88% of state agencies rated the
quality of their relationship with individual refuges as between good
and excellent; 47% rated the quality of the relationship as excellent
or very good.
Partner Agencies: 93% of partners rated the quality of their
relationship with individual refuges as between good and excellent; 56%
rated the quality of the relationship as excellent.
SOG 7: Protect Resources and Visitors through Law Enforcement.
Ineffective: Low staffing levels are leading to a substantial and
critical lack of law enforcement coverage and capability at many
refuges across the system. At many refuges, law enforcement coverage is
insufficient to ensure the protection of resources and the safety of
visitors and refuge staff. A substantial majority of refuge managers
(over 70%) feel visitor safety and law enforcement performance has
declined in recent years. The issue of public safety is of particular
concern given that only seven of the refuge managers from 50 high
visitation refuges (with annual visitation in excess of 250,000) who
responded to the MSI survey indicated that law enforcement coverage is
sufficient on their refuge. It is highly unlikely that any meaningful
progress towards improving the Refuge System's law enforcement
capability can be achieved under current and expected budget allocation
levels.
SOG 8: Provide Infrastructure and Equipment Adequate to Support Mission
and Maintained in Good Condition.
Effective: The most important refuge assets--those most necessary
to the achievement of refuge conservation and public use objectives--
are generally well maintained. Seventy-five percent of refuge managers
surveyed feel that the assets most critical to their refuge's mission
and purpose, such as water management systems, are maintained in a
condition adequate to support and achieve those goals. An important
caveat to this conclusion is the fact that a substantial minority of
refuge managers (40%) believe their refuges require new facilities if
they are to meet their purpose and objectives. In the mid-1990s, the
maintenance of the Refuge System's infrastructure and equipment was a
critical concern and the maintenance budget subsequently increased
dramatically--from $21 in 1996 million to $91.5 million in 2004 (a 336%
increase over eight years in actual funding dollars). The availability
of increased funds over the past seven or eight years has allowed the
Refuge System to effectively address preventive maintenance
requirements. Subsequent to 2004, however, maintenance funding dipped
substantially--a decline of 30% from 2004 to 2007. It is important to
note that if the recent backsliding in maintenance funding is not
reversed infrastructure maintenance will soon once again become a
critical problem.
SOG 9: Complete Quality and Useful Comprehensive Conservation Plans
(CCPs) on Schedule and with Full Engagement of Partners.
Effective: The NWRS is required to complete CCPs for 554 refuges by
2012. To date, two hundred and five refuges have completed CCPs--or
about 37% of required units (analysis as per mid-2207). Although the
pace of CCP completion has accelerated significantly over the past few
years, the Refuge System is slightly behind schedule in terms of
meeting its CCP completion target. In April 2007, the Refuge System
began implementing the 2012 Plan, an Action Plan to Meet Our
Legislative Mandate, which lays out a series of actions intended to
ensure that all required CCPs are completed by 2012. Overall, refuge
managers have found CCPs to be a useful tool for clarifying objectives,
guiding habitat management decisions, and clarifying public use
decisions.
As per the MSI State Fish and Game Agency Survey: 94% of state
agencies agreed or strongly agreed that they had been provided an
opportunity to meaningfully participate in the CCP process; 95% of
state agencies agreed or strongly agreed that their participation in
the CCP process had improved their communication and coordination with
the Refuge System.
SOG 10: Strategically Grow the System.
Ineffective: This objective was rated ineffective for a number of
reasons, including: the rate at which land has been added to the NWRS
has declined significantly over the past five years; land purchased by
the Refuge System often does not match the priorities identified by the
NWRS' Land Acquisition Priority System, especially over the past few
years; and the current DOI-managed land appraisal process that the NWRS
uses is ineffective and cannot be relied upon to produce timely or
accurate appraisals, resulting in available land deals being lost.
SOG 11: Reduce Wildfire Risks and Improve Habitats.
Effective: This objective is rated ``Effective'' as a result of the
systematic planning and execution by which the NWRS utilizes prescribed
fire to improve wildlife habitat and reduce fuels loads and also for
the Refuge System's ability to fight and suppress wildfires. Where
refuges have the qualified staff and budget, the high level of
planning, training, and coordination results in application of
prescription fire to improve and maintain habitats, reduce fuel loads,
and suppress unwanted wildfire. Based on MSI surveys and interviews, it
appears that approximately one-half of the NWRS has the resources it
needs--both budget and personnel--to use fire as a habitat management
tool. For other units, issues of staffing, available budget, the
growing percentage of Wildland Urban Interface lands, and the location
of refuges relative to other fire resources impair the system's ability
to promote prescription fire while proactively addressing fuels
availability and effective wildfire suppression.
SOG 12: Promote and Enhance Organizational Excellence.
Partially Effective: The Refuge System has introduced a number of
new management and planning systems over the past several years,
including a medium-term strategic plan, activity-based costing, RAPP
work planning and reporting systems, and refuge-level comprehensive
conservation planning. The Refuge System is also currently undertaking
a Workforce Planning exercise to help better balance personnel and
operational expenditures and to prioritize staffing and programs in
consideration of declining budgets. The RAPP system has enabled the
NWRS to better track and report on national-level accomplishments and
the budget rebalancing exercise will, over time, provide managers
greater flexibility to address local priorities. The RAPP system,
however, has not proved useful to analyzing program effectiveness nor
is it used for program decision-making. In addition, there is
significant inconsistency within the Refuge System in how policies and
programs are implemented across regions. In particular, there is a
great deal of variance in basic business management practices, such as
budgeting, annual work planning and the use of station reviews/
evaluations.
Principal Recommendations
This report contains specific recommendations for improving the
effectiveness of the Refuge System in each of the individual strategic
outcome goal sections. A brief summary of some of the recommendations
most likely to improve performance are presented below.
The Law Enforcement program needs increased funding: There is a
severe shortage of full-time law enforcement officers that can only be
addressed by hiring additional full-time law enforcement officers--
moving from current levels of around 200 full-time officers to at least
400 full-time officers. Implementation of this recommendation will
require substantial resources, but an acceptable improvement in law
enforcement coverage is of fundamental importance to the on-going
effectiveness of the Refuge System.
The Refuge System should find a way to increase policy and program
consistency across regions and between refuges: Part of this process
could include standardizing budget development, work planning,
reporting and evaluation requirements. Another aspect of this
recommendation is the need to develop a clear point of authority and
process for ensuring greater policy consistency.
Reduce administrative and reporting requirements: The Refuge System
should strive to reduce administrative and reporting requirements--
particularly for smaller refuges (seven or fewer staff).
Review the Need to Hire Additional Biologists: As noted in the
conclusion section, in part, the Refuge System is unable to fulfill its
commitment to manage refuges using an adaptive management process
because of a shortage of biologists (approximately 20% of the Refuge
System's workforce are biologists). It is recommended that the Refuge
System review the adequacy of its biology workforce as compared to
system needs. The White Paper produced for the Conservation in Action
Summit recommended that biological teams be added to the top 50
refuges. An assessment should be undertaken to determine the degree to
which this has happened.
Biological monitoring and inventory work needs to be increased and
a more consistent approach should be developed and implemented: The
effort of developing a system-wide geographic monitoring capability
should be continued and provided increased emphasis. For example,
efforts should be made to build upon the Refuge Lands Geographic
Information system (RLGIS) and accelerate and adequately resource the
implementation of the Strategic Habitat Conservation Initiative. The
Refuge System's challenge is to better define high-priority system-wide
needs, identify best practices that meet these needs, and replicate
these systems in an increased number of locations.
Develop a water strategy: The Refuge System should develop an
overall strategy and management structure to more effectively assess
and address water management issues. Steps to develop such a program
would include appointing a Water Resources Coordinator and developing a
policy, or at least a defined process, for how refuges should assess
and manage water rights. As the Refuge System reviews the need to
bolster its approach to water management it could also take the
opportunity to review other program and issue areas that may benefit
from increased attention, such as the impacts of climate change and its
influence on how the Refuge System should be managed.
Develop consistent and improved refuge websites: Develop a single
website format/architecture for each of the refuge unit's websites.
There are several options available in terms of the approach used to
manage refuge websites; however, the most efficient option would likely
be to centralize the function in a single office or under a single
contract.
Prioritize visitor services: In light of high public demand for
wildlife-dependent recreation and the Refuge System's limited and
stretched budgets, the Refuge System should prioritize the public use
services it will offer and provide some guidance to refuges and regions
as to how limited resources should be allocated among the various
wildlife-dependent recreational activities. Particular attention should
be given to better defining and supporting environmental education and
interpretation programs, where such programs are appropriate and of
high utility.
Strengthen the Refuge System's strategic growth program: The Refuge
System should develop a Land Acquisition Policy and a corresponding
strategy to guide expansion of the system. It is recommended that the
land acquisition policy/system be developed to be consistent with the
Fish and Wildlife Service's Strategic Conservation Habitat Initiative,
a geospatial system being adopted by the Service to identify and
monitor conservation priorities. In addition, the Refuge System should
engage in a discussion with the Department of Interior to enable it to
improve the process it uses to appraise potential real estate
transactions as the current Department of Interior mandated Appraisal
Services Directorate (ASD) system is ineffective.
Redesign the RAPP reporting system: This system should be
redesigned based on a clarification of its purpose. If the system is to
remain primarily an external reporting tool--for reporting to FWS, DOI,
OMB, and Congress--then the system should be substantially simplified
to focus on areas of key interest and the number of indicators tracked
should be significantly reduced (by at least 50-60%). However, the RAPP
system would be most useful to the Refuge System if it were redesigned
to provide information that could help inform strategy and management
decisions, which is not currently the case. This will require revising
the system and also instituting practices to review and analyze the
data for management decisions, e.g. an annual strategy and performance
review workshop.
It is also recommended that the Refuge System disaggregate
reporting data between the Alaska region and the rest of the system.
Because approximately 80% of all refuge land is in Alaska, and more
than 90% of this land is classified as wilderness, aggregating Alaska
performance data with that from the rest of the Refuge System provides
a distorted picture of the overall system's condition, needs and
performance accomplishments
Develop a knowledge management program: The NWRS should implement a
Knowledge Management System to foster information sharing, promote
learning and to ensure that best practices are more widely disseminated
and adopted. Consideration should be given to creating a dedicated
Knowledge Management Unit, which would be responsible for program
reporting (RAPP), archiving documents, managing evaluations,
disseminating lessons and best practices, and responding to external
information requests (together with public relations staff). The Unit's
purpose would be to improve performance analysis and reporting and to
raise the quality level of implementation practices across the Refuge
System.
______
Ms. Bordallo. I thank you very much, Mr. Callihan, and I
thank you for your very thorough evaluation of the Refuge
System.
At this time I would like to introduce a Member of the
Subcommittee, the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Kind, who is
the Co-Chair of the House National Wildlife Refuge Caucus and a
co-requester of the GAO investigation, along with Chairman
Rahall and myself.
At this time I would like to have Mr. Kind make a few
opening remarks.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE RON KIND, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WISCONSIN
Mr. Kind. Thank you, Madam Chair. I won't be long, but I do
want to thank the panel for your testimony here today. I think
this is an important and timely hearing.
I want to express my appreciation for the work that GAO
did, but also the cooperation that Fish and Wildlife and the
Refuge System gave to GAO in the production of this report.
Many of us are aware that the Fish and Wildlife Service
conducted an independent evaluation to see whether the refuge
was meeting the objectives, and Director Haskett was kind
enough to come up on the Hill and brief many of us on an
individual basis. We appreciated that feedback.
But we do face some big challenges. It is one of the
reasons many of us formed this bipartisan Refuge Caucus in
Congress, given the importance of the issue, and we are looking
for a plan to move forward. Many of us have been especially
focused on the funding challenge that we see and whether we
need to create a new paradigm and a new way of meeting the
funding needs that we are obviously falling short on.
Like so many of us around here, we have multiple
obligations, so I might have to bounce back and forth to a
couple other hearings that are taking place too, but I have
read many of your testimony here today and look forward to the
testimony and hopefully will have a chance later to ask a few
questions.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Bordallo. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr.
Kind.
I would now like to invite Mr. Kurth to testify on behalf
of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
STATEMENT OF JIM KURTH, ACTING ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF THE
NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE SYSTEM, U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE
SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Mr. Kurth. Madam Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee,
I am Jim Kurth. I am the Acting Assistant Director for the
National Wildlife Refuge System with U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today to
testify on the management and the performance of the National
Wildlife Refuge System.
As the Subcommittee is aware, the Refuge System is the
world's preeminent system of public lands devoted to the
protection and conservation of fish, wildlife and their
habitat. It includes more than 97 million acres and spans half
the globe, and it receives nearly 37 million visitors each
year.
We have heard from the GAO on their report of the changes
in the Refuge System funding from 2002 to 2007 and how those
changes affected habitat management and visitor services. You
have also heard from Management Systems International about
their independent evaluation of the effectiveness of the
Service in meeting the 12 goals in the Refuge System strategic
plan.
The draft GAO report found that core funding for the Refuge
System increased each year from 2002 to 2007, but when
inflation is considered funding for the Refuge System actually
peaked in Fiscal Year 2004 at about $391 million. It was 2.3
percent below that peak in 2003. In other words, funding for
the Refuge System from 2002 to 2007 was not maintaining its
purchasing power.
The Refuge System has managed this budget by effectively
shifting its resources at both the regional and field station
level so we could continue our mission critical work of
protecting habitat and delivering services to our visitors at
our highest priority stations. Unfortunately, the strategic
decisions came at the tradeoff of not being able to deliver
these functions as effectively at lower priority stations.
We generally agree with the findings in the MSI report, and
we offer these observations: The finding in the MSI report that
the Refuge System was ineffective in refuge law enforcement is
of greatest concern. We have made refuge law enforcement a top
priority for the system. We have fallen short of our goal to
reduce dependency on our dual function officers by replacing
them with full-time officers. Refuge law enforcement remains
one of the keenest challenges the Service faces today.
We are also concerned that our performance is only
partially effective in our core mission area of conserving
fish, wildlife and their habitats. We are not really surprised
at that finding, though, given the complexity and the diversity
of the resource challenges we face today. The Service will
focus heavily on addressing the report's recommendations on how
to improve our performance in this area.
We appreciate the fact that MSI's evaluation found our
volunteer program and community partnerships to be highly
effective. We have grown our volunteer workforce from 1980 at
least than 5,000 to more than 32,000 today. They contribute 1.5
million hours worth more than $25 million. These citizen
conservationists greatly enhance the wildlife conservation and
visitor services programs on refuges. Without them we could not
effectively fulfill the Refuge System mission.
I would like to acknowledge the work of this committee in
enacting the Volunteer and Community Partnership Enhancement
Act of 1998. This law really fueled the rapid growth of our
friends organization from 75 in 1994 to more than 250 today.
We have taken other innovative approaches to enhance our
effectiveness and stretch our dollars. We have established a
clear program that sets priorities for National Wildlife
Refuges. If budgets do not keep pace with increasing cost, we
eliminate positions at lower priority stations and focus our
resources on the highest priority stations.
The Service believes it is essential for refuge managers to
have adequate funding to cover operational costs, provide
training and fund priority projects. We consider this
management capability an essential component in individual
field station budgets. From 2004 to 2007, we eliminated 305
permanent positions on refuges to assure we maintain this
management capability on priority refuges. Today, refuge
managers are better able to plan and implement projects than
they were a few years ago.
The MSI report ended in 2007. I would like to note that in
2008 Congress appropriated a $36 million increase in refuge
funding. We believe if the reviews had included 2008, they
would have seen we have improved effectiveness in several areas
that they considered. For example, we have hired an additional
20 full-time law enforcement officers and have ensured that
every refuge has its targeted level of management capacity
funding.
In conclusion, we agree with many of the findings of the
MSI report and plan to implement a number of its
recommendations. We wish that an independent review would have
found that we were highly effective in meeting all our goals,
but sometimes we have to acknowledge that we can't accomplish
everything that we would like to.
Director Hall has provided clear leadership, insisting we
set priorities and make difficult decisions. We are proud to
have kept the list of things we don't get done much shorter by
enlisting volunteers in communities and creative partnerships.
We believe the reports discussed today can be important
tools that help the Service better deliver the mission of
America's National Wildlife Refuge System.
Madam Chairman, that concludes my prepared remarks, and I
am happy to answer questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kurth follows:]
Statement of James Kurth, Acting Assistant Director, National Wildlife
Refuge System, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the
Interior
Chairwoman Bordallo and Members of the Subcommittee, I am James
Kurth, Acting Assistant Director of the National Wildlife Refuge System
(Refuge System) of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service). I
appreciate the opportunity to be here today to testify on evaluations
of the National Wildlife Refuge System's performance.
Your invitation asked that we comment on a recent report developed
by the General Accounting Office (GAO) at the request of Congress that
focuses on Refuge System funding from 2002 to 2007. We have had the
opportunity to review a draft of the final version of this report and
are currently developing an official response. Therefore, we are unable
to provide formal comments on that GAO report at this time.
Recently a report was prepared by Management Systems International
(MSI) at the request of the Service in response to a need identified by
the Administration's Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART), to conduct
independent evaluations of the Refuge System program's effectiveness.
PART is a management tool used by the Executive Branch to assess the
performance of federal programs and to drive improvements in program
performance. The PART evaluation includes questions that ask whether
federal programs periodically undergo independent reviews of their
performance. The MSI report was commissioned to address this issue. The
Service agrees with the majority of the conclusions in the MSI report,
as detailed below, and plans to follow a number of its recommendations
for improving the Refuge System.
The Service takes this report very seriously. We look at the report
as a healthy exercise in objectively reviewing the Refuge System and as
a tool to provide us with feedback on both the strengths and weaknesses
of our operations. Consequently, the Service is already moving forward
to use the findings and recommendations in the report in constructive
ways to improve the Refuge System and better fulfill its mission.
National Wildlife Refuge System
The mission of the National Wildlife Refuge System is to administer
a national network of lands and waters for the conservation, management
and where appropriate, restoration of the fish, wildlife and plant
resources and their habitats within the United States for the benefit
of present and future generations of Americans. The Refuge System is
the world's preeminent system of public lands devoted to protection and
conservation of fish and wildlife and their habitats.
Today, the Refuge System receives over 36 million visitors every
year and includes over 96 million acres of land and water spanning more
than half of the globe. If a line was drawn from Guam National Wildlife
Refuge in the Western Pacific Ocean to Green Cay National Wildlife
Refuge in the Virgin Islands, that line would be about 9,500 miles
long, east to west. A line drawn from Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
at the top of Alaska to Rose Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in American
Samoa would be about 5,000 miles, north to south. The Refuge System is
a geographically diverse land, coastal and ocean conservation network.
Refuges vary in size from the tiny half-acre Mille Lacs Refuge in
Minnesota to the massive 19 million acre Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge in Alaska. In total, the Refuge System contains 548 refuges and
37 wetland management districts.
The Refuge System's 2008 operations and maintenance budget of $434
million funded the work of more than three thousand employees operating
at more than 300 staffed offices around the world. As expected, our
workforce contains many biologists and professional wildlife managers,
but also contains professional educators, law enforcement officers,
heavy equipment operators, fire fighters, real estate appraisers,
business managers, and more than a few pilots and boat captains. From a
budgetary standpoint, the Refuge System must be viewed as a large
organization that requires many diverse and specialized functions to
operate effectively.
To fully understand the purpose of the Refuge System, we must also
remember why it was created. President Theodore Roosevelt established
the first refuge in 1903 when he reserved Florida's Pelican Island as a
place where nesting birds would be protected from overexploitation.
President Roosevelt was a bold conservationist, and in his
autobiography he wrote proudly of establishing 51 ``National Bird
Reservations'' during his Presidency. Nearly all of his reservations
are now units in the Refuge System. In regard to this work, Roosevelt
remarked:
``The creation of these reservations at once placed the United
States in the front rank in the world work of bird protection.
Among these reservations are the celebrated Pelican Island
rookery in--Florida;--the extensive marshes bordering Klamath
and Malheur Lakes in Oregon;--and the great bird colonies on
Laysan and sister islets in Hawaii, some of the greatest
colonies of sea birds in the world.'' 1
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt. Published by Macmillan,
1913.
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President Roosevelt foresaw that saving places where wildlife was
abundant would make the United States a world leader in conservation
and make our Nation wealthier. Our ability to conserve wildlife is
still an important part--and an important symbol--of the American
spirit. The Refuge System thus represents places where habitat and
wildlife are so rich that it is in the American public's interest to
ensure those habitats and wildlife are conserved for present and future
generations.
The Refuge System is a source of pride in the American
consciousness. Evidence of this pride can be seen in the number of
volunteers and Friends organizations formed to help local refuges
function. People understand the value contained in National Wildlife
Refuges and as a result every year more than 30,000 citizens volunteer
their time to help their local refuges. The monetary value of their
work last year alone was calculated at more than $25 million. The
Service is indebted to these volunteers for their hard work and support
for the Refuge System.
The Management Systems International (MSI) Report
The Service contracted with Management Systems International (MSI)
to complete an independent evaluation of the Refuge System in response
to a need identified through the Administration's Program Assessment
Rating Tool (PART). The PART is a management tool used by the Executive
branch to assess the performance of federal programs and to drive
improvements in program performance. The PART helps inform budget and
management decisions and identify actions to improve program results.
The purpose of PART assessments is to review overall program
effectiveness, from how well a program is designed to how well it is
implemented and what results it achieves. As such, the PART examines
those factors within the control of the program as well as factors that
may influence the program. The PART asks programs whether they
periodically undergo independent reviews of their performance. The MSI
report was commissioned by the Service to address this issue for the
Refuge System program.
In order to make the report as valuable as possible, the Service
asked MSI to ensure that the report was independent and objective. We
also facilitated surveys of our staff, provided MSI with information in
our data systems, and reviewed their recommendations for feasibility,
but did not provide feedback on whether we agreed with MSI's findings
or recommendations. The final report, entitled ``An Independent
Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's
National Wildlife Refuge System'' took two years to complete. It
contains what we believe is a very comprehensive and objective
evaluation of the Refuge System's strengths, weaknesses, performance
and information gaps. It concludes with a summary rating of how
effective the Refuge System is with respect to each of twelve strategic
goals identified in the National Wildlife Refuge System Strategic Plan.
The Service does not agree with all the findings and recommendations in
this report, but we agree with many and are already moving forward to
address them.
The twelve strategic goals evaluated in the MSI Report are
identified in the National Wildlife Refuge System Strategic Plan. They
primarily align with our functional areas. They include:
Conserve, manage, and where appropriate, restore fish,
wildlife and plant resources and their habitats
Provide quality environments and adequate water
Ensure that unique values of wilderness, other special
designation areas, and cultural resources are protected
Welcome and orient visitors
Provide quality wildlife-dependent recreation and
education opportunities
Facilitate partnerships and cooperative projects to
engage other conservation agencies, volunteers, Friends groups, and
partners in the Refuge System mission
Protect resources and visitors through law enforcement
Provide infrastructure and equipment adequate to support
mission and maintain it in good condition
Complete quality and useful comprehensive conservation
plans on schedule and with full engagement of partners
Strategically grow the Refuge System
Reduce wildfire risks and improve habitats
Promote and enhance organizational excellence
In short, the report concludes that the Service is ``highly
effective'' in one strategic goal, and ``effective'' in four others.
The report also finds that we are ``partially effective'' in four
goals, and ``ineffective'' in two. MSI concluded that they were unable
to evaluate the goal of providing quality environments with adequate
water because of a lack of information.
The Refuge System was found highly effective in the goal of
facilitating partnerships and cooperative projects to engage others in
our conservation work. The evaluators looked at how Refuge System staff
work with volunteers, Friends groups, State partners, nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) and other agencies and found that we do a very
good job of developing these relationships and using them to help
accomplish the Refuge System mission. We are especially proud that the
results from the survey of the state wildlife agencies--some of our
most important partners--found that 88 percent of state agencies rated
their relationship with individual refuges between good and excellent.
Similarly, 93 percent of all our partners, which includes State
agencies as well as NGO's and Friends organizations, rated the quality
of their relationship with individual refuges between good and
excellent. We feel these are impressive results for an organization the
size of the Refuge System, especially considering the difficult and
complex nature of many of our resource management challenges.
For eight of our twelve strategic goals the Refuge System was rated
in the mid-range of effective to partially effective. These included
some of our most important core functions, such as conserving fish,
wildlife and habitat, and delivering visitor services. The Service will
focus heavily on addressing these recommendations. These conclusions
highlight some of the common challenges we face across the Refuge
System, such as: addressing invasive species issues, securing adequate
water supplies, and delivering quality educational and interpretive
programs. The MSI report is the most complete evaluation we have of
those operations, and it makes many detailed recommendations on how the
Refuge System might improve our performance in these areas. We have
already formed teams of staff to review these recommendations and
develop action items to improve our performance in these key areas.
Finally, two strategic goals that were found to be ineffective
included law enforcement and strategic growth. The Department of the
Interior and the Service have directed numerous reforms in the refuge
law enforcement program following two reviews by the Departments
Inspector General in 2001 and 2002. The events of September 11, 2001,
also added additional focus to our law enforcement program and
additional responsibilities related to national security. Most of those
reforms are complete. However, the decision to transition away from
dual-function officers to a force composed completely of full-time
officers has been especially challenging to implement. The Refuge
System committed to making this transition and envisioned a way it
could be done smoothly without a loss of law enforcement capacity.
Unfortunately, the phase-out of dual function officers and a
corresponding phase-in of full time officers has not evolved as
planned. Nevertheless, we have made refuge law enforcement a top
priority for the Refuge System and it remains one of the keenest
challenges the Service faces today. For example, in 2008 we used $3
million of an increase refuge operations funding to provide for twenty
new full-time officer positions.
The MSI report also rates the Service ineffective in the area of
strategic growth, citing as the primary reason the rate at which land
is being added to the Refuge System and the fact that this rate has
declined significantly over the past few years. This is not unplanned
as we believe that it is appropriate for the Refuge System to slow its
rate of land acquisition in a period when the Refuge System is
challenged to maintain the acres it already has under its jurisdiction.
We believe this is a key to strategically grow the refuge, along with
working with partners and increasing support and participation from
conservation partners and the public. The MSI report looked solely at
the physical growth aspect of the goal. We are cognizant of that fact
that the cost of land changes, and in those situations where we need to
acquire additional land to complete a refuge or expand a refuge that is
located in a biologically rich location, our we must use our various
authorities to our fullest ability with the tools we have. The Refuge
System does not have to own every acre that needs protection, and we
are working with our partners to use innovative approaches to land
protection. For example, for years the Service has worked with
conservation partners to look across biological landscapes and make
collaborative decisions about what organization can most effectively
protect what area. The Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument
created in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands in 2006 is a recent example.
The Refuge System is a major partner in management of the National
Monument, and in tandem with other federal agency and state partners we
help protect more than 139,000 square miles of marine habitat--a much
bigger accomplishment than any one organization could ever hope to
accomplish.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Perspectives
The MSI examined trends in the annual operating budgets of the
Refuge System and the impact on Refuge System performance. Not
surprisingly, some broad patterns emerged regarding the Refuge System.
These broad patterns are important to consider but also need to be
carefully evaluated because they provide one view of the trends which
have been the context for many of our management decisions over the
past few years.
The MSI report references statistics that compare funding to FY
2003 which was the Centennial of the Refuge System. Additional funds
were provided by Congress to the Refuge System in FY 2003 and FY 2004
related to the Refuge System Centennial. Specific activities and
projects were funded and were never meant to establish a new long term
funding operations budget baseline. A better comparison would have been
FY 2001 or the beginning of the Administration. When comparing refuge
funding in FY 2008 to the FY 2001 appropriated level of $300 million,
adjusted for inflation, the Refuge System budget has outpaced inflation
by $75 million or 21 percent. This is one of the largest increases in
the Service for any program.
For the past two years, the Refuge System has been reexamining its
workforce and realigning staffing to better meet today's challenges in
wildlife conservation. The Refuge System has already undertaken a
number of steps to better deliver its mission in a performance-driven,
priority-based manner. These steps include:
Strategic planning at the Department, Service, and Refuge
System level;
Targeted increases for the Refuge System's highest
priorities including invasive species control, borderland security, and
maintenance at targeted refuges;
Use of ``service zones'' for refuge law enforcement and
heavy equipment operations; and
Complexing of individual refuges where appropriate, such
as in areas that are in close proximity, rather than dividing staff and
resources among each refuge.
The Refuge System analyzed the operational budget for each field
station and found that the amount spent on salaries varied greatly,
with some field stations spending more than 90 percent of their budget
solely on salaries and benefits, leaving limited funding for management
flexibility. The Refuge System has determined that the desirable ratio
of salaries to management should be around 80:20 based on the
particular circumstances at each individual refuge. Within each of the
Service's regions, the Refuge System developed a workforce plan with
the goal of achieving this desirable ratio in order to best accomplish
the mission of the Refuge System. One result of the workforce plans was
to prioritize refuges. In some cases lower priority refuges are managed
remotely (i.e. without staff on site) and others are managed as part of
a larger Refuge Complex. While there have been permanent staff
reductions through retirement or attrition, overall Refuge System FTEs
have increased by 296 or roughly 11 percent since 2001 in part because
of the increased use of temporary staff. Clearly, the input of
resources into the Refuge System's conservation efforts are related to
the outcomes we measure. Refuge system budgets have focused on funding
the highest priorities within among the many needs identified.
We appreciate the fact that MSI's independent evaluation found our
volunteer programs and community partnerships to be highly effective.
We have grown our volunteer workforce from fewer than 5000 in 1980 to
more than 32,000 today. They contribute 1.5 million hours of work worth
over $25 million. Since 1994, we have also grown from 75 community
support or ``Friends'' groups to 250. These citizen conservationists
greatly enhance the wildlife conservation and visitor services programs
on refuges. Without them, we could not effectively fulfill the mission
of the Refuge System.
We have taken other innovative approaches to enhance our
effectiveness and stretch our dollars. We have reduced the emphasis on
building large, expensive visitor centers and focused on small scale,
low maintenance, construction project we call ``visitor facility
enhancements'' or VFEs. These projects include observation platforms,
photo blinds, fishing piers, boardwalk trails, and boat ramps and other
similar enhancements. These smaller, simpler facilities cost less, make
our dollars go farther, and increase the outcomes in our visitor
services programs.
Managing the Refuge System through these times has also taught us
some important lessons and forced us to rethink how we do business. We
have established a clear program that sets priorities for national
wildlife refuges. If budgets do not keep pace with increasing costs, we
focus our resources on the highest priority areas. We believe it is
essential for refuge managers to have adequate funding to cover
operational costs, provide training, and fund priority projects. We
consider this ``management capacity'' an essential component in
individual national wildlife refuge budgets.
The MSI report ended their analysis in FY 2007. We would like to
note that in FY 2008 Congress appropriated a $36 million increase in
refuge funding. We believe that if the review had included FY 2008, the
MSI report would have found an improved effectiveness in several areas
that they considered. For example, we have hired an addition 20 new
full-time law enforcement officers and assured every refuge has its
targeted ratio of management capacity funds to salary.
As mentioned above, we believe the MSI report contains some
excellent ideas on improving effectiveness of our programs, and we are
in the process of developing an action plan that will carefully
evaluate how we will move forward with this information. The Service is
committed to achieving our strategic goals and will set clear
priorities for addressing the recommendations in the report.
Conclusion
We have had the opportunity to review a draft of the final version
of the GAO report and are currently developing an official response. In
regard to the MSI report, we agree with many of the findings of the MSI
report and plan to implement a number of its recommendations. We
believe the report will be an important tool to help the Service better
deliver the mission of the National Wildlife Refuge System to the
American public.
The Service has worked hard at all levels to address the
circumstances described in the report and has made difficult choices
and set clear priorities. We have continued to ensure that the Refuge
System remains the world's preeminent system of public lands devoted to
protection and conservation by developing a strategy to manage through
a period when we had to tighten our belt financially. We have developed
and implemented strategic workforce plans to guide these decisions, and
refuge managers have acted prudently and prioritized their resources
and their work. Many times those decisions were not popular, but we
believe they were needed. We will continue to work with our partners,
volunteers, Friends groups, and State fish and wildlife colleagues to
stretch our dollars and deliver effective wildlife and habitat
conservation and visitor services.
The Service greatly appreciates the interest and strong support of
Chairwoman Bordallo and Members of the Subcommittee for the National
Wildlife Refuge System. Madam Chairwoman, this concludes my prepared
statement. I would be pleased to respond to any questions you may have.
Thank you.
______
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you very much, Mr. Kurth. Let me say
that notwithstanding the shortcomings outlined in both the GAO
and the MSI reports, we very much appreciate your efforts and
the efforts of every Federal employee within the Refuge System
who labor tirelessly to protect and manage the Refuge System on
behalf of the American people.
Mr. Matson, it is a pleasure to welcome you here this
afternoon to our hearing or this morning. You are now
recognized to testify for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF NOAH MATSON, VICE PRESIDENT FOR LAND CONSERVATION,
DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE
Mr. Matson. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Members of the
Subcommittee. I am Noah Matson, Vice President for Land
Conservation at Defenders of Wildlife. Thank you for inviting
me to testify today.
I have personally visited dozens of refuges across the
country over the last few years and have followed National
Wildlife Refuge policy and appropriations for more than a
decade. It is clear to me that persistent budget shortfalls,
coupled with lack of progress and important policies, have led
to a troubling erosion of the Refuge System's ability to
achieve its conservation mission. I generally concur with the
findings of the reports and details. Some of that is in my
written testimony.
I first want to talk about the funding issue since that is
essentially the hearing today. Before I get into some stories,
I just want to mention that Congress is currently working on
the continuing resolution for the Federal budget, and within
there, there is some hurricane supplemental funding.
As you may or may not know, at least three refuges were
basically wiped out in Hurricane Ike. The Texas Chenier Plain
Refuges, which includes McFaddin, Anahuac and Texas Point, lost
everything in that hurricane. It was a direct hit. I encourage
Members of the Subcommittee and their colleagues to support
funding to restore those refuges from that hurricane.
In terms of MSI's overarching finding that the dramatic
decreases in actual purchasing power in recent years has led to
the Refuge System not being able to ``maintain its level of
operational activity from one year to the next, requiring that
services and personnel be cut back,'' I just want to provide a
story that nowhere is this more apparent than the Supawna
Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey.
This refuge protects about 3,000 acres of coastal marshland
along the Delaware River and is a really important foraging
habitat for the largest rookery of wading birds north of
Florida. The refuge enjoys an extremely dedicated and
passionate refuge friends group. In 2005, that friends group
had their dreams come true with a brand new visitors center.
That visitors center never opened because soon after that
happened the Supawna Meadows was part of this workforce
restructuring plan, and all the on-site staff were removed from
that refuge and now it is managed by Cape May National Wildlife
Refuge, some 60 miles away.
Without on-site staff there is nobody to lead or coordinate
the dedicated volunteers, and that brand new visitors center is
collecting dust and volunteers are largely sitting idle. This
is the face of the budget crisis facing the Refuge System.
A year ago one of my staff visited Crystal River National
Wildlife Refuge in Florida. Well, he tried to visit. Instead,
he was welcomed with a sign that read: Due to staff and budget
reductions, coupled with increasing workload per staff member,
we may not always be open for visitation. This was a sign on
the refuge door.
The refuge shares one law enforcement officer spread over
100 miles of coastline, managing a whole complex of refuges,
including a large waterfowl hunting program, the endangered
whooping crane program, beachgoers and islands in Tampa Bay,
leaving little time to patrol the waters of Crystal River.
Without this law enforcement presence, boaters and swimmers
regularly harass endangered manatees, a problem so bad you can
actually see videos of it on YouTube.
I think all the Members of the committee understand the
funding issues of the Refuge System are real and are seriously
compromising its mission. I look forward to working with the
committee on solutions to this crisis.
I next want to talk about climate change. Now, I know this
wasn't a focus of this hearing, but I found it kind of a
glaring omission from some of these reports that came out
today.
Now, I do not fault MSI for not doing this because they
were following the strategic goals of the Refuge System, and
that is where the problem lies. This Administration has placed
no emphasis on addressing the profound impacts of climate
change to the point where there is not even a national goal in
the Refuge System to address these needs.
The Refuge System is particularly vulnerable to climate
change. Over 160 coastal refuges are vulnerable to sea level
rise. The bulk of the Refuge System's acreage is in Alaska. We
have already seen glaciers melt or the wetlands dry up, tree
lines rise.
In addition, the Prairie Pothole region of the country,
America's duck factory and home to many, many refuges, is
expected to lose half of its wetlands and ponds over the coming
century. This is a very real danger to the Refuge System which
requires proactive planning to prevent the worst damage from
happening and ensure that the conservation investments we make
today are climate smart.
I fear refuges like Supawna Meadows and Crystal River,
already unable to address today's conservation challenges, will
fall further from achieving their conservation purposes in the
future. I encourage Congress and the Administration to work on
solutions to this problem.
The National Wildlife Refuge System is critical to the
future of wildlife and wildlife focused recreation in America.
As recommended by the MSI report, refuges should become
fulcrums for influencing conservation actions and larger
landscapes.
With an appropriate investment of resources and sound
policy direction, I believe the Refuge System can be a fulcrum
for conservation across the landscape to meet the conservation
needs of today and the serious challenges of climate and other
environmental changes ahead.
On behalf of Defenders of Wildlife, I thank you for the
opportunity to comment today and look forward to the questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Matson follows:]
Statement of Noah Matson, Vice President for Land Conservation,
Defenders of Wildlife
Madam Chairwoman and members of the subcommittee, I am Noah Matson,
Vice President for Land Conservation at Defenders of Wildlife
(``Defenders''). Founded in 1947, Defenders of Wildlife is a non-
profit, public interest organization with over 1.1 million members and
supporters across the nation and is dedicated to the conservation and
restoration of wild animals and plants in their natural communities.
I greatly appreciate this opportunity to discuss the recent budget
trends of the National Wildlife Refuge System. As the only federal land
system in the U.S. dedicated primarily to the conservation of wildlife
and habitat, the Refuge System is of paramount importance to Defenders
and all Americans, especially the nearly 40 million people who visit
and enjoy national wildlife refuges from Guam to Maine, from Puerto
Rico to Alaska, each year. These visitors generate more than $1.7
billion in annual sales to local economies, resulting in employment for
more than 27,000 U.S. workers.
Defenders has been substantively involved in National Wildlife
Refuge System law and policy for decades, and actively worked for
passage of the landmark National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act
of 1997 (``Refuge Improvement Act''). Defenders has also been actively
involved in the formulation of national policy guidance issued since
passage of the Refuge Improvement Act, including policies addressing
planning, compatibility and appropriateness of secondary uses,
biological integrity, diversity and environmental health, wilderness,
and recreational use. In addition, Defenders has long been a leader in
the Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement (CARE), a diverse
coalition of scientific, conservation, and sporting organizations
representing more than 14 million Americans. CARE works with Congress
and at local, regional, and national levels to raise awareness of the
critical budget crisis now facing the Refuge System.
After following Refuge System appropriations for nearly a decade,
coupled with extensive research and visits to dozens of refuges, it is
clear to me that persistent budget shortfalls coupled with lack of
progress on important policies have led to a troubling erosion of the
Refuge System's ability to achieve its wildlife conservation mission
and public outreach objectives. Recent assessments from the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) and Management Systems International (MSI)
strongly validate these observations. These reports have shed much-
needed light on challenges that have been well known by refuge
supporters for years. It is my sincere hope that discussion of their
conclusions and recommendations will inform and guide meaningful
changes necessary to reinvigorate our legacy to wildlife, the National
Wildlife Refuge System.
Eleven years ago, Congress passed the sweeping National Wildlife
Refuge System Improvement Act to reform a system of lands starving for
a mission, critical management standards, and funding. Congress had the
foresight to write a timeless piece of legislation that provides
direction even in a changing world. Congress wanted the Refuge System
to be managed using modern scientific programs. Congress wanted the
status and trends of fish, wildlife, and plants to be monitored to
detect changes, measure progress and to adapt management. Congress
understood the importance of adequate water quality and quantity to the
Refuge System. Congress understood the importance of strategically
growing the Refuge System to meet its mission and ``to contribute to
the conservation of the ecosystems of the United States.'' Finally,
Congress required each refuge to have a comprehensive conservation
plan, developed with the input of the American public, to ensure that
each refuge was managed in a way to best contribute to the mission of
the whole system and to achieve its purpose.
Lack of funding and lack of leadership over the last several years
has prevented the Refuge System from fulfilling this promise. According
to MSI, the Refuge System is underperforming in most of these areas,
inhibiting the Refuge System from addressing the threats of today, and
leaving the Refuge System unprepared to meet the tremendous challenges
of climate change.
I will focus my remarks on overall funding for the Refuge System
and the ability of the FWS to address climate change, develop quality
comprehensive conservation plans, strategically protect additional
habitat, conduct inventory and monitoring programs, and maintain
adequate water supplies for the Refuge System.
The MSI report included a comprehensive evaluation of many other
aspects of refuge management. A comprehensive analysis of the MSI
report is included as an attachment to my testimony.
Funding
In June 2008, a report was released by MSI entitled ``An
Independent Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service's National Wildlife Refuge System.'' This assessment
was requested by the Fish and Wildlife Service (``FWS''), the agency
that administers all national wildlife refuges. MSI's goal was to
assess and make recommendations for each of the Refuge System's twelve
strategic outcome goals, which were finalized in early 2007. The goals
are broad but relate to the Refuge System's most essential elements of
habitat and wildlife conservation, wildlife-dependent recreation, law
enforcement, fire management, welcoming and orienting visitors,
wilderness management, conservation planning, facilities maintenance,
strategic growth, and maintaining organizational excellence.
In September 2008, a report was released by the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) entitled ``Wildlife Refuges: Changes in
Funding, Staffing, and Other Factors Create Concerns about Future
Sustainability.'' The report details the funding situation for the
Refuge System from FY 2002-2007 and elucidates trends at the System
level, while emphasizing that particular individual refuges have been
more heavily impacted than the national trends might suggest.
In general, I agree with the principal findings of these reports,
though there is substantially more story to tell for several of the
examined issues. I strongly agree with the MSI Report's overarching
finding that the dramatic decrease in actual purchasing power in recent
years has led to the Refuge System's not being able to ``maintain its
level of operational activity from one year to the next'', requiring
that ``services and personnel...be cut back.''
Many of these cutbacks have been truly devastating to our nation's
wildlife refuges. Some of the impacts now being felt across the country
include a planned 20 percent reduction in refuge managers, biologists,
environmental educators, and maintenance staff, with 350 jobs already
eliminated and another 250 on the chopping block; scores of refuges
being completely de-staffed; a crippling backlog of $3.5 billion in
shelved operations ($1 billion) and maintenance ($2.5 billion)
projects; and visitors that increasingly find closed visitor centers
and access roads, dilapidated observation platforms, overgrown hiking
trails, eliminated visitor education programs, and cancelled hunting or
fishing events. These same visitors will almost assuredly not encounter
a law enforcement officer, as a deficiency of more than 500 refuge
officers has led to a rise in illegal activities such as poaching, drug
cultivation, sex crimes and various types of natural resource
violations.
GAO found that by FY 2007, after adjusting for inflation, core
funding was actually 4.3% above FY 2002 levels. However, viewing
funding trends in this way does not fully capture the actual effect of
essentially flat budgets on the Refuge System, or its actual budgetary
needs. In recent years, the Refuge System needed an additional $16
million each year simply to keep pace with rising fixed costs, such as
salary adjustments, fuel, utilities and rental space. Recently, in
response to soaring energy prices, the Refuge System recalculated this
annual need to be approximately $20 million. To put it simply, the
Refuge System now needs an additional $20 million each year simply to
pay its staff, put gas in the trucks and keep the lights on. The GAO
inflationary adjustment did not address this all-important need and
therefore painted a somewhat misleading picture of recent budget
trends.
In addition, these numbers mask the enormous needs facing the
Refuge System. CARE estimates that the Refuge System needs almost $800
million per year in operations and maintenance funding to adequately
meet its mission. I have included CARE's report, ``Restoring America's
Wildlife Refuges,'' as an attachment to this testimony to provide
details of CARE's analysis of Refuge System budget needs.
The MSI Report broadly concludes that declining, inadequate budgets
coupled with increasing administrative requirements for field personnel
has most heavily impacted three areas: the Refuge System's ability to
conduct adequate inventory and monitoring work; the grossly
understaffed law enforcement program; and the rate of growth of the
Refuge System, which the report notes has ``declined markedly over the
last five years.'' I agree completely that deficiencies in these areas
are seriously hamstringing the Refuge System's potential to deliver on
its conservation and public use goals. I would further add, however,
that funding shortfalls and glaring administrative neglect in recent
years has created a host of other important challenges that warrant
congressional attention, many of which I will discuss below.
Climate Change
From the walrus to waterfowl, global climate change is and will
have profound impacts on wildlife and the habitats they depend on.
Globally, scientists estimate that 30-40% of known species are at
increased risk of extinction due to the impacts of climate change under
current emissions. And if we fail to curtail our emissions that figure
could rise to as great as 70%. In the United States, species have
already begun to feel these effects. The Refuge System is particularly
vulnerable, with over 160 coastal refuges at risk from sea level rise,
and the bulk of the Refuge System's land in Alaska, which has already
seen glaciers melt, boreal wetlands dry up, tree-lines move upslope,
and warming-aided pests destroy millions of acres of forests. In
addition, the Prairie Pothole region of the Dakotas and parts of
Montana, Minnesota, and Iowa, America's ``duck factory'' and home to a
large number of refuges, is expected to lose half of its lakes and
ponds essential for waterfowl breeding.
It is instructive that the FWS did not ask MSI to evaluate the
Refuge System's ability to meet the challenges of climate change. A GAO
report released last fall concerning the federal resource agencies'
ability to respond to the management implications of climate change
found that federal resource agencies, including FWS ``have not made
climate change a priority, and the agencies' strategic plans do not
specifically address climate change.'' So it is little wonder that the
MSI report, which used the Refuge System's own strategic plan as the
framework for the evaluation, seemingly ignored how climate change is
affecting the Refuge System and failed to assess how existing Refuge
System budgets and policies affect the Refuge System's ability to cope
with the impacts of global warming.
The GAO report on climate change and federal resource agencies also
found that FWS and other agencies lacked ``specific guidance for
incorporating climate change into their management actions and planning
efforts.'' Finally, that report documented that FWS and other agencies
lacked ``computational models for local projections of expected changes
and detailed inventories and monitoring systems for an adequate
baseline understanding of existing local species. Without such
information, managers are limited to reacting to already-observed
climate change effects on their units, which makes it difficult to plan
for future changes.''
The failure of the MSI report to directly evaluate these and other
factors associated with climate change leaves us with lingering
questions regarding how the Refuge System is responding to this
critical management challenge. However, the report made important
observations related to planning, land acquisition, water quality and
quantity, and inventory and monitoring that have direct bearing on the
FWS ability to accomplish its mission and meet the environmental
challenges facing the Refuge System, from habitat loss to climate
change.
While the Refuge System faces enormous funding and policy
deficiencies, the System's importance to wildlife will only be
magnified as climate change and other environmental problems stress
plants and wildlife and compromise habitats. Of all the federal land
agencies, the FWS is perhaps best positioned to adapt to changing land-
uses and climatic conditions. The Refuge System enjoys broad public
support, has great flexibility in acquiring and restoring select
habitats, is nested within an agency that wields the essential tools
for conserving wildlife across jurisdictional boundaries, and has a
long history of active management that may become increasingly
necessary. These positive attributes should be utilized and
supplemented by providing the Refuge System with the resources it needs
to address serious challenges like climate change, which must
necessarily begin with better biological and hydrological monitoring.
I am confident that with Congress's input and oversight, the Refuge
System can meet these serious challenges. It is clear that national
policy direction is needed for the Refuge System and other federal
resource agencies to strategically address the impacts of climate
change. It is equally clear that the Refuge System, and its sister
agencies, are already facing funding holes so large that a large
commitment of additional resources is urgently needed to address the
added threat of climate change. I urge Congress to work with the
executive branch to meet these dual needs.
Comprehensive Conservation Plans (CCPs)
Comprehensive conservation plans are the chief vehicle for
implementing the important provisions of the Refuge Improvement Act.
CCPs are the public's chief means for understanding and participating
in an individual refuge's management direction. According to the MSI
report, the majority of refuge managers regard CCPs as useful tools
``for clarifying objectives, guiding habitat management decisions, and
clarifying public use decisions.'' CCPs are an essential and
indispensable element of refuge planning, management and decision-
making that should not be rushed, but rather developed with the highest
possible quality and level of consideration.
The MSI Report notes that many FWS regions are not on pace to meet
a congressionally imposed deadline for completion of all CCPs by 2012.
To avoid missing the deadline, the Refuge System is working hard to
implement a recently finalized plan entitled ``2012 Plan, An Action
Plan to Meet Our Legislative Mandate.'' At the same time the FWS has
crafted a plan to complete CCPs on time, however, the administration
has cut the refuge planning budget in its budget requests in the last
few years, and the current planning budget is 14% lower than in FY
2006.
Though the MSI report rated the FWS ``effective'' at completing
``quality and useful CCPs on schedule and with full engagement of
partners'', there was little basis in MSI's methodology to rate the
``quality'' of CCPs. Defenders has analyzed and commented on dozens of
CCPs over the last ten years, and have found that the quality varies
widely, both between FWS regions and within regions. Because CCPs are
designed to enhance public understanding of Refuge decision-making, in
the future we would recommend that the FWS evaluate stakeholder and
public perceptions of CCP quality and utility.
Of particular concern is that climate change is virtually ignored
in nearly all CCPs completed to date. This finding is echoed in the
2007 GAO report on climate change and resource agencies. The fact that
refuge managers continue to give high utility evaluations to CCPs
despite the absence of climate change analysis is perhaps telling.
An analysis of the effects of climate change is a central and
required element of refuge planning under the Refuge Improvement Act.
For example, the FWS is required during the CCP process to identify and
describe the ``significant problems that may adversely affect the
populations and habitats of fish, wildlife, and plants within the
planning unit and the actions necessary to correct or mitigate such
problems.''
Helping wildlife adapt to a rapidly changing climate, which the
Refuge System is well positioned to do with its wildlife-first mandate,
will necessarily involve many facets. But thoughtful long-range
planning certainly tops the list. Because global climate change is a
significant problem that will adversely affect wildlife and habitat and
may threaten the wildlife, ecosystems, and natural processes on refuges
nationwide, the anticipated effects of climate change and prudent
management responses should be carefully considered and described
during the CCP process. As such, climate change needs to be added to
FWS evaluative criteria.
Land Protection
According to the Forest Service, an estimated 6,000 acres of open
space are lost each day, a rate of 4 acres per minute. Congress
recognized the need for the Refuge System to protect additional habitat
when it passed the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act
which directs the Secretary of the Interior to ``plan and direct the
continued growth of the System in a manner that is best designed to
accomplish the mission of the System, to contribute to the conservation
of the ecosystems of the United States, to complement efforts of States
and other Federal agencies to conserve fish and wildlife and their
habitats, and to increase support for the System and participation from
conservation partners and the public.''
Despite this clear mandate strategic land and water acquisitions
have ground to a near halt in recent years. The determination by MSI
that the Refuge System has been ``ineffective'' at strategically
growing the Refuge System is, while fully accurate, nonetheless a
serious understatement. The MSI Report does an excellent job of
cataloguing and summarizing the many ways in which the Refuge System
fails in this goal, including problems with databases, political
motivations and a bureaucratic mess of an appraisal processes.
The MSI Report finds that the significant decline in land
acquisitions in recent years is due in part to political motivations,
such as the administration sharply reducing the amount of acquisition
funding it requests from Congress. For example, in FY 2008 the
administration requested funding for only two properties, despite
hundreds of available parcels and an obvious ecological need to buffer
or connect existing conservation lands with new acquisitions.
Current development trends threaten to overwhelm the value that
refuges and other conservation lands hold for wildlife and ecosystem
integrity. Furthermore, current protected areas, including state and
federal wildlife refuges and parks, were established in a manner that,
at this time, does not benefit the whole of biodiversity or the
maintenance of landscape-level ecological processes, as many of
America's natural areas exist as fragmented parcels, surrounded by land
or water unsuitable for most wildlife. In addition, with the effects of
climate change now bearing down upon already stressed fish, wildlife
and plant populations, it is essential that we prioritize strategic
land acquisition as the logical means to develop an interconnected
system of conservation lands.
MSI observed that the very few parcels that are acquired in recent
years typically ``[do] not match the priorities identified by the
Refuge System's Land Acquisition Priority System [LAPS].'' This is
partly due to the fact that the administration is not requesting
projects, leaving Congress to make land protection decisions without
the benefit of Refuge System priorities. There is also a disturbing
level of divergence between acquisition requests made by the Refuge
System and the priorities listed in the LAPS system. The MSI Report
made clear that this divergence has now progressed to the point where
the Refuge System ``no longer appears to be using a transparent
criteria-based system to prioritize land purchases.'' Defenders
believes that the Refuge System should develop and then work to
implement a prioritization system that emphasizes the acquisition of
parcels that contribute to greater habitat connectivity, provide
buffers around core habitats, possess adequate water quantity and
quality, and work to protect currently under-represented ecosystems and
species--all of which should be in the context of climate change.
The MSI report also criticized the land appraisal process, stating
it ``cannot be relied upon to produce timely or accurate appraisals,
[which] causes available land deals to be lost.'' Since real estate
appraisal responsibilities were removed from the various DOI agencies
in 2003 and reestablished at the department level, rising costs and
bureaucratic inefficiencies have cost the FWS many land acquisition
opportunities. The move was made with the promise of greater
efficiency, but since that time costs have doubled and response time
has been agonizingly slow. For example, if a landowner wishes to sell
property to an interested refuge, they can now expect to wait from nine
to eighteen months before a final appraisal is completed. The FWS must
first send its request to DOI's Appraisal Services Directorate (ASD),
which in turn accepts bids from a restricted number of contractors for
appraisal services. A number of factors have resulted in higher overall
cost since the transfer of the appraisal function to DOI, including the
self-imposed limitation on the number of bidding contractors that
drives prices up, and the higher average salaries of ASD employees.
Further, final appraisals have an expiration date, or ``date of
value'', of one year. So after much bureaucratic paperwork and other
delays, the FWS may only have a few months to organize funding and make
an offer to the landowner before the appraisal expires. Clearly, this
is a broken system in need of serious common-sense reform. The DOI
should restore the appraisal function to the agencies for greater
efficiency, cost savings, and response time. An added benefit is that
staff at the agency level is often more connected with the resource
base and more in touch with the lands they are working to protect and
the mission they are striving to uphold.
I believe it is of utmost importance for Congress to respond
quickly and aggressively to the political motivations that have led to
a virtual cessation of land acquisitions for the Refuge System.
Unfortunately, this has occurred at the very moment when American
wildlife is under unprecedented pressure and in great need of
additional habitats to ensure its sustainability and restoration. I
recommend that Congress strongly support fully funding the Land and
Water Conservation Fund and increasing the price of the Migratory Bird
Hunting and Conservation (Duck) Stamp, the two primary land acquisition
funding sources.
Inventory and Monitoring Programs
Unique in having a legislative mandate to monitor the status and
trends of fish, plants, and wildlife populations, the Refuge System
should serve as a model for holistic, science-based monitoring and the
development of adaptive management responses. Collecting baseline
inventory data and conducting monitoring on every wildlife refuge is
essential in identifying conservation targets, detecting environmental
changes, identifying the most vulnerable species and habitats,
developing objective criteria for prioritizing activities and decision-
making, and developing, implementing, and evaluating plans using
adaptive management principles. Unfortunately, as the MSI Report shows,
the reality is that current inventory and monitoring efforts lack
standardization, priority, and funding. According to the report, only
11% of refuge managers surveyed describe current inventory and
monitoring efforts as ``mostly or fully sufficient.''
The solution to this problem is part funding and part policy.
Clearly, the Refuge System would benefit from more biologists. Over 200
refuges have no onsite biologist to speak of. This is a glaring problem
for a system of lands designed for the conservation of fish, wildlife
and habitat.
However, current inventory and monitoring efforts could be made
more effective. As the MSI report recommends, monitoring efforts should
be better coordinated and standardized and focus inventory and
monitoring ``systems toward the management needs of regional
priorities.'' Some regions of the FWS have begun this process but more
needs to be done. In addition, standardization and coordination of
inventory and monitoring systems should be accomplished in conjunction
with other federal, state, tribe, academic, and private sector
programs.
Water
Water is an essential ingredient to all life and, consequently, the
life blood of the Refuge System. The MSI Report concludes it is
``unable to evaluate'' the Refuge System on its efforts to secure
adequate water resources because so little information exists on which
to gauge effectiveness. It states the System ``does not currently
operate a well defined and structured water resources program. There is
currently no individual or office designated to coordinate the Refuge
System's water rights and water quality activities.'' Coupled with the
fact that the Refuge System provides no national water policy guidance
or standardized monitoring protocol to its land managers, perhaps MSI
could have reasonably concluded that the Refuge System is
``ineffective'' or at the very least, seriously underperforming in its
congressionally mandated effort to deliver adequate water quantity and
quality to all refuges. Viewed holistically, the Refuge System's water
troubles emanate from a failure to implement sound policy and protocol,
but also the inability to adequately address these challenges due to a
severe lack of resources.
Compared to other federal land management agencies, the Refuge
System typically manages areas that are wetter, lower in elevation, and
higher in biodiversity; often freshwater wetlands or coastal marshes.
Unfortunately, with increasing water demands from agricultural and
urban development, many refuges are struggling to secure enough water
to meet their conservation targets. The authors of the Refuge
Improvement Act showed foresight in addressing the emerging water
crisis on wildlife refuges, a crisis now exacerbated by climate change,
intense regional droughts and increasing human demand. The Act
unequivocally states that ``adequate water quantity and water quality''
must be maintained to ``fulfill the mission of the system and the
purposes of each refuge.''
The Refuge System must develop a national water policy that
standardizes protocol for water assessments and helps land managers
secure and defend water rights on wildlife refuges. In the face of
increasing human demand, droughts, floods, and altered timing and
volume of water flows, the Refuge System needs to anticipate and
appropriately plan for future water challenges. As part of this
planning effort, the Refuge System should secure the hydrologists and
equipment, and foster the institutional commitment necessary to
thoroughly catalogue existing water use along with current and
projected needs. Currently, some FWS regions have no dedicated
hydrologists or water monitoring programs at all. With such limited
capacity, it is not surprising that many wildlife refuges, particularly
in the East, have not documented current water usage or projected
future needs. Documentation will be absolutely critical if refuge water
rights are legally challenged as water supplies dwindle. Thorough
documentation of usage is essential not only to defend one's rights,
but also to assert what refuges actually need. Some of the necessary
inventory and monitoring can be done in conjunction with partners, but
all data needs to be standardized and accessible in a centralized
database.
Consideration of water quality and quantity should be a component
of all future land and water acquisitions. Priority should be given to
parcels with high-quality habitat that also have senior water rights,
where possible. It would also be prudent to identify overlap between
willing sellers of water rights and areas where the Refuge System has
identified a need for additional water. Of course, an inventory and
monitoring of related factors will be necessary first. The DOI should
encourage and provide guidance to all its land managers to work with
neighboring landowners and upstream users on various water measures,
including water conservation techniques and the improvement of water
quality through, for example, the reduction of contaminants or sediment
inputs. In some isolated cases, wildlife refuges themselves adversely
impact water quality by releasing large volumes of nutrient-laden
waters from freshwater impoundments into larger water bodies. For the
FWS to achieve its goal of managing refuges within a landscape-level
context, the Refuge System should develop habitat management strategies
and population targets that minimize pollution of local watersheds.
Conclusion
One can look at the findings of the MSI and GAO reports as either
half empty or half full. When you realize all the potential that is
being lost due to budget and policy neglect by the current
administration, it is certainly half empty. But when you think about
how much the dedicated workforce is actually doing to keep this system
together for wildlife, it is amazing what they have been able of
accomplish on so little. The current situation, however, is
unsustainable.
The Refuge System is truly at a crossroads. By next year, if
funding does not turn around, the Refuge System is scheduled to lose
twenty percent of its workforce, when compared to staffing levels just
four years ago. But these losses are not of expendable federal
bureaucrats; these are refuge managers, wildlife biologists who monitor
endangered species such as Florida manatees, red wolves, and whooping
cranes, interpretive rangers who teach and guide schoolchildren, and
essential maintenance personnel who keep each refuge functioning
smoothly. Without these people, America's Refuge System must continue
to cut educational programs, eliminate hunting and fishing access,
close offices, allow equipment and visitor infrastructure to fall into
disrepair, and significantly reduce management and monitoring of
wildlife and non-native, invasive plants.
When wildlife refuges have insufficient staff, it affects
activities outside the refuge boundaries. Refuge staff are unable to
dedicate sufficient attention to threats beyond refuge boundaries, such
as huge rafts of incoming marine debris, water rights issues, upstream
water contamination, adjacent landfill sites, or planned commercial
developments. Further, when staff levels are reduced to only one or a
few staff per refuge, those people are unable to partner with other
interested stakeholders, which dramatically and adversely affects
volunteer involvement and leveraging of additional dollars. For
example, consider that the reasonably well-staffed San Luis Refuge
Complex in central California often triples its annual budget through
creative partnerships. With these extra resources, more trees are
getting planted, invasive species are being eradicated, and refuge
staff are better able to closely monitor external threats. This
situation demonstrates how much is possible when sufficient staffing is
available to capitalize on partnership opportunities, and how much is
being lost at other wildlife refuges without adequate staffing,.
The National Wildlife Refuge System is critical to the future of
wildlife and wildlife-focused recreation in America. Refuges provide
wildlife with comparatively intact tracts of land that serve as a
``refuge'' from human development and other pressures, and can serve as
the backbone of a wider effort across the landscape to protect,
restore, and connect wildlife habitat. As recommended by the MSI
report, refuges should ``become fulcrums for influencing conservation
actions in larger landscapes.''
With an appropriate investment in resources and sound policy
direction, I believe the Refuge System can be a fulcrum for
conservation across the landscape to meet the conservation needs of
today, and the serious challenges of climate and other global
environmental changes ahead. In addition to dramatic increases in
funding, I have outlined a number of actions that will improve the
management of Refuge System including:
Establishing a national strategy for the FWS and other
resource agencies to address the impacts of climate change on wildlife
and natural resources.
Ensuring the quality of CCPs does not suffer in order to
meet the Congressional deadline for their completion, and developing
guidance for incorporating climate change into CCPs.
Developing a strategic growth policy for the Refuge
System to prioritize land protection efforts in the context of climate
change and other threats to wildlife and habitat and increasing funding
from the Land and Water Conservation Fund and Migratory Bird
Conservation Stamp to support land protection.
Standardizing and coordinating inventory and monitoring
programs so they provide needed feedback on management actions and
environmental change.
Establishing a national water resources policy to ensure
that the Refuge System is able to maintain the water quality and
quantity it needs to accomplish its mission in the face of increased
industrial, agricultural, and residential water withdrawals and climate
change induced drought.
On behalf of Defenders of Wildlife, I thank you for the opportunity
to share my perspectives on these critical issues. We look forward to
working with this subcommittee and others in Congress on the policy
reforms that are necessary to ensure the National Wildlife Refuge
System reaches its full potential, and to invest in the Refuge System
at a level commensurate with the remarkable benefits it provides to
American wildlife, people and economies.
______
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you very much, Mr. Matson.
Mr. Horn, welcome back to the Subcommittee. The floor is
yours to testify for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM P. HORN, COUNSEL,
U.S. SPORTSMEN'S ALLIANCE
Mr. Horn. Madam Chair, thank you very much. My name is
William Horn, and on behalf of the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance,
we greatly appreciate the opportunity to appear today to
discuss management issues facing our incomparable Wildlife
Refuge System.
Let me start by saying that we commend the Service for
commissioning the independent evaluation. Few agencies
demonstrate the courage to ask for such a review and then
cooperate openly with the reviewers, and we think the Service
deserves recognition and high marks on both of these particular
counts.
I would like to briefly address three refuge management
issues, including funding, that were touched on in the
independent evaluation. One management issue that has been
unresolved now for eight years is the lack of appropriate
guidance regarding how to combine wilderness management and
appropriate conservation management within units of the
Wildlife Refuge System.
We believe that a recent U.S. District Court ruling
involving the Kofa Refuge in Arizona should provide the impetus
to resolve this now outstanding eight-year-old issue.
Previously proposed Wilderness guidance failed to recognize
that wilderness designations provide only supplemental
management guidance. It is not contrary or superseding the
primary mission of conservation of wildlife within units of the
System. This supplemental nature of the Wilderness Act has been
affirmed in that recent court case.
We believe that it is time now in the wake of that decision
for the Service to resolve its wilderness management guidance
system and clearly recognize conservation as the primary
mission and Wilderness provides merely supplemental management
purposes.
The second issue that was identified in the independent
evaluation was the management of wildlife dependent recreation,
and the express recognition of those recreation, including
hunting and fishing, in the 1997 Act was one of its primary
accomplishments. The Service has been very effective in
implementing that aspect of the 1997 Act. Of course, that
action on its part is deeply appreciated within the sporting
community.
However, there is one looming problem that has budgetary
consequences that it may be appropriate for Congress to
address. Anti-hunting activists have filed suit pending in the
U.S. District Court in D.C. to compel the Service to prepare
even more paperwork and more evaluations before hunting and
fishing programs can be approved within units of the System.
During a period of limited personnel and monetary resources, we
believe the Service has far better things to do than prepare
more reports.
Accordingly, we strongly urge Congress to take appropriate
action to make it clear that the thorough evaluations that the
agency conducts as part of the comprehensive conservation plan
process, as well as the annual environmental impact statement
analyses done associated with the migratory bird hunting
programs, are more than sufficient and adequate and obviate the
need for any other cumulative effects work that may need to be
done. We think that that extra work just squanders these
precious finite resources, and we urge you to check that issue
out and see if we can resolve it.
Third and last, let me briefly talk about funding. After a
period of increased operations and maintenance funding that
coincided with the Refuge System's centennial, clearly funding
has begun to slide. Clearly one option is for Congress to
simply appropriate additional funds.
However, our concern is that as the System grows and uses
expand the need for funding will likely outstrip Congress'
ability to simply provide additional monies. This problem is
not unique to Fish and Wildlife. Similar problems afflict the
Forest Service and the BLM.
We are persuaded that it is time for a new paradigm for
funding our Federal public land management systems rather than
just 101 percent reliance on appropriated funds. We strongly
recommend that Congress, the Service and the conservation
community come together to pursue development of new funding
methods and options.
One hundred years ago the sporting community, in
cooperation with Teddy Roosevelt's Administration, developed
what has become the North American model for wildlife
conservation funding that has worked extraordinarily well for
nearly a century. We believe a similar effort today is needed
not only for our Refuge System, but for other public lands, so
that we don't continue to have these types of hearings
describing the continued funding problems that we face.
We think that taking action along those lines would be an
appropriate step. It was 100 years ago, as I said, that the
Roosevelt Administration kicked off what has become the North
American model. It is probably time for a new model that would
help us put these funding issues to bed in some more
comprehensive fashion.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Horn follows:]
Statement of William P. Horn, on Behalf of the
United States Sportsmen's Alliance
Madame Chair: My name is William P. Horn appearing on behalf of the
U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance (USSA). We appreciate the opportunity to
appear before the Subcommittee to discuss issues facing the National
Wildlife Refuge. USSA is a national association of hunters, anglers,
and trappers, and sporting organizations representing over a million
members and affiliates committed to protecting and advancing America's
heritage of hunting, fishing and trapping. USSA has long been committed
to ensuring a vital well managed Refuge System that conserves our
incomparable wildlife resources while providing important opportunities
to hunt, fish, and trap.
My testimony also reflects perspectives gained during my prior
service as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife and
Parks under President Reagan and the privilege of serving as Chairman
of the National Wildlife Refuge Centennial Commission in 2002-2003.
We commend the Fish and Wildlife Service for commissioning the
Independent Evaluation of the effectiveness of the Refuge System. Few
agencies demonstrate the courage to ask for such review and then
cooperate openly with the reviewers. The Service deserves high marks on
both counts. Review of the evaluation indicates that the Service is
doing an outstanding job with limited resources and we were pleased
that the agency's performance for nine of the twelve Strategic Outcome
Goals (SOGs) was considered effective and in only two cases was
performance considered ``ineffective.'' USSA wishes that other federal
land management entities, with budgets dwarfing the Service, performed
so well.
Following our review of the Independent Evaluation, five areas
presented issues we wish to address: SOG 3--Wilderness; SOG 5--Wildlife
Dependent Recreation; SOG 7--Law Enforcement; SOG 8--Infrastructure and
Funding; and SOG 10--Growing the System.
SOG 3 - Wilderness--The Service is in desperate need of new
guidance regarding Wilderness management issues and a recent U.S.
District Court ruling involving the Kofa Refuge in Arizona should
provide the impetus to finally resolve this issue. Proposed Wilderness
guidance issued eight years ago failed to recognize that Wilderness
designations of Refuge lands are designed to provide ``supplemental''
management purposes and guidance. Indeed, the ``supplemental''
reference is an express term of the 1964 Wilderness Act. Despite this
statutory clarity, previously proposed guidance improperly elevated
Wilderness purposes contrary to the more fundamental wildlife
conservation objective of the Refuge System as clearly articulated in
the 1997 Refuge Improvement Act.
This hierarchy has been affirmed in a recent lawsuit in Arizona.
There the Service, Arizona Game and Fish, and local conservationists
like the Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society and the Yuma Valley Rod
and Gun Club (USSA affiliates) developed water catchments to enhance
desert sheep populations. An interest group named Wilderness Watch
objected and argued that the Wilderness Act barred such water
catchments within the Refuge even though they would help wildlife
populations. The District Court rejected this nonsense and affirmed
that the primary purpose of Refuges is wildlife conservation. The
Service should promptly complete new Wilderness guidance that reflects
this approach.
SOG 5 - Wildlife Dependent Recreation--The express recognition of
Wildlife Dependent Recreation, including hunting and fishing, in the
1997 Refuge Act was one of its primary accomplishments. The Service's
effective implementation of this statutory policy is widely recognized
and deeply appreciated within the sporting community. However, there
are some looming problems that Congress ought to promptly redress.
First, animal rights radicals and anti-hunting activists have filed
suit in U.S. District Court to compel the Service to prepare more
paperwork and more evaluations before hunting and fishing programs can
be approved. Although contrary to the intent of the 1997 Act, over the
last two years the Service has had to expend substantial time, effort
and resources to prepare this extra and superfluous documentation.
During a period of limited personnel and monetary resources, the
Service has better things to do with those resources. Accordingly, we
strongly urge Congress to take action to make it clear that the
evaluations conducted as part of the Comprehensive Conservation Plan
process and the annual analyses associated with migratory bird hunting
regulations are sufficient and that additional ``cumulative effects''
work is unnecessary to authorize hunting programs. This would save
substantial money and free up limited personnel resources for more
important conservation and refuge management work.
Second, USSA is extremely apprehensive about language in the
Independent Evaluation referring to ``prioritizing'' allocation of
limited resources ``among the various recreational activities.'' The
last time we saw similar language was in 1995 when the Clinton
Administration attempted to curtail hunting and fishing opportunities
on Refuges in the name of budget shortfalls. That effort to put hunting
and fishing programs on the chopping block was a primary impetus for
enactment of the 1997 Improvement Act and its recognition of hunting
and fishing as priority public uses of the Refuge System. Hunting and
fishing activities generate more revenues for the Service, and their
partners in the state fish and wildlife agencies, than do the other
priority public use activities. If budget shortfalls absolutely mandate
use restrictions, hunting and fishing programs must be the last to be
impacted.
Third, we have concerns regarding any efforts to define ``quality''
hunting. This is a highly subjective standard and we have witnessed
efforts by some Refuges to restrict traditional hunting activity on the
grounds that it doesn't provide sufficient ``quality.'' USSA supports
quality experiences but wants to ensure that any proposed restrictions
advanced in the name of ``quality'' must be very carefully vetted with
local hunters and the appropriate state fish and wildlife agency.
SOG 7 - Law Enforcement--USSA sympathizes with the need for
enhanced law enforcement on refuges. We are concerned though that
simply increasing funding and personnel for the Law Enforcement (LE)
division without clear management objectives in place will not produce
the anticipated benefits. From our perspective, the LE division
continues to wrestle with its priorities and old fashioned on-the-
ground enforcement within the Refuge System appears to be at the bottom
of the priority list. Rather the focus is on import/export matters
including CITES, migratory bird enforcement aimed at incidental takes,
and homeland security related measures. If additional funding is
provided to LE, it must be clearly designated for improved on-the-
ground activities within Refuges. Without that limitation, we fear that
enforcement within Refuges will remain at the bottom of LE's
priorities.
SOG 8 - Infrastructure and Funding--After a period of increased
operations and maintenance funding that coincided with the Refuge
System Centennial, funding has begun to slide. One option is for
Congress to simply appropriate additional funds. However, it is evident
that as the System grows and wildlife dependent recreation uses expand,
the need for funding will outstrip Congresses ability to simply provide
additional monies. Similar problems afflict the Forest Service and the
Bureau of Land Management.
USSA is persuaded that we need a new paradigm for funding public
land management systems. The hunting and fishing community has been at
the funding forefront for a century by providing hundreds of millions
annually via licenses, fees, stamps, and excise taxes for wildlife
conservation. Many of these dollars are for the benefit of the Refuge
System. There is no doubt the sporting is prepared to do more but it
lacks the resources to bear the burden of funding the system--a burden
that would inequitable as well. Today we are in no position to present
that new paradigm. Rather we strongly suggest that Congress, the
Service, and the conservation community come together to pursue
development of new funding methods and options. One hundred years ago
the sporting community, in cooperation with the Teddy Roosevelt
Administration, developed what has become the North American Model for
wildlife conservation funding. A similar effort is needed today for our
Refuge system.
In the near term, however, we strongly endorse recommendations to
tailor administrative requirements for smaller refuge units. ``One size
fits all'' rules do not work and it is clear that there is significant
waste associated with making small units comply with same bureaucratic
procedures as large units. Streamlining these procedures for small
units will enable the Service to stretch its available dollars.
SOG 10 - Growing the System--This was one of two goals where
Service management was rated as ineffective. My experience indicates,
however, that this ``ineffectiveness'' is a result of outside forces
beyond the Service's control. The report noted that land purchases for
Refuges often do not match the priorities identified by the Land
Acquisition Priority System (LAPS). This particular problem has existed
for over 25 years and can be readily fixed by the Congress. I directed
establishment of LAPS in 1985 because Congressional appropriators were
ordering land acquisitions inconsistent with the System's bona fide
needs. LAPS was designed to enable the Service to identify those lands
that ought to be acquired to advance Refuge System goals.
Unfortunately, Congress frequently disregards these priorities. A bit
of self discipline in the Congressional agency funding process (i.e.,
follow the resource priorities set by the professionals in the Service)
would correct this problem.
Another problem created outside the Service is the Interior
Department's land appraisal procedures. Created as an overreaction to
criticism from the Inspector General, the new system is time consuming,
complex, costly, and simply doesn't get the job done. The system is
more focused on nit-picking appraisals than efficient acquisition of
environmentally valuable lands. We strongly concur with the
recommendation of the Independent Evaluation that the appraisal
function be returned to the Service.
Thank you again for the opportunity to appear today. The Service
continues to do an excellent job of managing the Refuge System with
limited resources. We need to assist the Service in making the most
efficient use of these resources while working to develop a new funding
model to assure that sufficient funds are available to ensure sound
conservation, management, and use of our incomparable Wildlife Refuges.
______
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you very much, Mr. Horn.
I will now recognize Members for any questions they may
wish. Normally we ask the witnesses and we alternate between
the Majority and the Minority Members of the committee,
allowing five minutes for each Member.
However, since I am the sole Member here today I will begin
with the questioning, and we will await the return of Mr. Kind
and our Ranking Member. There is a strong possibility he may be
back also.
I will begin with Mr. Kurth. I am very disappointed by the
Administration's testimony. I will begin with that. I would
like to ask you some questions to determine why the
Administration is unable to provide any comments regarding the
GAO's report.
It is my understanding that the GAO forwarded to the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service a copy of its draft report on August
19, 2008. Is that correct?
Mr. Kurth. I don't recall the exact date, but, yes, we have
seen a draft of the report.
Ms. Bordallo. And quite some time ago?
Mr. Kurth. Yes.
Ms. Bordallo. It is my further understanding that according
to a September 16, 2008, letter from Assistant Secretary Lyle
Laverty to Ms. Nazzaro that is included as Appendix 6 in the
GAO report, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provided to the
GAO technical comments on the draft report. Is that correct?
Mr. Kurth. Yes.
Ms. Bordallo. Ms. Nazzaro, a review and comparison of the
draft report and the final report by committee staff indicates
that these reports are substantially almost identical. Is that
correct?
Ms. Nazzaro. In this case, yes. It wouldn't always have to
be. It really depends on the nature of the comments. If an
agency substantively disagrees with us we will consider those
comments, and we could make changes to the report. In this case
the agency provided us technical comments, which we did address
as appropriate. I believe there were about a half a dozen
comments, and we addressed them all.
The most substantial one had to do with the fact that we
used a statistical model to develop some of our information,
and they wanted to know what kind of a review process we went
through so we described not only our use of an economist to
develop the model, but the use of a statistician to review our
methodology, so that was added, but substantively they did not
change in this case.
Ms. Bordallo. Yes. OK. So they were almost identical. The
answer is yes. All right.
Let me then return to you, Mr. Kurth. It would appear from
the previous responses that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
had ample opportunity to review the GAO report and in fact did
provide comments. It is also clear that there is materially
very little different from the GAO's draft report and the final
product.
In light of the fact that the Administration has had the
draft report for over a month and already provided comments to
the GAO, why is it incapable of providing comments on the
record today?
Mr. Kurth. The Fish and Wildlife Service appreciates the
close relationship we had with GAO working on this and we did
provide those comments on the draft, but it is the
Administration's policy to only formally comment on finalized
GAO reports.
Ms. Bordallo. What aspects in the final report are so
different from the draft findings that the Administration is
unable to provide comments to the committee?
Mr. Kurth. I believe the fact that the draft is just being
released this morning didn't allow the officials who were
involved in the----
Ms. Bordallo. It was 6:00 last evening, right, to our
committee?
Mr. Kurth. I think the people who reviewed the formal
statement today felt like because they did not have a final
report that they couldn't offer the formal testimony.
Ms. Bordallo. So because the word final wasn't there, and
even though they were very similar, you----
Mr. Kurth. That is correct.
Ms. Bordallo.--could not make any comments? All right.
One of the goals of the 1997 Refuge Improvement Act was to
establish for the first time uniform policies to ensure
consistent management across the Refuge System, yet the thrust
of the GAO and the MSI reports seems to be to the contrary.
Insufficient resources to hire and retain full-time staff
and conduct management activities and visitor services has
forced the Fish and Wildlife Service to scale back core
operations that has greatly increased program variability and
equality from refuge to refuge.
This question I guess I would ask to Mr. Kurth and Mr.
Matson. Do you agree that the Refuge System is failing to meet
this fundamental goal of the Refuge Improvement Act? Mr. Kurth
first.
Mr. Kurth. I think that the Fish and Wildlife Service is
successful in accomplishing the Refuge System's mission. I do,
though, agree with your observation that at some stations we
are not delivering it as effectively as others.
I mean, we don't like to do triage in wildlife
conservation, but when there aren't enough resources to do
everything we feel we have done a good job of saying where our
priorities are and putting our resources in the areas of
highest priority.
Those are the difficult choices that we have made, and that
is the direction that Director Hall has given us is to do the
most important things with the resources you have, and I think
we have done a good job being clear with our priorities.
Ms. Bordallo. Mr. Matson?
Mr. Matson. Yes. I think the Fish and Wildlife Service
faces a huge challenge. What do you do when you don't have
enough money?
You know, they decided in their judgment to instead of cuts
across the board to try to be a little more strategic with
those cuts. Are there refuges that are higher priority than the
others? Are there refuges that have more abundant wildlife that
might need more attention or more visitors that need more
attention? And so I think the fundamental premise of how they
have done that is sound.
However, I think to the point of consistency across the
board, the Refuge System is managed under essentially eight
regimes. There are eight regions of Fish and Wildlife Service,
and the line authority for the Refuge System does not come from
Washington. It comes from each regional director. I think that
leads to a lot of inconsistent management for everything from
planning to how competitive these rates are done to how land
acquisition is done. I think that is a big problem.
Ms. Bordallo. Again, Mr. Kurth, I guess I will ask you to
answer this. What are the consequences to the Refuge System as
a whole?
Mr. Kurth. The consequences of not having the resources to
do everything we want?
Ms. Bordallo. Yes.
Mr. Kurth. You know, these reports both point out that we
have not the type of inventory and monitoring programs that we
would like to have. We don't offer all of the environmental
education and interpretive programs that we could.
There are a number of things that don't get done, but our
job is to determine what are the essential things. You know,
where do we have to have law enforcement officers to assure
public safety and to protect the wildlife resources? Where do
we have the greatest opportunities to provide environmental
education? Where do we have the most significant needs to fight
invasive species?
I believe that we have been effective in identifying those
priorities. It is clear from both reports there are other
opportunities for us to enhance our conservation and visitor
services, but I think we are being effective in sorting out
priorities.
Ms. Bordallo. With what you have. Mr. Matson?
Mr. Matson. Can you repeat the question?
Ms. Bordallo. What are the consequences to the Refuge
System as a whole?
Mr. Matson. As a whole? Yes. First of all, I think people
have said already that the Refuge System--you can look at these
reports as the Refuge System is half full or half empty. I
think the half empty part is places like Supawna Meadows,
Crystal River, a bunch of other refuges that are really being
neglected. If you have no staff managing a refuge, it is just
going to be overcome with vandalism, invasive species and the
like.
At the same time, given all of the financial problems
facing the Refuge System, the half full view is that the Refuge
System is doing a pretty darned good job with what they have,
and I think they have been really effective at trying to do
more with less.
Unfortunately, I think we are finally coming to--they have
been able to do that for a handful of years, but we are finally
reaching the crisis point where they can no longer do that. You
have staff out there. Every time they lose staff they pick up
the work, and there are so many hours in the day. They can't
keep picking up the work. You have overworked staff. It is just
not sustainable.
And so while I think they have been pretty effective at
doing what they have so far, I think over the next few years we
are really going to see a dramatic slide.
Ms. Bordallo. All right. One more question to the two of
you.
How many refuges have been completely closed because of
this financial situation? I know some of them have been closed
for in the case of endangered species, protecting the habitat,
but how many have been closed?
Mr. Kurth. There is a difference between closing an office
and the staffing and closing the refuge to the public
visitation.
I know of no refuges where we were previously open for the
public to use the refuge where we have told them they can't
come in, but clearly in places where we have lost staffing
the----
Ms. Bordallo. The office has been closed.
Mr. Kurth. There has been offices closed. A small number. I
can get you the exact number, Madam Chair. I don't have that.
Ms. Bordallo. I would like that number.
Mr. Kurth. But it is a small number. Again, because we were
successful in having additional funds appropriated in Fiscal
Year 2008, some of those trends have begun to reverse, but
there is no doubt that we have reduced staffing. That doesn't,
though, equate to necessarily closing the refuge to the public.
Ms. Bordallo. I understand. I understand. So you will give
me the number of the closed offices?
Mr. Kurth. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Bordallo. And you are stating emphatically that there
are no refuges that have been closed in any of the states
across the Nation or the territories?
Mr. Kurth. There have been no National Wildlife Refuges
where the public has been not allowed to enter the refuge
because of funding crises. Yes.
Ms. Bordallo. All right. And I have one other question.
Then I am going to turn to Mr. Kind.
Ms. Nazzaro and Mr. Callihan--I will ask you, Ms. Nazzaro,
first. If refuge lands in Alaska are removed, how would that
change the findings in your respective reports?
Ms. Nazzaro. We would probably have to recalculate some of
our responses. I don't have a breakout of which of those
responses came from the refuges in Alaska.
Certainly they do account for a large amount of land, but
as far as the number of refuge managers I don't think there is
a real disproportionate number so I wouldn't think that there
would be a significant shift in the responses, but we would
have to recalculate that.
Ms. Bordallo. Mr. Callihan?
Mr. Callihan. Yes. I don't believe it would change any of
our overall ratings or conclusions.
However, one of the recommendations we did make is that as
the refuge moves forward with using its annual reporting
system, the RAPP system, Refuge Annual Performance Plan
reporting, that as that system becomes used more as a result of
base management systems to make decisions that the analysis of
that data be disaggregated between Alaska and the rest of the
System because I think the Alaska data can give a skewed
picture of the performance of the Refuge System.
I think it is what, 85 percent of the refuge lands are in
Alaska, and I think 95 percent of those lands are wilderness
areas. I might be a little bit off on that. So if you take
those out of the overall aggregated data for performance then
you see it becomes much more obvious that there is a much more
greater percentage of land in the rest of the system that
requires active habitat management and improvement, and there
you can really see where some of the funding deficiencies are
really playing out, I think.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you. I have one final question. I was
just given a number here.
Mr. Kurth, would you agree with that? One hundred and
eighty-eight unstaffed refuges?
Mr. Kurth. Yes. I mean, it could be one or two off, but
that is the ballpark of refuges that don't have on-site staff.
Ms. Bordallo. And that is offices closed?
Mr. Kurth. Correct. Often times we will have refuges that
are in close proximity to one another where we can have staff
that can manage from a central location some of these areas in
close proximity.
Additionally, there are a number of remote islands that we
wouldn't staff even if we had adequate staffing.
Ms. Bordallo. Is Guam one of those remote islands?
Mr. Kurth. No, ma'am. No. Largely small bird nesting
colonies, not wonderful, beautiful places like the island of
Guam.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you. You have put me on good stead now.
But the 188. That is quite a significant number, Mr. Kurth.
I am rather surprised. It is about one-third. Is that correct?
Mr. Kurth. That is correct. Again, there certainly are
refuges that if we had unlimited resources we would put staff
at. There are refuges on that list, though, that we would not.
There is a refuge called Huron Island, which is a granite
rock in Lake Superior that has some bird nesting colonies, and
it is adequately managed from Seney Refuge in the Upper
Peninsula in Michigan by periodic patrols and survey work. It
is uninhabited and out in the middle of Lake Superior where not
very many people go.
We have other colonies, bird nesting islands, where people
visit periodically and seasonally when the resources are there,
and that is an adequate stewardship approach for some of those
places, but clearly we don't have all the people to put in all
the places that----
Ms. Bordallo. Well, it certainly is another reason why we
should provide adequate funding for this program.
I will turn over the questions now to the gentleman from
Wisconsin, Mr. Kind.
Mr. Kind. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, I
apologize for having to run in and out.
I was just wondering if the Chair's previous question
pertaining to Alaska was anticipating the eventual succession
of Alaska from the union and that is why we have to revamp the
numbers. I hope that doesn't occur. It is a beautiful state,
and we are very proud to have it in the union.
Mr. Kurth, let me just stay with that line of questioning
first as far as the 188 field offices that have been closed.
What was the criteria, the determination, that was used to make
that decision?
Mr. Kurth. Well, of the 188 or so refuges that don't have
staff, most of those never have. There have been a number where
we destaffed them because of our workforce planning efforts
simply because we identified them as the lower priorities
amongst the work that we have to do.
Nobody likes to make those decisions, but we feel it is
extremely important that we put our resources where the payoff
is greatest and so if that requires us to temporarily take
staff from one place and put them at another then we are
willing to do that.
Mr. Kind. Now, obviously with the cooperation of Chairman
Dicks and the Appropriations Committee we were able to achieve
a nice plus up as far as the refuge budget in the latest fiscal
year, but given the $3.5 billion maintenance and operation
backlog and all the other challenges that you are facing, you
had mentioned--I think I heard your testimony--that you were
using some of that to restore some of the staff positions that
were recently downsized. Is that correct?
Mr. Kurth. We have been able to add 20 law enforcement
officers with that funding and a very small number of other
positions.
What we have tried to do is put an emphasis on making sure
that refuges have the dollars they need to pay their bills, to
do their work projects and to not get too much of the refuge
funding tied up in staff.
We can use seasonal workers. We can contract for work. What
we found in the past is that we had such a high percentage of
our dollars tied up in salary that when budgetary situations
became tight we didn't have enough money to do our work and so
we have as a top priority protecting that management capability
as a component of refuge funding.
So in the future funding gets tight then what we will do is
reduce positions in order to protect our ability to manage the
places where we have staff.
Mr. Kind. Mr. Kurth, I was remiss in neglecting to thank
you as well when Director Haskett came up on the Hill to brief
many of us on your self-evaluation. That was very helpful and a
very generous use of your time to do that.
I know in visiting so many of the refuges throughout the
country we are blessed to have the dedicated staff and
personnel that are charged with making it all come together and
work, but we are also very fortunate, given the strong care
coalition that has formed about refuge and funding issues and
the friends of the Refuge System that is indispensable as far
as getting a lot of the necessary work done.
But even with the enthusiasm and passion that our friends
of refuge display, they still need guidance, which means they
still need professional technical assistance and things of that
nature, so when we are talking about staff reductions and
offices closing this does have a ripple effect throughout the
entire System.
But let us get to the real crux of the challenge that we
are facing, and that is the funding issue. Mr. Horn, let me
direct this toward you because I read your testimony, and you
did cite in your testimony the North American model for
wildlife conservation funding and kind of the process that we
need to put in place to think through a new paradigm of funding
with our Refuge System.
In your testimony you also mentioned that you are not
prepared or the Sportsmen Alliance isn't prepared to offer that
new paradigm yet, but I would hope that there is some thinking
about how we get from A to Z with this. As a sportsman myself,
some of the greatest conservationists I know are those who like
to go out in the refuge and hunt and fish and enjoy the
outdoors.
But we also have to recognize that there is about a 10 to
one ratio between birders, birdwatching, going into the refuge
and sportsmen going into the refuge, so how do we expand the
universe and how do we come up with a new funding paradigm and
what kind of process are you envisioning here as we move
forward?
Mr. Horn. Well, I think the process is essentially a
political process in terms of developing appropriate public
policy.
On behalf of the Alliance, we have begun internal thinking
about can we find dedicated sources of funding so that we are
not reliant 100 percent on appropriated dollars? What
opportunities exist for additional entrance and user fees? We
know that the sporting community through duck stamps and
license fees has been the backbone of the North American model.
What else might the sporting community be able to contribute to
the mix?
As you indicate, there is an awful lot of other elements in
the user community in wildlife-dependent recreation who are not
anglers and hunters. What kind of contributions can they make,
and out of that can we come up with something that provides a
more sustained level of funding over time without this complete
reliance?
I remember when we had the comparable hearing two years ago
and former Secretary Babbitt, and Bruce and I ended up going to
lunch about a month later and having this very same
conversation about there has got to be some way to get at this
because, I think as many of you all know, this problem is not
unique to the Fish and Wildlife Service. The Forest Service
probably faces this to an even greater degree, and BLM wrestles
with it.
There are efforts of course on the Park Service side to
come up with that form of dedicated funding in the centennial
initiative that has been kicking around. We believe that we
have to sit down and get very creative about how to come up
with something for this System and others.
I don't have anything that we can offer, but we would
appreciate the opportunity to begin working with other elements
of the community, the Administration and Congress to say how do
we craft something that gets at this? What is the best model?
We have been able to do this before. We ought to be able to
do this again.
Mr. Kind. I couldn't agree with you more, and I think maybe
with the centennial of the Park System coming up it might
provide a nice vehicle or model of how we can move forward on
all these different levels that you just described because it
is only backing up and getting worse by the year, and time I
feel is of the essence.
Mr. Kurth, let me also ask you, because Mr. Matson talked
about the three refuges that were wiped out down in Texas, but
have there been any preliminary cost estimates and what type of
work needs to be done as far as restoration of those refuges?
Mr. Kurth. We have preliminary cost estimates that we
haven't formally transmitted through OMB, but we know from
Hurricane Ike alone our damages are probably close to $250
million and from other storm-related damages this year,
including some flooding in the Midwest, probably as high as
$300 million.
Mr. Kind. And in those three refuges we are talking about
buildings being waylaid too, aren't we? It is not just debris
and a lot of----
Mr. Kurth. At those Texas refuges we lost our facilities in
total. All of our buildings, all of our equipment, all of the
residences on those refuges were completely destroyed.
Mr. Kind. And the $250 million figure you are citing is all
the disasters that occurred throughout the country? Is that
right?
Mr. Kurth. $250 million was our estimate of Hurricane Ike.
Mr. Kind. Just Hurricane Ike.
Mr. Kurth. Right.
Mr. Kind. OK.
Mr. Kurth. For example, at Anahuac Refuge alone we lost $85
million worth of real property.
Mr. Kind. All right. Because we are asking the field
offices now, given the incredible flooding that we experienced
in the upper Midwest, in some areas twice in 10 months now,
what they are looking at as far as repair and maintenance of
the damage that was done there. These disasters keep piling up
on us as well.
Mr. Kurth. Right. Let me emphasize they are preliminary
figures. You know, we will transmit the formal figures through
the formal channels.
Mr. Kind. Finally let me ask you, because it sounds as if
the GAO report that we have here today, that the CCP process is
pretty well on track as far as the goals.
From my personal experience, living on one of the largest
wildlife refuges, the Upper Miss, but given the multiple uses
of it, there were some inherent conflicting situations that
arose and it became a very difficult process unfortunately up
there to get a CCP plan moving forward.
Is there a plan with the Service to go back and do a review
of what worked well and what problems were encountered in the
CCP process so it could be a teachable moment as well?
Mr. Kurth. Yes. We are planning actually to convene a
meeting of our planning staff early next year to come together
and do some lessons learned.
We did develop a plan that Director Hall implemented to
assure we get all these CCPs done by the year 2012, the
statutory deadline. We believe we are on track to do that. I am
a little concerned that some of the preliminary numbers for
this year aren't going to be as good as what we thought.
We think it is important, though, to take the time
necessary to work with communities to get plans that can be
implemented, and we will certainly do everything we can to stay
on track. Our planning budget was reduced by $2 million last
year, though, and we haven't assessed whether or not that is
going to change the calculus out to 2012.
Mr. Kind. Let me also take this opportunity to thank the
Service for the flexibility that they demonstrated, and
obviously we are talking field staff, in working with the local
people and making sure that private/public partnership and
coalition that forms around the management of the refuges
remain intact.
Not that the Upper Miss CCP is completely controversy free
at this point, but I think there were some decisions later on,
especially involving some prime duck hunting areas, that was
taken into account. Don Hultman, the manager of the Upper Miss
Wildlife Refuge, changed his approach on a couple of matters,
which went a long ways I think with community support.
Because ultimately when you talk about the problem you are
facing with law enforcement, most of the rules and regs that
exist in the refuge is self-compliance. I mean, it is self-
enforcement. We can't afford to hire an army of law enforcement
officers to go out there and enforce every little bit of rule.
It has to be community buy in. Otherwise it is just not going
to work.
That ultimately needed to be the goal of the CCP process,
and I think Mr. Hultman demonstrated some good flexibility on
that front.
Mr. Kurth. We think that the involvement of communities and
our state partners is essential in the CCP process.
People who helped craft that law, including my friend Mr.
Horn here, made sure that a central tenet of that law was
community involvement in our decision making, and it has proven
to help us implement those plans when the communities are
actively engaged in shaping the future direction.
Mr. Kind. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Bordallo. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin. We have
another round of questions if you have any further questions.
I would like to focus on law enforcement. Both the GAO and
the MSI reports are highly critical of the insufficient level
of law enforcement within the Refuge System. In fact, the GAO
report concludes that the Fish and Wildlife Service needs to
hire about 200 additional officers in order to meet just the
minimum--just the minimum--number needed to provide adequate
protection to refuge resources and the visiting public.
Ms. Nazzaro and Mr. Callihan, did any of your analysts--I
will ask you, Ms. Nazzaro, first. Did any of your analysts
develop a projection for how long it would take the Fish and
Wildlife Service to hire and train an additional 200 law
enforcement officers based on the existing trend in funding for
the refuge system?
Ms. Nazzaro. The short answer is no, we did not, but I
would also like to make a correction that that was not our
assessment that they needed 200 more. That came from the Fish
and Wildlife Service as far as what their plan is to add.
Ms. Bordallo. What is your assessment?
Ms. Nazzaro. We did not look at law enforcement. That is
one area where our study and MSI differ in that we did not look
specifically at law enforcement.
We asked what kind of initiatives the agency has
undertaken, what would impact habitat management and visitor
services, and certainly this shift in resources that the agency
made to ramp up law enforcement did impact other activities at
the refuges, but we did not look at it specifically.
Actually Chairman Rahall has a request that he has sent to
GAO to look at law enforcement across the Federal land
management agencies, and we will be undertaking that study
shortly.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you. I got the 200 number from Fish and
Wildlife Service. This is their suggested estimate.
Ms. Nazzaro. Correct.
Ms. Bordallo. Mr. Callihan, what do you have to say on
that?
Mr. Callihan. Madam Chairwoman, if I may, I want to refer
this question to my colleague, Keith Brown, as he headed up
that portion of the analysis for our study. He is right here.
Ms. Bordallo. All right.
Mr. Brown. Can I just speak loudly?
Ms. Bordallo. No. Please step up to the----
Mr. Brown. OK.
Ms. Bordallo. Be seated. Could you identify yourself for
the record?
Mr. Brown. Yes. My name is Keith Brown. I am Senior Vice
President with Management Systems International, one of the
senior evaluators for the MSI evaluation of the Refuge System.
I took a look at the law enforcement issue, the law
enforcement strategic outcome goal, as part of the evaluation.
We did not do any analysis in how long it would take to fill
the shortfall or our projected shortfall or actually the
shortfall between the current level, the current number of
full-time officers, and what we in fact heard from the refuge
managers and also from other sources, a 200 to 300 shortfall in
the full-time officers.
We did not do an analysis of that, of how long it would
take to fill that shortfall, because it is a very complicated
question that has to do with how to distribute additional
resources should they be forthcoming to a range of difficult
and complicated issues.
I will say, though, that it is about a six-month training
process to fully train an officer for deployment. We found that
training process to be a very rigorous and substantial and
useful training program, but we did not do any analysis beyond
that.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you very much for clarifying that.
Mr. Kurth, your report did suggest 200. Is that correct?
Does it still remain the same?
Mr. Kurth. For a little background, a number of years ago
we contracted with the International Association of Chiefs of
Police, the preeminent professional law enforcement
organization, and asked them to develop a staffing model for us
for what they would see based on data--visitation, crime
statistics, things such as that--we would need for refuge law
enforcement officers. Their report recommended 845 officers.
Now, their report also assumed correctly that we could get some
of that support from state and local authorities.
What we have done internally is try to think about our
staffing in a way that gets at what is critical. The reports
that say we are ineffective beg us to do that, so as
professionals, as a former officer with our law enforcement
staff, we have talked about those things, but the number of
officers we need ends up being officially that which the
President asks for in his budget request.
Certainly the number 200 is a number that our refuge law
enforcement professionals and myself use in our internal
deliberations, but when it comes to me telling you what we
need, the President asks for the law enforcement budget that we
need.
Ms. Bordallo. What did the President ask for?
Mr. Kurth. Well, I mean, his law enforcement budget is not
increasing at a rate that is going to get us to 200 officers.
Ms. Bordallo. Did he put a number to this?
Mr. Kurth. Yes, but I would have to look up the exact
number of our refuge law----
Ms. Bordallo. You can't remember that?
Mr. Kurth. It is about $36 million, but I would like to be
accurate and precise when I give the committee the figures.
Ms. Bordallo. All right. Thank you.
Now we will go back to Ms. Nazzaro and Mr. Callihan. Is it
reasonable to conclude that under existing budget trends the
Service will not be able to address this particular threat
without having to cut funding for other program activities,
including resource management and visitor services?
Ms. Nazzaro. I don't know that without looking at it we
could say it is reasonable.
Any time you make a change, whether it is to shift
resources or to reduce resources and put it into operational
funds, it is going to have an impact. What that impact would be
I wouldn't want to guess at it.
Like I say, I mean, we will be looking at the whole law
enforcement issue----
Ms. Bordallo. Right.
Ms. Nazzaro.--and we could certainly add that.
Ms. Bordallo. I think the question is if we were to bring
law enforcement up to par what else would suffer?
Ms. Nazzaro. I am saying I don't know what directly would
suffer.
Ms. Bordallo. You don't know.
Ms. Nazzaro. It depends on what tradeoffs because the
agency certainly has a number of options, whether it would
reduce other staff positions or whether they would reduce other
operational aspects. You know, there certainly are options.
To say what the direct impact would be, I couldn't estimate
what it would be. It would depend on the tradeoffs that the
agency would decide to make.
Ms. Bordallo. All right. Mr. Brown, are you still sitting
in for Mr. Callihan?
Mr. Brown. Yes, I am.
Mr. Callihan. Yes.
Ms. Bordallo. Do you have the answer to that question?
Mr. Brown. Well, I am going to go back to what I heard as
the first part of the question, which was would we conclude
that under current funding levels that the Fish and Wildlife
Service would not be able to meet its what we consider adequate
law enforcement requirements.
Our report only tracked the budget through 2007 prior to
the sort of bump in appropriations, but at that point in time
our conclusion was fairly unequivocal. Without changes in the
funding stream the law enforcement issue would continue to be a
substantial and serious problem for the Refuge System.
Ms. Bordallo. OK. And finally now Mr. Kurth. After hearing
all of this, what types of impacts is the Refuge System
experiencing with, as these two reports outline, the grossly
inadequate levels of law enforcement officers? Can you provide
some examples of how we are suffering on this because of the
lack of law enforcement?
Mr. Kurth. It is always difficult when you don't have an
officer on site to say what crime is being committed.
One of the things we find--it is a paradox in law
enforcement--is when we add officers crime goes up. Well, it
doesn't go up. We just detect it and slowly deal with it.
Ms. Bordallo. But certainly you must have some examples of
the Refuge System or the refuges where you have found things
that you say if only we had had law enforcement on board.
Mr. Kurth. You know, we see increases in all sorts of
criminal behavior.
Ms. Bordallo. Theft?
Mr. Kurth. Theft. You know, we have had gang related
activity here in Fairfax County at Mason Neck Wildlife Refuge.
There are a wide range of crimes that affect our visitors and
that affect the national resources we protect.
I want to emphasize, however, our utmost priority is
protecting our officers. We were very much grieved this week to
learn that one of our colleagues, Forest Service Officer Chris
Fairbanks, was killed in the line of duty last week. These are
people we train with and work with.
This is dangerous work, and we feel like the way we deploy
our officers first and foremost has to assure that when they
are in the field we deploy them in a manner where they have
safe working conditions. We feel that is the case, but
certainly there are every indications that our law enforcement
program is challenged.
I think we have to recognize too, you know, in the events
following September 11 our mission also changed. We have been
called on to work national security events at icon parks, the
Salt Lake Olympic Games. I mean, it is a new world requiring a
different approach to law enforcement. That is why we have been
challenged.
We used to use what we call dual function officers--refuge
managers, wildlife biologists--with these as part-time
responsibilities. In today's world with the 30-week training
requirement and the dangers in law enforcement, we are trying
to transition to a law enforcement workforce of full-time
officers, and that has just simply been an exacerbating impact
of the difficulty in making sure we are adequately covered.
Ms. Bordallo. Mr. Matson, could you give me your ideas on
this?
Mr. Matson. Absolutely. In the words of the Refuge System's
chief officer, every crime that happens in America occurs in a
National Wildlife Refuge. There are meth labs. There is
graffiti. There is gang activity. Every single crime that
happens in America happens in a National Wildlife Refuge, and
it is a problem.
As I relayed in my oral testimony, the example of
harassment of endangered species, of manatees down in Crystal
River, because there is no law enforcement presence. There are
a million examples out there of the problem.
Another issue which isn't explored in these reports is that
it is a significant investment in training. I think it is
$50,000 to $100,000 to train an officer. It is over a six month
period, as was mentioned. Because of the budget issues at Fish
and Wildlife Service and the structure of their officers, a lot
of those officers, that is Federal law enforcement training.
They can then go to the Fish and Wildlife Service or BLM and
get paid more.
There is a number of instances where Fish and Wildlife
Service is paying the bill and not getting the officers, and so
that is a structural change that needs to happen.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you. That was a very good point that
you brought out.
I would like to recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr.
Wittman, a Member of this Subcommittee.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. To begin with, I
would like to ask unanimous consent that the statement by
Ranking Member Brown be entered into the record.
Ms. Bordallo. Without objection.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Brown follows:]
Statement of The Honorable Henry E. Brown, Jr., Ranking Republican
Member, Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans
Madam Chairwoman, as the 110th Congress draws to a close, it is
appropriate that this Subcommittee conduct an oversight hearing on the
management of the National Wildlife Refuge System.
This unique system of federal lands provides essential habitat to
hundreds of wildlife species and wildlife-dependent recreational
opportunities to nearly 40 million Americans who visit at least one
refuge every year.
In my own Congressional District, the Cape Romain, Ernest F.
Hollings ACE Basin and Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuges provide
87,500 acres of vital habitat for a number of listed species including
bald eagles, brown pelicans, loggerhead sea turtles and wood storks.
They also allow nearly 200,000 people to enjoy hunting, fishing,
environmental education, photography and wildlife observation.
Together, these three refuges are a key component in what the Fish
and Wildlife Service has described as the economic benefits to local
communities from refuge visitation. According to their latest ``Banking
on Nature'' Report, refuges generate $1.7 billion in annual sales to
regional economies, they create nearly 27,000 jobs and provide $185
million in tax revenues.
Today, we will hear testimony from representatives of Management
Systems International (MSI) and the Government Accountability Office
which have recently examined the management of the refuge system. While
both reports make important contributions, they are in the words of one
of the organizations nothing more than ``A Snapshot in Time''.
Nevertheless, I look forward to hearing how MSI determined the ratings
for the strategic outcome goals and whether the Fish and Wildlife
Service agrees with these ratings and how they intend to improve them
in the future.
Finally, during the past year, a number of witnesses have testified
that the Bush Administration has financially shortchanged the refuge
system. The most prominent critic was former Interior Secretary Bruce
Babbitt who told us on October 9, 2007 that our nation's wildlife
refuges are ``reeling from years of fiscal starvation.''
As President John Adams once said: ``Facts are stubborn things.''
Here are the facts. During the Clinton Administration, $1.67 billion
was requested for the refuge system and Congress appropriated $1.7
billion. By contrast, the Bush Administration has requested $3.08
billion and Congress appropriated $3.13 billion. In other words, during
the past eight years the refuge system has enjoyed an increase of $1.4
billion in requested funds and $1.43 billion in appropriated dollars.
Only in Washington, D. C., would an increase of $180 million each year
be considered ``fiscal starvation''!
While there is no question that despite these additional funds, the
refuge system has experienced some difficult days. Nevertheless, to
suggest that the refuge system has been shortchanged or starved is
factually incorrect and nothing more than empty political rhetoric.
Madam Chairwoman, I have enjoyed working with you during this
Congress and I look forward to hearing the testimony from our
witnesses.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
______
Mr. Wittman. Gentlemen, I will begin. I will let anybody on
the panel that is interested in answering this, probably
somebody from the Wildlife Refuge System.
Can you tell me the number of permanent and total employees
within the Refuge System and how many vacancies currently exist
now within the System?
Mr. Kurth. I can't give you an accurate number of how many
vacancies we have today. I would be happy to get that
information to you. Our workforce is approximately 3,700
people. Again, I would be happy to give you the precise figure
for the record.
Mr. Wittman. OK. That would be very, very helpful. Can you
tell me how many law enforcement officers work within the
System, and can you give me an idea about their role--how many
of them are dual function employees; how many are full-time law
enforcement officers--just to kind of get a bearing on----
Mr. Kurth. Sure. We have 217 full-time officers and 151
dual function officers. That is a total of 368 badges, if my
math is correct.
Mr. Wittman. All right. According to Mr. Matson, he says
that the Fish and Wildlife Service intends to further reduce
the number of refuge managers, biologists and environmental
educators and maintenance staff by 20 percent. Is that an
accurate reflection of what the plan is?
Mr. Kurth. We had plans on how to deal with a flat and
declining budget in the Refuge System station-by-station, where
we would make cuts if need be.
With the appropriation from Fiscal Year 2008, we stabilized
our workforce. If we can be successful in having appropriations
that cover inflationary cost increase each year then we would
not at this point in time need to eliminate any further staff.
Mr. Wittman. OK. All right. Thank you. Since the Service is
likely to receive an increase of about $70 million for the
National Wildlife Refuge System for the current fiscal year and
next fiscal year, can you tell me how many of the 350 lost
refuge jobs would be refilled in the future? How much of that
lost ground would you regain by the increase of the $70
million?
Mr. Kurth. I guess I don't have anything that I am aware of
that indicates that $70 million increase is likely. I know
people have been asking for that.
Mr. Wittman. Yes. Yes. There is $35 million requested for
this year and $35 million for next year. So if that funding
were to come through how would that affect the 350 jobs that
remain unfilled?
Mr. Kurth. We would probably not precisely refill the jobs
that were lost. What we would do is continue to implement our
priorities.
I would think you would see us put an investment into law
enforcement officers and wildlife biologists, two of the areas
that we see from all of these reports that we are weak on. We
would put them at the highest priority stations.
You know, a $70 million budget increase would likely be
able to replace all of those positions, that number of
positions. We would hopefully align them with our highest
priority needs. They would not be an identical mirror of what
was there in the past.
Some of the efficiencies we have found through these tight
times of having efficient complexes of refuges where we can
share things like full-time officers are trends that we are
going to continue to look at. If we do get additional
resources, we are going to look to be as highly efficient as we
possibly can where we would deploy those jobs.
Mr. Wittman. A question off in a little bit different
direction. You know, the big issue around a lot of refuges are
invasive species. I know just in Virginia dealing with
Phragmites in some of the properties there along the coastline
has become a major, major issue.
Can you give us an indication about how many acres in the
System might be affected by invasive species and the backlog of
projects to deal with these invasive species?
Mr. Kurth. You know, I don't want to give you a
guesstimate. I can tell you that in the lower 48 states it is
the issue that is most frequently cited by refuge managers as a
critical natural resources concern.
We have a variety of types of invasive species--from some
which are less aggressive that we can lower our priority on--to
things like melaleuca in the Everglades, an Old World climbing
fern that, if we don't do something immediately there, we can
lose the entire value of that habitat. Not all invasive species
are created equal, but it is certainly a top resource concern
amongst our managers.
Mr. Wittman. OK. Just to get your thoughts on priorities
for invasive species, do you agree with the conclusion that
invasive species are collectively the single greatest threat to
native plants, fish and wildlife, with the potential to degrade
an entire ecosystem?
Mr. Kurth. I think it is certainly a very high priority,
and I would agree with that assessment.
Mr. Wittman. OK. All right. Thank you very much. I
appreciate it, Madam Chair.
Ms. Bordallo. I thank the gentleman from Virginia, Mr.
Wittman, and now I recognize the gentleman from Michigan, Mr.
Kildee.
Mr. Kildee. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Kurth, the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge is on
the border of my district. Steve Kahl is the refuge manager.
They have a great staff of people up there. I have had the
opportunity of visiting it. They are understaffed, as probably
other ones are also, but what bothers me is that the biological
technician position has been vacant since 2005.
Michigan seems to be kind of a center of problems with
invasive species, all types of invasive species. We were
worried about the emerald ash borer in Michigan. It probably
was introduced at a port here in Michigan on some material that
came from Asia and is moving northward.
I know they are working with Michigan State University now,
a land grant university, and they have probably found a natural
enemy of the emerald ash borer. If that were to reach that far
north, north of where I live, it would be devastating to that
wildlife refuge. The number of ash trees is enormous.
When you look at vacancies do you look at particular need
and find that perhaps there, particularly with Michigan State
University within about a 45 minute drive from that area, that
it would be helpful to have a biological technician working
with the people at Michigan State to see how they can control
that emerald ash borer, which could be very destructive to that
refuge?
Mr. Kurth. There is no doubt that forest pests are a type
of invasive species that we don't always talk about, and their
effects, particularly in the eastern forest, are dramatic.
I don't know the specifics about the biological technician
position at Shiawassee, but I think these reports have shown
that we do leverage our resources very effectively with
universities and other parties, and it is certainly something
that I would be happy to look into how we can make sure that we
effectively work with Michigan State University in order to
look at the issue of Shiawassee Refuge and the ash borer
because it is a very critical problem.
Mr. Kildee. I would appreciate that because in visiting it
I am really impressed with the sense of mission that the people
who are there have. There is a real sense of mission there, a
commitment. It is always like a vocation they have, and they
are really concerned about maintaining the integrity of that
refuge.
As I say, the greatest immediate danger right now, and
there are many dangers, is the emerald ash borer. Since
Michigan State is so close and is making some progress in
trying to find a natural enemy, I would encourage, first of
all, that you fill the position, but that requires of course
Congress appropriating sufficient funds, but filling the
position and also working with Michigan State to see whether we
can do something to protect that refuge from this really
invasive species.
Mr. Kurth. I am happy to look into it. I love Shiawassee
Refuge. When I was stationed north of the bridge at Seney
Refuge in the Upper Peninsula we used to collaborate
frequently, and it is a wonderful resource for the folks there
in Saginaw. We are happy to look into it.
Mr. Kildee. You know, they do great work. I mentioned kind
of almost a sense of vocation.
We get probably bombarded in Congress with mail and
bulletins and various papers to read, but the one I always read
is the one put out by that refuge. They do an excellent job.
They keep on top of it and keep us informed, keep the public
informed of what is going on there, what is available.
I think it is probably the only National Wildlife Refuge
that I have visited, but if that spirit of vocation permeates
the rest of your operation, you have a mighty mission yourself.
I appreciate what you do with your limited resources. I thank
you.
Mr. Kurth. I very much appreciate your kind words, sir.
Thank you.
Mr. Kildee. I yield back.
Ms. Bordallo. I thank the gentleman from Michigan, Mr.
Kildee.
I have a few questions that may lead to you, Mr. Kurth. You
are in the hot seat here.
The MSI report determined that the Refuge System has been
ineffective in protecting wilderness. In fact, the report notes
that the Service went so far as to publicly release a draft
wilderness policy in 2001, but to date has never issued a final
wilderness policy.
Mr. Kurth, why has the Service not developed a final
wilderness policy for the Refuge System, and can we expect to
see the Service release a final policy before the current
Administration departs?
Could you be brief in your response?
Mr. Kurth. The policy has had points of contention. We
finished our draft with a recommendation. Because it has been
so long before we published a draft, we put it out for another
round of public review and comment. I don't know----
Ms. Bordallo. How long is that going to take?
Mr. Kurth. Well, the comment period would likely be 60 or
90 days. I don't know--that draft policy now is at a policy
level in review with the lawyers--whether or not they are going
to accept that recommendation or not.
Ms. Bordallo. So what you are saying is that it will be the
next Administration?
Mr. Kurth. The policy could be sent out in this
Administration again for comment. It could be, if officials
choose, finalized in this Administration.
We work very hard and very closely with our colleagues,
with state fish and wildlife agencies and the Association of
Fish and Wildlife Agencies to try and address their concerns,
some of the concerns that Mr. Horn raised, so that we will have
a wilderness policy that allows us to accomplish our
conservation mission and protect the enduring resource of
wilderness.
It is one of my professional areas of greatest interest. I
moved here from the Arctic Refuge in Alaska, and we really
would like to have an effective policy.
Ms. Bordallo. Would you say then, Mr. Kurth, that sending
it out again is going to be results, or will it just come back
with the same contentious----
Mr. Kurth. I think that we can move a policy to completion.
The areas where there have been some areas of disagreement I
think we are very close on now.
Ms. Bordallo. All right. The other one is more specifically
in 2004. A Fish and Wildlife Service director's memo ordered
all Alaska refuges to stop performing wilderness reviews as a
part of their planning process. It is my understanding that
this memo contradicts established refuge policy.
Is this memo still in effect today, and can you confirm
that it is contrary to existing refuge policy? Can you please
explain why this memo was issued in the first place?
Mr. Kurth. The memo is in place. Our planning policy does
require wilderness reviews in development of comprehensive
conservation plans. This is a policy directive that came after
that policy, and the policy hasn't been formally amended.
This has been a contentious issue for a couple of decades
from when we first started doing the first round of CCPs in
Alaska in the mid 1980s where we didn't do wilderness reviews.
In the past Administration there was a policy decision that
we would do them, and then that subsequently changed. I think
what you see is it reflects policy differences in different
Administrations.
Ms. Bordallo. OK. Just for the record now, is the memo
still in effect today?
Mr. Kurth. Yes.
Ms. Bordallo. Can you confirm that it is contrary to
existing policy?
Mr. Kurth. The memo provides additional policy and guidance
to that which was in our planning chapter.
Ms. Bordallo. So it is not contrary?
Mr. Kurth. No. The Director issued it as a policy
directive. The chapter on comprehensive conservation planning
has different language in it, but this is a subsequent
direction from the Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service,
so I think technically we should amend the policy language to
conform with the more recent policy direction.
Ms. Bordallo. All right. Another one. Now, Mr. Horn
mentioned in his testimony that in the recent Arizona District
Court decision regarding the Kofa Wildlife Refuge the sportsmen
asserted that the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement
Act overrides any seemingly contradictory principles of the
Wilderness Act. The court agreed rather that the Fish and
Wildlife Service engage in a reasonable harmonization of the
two statutes, controlling its actions on the land in question.
Is the Fish and Wildlife Service's position in accordance
with this court decision that the wildlife conservation goals
of the National Wildlife Refuges are not incompatible with the
language of the Wilderness Act and that both should guide the
Service's management of our refuges?
Mr. Kurth. Yes. The Wilderness Act and the Refuge System
Administration Act are very compatible statutes. Our finest
wildlife is on some of our wilderness areas in Alaska and other
places.
It just requires us to be careful in crafting our
stewardship in a way that complies with both of the laws, and
they are not at all irreconcilable.
Ms. Bordallo. Mr. Horn, could you comment on that?
Mr. Horn. Yes, Madam Chair. I would make two comments
briefly.
One is that partially what the court recognized is express
statutory language in the 1964 Wilderness Act which prescribes
clearly that wilderness is a supplemental purpose whereas the
primary purpose derives from the 1997 Refuge Act. It is that
supplemental aspect of the Wilderness Act is what we wanted the
court to recognize, and we believe they did.
I would say second on the wilderness policy question of
2004 the issue of wilderness reviews in Alaska is governed by
specific provisions of the Alaska Lands Act adopted in 1980
that prescribed that there would be essentially one round and
one round only of wilderness reviews, and that is the section
found in Title XIII and also found in another provision of the
statute called the no more clause.
So it would be my opinion that the Director's 2004 policy
is consistent with the specific statutory provision of the
Alaska Lands Act, whereas the prior wilderness policy was
inconsistent with that statutory directive.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification.
Mr. Matson?
Mr. Matson. In terms of Alaska, to answer your question,
two of the four memos absolutely are in contradiction to the
planning policy. There is no doubt about that.
In terms of the previous wilderness reviews, there has
really been no adequate wilderness review to date in Alaska.
ANILCA passed in 1980, followed by an Administration that was
hostile to wilderness, followed by 12 years of Administrations
that were hostile to wilderness.
So it is certainly reasonable to include a wilderness
review. It is not designating wilderness. It is just reviewing
lands that are eligible to wilderness. That is all this is
requiring, and it is perfectly reasonable to include it in the
plan.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you very much, Mr. Matson.
My time has expired here, and I would like to call on the
gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Kildee, for further questions.
Mr. Kildee. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Nazzaro, the Cooperative Alliance for Refuge
Enhancement or CARE reports that the Refuge System has an
existing $3.5 million operations and maintenance budget
backlog.
CARE recommends an annual operating budget of $800 million
to allow the Refuge System to address annual uncontrollable
cost and to meet its operations and maintenance obligations.
Did GAO consider this factor in its analysis? Is this
amount reasonable considering the needs?
Ms. Nazzaro. One of the concerns that was raised in our
survey by refuge managers was the challenge of the backlog
maintenance.
We do have a specific report right now that is being
prepared by GAO dealing with backlog maintenance. That includes
Federal land management agencies, and that should be out I
believe in the October timeframe.
We did not specifically look at the extent to which Fish
and Wildlife Service has a backlog maintenance or what is being
done to address that, but rather just raised it as an
additional challenge that they face.
Mr. Kildee. Your GAO report found that annual Refuge System
budgets for core activities fluctuated over the period of 2003
to 2007. The budget spiked in 2003, declined in subsequent
years and then increased in 2007. More surprising, the nominal
budget trend shows a relative increase in operating budgets.
Ms. Nazzaro, it is my understanding that the Refuge System
experiences an annual increase in uncontrollable cost in the
range of $15 to $20 million to cover increases in fuel cost,
salaries and other matters. Did you examine this issue? How
does this compare to your general inflationary indices you used
in your report?
Ms. Nazzaro. We didn't specifically look at fuel costs and
what percentage of their operating budget is absorbed through
fuel cost, but that was one of the challenges that the agency
tried to address in its regional workforce plan.
They were recognizing that the percentage of their budget
that was being absorbed by salaries and benefits was growing
significantly as a percentage of their budget compared to what
they had for operating, maintenance and wildland fire, their
core activities. So it was with that that they put in place and
made these tough decisions as far as the workforce plans.
I mean, given its budgets, there are limits to what the
Forest Service can do, and we felt that the workforce plans, as
was echoed by the Fish and Wildlife Service, were viewed as a
necessary step to restore that balance between salary and
benefit costs, as well as the refuge operational costs.
You know, given that fact they are going to have to
continue to make tough choices. We have raised a lot of
challenges here today that the Service is facing. Given the
fiscal constraints that the government is also facing, it seems
unreasonable that there is going to be significant increases in
budget in the future.
So the agency is going to continue to have to make these
tradeoffs, as does any other Federal agency. What we would
suggest at this point is that the agency just continue to abide
by sound management initiatives such as making sure that they
have the information they need to make informed decisions.
These are things that Congress could work also to help ensure
that they do these things.
Another thing would be that they are pursuing the tools,
the technologies and approaches that are going to ensure
efficient and effective government, focusing more on the long-
term payoffs that they are using appropriate management
strategies and that their investment decisions are transparent
so that the general public understands if there are changes to
the refuges why they are made and that they are supported by
sound information.
Mr. Kildee. Do you agree then with Mr. Callihan's finding
that despite nominal increases in funding, the actual
purchasing power declined by, according to his figures, 11
percent over the same period?
Ms. Nazzaro. I don't have the figures in front of me, but,
yes, in general we do say that when you factor in inflation
that they didn't receive significant increases over time.
From 2002 to 2007 there was an increase in the budget of
4.3 percent, a decline of 2.3 percent from the peak year in
2003, which it was beefed up at that point because of their
centennial.
Mr. Kildee. Thank you very much, Ms. Nazzaro.
Ms. Bordallo. I thank the gentleman from Michigan, Mr.
Kildee.
I have a few more questions on personnel attrition and
impacts. According to the GAO, the Refuge System has
experienced a significant decline of 8.4 percent in the number
of Federal employees working in the field over the period of
2002 to 2007, and even though some refuges and refuge complexes
saw five percent increases in workforce numbers, three times as
many refuges or refuge complexes lost five percent or more of
their workforce.
Ms. Nazzaro, is it fair to expect the Refuge System to be
able to deliver on all of its strategic goals when it is forced
to work with so few employees?
Ms. Nazzaro. Well, when we looked at the assessment that
MSI did which focused specifically on the strategic goals, we
were in agreement with them generally that where there were
strengths there were also limitations.
Now, two of the areas that they highlighted, and one we
have talked extensively about today, was law enforcement. We
didn't look specifically at it, but that was raised by a number
of individuals as an issue.
The other thing that we talked just briefly, and I think
the Service actually focused on it, was the issue of invasive
species. That was one of the key problems that were raised
during the survey of refuge managers that invasives--I think it
was a 55 percent response rate there; that it had increased at
half the refuges. So that was a significant concern.
The other is habitat fragmentation, something we haven't
talked about today, where you have to manage an environment for
a species as a total ecosystem. There are issues now where
these habitats are being fragmented, and it does impact on the
species.
Can they address all of them? I think they can address all
of their goals. It is just going to be a matter of prioritizing
at which locations and where they have the most significant
problem.
Ms. Bordallo. So generally then, in answer to my question,
it is yes?
Ms. Nazzaro. I would say they can address all their goals.
Will they be able to do everything they want to do? No.
Ms. Bordallo. All right. What are the implications for the
System if the Fish and Wildlife Service by default is forced to
shift even more refuges into refuge complexes?
Ms. Nazzaro. We didn't really assess the pros or cons of
making such a shift. It does seem like they were able to do
more with less by doing that, by shifting them into complexes.
As was noted, for example, with law enforcement officers,
if you have a complex then you are reducing some of your
overhead, certainly for administrative purposes as well.
So it would seem like it was a good strategy if you have a
reduction in force how you are going to better manage more
areas with less, but we did not assess the success or failure
of that.
Ms. Bordallo. Mr. Matson, could you comment on that?
Mr. Matson. I think for a lot of refuges that are in close
proximity, complexes make a lot of sense. I think they have
gained a lot of efficiencies through complexing, but I imagine
that we are probably complexed out.
I think we have probably gained all the efficiencies we
can, and there are probably some complexes that are just too
big. I mean, if you have refuges that are over 100 miles apart
can you really efficiently maintain adequate coverage of those
refuges? That is a question.
Ms. Bordallo. All right. Thank you. Getting back to you,
Ms. Nazzaro, what has been the effect of the workforce
restructuring on the employees?
You know, there is always some kind of an effect when you
do this. How has the morale been affected? Do you anticipate a
higher rate of retirements? If so, how have these restructuring
policies affected new employment recruitment?
Ms. Nazzaro. I specifically can't comment on the impacts on
recruitment or on retirements because we didn't go down that
line of questioning. We certainly did ask them to comment on
it, and one regional manager certainly emphasized that there
has been an emotional strain.
The regional workforce plans did result in a reduction of
the workforce, and any time you have a reduction that is
inherently difficult, and it is certainly painful for any
affected staff.
Ms. Bordallo. All right. Thank you.
Mr. Callihan, from your perspective?
Mr. Callihan. I am sorry. The question again was on the
workforce plan?
Ms. Bordallo. OK. What has been the effect of the workforce
restructuring on employees, the morale? Do you find a higher
rate of retirements? How have these restructuring policies
affected new employee recruitment?
Mr. Callihan. You know, we didn't look specifically at that
question. If I could go back, maybe this will shed some light
on it, though, in terms of your previous question.
You know, in surveying the refuge managers, 77 percent
indicated that they believed that the refuges are not meeting
or only partially meeting their habitat objective goals, and I
think----
Ms. Bordallo. What was that percentage?
Mr. Callihan. Seventy-seven percent----
Ms. Bordallo. Seventy-seven percent.
Mr. Callihan.--believe that their refuge is not meeting or
is only partially meeting its habitat management goals.
I think some of our recommendations had to do with
management and process, but clearly there is an insufficient
level of inventory and monitoring and biologists on the refuge,
and I think if it is maintained at current levels that there
are going to be genuine limitations in terms of the level of
achievement that can be expected.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you. I appreciate that information.
Mr. Kurth, would you like to comment on this?
Mr. Kurth. The years of downsizing and workforce planning
were stressful on our Refuge System employees. I, though, am
always astonished at how they keep their attitude and their
dedication at such a high level.
I think Mr. Kildee's comments about the enthusiasm about
the Shiawassee staff is really emblematic of our field staffs
across the country. They become exceptionally frustrated when
they see the resources that they are entrusted to take care of
not get everything they need.
This profession is a way of life as much as it is a
livelihood, and they are the most dedicated and passionate
employees I have ever met, so----
Ms. Bordallo. So you would say then overall, Mr. Kurth,
that morale is good?
Mr. Kurth. I think that their morale and their
professionalism is good, but it is certainly not as high as
what it is when they are not faced with so many challenges.
It certainly has been affected by this, but they are
resolute in their commitment to their job, and I couldn't be
prouder of them.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you. I agree with you on that. I think
when you love what you are doing, even though you are limited
to some point, you will just continue to work. I notice that we
work with a lot of volunteers in keeping these refuges open, so
I understand that.
Mr. Kurth. The money gets them, but one of the things these
reports pointed out that we are trying to work hard on is the
paperwork and burdens that we put on them are an area where we
have to improve and have to try and cut some of the red tape
that goes into modern day refuge managers so they can focus
their attention more precisely.
If we could do that for them, their morale would be a lot
higher.
Ms. Bordallo. That is right. I understand.
All right. As you know, CCPs are 15-year long-range
planning documents that are intended to guide management
decisionmaking on National Wildlife Refuges. All CCPs are
supposed to consider the various factors affecting refuge
resources and should provide policy guidance to address,
mitigate or avoid any threats.
However, I understand that the overwhelming majority of
CCPs completed to date, even recently completed CCPs, fail to
consider perhaps the most pressing natural resource challenge
of our time, and that is climate change.
Mr. Kurth, why do CCPs not substantially consider this most
serious environmental challenge facing the planet, and what is
the Refuge System doing to remedy this? Will the Administration
be requesting additional budget and staff to address this
critical planning need?
Mr. Kurth. There are several questions there. Frankly, the
issue of climate change and how we deal with it has changed
within the past two years in this Administration.
There has been a recognition over the last two years that
we have to talk about how we can adapt in the face of a
changing climate and mitigate its effects where we can, and so
our newest CCPs are beginning to address climate change.
Our coastal refuges are using a tool called SLAMM, sea
level assessment and marsh monitoring. We are starting to look
at what is going to happen in coastal areas, but it is new and
I think it is new to the conservation field. Admittedly, we
were slow to incorporate those concerns in our CCPs, but I
think now we have clear direction that that is an appropriate
thing to do.
The issue of requesting additional funds in the future, I
am not in a position to say that because we don't know what----
Ms. Bordallo. We don't know what the future is going to be,
right?
Mr. Kurth. What the future is going to hold and what the
priorities will be in the next--but I think it is safe to say
that everyone in the conservation community has a strong focus
on the challenges that climate change presents us, and no one
in the natural resource management field is of a mind that we
can continue to do things as we always have without thinking
about what adaptations we are going to have to consider.
Ms. Bordallo. All right. Thank you.
I am going to ask all of the panelists now one question
just with a yes or a no, if you don't mind. In the opinion of
the panel, will existing CCPs that do not consider climate
change still be relevant and useful to refuge managers well
into the future?
We will begin with you.
Ms. Nazzaro. I would have to say no because you would want
to consider all factors.
Ms. Bordallo. Next?
Mr. Callihan. I would say mostly no, but it will vary
considerably from refuge to refuge I would think, depending on
the issues.
Ms. Bordallo. Mr. Kurth?
Mr. Kurth. That one word answer is tough. The answer is
yes, they will be of value because they will have many things
about how to deal with the public and have hunting programs,
but no in that there is one glaring omission there that we need
to deal with because they are very broad plans.
Ms. Bordallo. That is an interesting answer, Mr. Kurth.
Mr. Matson?
Mr. Matson. No.
Ms. Bordallo. Mr. Horn?
Mr. Horn. I think I agree with Mr. Kurth simply because,
yes, they will be simply because most of the changes associated
with climate change within the 10 to 15 year window are likely
to be fairly minimal and can be addressed in a second round.
Ms. Bordallo. All right. I want to thank you, and now I
have my next range of questions here, a few more.
I have just one here for Mr. Horn. What would you consider
to be some of the easiest or least expensive available remedies
to address the many shortcomings regarding appraisals in land
acquisitions described in the MSI report?
Mr. Horn. I think it is fairly simple. Return the appraisal
function to the Fish and Wildlife Service and terminate the
consolidation that the Department put in place four or five
years ago.
I personally think the Department got stampeded in response
or in reaction to some appraisal issues that occurred involving
BLM in Utah, and I think the cure turned out to be worse than
the disease.
It is not only adversely impacting the real estate
functions of the Service. It is adversely impacting the real
estate functions of BLM and the Park Service as well.
Ms. Bordallo. Very good. Let me hear from you, Mr. Matson.
Mr. Matson. I absolutely concur with Mr. Horn.
Ms. Bordallo. Mr. Kurth?
Mr. Kurth. I believe if I concurred with Mr. Horn I would
be at a policy variance with the Department, so I don't think I
will do that.
Ms. Bordallo. All right. Mr. Callihan?
Mr. Callihan. Yes. Our report found that the current DOI
managed land appraisal process is ineffective and represents a
step backwards in the Refuge System's ability to purchase land
and easements from willing sellers. The process simply doesn't
work.
Ms. Bordallo. Ms. Nazzaro?
Ms. Nazzaro. We have not looked at the effectiveness in the
Fish and Wildlife Service, but I would say that we would
disagree to disband the current appraisal system process
because it did address one of the major concerns that GAO had,
and that was that there was a lack of independence.
To have the appraisers work in the same office of those
that were trying to acquire the lands, we did not feel there
was an arm's length break there, and we actually strongly
suggested a different construct of which by consolidating it
within the Department of Interior did solve that problem.
We have looked at other bureaus within the Department,
though, and we do recognize that there are problems with the
timeliness of the services they are delivering so I wouldn't
say it is totally fixed--there are still some improvements to
be had--but I wouldn't totally throw the baby out with the bath
water.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you.
Mr. Matson, you advocate increasing land acquisition
funding. How do you reconcile buying more land when the Fish
and Wildlife Service can't seem to take care of what it
currently has?
Mr. Matson. That is a great persistent question and has
been persistent over the last 10 years.
I think what people don't understand is a refuge is
established with a boundary and the vast majority of
acquisitions are in that boundary, so essentially it is
acquiring in-holdings in refuges which makes management more
efficient.
It is reducing those threats to the refuge that are causing
management headaches. It is purchasing in-holdings that are
causing management headaches. So I think the vast majority of
acquisitions, I think there are probably billions of dollars
that could be spent just on our existing refuge system that
would make management more efficient, so I think there is a
huge need.
In fact, 6,000 acres of open space are lost every day. I
think during the course of this hearing we have lost 500 acres
of open space. It is a crisis.
You know, the appraisal process is one barrier to that.
Basically the cynic in me says that the Administration did that
on purpose to completely foil any kind of land acquisition
because the Federal government cannot acquire land on its own,
right now, with a year-and-a-half delay in this process, with
these deadlines. No willing seller is going to wait that long.
This last year the Administration requested two projects in
a pool of hundreds of eligible projects for funding. It is a
big problem.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Matson.
Mr. Kurth, one of the principal responsibilities assigned
to the Secretary of the Interior under the Refuge
Administration Act is to assist in the maintenance of adequate
water quantity and water quality to fulfill the mission of the
system and the purposes of each refuge and to acquire water
rights that are needed for refuge purposes.
It is more than a little troubling then to read that MSI
was unable to evaluate whether the Refuge System was meeting
its strategic goal of providing adequate water because the Fish
and Wildlife Service does not currently operate a well-defined
and structured water resources program.
Considering that it has been over 10 years since the Refuge
Improvement Act was passed, why has the Service not developed
such a program?
Mr. Kurth. I think Director Hall has consistently said that
he believes water resources are going to be the conservation
challenge of the twenty-first century. We take them seriously.
The way to deal with water issues is so variable because of
the complexities of water law from one part of the country to
another that we have largely taken a regionalized approach. In
our western regions we do have staffs that have a good handle
on water rights issues and where we need to acquire more water
rights.
It is a completely different legal framework in the east,
and, quite frankly, these issues are emerging and we don't
really have a good handle on the future of water issues in the
eastern United States.
I think it is fair to say, though, that are databases to
roll all this up don't exist, that they are decentralized, and
so that made it very much more difficult for MSI to evaluate us
there.
That strategic goal also, though, includes things like our
ability to deal with environmental contaminants and air
quality, and while we think MSI did a good job in this
evaluation that is one area where we told them that we actually
didn't think that their review was effective as finding some
sources of existing databases that exist in other programs and
other places.
So we believe in the issues of air quality and our handling
of contaminant issues that data were available, and it was
probably not the strongest part of the evaluation, in my
opinion.
Ms. Bordallo. Mr. Kurth, I certainly understand the
challenges involved, but 10 years?
Mr. Kurth. Well, in that 10 years we have taken any number
of actions throughout the country dealing with critical water
issues.
Our liability, in my mind, is that we aren't doing the job
that we need to do to have a centralized system that helps us
understand the priorities. We have recently done a data call to
all of our field stations asking them to give us their
priorities in water needs, and it is not just purchasing water
rights. It is projects to make sure we don't have water loss in
our irrigation systems and our water management systems.
It is highly complex. We don't have the hydrologists and
things that we probably need to do a better job.
Ms. Bordallo. Well, I certainly feel that more progress
should have been made in those 10 years.
I would like to hear from Mr. Callihan since you are the--
--
Mr. Callihan. On the water rights on the water program
issues.
Ms. Bordallo. Yes. Yes.
Mr. Callihan. Yes. I mean, we came across a pretty intense
level of activity in regard to water quality and water rights
in the western regions, particularly out of the Sacramento
office and in the southwest.
The Refuge System I think has been mentioned as a very
decentralized organization where the different regions are
running their own programs. Sometimes they are similar between
the regions. Sometimes they are not so similar.
I think with the water program where it has operated it has
been highly decentralized, as has been stated, but also we felt
that there would be a benefit to having more policy, more
program direction in place, more staffing.
Of course, this gets back to the tension of more things
need to be done but there are fewer people to do them, so that
I imagine has also had an impact on this program.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you very much for the answer to the
question.
I know it has been a long morning, and I want to thank all
the witnesses for their participation in the hearing today--Ms.
Nazzaro, Mr. Callihan, Mr. Kurth, Mr. Matson and Mr. Horn.
Members of the Subcommittee may have some additional questions
for the witnesses, and we will ask you to respond to these in
writing.
I think some of you did say that you didn't have answers to
some of our questions and you would prepare the reports and
have it to us. The hearing record will be held open for 10 days
for any of these responses.
And if there is no further business before the
Subcommittee, the Chairwoman again thanks the Members of the
Subcommittee and our witnesses for their participation here
this morning, and the Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:02 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]