[Senate Hearing 117-680]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-680
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2023
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HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
on
H.R. 8262
AN ACT MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER
30, 2023, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
__________
United States Forest Service
Indian Health Service
Environmental Protection Agency
Department of the Interior
Nondepartmental Witnesses
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
46-662 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
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COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
PATRICK LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
PATTY MURRAY, Washington RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama, Vice
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California Chairman
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
JACK REED, Rhode Island SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
JON TESTER, Montana LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon ROY BLUNT, Missouri
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
JOE MANCHIN, III, West Virginia Virginia
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
MARCO RUBIO, Florida
Charles E. Kieffer, Staff Director
Bill Duhnke, Minority Staff Director
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Subcommittee on Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related
Agencies
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon, Chairman
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska, Ranking
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont Member
JACK REED, Rhode Island ROY BLUNT, Missouri
JON TESTER, Montana MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico Virginia
CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
MARCO RUBIO, Florida
RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama, (ex
officio)
Professional Staff
Melissa Zimmerman
Ryan Hunt
Martha Roberts
Anthony Sedillo
Angela Caalim
Emy Lesofski (Minority)
Lucas Agnew (Minority)
Nona McCoy (Minority)
Administrative Support
LaShawnda Smith (Minority)
C O N T E N T S
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hearings
Wednesday, May 4, 2022
Page
United States Forest Service..................................... 1
Wednesday, May 11, 2022
Indian Health Service............................................ 39
Wednesday, May 18, 2022
Environmental Protection Agency.................................. 69
Wednesday, July 13, 2022
Department of the Interior....................................... 115
Statements and Letters of Nondepartmental Witnesses
Nondepartmental Witnesses........................................ 183
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back matter
List of Witnesses, Communications, and Prepared Statements....... 459
Subject Index:
United States Forest Service................................. 463
Indian Health Service........................................ 463
Environmental Protection Agency.............................. 463
Department of the Interior................................... 464
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2023
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 2022
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met at 10:00 a.m. in room SD-124, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Jeff Merkley (chairman) presiding.
Present: Senators Merkley, Tester, Van Hollen, Murkowski,
and Hagerty.
UNITED STATES FOREST SERVICE
STATEMENT OF HON. RANDY MOORE, CHIEF
opening statement of senator jeff merkley
Senator Merkley. Thank you, Ranking Member Murkowski, Chief
Moore, and our other colleagues and constituents, welcome to
this Appropriations Hearing on the fiscal year 2023 President's
Budget for the U.S. Forest Service.
Much has changed since we met here a year ago to discuss
the Forest Service Budget, an incredible impact, the management
of our country's forested lands have for the environment, for
the economy, for outdoor recreation, and for contributing to
the regional identities in forests in Alaska, Oregon, and
across this country.
A big change is that you are here, Chief Moore, in your
first appearance before the Senate Appropriations Committee, as
Chief of the Forest Service. Congratulations. I am looking
forward to talking with you about your vision for the agency.
In 2021 we experienced the most expensive wildfire season
in U.S. history, exacerbated by a continuing drought across the
west that shows no signs of ending. Oregon alone suffered our
third most devastating fire in Oregon's recorded history, with
the Bootleg Fire.
That fire became so large that it created its own weather,
and scorched over 400,000 acres. It cost $100 million to
suppress. And this came on the heels of a gut-wrenching fire
season the year before. The Labor Day Fires of 2020, in which
multiple towns across Oregon were burned to the ground.
I remember when I heard about Paradise in California,
thinking, thank goodness have had no devastating fire of that
nature burning an entire town to the ground. And then the Labor
Day Fires of 2020, town, after town, after town; so many
families lost everything, and I will never forget driving over
600 miles across the state, back and forth, and never getting
clear of the smoke, and seeing the ruins of towns that looked
that they had been firebombed in war.
Everything gone, with a few pipes, or a few bathtubs left,
cars completely burned out, with the wheels, the magnesium
wheels had melted and the magnesium had run across the ground,
just the charred remains representing so much devastation to
thousands of families.
This trend is not only affecting Oregon, it is being felt
across the country. New Mexico is suffering right now, in the
national news, from massive fires causing evacuations, loss of
homes, the loss of habitat, destruction in the watersheds that
provide drinking water throughout the state, and deadly levels
of smoke-filled air. And this is only the first week of May.
Last year major fires lasted for weeks leading to the
record-breaking length of high staffing and preparedness levels
of over 3 months without respite. Taken together the evidence
of the last several years portends a very problematic future as
we face the new normal of climate chaos.
At the same time, the Bootleg Fire this past year also
demonstrated the value of community and tribally-led efforts to
reduce fuels as a way to manage the intensity of wildfires. I
looked at areas that had been treated in advance with thinning,
and with prescribed burns, and they looked very different than
the areas that had not been treated.
We have to think about how we can do that kind of
preparation on scale. I look forward to discussing how we work
together on forest resiliency and restoration in the face of
continuing climate chaos and catastrophic fire impacting our
communities.
Last year we also saw the implementation of several major
pieces of legislation that provide an influx of funding for the
Forest Service. Through the Great American Outdoors Act, the
Forest Service will receive another tranche of the 1.4 billion
provided over 5 years, to make significant investments in
deferred maintenance projects; from trail building, to bridge
replacements, to campground and visitor facility renovations.
Additionally, the bill created a permanent funding stream
for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, providing $900
million for fiscal year 2022, of which the Forest Service 129
million for land acquisition, and $95 million for Forest Legacy
projects.
Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Forest
Service will receive $5.4 billion over 10 years to invest in
wildfire risk reduction and ecosystem restoration, including
funds for fuel breaks and hazardous fuels projects, prescribed
fire, burned area restoration, state and local grants for
community wildfire defense, youth conservation core projects,
collaborative forest restoration projects, and fish passage
restoration.
And through the fiscal year 2022 Appropriations Bill, this
committee provided $7.8 billion, a $400 million increase, in
the agency's annual funding. These increases were provided to
radically improve forest restoration and fire risk reduction.
We increased Hazardous Fuels Reduction Funding to treat
more of highest risk acres to protect lives and communities,
restored the Legacy Roads and Trails Program to prioritize fish
passage improvements, and repurposing unnecessary roads as
trails, increased grants to states for fire protection and
forest stewardship, and boosted the funds for research into
fire behavior, invasive pests and disease, like sudden oak
death, which is ravaging Southern Oregon.
That is a lot of change, and a lot of funding from a lot of
different directions. I am especially proud that we doubled
funding for the Collaborative Forest Restoration Program. This
game-changing increase will fund more projects that bring
together diverse local stakeholders to improve forest
landscapes. I am pleased that with this new increase and
project flexibility, all the existing projects in Oregon were
extended, and a new collaborative in Southern Oregon will soon
be underway.
Over the last few decades, and one of the most promising
things that has happened in terms of bringing a productive
strategy out of the timber wars of the past, is the
Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program, because
when all those stakeholders are in the room working out a
prescription, they share their ideas, they create
relationships, they go out in the woods and do tours, they talk
about specific stands under different conditions.
They reach agreement, and it is phenomenal how different it
is between having warring parties that are not talking, and
parties that are committed to working out a common plan, and
then succeed in doing so.
More importantly, we have provided $2.9 billion for
staffing capacity to build up year-round staffing, and return
the Forest Service to personnel levels that are necessary to
carry out this work.
This funding is also available to fulfill the President's
commitment to improve compensation for Federal Firefighters,
including providing at least $15 an hour in pay, and to begin
the process to convert firefighter staff from seasonal to
permanent employment, an important upgrade in view of the
reality of longer and more devastating fire seasons.
I might also note that the idea of fighting fires when the
fires are burning, and doing forest restoration work when they
are not, seem to go well together. Given the importance of
Forest Service employees, and a positive workplace environment,
to the success of these many programs, I look forward to
hearing your plans for workforce development, and workplace
improvements.
Finally, I want to commend you for releasing the new ten-
year strategy to confront the wildfire crisis. This strategy
focused on high-risk landscapes, now identified as fire sheds;
that need to be addressed to reduce communities' exposure to
potential catastrophic fire. I think this is a critical shift
and focus, given the threat of ever-increasing, catastrophic
fire.
So collectively we have put significant investments into
changing the forest landscape, and we really need to know how
all this work together, and how this committee can support you
in implementing a dramatic turnaround in management of our
forested lands.
All that to say, there is much to discuss, and I look
forward to our conversation.
And with that, I turn to Ranking Member Lisa Murkowski, for
any comments she would like to make.
statement of senator lisa murkowski
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And good morning Chief. I, too, want to welcome you to your
first opportunity to testify before the subcommittee. I
appreciate you being here, and the opportunity to discuss the
President's Budget Request, and the active role that the Forest
Service plays around the county, certainly, a very key role in
my State of Alaska.
I want to start with just an observation on how the
political definitions of ``forest health'' and responsible
forestry practices, appears to swing on a pendulum,
unfortunately dependent on the occupant of the White House.
In reality what actually makes for a healthy, productive
forest, it doesn't change with the politics. This is one of the
reasons that I have been unhappy, as you know, with the
decisions as they relate to one of our two national forests in
Alaska, and that is the Tongass.
I know, Chief, that you are very aware of the outsized role
of the Forest Service in Southeast Alaska, along with the
complexities that are associated with management decisions
within the Tongass. In recent years, a lot of good people have
done a lot of good work to craft an Alaska-specific Roadless
Rule.
That Roadless Rule exemption finalized in 2020 should
stand, but instead, we see an administration that is rolling it
back, and once again, forcing unnecessary, sweeping
restrictions upon millions of acres in the Tongass. And at the
same time it seems to me that the Forest Service is just hell
bent on killing what is left of a very small timber industry,
starving them of timber supply. There is basically no timber
program whatsoever in the Tongass anymore. And that is just a
reality.
During the Obama administration Secretary Vilsack, through
a Secretarial Memo, and a subsequent Forest Plan Amendment
finalized in 2016 placed the Timber Program on a fast-track
transition from harvesting, primarily, old growth, to primarily
young growth in 16 years.
This was not an easy thing. This was not an easy thing for
many to accept, especially without the full benefit of the
science to support it, but the secretary told us, he told the
people of Southeast Alaska that it would ensure that a viable
timber industry would continue to exist.
But now, during the Biden administration those hopeful that
Secretary Vilsack would keep his promise, implement the plan,
using the inventory science that has been gathered, they are
losing hope.
The old growth bridge that was promised has failed to
materialize, standards and guides meant to apply to old-growth
harvesting are applied to young-growth stands, causing the loss
of millions of board feet, if any sales are planned at all. And
it is especially bitter for those who took an early leap of
faith, collaborated with the agency, collaborated with the
environmental groups and the tribes, and invested in that
promised transition.
The Tongass exemption to the Roadless Rule has never been
only about timber. It has been about the entire economy of
southeast. It is the single-largest impediment to economic
access in the region, and it affects all sectors across the
economy. It impacts transportation, mining, renewable energy,
tourism.
When I look at the map of the nearly 17 million acres that
make up the Tongass, I can't accept that we have to choose
between having a healthy forest and having a healthy economy.
We can and we should be allowed to do both.
And Chief, I am counting on you to work with me, work with
the people of Southeast to provide just that opportunity; and
that Southeast Alaska Sustainable Strategy may result in some
projects, but what I am hearing from folks back home, is that
it is not sufficient to support a year-round economy.
The chairman has mentioned the issues related to fire, and
I know that we are going to have a lot of discussion about that
this morning, but really, regardless of the issues, whether it
is wildland firefighting, hazardous fuels management, special-
use permitting, and beyond, issues surrounding agency capacity
are often cited as barriers to access.
The Forest Service has repeatedly committed to making human
capital planning a priority. In many cases, lack of capacity is
directly linked to funding, we get that. In others, it is a
function of problematic priority. We hear a lot about the need
to hire more full-time, permanent wildland firefighters across
the country. In Alaska we need increased capacity to facilitate
our recreation industry, support for critical minerals, mining
projects, broadband access, and of course as I mentioned
previously, timber supply for our withering timbering industry.
Each of my colleagues that interact with the Forest
Service, I am sure, are going to be able to identify agency
needs within their states, and that is why I am interested in
hearing today, not only how the budget request proposes to
address capacity issues, but more importantly what Forest
Service is actually doing right now, because people are going
to want to hear clearly, what is happening on the ground right
now to address capacity.
Again, I know that fire is top of the list of worries for
so many of us, and again, we will continue to hear that, this
year, fire season in Alaska is expected to get a late start
because we had a pretty good snowpack, but we have already had
the first wildland fire at an area of Southwest Alaska, outside
of Kwethluk, and it burned significant acreage for that region
at this time of year, in April. And my understanding is that
fire has finally abated, and not because it was addressed with
any form of management, Mother Nature managed it because,
ultimately, that fire went further north and ran into the
existing snow that was still on the ground.
But it is not just fire, but yet it is also that tinder for
the fire that we all worry about, we continue to see areas in
Alaska where the impacts, the devastation from the spruce bark
beetle, you drive through and the difference in the trees, the
colors, whether you are on the ground or in the air, you can
see the impact, driving through the Mat-Su Valley, through the
Kenai Peninsula.
And when you see that immediately you think, what is this
doing to contribute to further threat of a fire? I know my
colleagues in the Lower 48 are dealing with drought and similar
tree mortality issues, so I am hoping that this morning we will
also get an understanding of what Forest Service wildfire
planning looks like for this year.
I also hope to hear about how the Forest Service is
spending the funding received from the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Bill, as the chairman mentioned, and how efforts
are made possible by the funding.
We will work together with regular discretionary
appropriations to improve the health and resilience of our
Nation's forests.
So again, Chief, I appreciate that you are here today. And
I look forward to the opportunity, to not only engage with you
and some questions today, but ongoing throughout the course of
this year. Thank you.
Senator Merkley. You have heard from us as is the Senate
tradition, but we are really here to hear from you. So we look
forward to your testimony. Please proceed.
summary statement of hon. randy moore
Chief Moore. Okay. So Chair Merkley, Ranking Member
Murkowski, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me to testify before you today.
As I close in on my first year, and actually my first 10
months as Chief, I appreciate the opportunity to provide an
overview of the benefits that the Forest Service deliver to the
American people.
The outcomes we plan to achieve with the resources provided
in this proposed fiscal year 2023 Budget: The bottom line for
the Forest Service is in our motto, ``Caring for the land and
serving people.'' It is what we really are all about. Our job
is to sustain healthy, resilient landscapes for current and
future generations. That is underneath that motto.
The National Forest and Grasslands cover about 193 million
acres across 43 states and Puerto Rico. They are the source of
drinking water for more than 60 million people living across
3,400 communities in 36 states. In 2020 the National Forest
System supported more than 370,000 jobs, and contributed more
than $35 billion to the GDP.
But the benefits that Americans get from their forests and
grasslands are now at risk. These risks include the wildfire
crisis facing the nation, and the impacts of our changing
climate. The Forest Service is squarely facing these risks.
Improving conditions we are seeing will require some science,
sustained resources, the use of tools in our toolbox, and a
robust workforce, as well as work in collaboration with our
partners.
I appreciate the confidence that Congress has demonstrated
in the Forest Service with the Infrastructure Investment and
Jobs Act. These funds, coupled with the fiscal year 2023 budget
request, will help restore the long-term health and resilience
of the Nation's forests and grasslands.
The Forest Service's fiscal year 2023 discretionary budget
request is $9 billion. Working with our partners we will
improve the resilience of landscapes across watershed
boundaries, we will look to reduce wildfire risk by treating
the right acres at the right scale. We will be looking to
restore infrastructure, support our recreation, invest in
reforesting landscapes that have been ravished by wildfires,
storms, and other events.
The wildfire crisis has been building for decades, but we
now have the science and tools to implement projects that would
truly make a difference. The budget dedicates about $321
million for hazardous fuel. Now, this work will support 3.8
million acres of hazardous fuel reduction treatment projects.
This investment supports the agency's ten year strategy to
confront the Nation's wildfire crisis.
At the same time, we are preparing for another long and
arduous year, made worse by a continuing severe drought across
the west, and particularly in the southwest, which we are
seeing on TV today.
Also in the Central and Southern Plains, our priority is to
protect the health, safety, and well-being of the fire
management community, and the public we serve. Our forces are
mobilizing to address these significant wildfire situations
right now across the Southwest.
Currently, the Forest Service is at about 90 percent
planned hiring of 11,300 firefighters, for the year as of this
past April, last week actually. We are putting several things
in place to address this shortage. The fiscal year 2023 budget
dedicates about $1 billion to Wildland Fire Management salaries
and expenses.
This investment will enable us to pay all firefighters at
least $15 an hour, it will fund an additional 300 firefighters,
and support resilience, and mental health programs. But we need
to find a permanent solution to increase our firefighters' pay,
and make other system changes to ensure that firefighting is a
career, and that others will pursue it in the future, so that
we have the resources to address the challenges we face. And I
would like to work with you on that.
Climate change is altering ecosystems nationwide. It has
amplified impacts of fire, insects, disease, and invasive
species shrinking habitat for our native plants and wildlife.
The fiscal year 2023 budget builds on the climate change
investments contained in the fiscal year 2022 budget.
Our 2023 budget request of $318 million for forest and
rangeland research will continue our work in addressing climate
change and other critical research needs. Our infrastructure
needs are pressing, as are economic needs of Americans.
The fiscal year 2023 budget request stimulates construction
and maintenance activities in national, regional, and local
economies. We are grateful for the Great American Outdoor Act
funds that have stabilized our $6.3 billion maintenance
backlog.
The National Forests and Grasslands belong to every
American, they encompass ancestral lands of tribal territories.
Every person should feel a personal invitation in connection to
these lands. The Forest Service is addressing equity by
ensuring that historically underserved groups can more fully
access and participate in agency programs and services.
We have taken significant steps to improve policies,
accountability, training, and to ensure that the work
environment is equitable, is respectful, and free of harassment
from any kind.
We know what is at stake if we don't address the wildfire
crisis. The health of our communities, the clean water, the
camping trips, the wood products, jobs that Americans depend
on, and the national forests and grasslands that provide them.
The risks facing these lands are significant and growing,
that is why we need to act now, we need to act together, and we
need to act with dedication to meet the challenges before us,
with sound science as our guide.
We are all in, and we are ready to serve as we have been
since 1905. Thank you, and again I am grateful to you all for
your interest and support, and I look forward to any questions
that you might have.
[This statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Randy Moore
Chair Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski, and members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here today to testify on the
President's fiscal year 2023 Budget request for the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service.
The fiscal year 2023 President's Budget for the USDA Forest Service
discretionary appropriations totals $9 billion, including $2.21 billion
for the wildfire suppression cap adjustment (in the Wildfire
Suppression Operations Reserve Fund). In addition to discretionary
appropriations, the request includes $743 million in mandatory funding
for Permanent and Trust funds. To address the wildfire crisis we are
facing, the fiscal year 2023 request focuses on risk-based wildland
fire management; compensation for wildland firefighters; tackling the
climate crisis; improving infrastructure, providing economic relief and
supporting jobs; and advancing racial equity. To improve the conditions
we are seeing on the ground, it will take use of the best available
science; hard work shoulder to shoulder with partners; use of all the
tools in our toolbox; and a robust workforce.
Since 1905, the Forest Service has served the American people
through conservation. Our mission is to sustain the health, diversity,
and productivity of the Nation's forests and grasslands to meet the
needs of present and future generations. We work with partners through
our Research and Development and State and Private Forestry mission
areas to sustain all of the Nation's forests, about 766 million acres
in multiple ownerships. Overall, that is about a third of the Nation's
land area. We directly manage the national forests and grasslands,
including about 19 percent of the Nation's forests. The national
forests and grasslands cover about 193 million acres on 154 national
forests and 20 national grasslands in 43 states and Puerto Rico. We
also work with countries around the globe to support sustainable
forestry and the conservation of the natural resources that billions of
people depend on for their livelihoods.
Our purpose is to sustain healthy, resilient landscapes for all the
benefits that people get from them, both now and for generations to
come. We meet the needs of our citizens by conserving the values,
benefits, goods, and services from the Nation's forests and grasslands.
People depend on the Nation's forests and grasslands for their social,
economic, and ecological well-being. The Forest Service meets those
needs in myriad ways.
Water is the source of all life, and about 53 percent of the
Nation's total runoff from rivers and streams comes from forests.
Almost 18 percent comes from the National Forest System alone, even
though it occupies only about 8 percent of the Nation's land area. In
the West, more than half of the total regional runoff comes from the
national forests and grasslands. Nationwide, more than 60 million
people depend on the national forests and grasslands for their drinking
water. More than 3,400 communities in 36 states depend on the National
Forest System for their municipal water supplies, including cities like
Portland, Denver, and Atlanta.
Climate change is causing historic droughts in the West and placing
water supplies and other natural resources at risk. Carbon
sequestration is vital for combating climate change. Forests take up
vast quantities of carbon in trees and soils--in fact, forests are
America's largest terrestrial carbon sink. Our forests, plus harvested
wood products and urban forests, offset almost 15 percent of the
Nation's total carbon dioxide emissions and almost 12 percent of all
greenhouse gas emissions. The National Forest System alone stores
almost 14 billion metric tons of carbon, or about a quarter of the
Nation's carbon storage in forests. Each year, the National Forest
System adds about 31 million metric tons of carbon of net gain.
The National Forest System is a tremendous source of jobs and
economic opportunities for Americans. Many rural communities depend on
the National Forest System for roads and other infrastructure as well
as for employment, goods, and services. In fiscal year 2020, the
National Forest System supported more than 370,000 jobs and contributed
more than $35 billion to the national gross domestic product (GDP).
Outdoor recreation alone accounted for 45 percent of those jobs and 38
percent of the contribution to the GDP in 2020. Forest landscape
management and investments, including fuels and forest health
treatments, accounted for more than a quarter of the jobs and 31
percent of the contribution to the GDP. Forest products, minerals and
energy, and livestock grazing also played an important role. In fiscal
year 2021, the national forests generated 12.9 billion board feet of
timber--enough timber to build about 180,000 new single-family homes.
Together, various kinds of resource extraction accounted for about a
quarter of the jobs and 27 percent of the contribution to GDP. Forest
products alone supported more than 42,000 jobs and contributed more
than $3.7 billion to GDP.
The main way that many Americans use and enjoy their national
forests and grasslands today is for outdoor recreation. We have 370,000
miles of road to give people access to their favorite spots. Our
visitors have 159,000 miles of trail they can use across landscapes of
all kinds. They can use 220,000 miles of stream across the National
Forest System, and those are the favorite spots by far; most outdoor
recreation occurs within half a mile of a stream. In 2020, we had 168
million visitors. People come to use and enjoy the national forests and
grasslands together with family and friends, with benefits that include
physical exercise and all the mental and other health benefits that
come with it. For local communities, this is where they live, work, and
play. Outdoor activities and scenery give them a sense of identity and
place, adding to their quality of life.
All this is now at risk on forests and grasslands nationwide. Many
ecosystems nationwide are degrading and losing habitat for our native
plants and wildlife. Climate change is altering environmental
conditions nationwide. Drought has contributed to outbreaks of insects
and disease that have killed tens of millions of acres of forest across
the West. Changing environmental conditions have lengthened fire
seasons into fire years and worsened wildfires across the West. At the
same time our forests are becoming more overgrown and unhealthy.
Expanding development into the wildland urban interface puts more homes
into fire-prone landscapes. One American home in three is now in the
wildland/urban interface, increasing wildfire risk to these
communities, because 80-90 percent of all wildfires are human-caused.
The growing wildfire risk is due to accumulating fuels, a warming
climate, and expanding development in the wildland/urban interface. But
we know what to do based on decades of science and experience. To
protect communities and natural resources, we need to restore healthy,
resilient fire-adapted forests.
For decades, we have been putting fuels and forest health
treatments into place, but it has been a challenge to coordinate
funding and capacity across landownership boundaries at the needed
scale. We have tended to place our treatments where we can rather than
where we should. The result is that the scale of our work on the ground
has not matched the place and scale of highest risk; therefore, the
risk has continued to grow.
In the right places at the right scale, our science-based thinning
and burning treatments work to protect communities, infrastructure, and
natural resources while helping wildland firefighters respond to
wildfires safely and effectively. We now have the science and tools we
need to size and place treatments in a way that will truly make a
difference for confronting the wildfire crisis. Science tells us that
less than 10 percent of the fire-prone areas in the West are
responsible for 80 percent of the exposure. That is where our focus
will be: on the landscapes where the risk to lives, homes, communities,
and natural resources is greatest.
The Forest Service cannot succeed in this alone. The wildfire
crisis facing the nation confronts us across ownerships. This is not
just about the National Forest System. The highest risk firesheds are
typically in multiple ownerships, with wildfire ignitions potentially
coming from multiple directions across boundary lines. Fortunately, we
have decades of experience working through partnerships and
collaboration based on common values and shared goals across shared
landscapes.
Delivering water, wood, wildlife, and all the other values and
benefits that our citizens want and need from the Nation's forests and
grasslands depends on success in confronting the wildfire crisis
through sustained investments over multiple years. It also depends on
the hard work of motivated employees who feel valued, safe, and
respected in a workplace free of harassment that reflects the diversity
of the people we serve. Understanding the challenges many people have
faced particularly during the pandemic, we have redesigned services to
maintain the mental health and resilience of our employees,
particularly our wildland firefighters. We are working across
government to enhance the work experiences of firefighters and to
provide the pay and benefits they deserve.
The investments highlighted below reflect services the Forest
Service delivers through our National Forest System, State and Private
Forestry, and Research and Development mission areas. These investments
enable the Forest Service, together with our partners, to restore the
long-term forest health and resiliency across landscapes the American
people cherish. The citizens we serve deserve nothing less.
highlights from the president's fiscal year 2023 budget request for
specific priorities
Each of the requested investments detailed below showcase the
agency's priorities:
--$321 million for hazardous fuels reduction, which will allow the
agency to mitigate wildfire risk on 3.8 million acres in high
priority and high-risk areas. This investment builds on the
hazardous fuels funding the Forest Service will receive through
the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2023 and supports
the objectives of the agency's 10-year wildfire crisis
strategy.
--$1.15 billion for Wildland Fire Management Salaries and Expenses to
fund additional firefighters and firefighting support personnel
and support this Administration's direction that all
firefighters receive a minimum wage of $15 per hour. This
increased workforce capacity will enhance year-round fire
response and hazardous fuels reduction activity and allow the
Forest Service to continue important investments that support
the health, well- being, and resilience of the agency's
wildland firefighting force.
--$1.68 billion for National Forest System Salaries and Expenses.
Funding will strengthen areas needed to support the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the agency's 10-year
wildfire crisis strategy, and the Great American Outdoors Act.
This funding will also help the agency bolster capacity in
critical non-fire programs, which have lost staffing in recent
years, and thereby enhance social and economic benefits to the
American public.
--$110 million for Recreation, Heritage and Wilderness to increase
capacity for critical recreation operations, planning,
services, and improvements, with particular emphasis on
creating welcoming, sustainable, and equitable recreation
opportunities for all Americans with a focus towards
underserved and Tribal communities.
--$98 million for Vegetation and Watershed Management to support
healthy and resilient watersheds and landscapes, sustain the
production of clean and abundant air and water, assist with
meeting the Administration's climate goals, support post-fire
restoration work, and contribute to healthy and productive
rural communities and Tribal Nations.
--$45 million for Minerals and Geology Management, which will support
efforts to locate and prioritize orphaned oil and gas wells for
remediation and the inventory, environmental analysis, and
clean-up of mine reclamation sites.
--$26 million for Grazing Management to support post-fire
restoration, provide for strategic incentives to grazing
permittees, and build vibrant rural economies.
--$59 million for Forest Health Management to ensure healthy forests
and functional landscapes and to address the effects of climate
change on public lands in support of the conservation
priorities of the Administration.
The fiscal year 2023 Budget request also builds on the approach to
climate change articulated in the fiscal year 2022 Budget and leverages
the historic investments enacted in the Infrastructure Investment and
Jobs Act to implement the Administration's climate agenda. The request
supports the expansion of the scope and scale of research and science
delivery related to reforestation, carbon sequestration, carbon
accounting, mitigating forest pests, and post-fire restoration, and
invests $6 million to support the USDA Climate Hubs in fiscal year
2023.
Through Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) (Public Law 116-152)
funding, the Forest Service continues to repair and upgrade vital
infrastructure and facilities in the national forests and grasslands
through the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund.
GAOA also permanently funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund
(LWCF), investing in conservation and recreation opportunities in
public and private lands through the Forest Legacy Program and Federal
Land Acquisition.
According to the agency's 2020 economic analysis, Forest Service
GAOA projects are projected to support approximately 4,400 jobs and
contribute $420 million to the Gross Domestic Product on an average
annual basis over the 5-year authorization of the National Parks and
Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund. In fiscal year 2023, the Forest
Service proposes $94.3 million for the Forest Legacy Program, $123.9
million for Federal Land Acquisition, and $285 million for the National
Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund. The fiscal year 2023
project lists are included in the fiscal year 2023 Budget request.
legislative proposals and administrative/general provisions
The fiscal year 2023 President's Budget proposes several key
legislative changes to improve our effectiveness in delivering programs
and services:
--Interest Bearing Account: This legislative proposal would allow the
Forest Service to establish an interest-bearing Treasury
account for funds received in settlements and other legal
actions. This proposal is based on a USDA Office of Inspector
General audit recommendation.
--An addition to the Administrative Provisions that would provide
authority to Job Corps staffs to continue to effectively
operate in the new budget structure. The Enterprise Program,
Geospatial Technology and Applications Center, remnant Natural
Resource Managers, and National Technology and Development
Program are already covered under this provision.
--A new General Provision that would provide legislative relief from
the Forest Resources Conservation and Shortage Relief Act of
1997. This proposal is in response to a Government
Accountability Office audit on timber exports.
--The Budget also requests 1 year extensions of the following
authorities: Mining Applications; Contract Support Costs;
Forest Botanical Products; Grazing Permits; Puerto Rico
Schooling; Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act
Reauthorization; Forest Service Facility Realignment and
Enhancement Authorization; Shasta-Trinity Marina Fee;
Interpretive Association Authority; Forest Botanical Products;
Forest Ecosystem Health and Recovery Fund; and Local
Contractors.
The Forest Service is committed to the values of equity, inclusion,
and equal opportunities for its employees and the public it serves. We
are actively recognizing opportunities within the agency that ensure
historically underserved groups, including Tribes, more fully access
and participate in Forest Service programs and services. We are also
embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace and
ensuring a safe, resilient, and harassment-free work culture where
employees are treated with respect and dignity. The Forest Service has
taken significant steps to improve policies, raise accountability,
upgrade reporting systems, and conduct ongoing training focused on
workplace environment to stop harassment, bullying, and retaliation. We
are also creating welcoming, sustainable, and equitable recreation
opportunities for all Americans. This work is essential and will
continue in fiscal year 2023.
In closing, the President's fiscal year 2023 Budget request for the
Forest Service prioritizes investments to improve the resilience of
landscapes and watersheds across boundaries and reduce wildfire risk by
treating the right acres at the right scale; and by restoring
infrastructure, supporting outdoor recreation, investing in
reforestation of impacted landscapes, and removing barriers to access.
We look forward to working with this Subcommittee to fulfill the
President's goals and our key responsibilities for the long-term
benefit of the Nation's forests and grasslands, and for all Americans.
I will be glad to answer your questions.
Senator Merkley. Well, I thank you very much for your
testimony. I wanted to, first, ask you about, in your written
testimony, I don't think you addressed this just now, but notes
that the National Forest System adds 31 million metric tons of
carbon net gain, you know, as we have seen the amount of fires
devastating across the country, and the trees that are dying,
like the Red Zone in Oregon, where we have massive pine beetle
infestations.
And I remember flying in a small plane, and just like, as
far as I could see, the forest in every direction it was just
red, red and dying. And now all those needles have dropped. And
I have hiked through those same areas, just desolated trees.
So does that 31 million, is that an average over a certain
number of years? Is that an analysis of 1 year past? Does it
take into account the loss from disease and from fire?
Chief Moore. Yes. That encompasses all of that; in fact,
when our science are telling us that if you look at the
National Forest in total, it is a carbon sink of about 450
billion metric tons of carbon. Now, when you look at the 31
million tons that we have as at a capacity on an annual basis,
that is inclusive of some of the new growth that take place on
in our National Forest, but it also minuses some of the things
like you mentioned, disease and insects, which we know is not
absorbing carbon when it is dead.
I think the bigger question might be, you know, how do we
take advantage of this carbon market? And how should we be
discussing some of the potential opportunities to manage the
National Forest, as it relates to carbon sequestration, and
some of those related things?
So I think that that is a good question on the table, it is
something that the agency is starting to discuss, but we have
to educate ourselves, greatly, from where we are now in that
issue.
Senator Merkley. Well, I will come back and follow up
later. But if it is 30 million tons, and then the entire sink
is 450 billion, we are talking about one-ten-thousandth of
increase in carbon storage. That is, you know, less than 10
percent of 1 percent, or 1 percent of 1 percent. I mean that is
a very small fluctuation.
Anyway, it is interesting, and I hadn't seen those numbers
before, I can come back to that. I want to turn to the
Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program which I
mentioned in my remarks, because I have seen the value of
bringing what were formerly warring stakeholders together,
creating a strategy, implementing a strategy, keeping it out of
the courts, providing multi-year plans that result in
harvesting of logs for the mill, more logs, more jobs in the
forest, on the trucks, in the mill, making sure that the mill
knows that there will be a supply. It has been a win-win all
the way around.
The Infrastructure Bill provided $100 million for these
projects over 5 years, but these projects are generally
authorized for 10 years and then are extended. How do we--how
are you going to square the investments over 5 years with the
general structure of these collaboratives? And essentially in 5
years will we be facing a cliff that committee will need to
address in trying to extend the collaboratives that are
developed under the Infrastructure Bill?
Chief Moore. Yes, Senator. So if we were to continue to
receive that amount of discretionary funding, additional
funding would be needed in years six through ten. The hope
would be to use some of the appropriated dollars to carry those
collaboratives forward after the 5 years.
I agree with you 100 percent the collaboratives have been
great. It has been an outstanding way of bringing the community
of people together to have more decision space, and what goes
on out in their forest.
So we have seen just huge gains in support and
collaboration by taking that approach. And I know that both you
and Senator Murkowski have been very instrumental in looking at
shared stewardship, and really leaning the agency into working
in that mode. And I think that collaboratives is one of the
benefits of that method of operating.
Senator Merkley. Okay. Well, we have to be very aware that
that is on the horizon, a few years to come. And you mentioned
that you are at about 90 percent of your hiring goals for this
season. In terms of thousands of jobs, is that 30- or 40,000
jobs that are vacant?
Chief Moore. No. Let me back up just to provide a little
context on that. So you know, what has been happening with this
whole fire issue, is that over the past 15 years the Forest
Service has lost about 40 percent of its non-fire workforce.
And so now with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, what we are
looking to do is bring back some of that capacity that we have
lost over time.
We have lost--that 40 percent is about 8,000 employees.
Those are the employees that really work to do the work that we
are discussing here today. Our hope is to fill about half of
that, and leverage the other half working with partners,
nonprofits, and of that nature.
And so we feel like we have gained some efficiency in the
work that we do. We feel like we have huge opportunities to
leverage our ability to get more work done, by working with
partners. And that is being demonstrated now, whether it is
through collaborative, or whether it is through other
opportunities as we look at trying to get a handle on forest
management.
Senator Merkley. Okay. Well, let me zero in specifically on
the positions for fighting fires. How big is the shortfall
there?
Chief Moore. So the goal was to hire about 11,300
firefighters, this is within the Forest Service. We are
currently at about 10,200, so that is about the 90 percent
there.
Now, that number is a national number. There is a lot of
complexity in that, depending on how you look at it
geographically. You know, for example, if I were to look at
Region 5 and Region 6, let us say, Oregon, and Washington,
California; you know, you have a lot of firefighters there, and
so what is happening is that we are making offers, there is a
lot of declinations in those offers. There is a lot of
competition in the labor market for these skills, because when
you have counties, states and private firefighters offering
sometimes double the salary that the Forest Service
firefighters are making, it is very hard to compete with that.
And so that is part of the challenge that we are seeing
now, and why we are only at 90 percent. But that 90 percent it
is a lot less than that in certain geographic locations, it is
as low as 50 percent in some areas.
Senator Merkley. All right, well that 50 percent sounds a
little scary, thinking about the fires that we will be facing
in our various states.
Is it the case then that we should publicize that you are
hiring, and if folks want to be in the woods on a really
important public job, with a lot of responsibility. You are
looking for their applications?
Chief Moore. Yeah. Well, certainly. And you know, we look
for certain quals as well. You know, I might add too, you know,
I say 90 percent, and we have a lot of declinations in some
areas. You know, we have a plan to shore that out, we are going
to be hiring all the ways in through July, to fill in some of
those vacant positions.
We also have the ability to do contract hiring, what we
call AD, administratively determined firefighters. We also have
the opportunity to look at bringing on additional workforce as
needed. And so we feel like we can make up for that, but how
that, ultimately, looks is yet to be determined.
We just finished up our April spring hiring, and those
statistics are being looked at now, so we will know how
successful we are with this last hiring round.
Senator Merkley. Okay.
Chief Moore. But we do have a plan in place to make up for
the shortfall that we are currently seeing.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. Senator Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And just adding
to what you have outlined there, Chief, in your exchange with
the Chairman, I am very cognizant that Alaska's fire season
begins earlier than most of the country, and typically that has
actually worked to our benefit, because when we have the big
fires, and we need that surge of fire crews, they are able to
come up from other parts.
And then conversely, as our season winds down, some of the
expertise that we have in Alaska is able to be shared in the
Lower 48. But I also want to mention the extreme
opportunities--or I don't want to say extreme--but just the
real opportunities that we have with our village fire crews.
And the expertise that they have developed over the course of
years, I continue to hear that there are challenges in ensuring
that those fire crews have the training that they need, the
ability to move up.
But if there was ever a ready, and a capable, and an eager-
to-work demographic, it is certainly there. So I would commend
that to you.
I wanted to start off my questions this morning with
regards to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. As you know I
was very involved in helping to shape that. I am really quite
proud of what we were able to put in, the 5.4 billion over 5
years, the Forest Service receives through the Infrastructure
Bill. I think these are going to make some real progress
towards putting our forest on a healthy and resilient path.
Can you tell me when and how communities will be able to
take advantage of funding provided for state and private
forestry, for activities like the early detection, the rapid
response, against invasives, and then Wildfire Community
Defense Grants, what are you looking at in terms of your
timing?
Chief Moore. So we have already issued the budgets to the
regions, so they have those moneys now. And where we are, you
know, where agreements are required, we have program leaders
and program managers now putting together those agreements and
contracts to be issued. So they will hit the ground as soon as
the contract components and the agreement components are put in
place, but they already have the funding, and they are already
moving out and implementing those goals.
Senator Murkowski. Okay. We had a grant symposium in
Anchorage a couple weeks back, and it was extraordinary to me
to see the level of interest from Alaskans all over the state,
who flew into Anchorage to hear just exactly what the details
are on some of these grants, and the opportunities and the
timing. So we want to be able to share that information, and
again, get that out in time of what we know to be just an
earlier fire season.
Can you outline how the large investments in thinning, and
the fuel breaks, and the prescribed fires, and in all of these
activities that we have funded through the Infrastructure Bill
how these--I guess how these funds will impact what we are
trying to do here, with for instance, the efforts to put in
place fuel breaks. Tell me how we are going to work this?
Chief Moore. So part of what we were trying to achieve, and
what we are achieving through the Bipartisan Infrastructure
Bill is, first of all, bringing the community of people
together to make some decisions on where they wanted to invest
initially.
Now, we have had our scientists map the different fire
sheds all across the country. And those firesheds are an
acreage of about 250,000 acres. And so when you look at the
number of fire sheds in a landscape then we are relying on the
local community to weigh in on how and where we initially take
action.
This first year that we wanted to start activity, you know
we wanted to kind of hit the ground running, so to speak. You
know, we wanted to demonstrate that we can make this work. And
so where we already had NEPA completed, where we already have
support, whether it is through the collaboratives or other
places, then we have funded those activities first.
We are going to fund more than that, but they are the first
ones in this first year. And you know, the Secretary and I had
made a trip to Colorado earlier this year to announce the
beginning of that. So we do have projects that we are looking
to implement as of this year.
In fact, you know, I want to recognize that we have been
moving really quick, because we have not only developed a ten-
year strategy within 5 months, but we have also looked at
working with the different regions across the country, and
their collaboratives to look at where we would do these
projects.
And so we are there, we have already issued the funding to
start the work on the first group of projects under the BIL,
and it is on its way now.
Senator Murkowski. So if you have outlined your strategy,
and you know where you are going, have you identified any
barriers that you are looking at, and saying, okay, this is
going to make this a little more challenging, and are those
barriers in the area of just capacity to execute? Can you
describe whether or not you have the capacity that you need to
do everything that you are mapping out here for the
Infrastructure Bill?
Chief Moore. Yes, Senator. No. We do not have the capacity
currently. That is what we are to add, is capacity in that. We
do have the ability to begin the work on these first initial
projects that I mentioned. In the first ones we looked at about
ten different Landscapes across eight states, as our initial
look, and so we--and I will give you an example of how we are
trying to get this done, and how we trying to build capacity.
We know that a lot of this work is going to be done with
and through partners, and in order for that work to be done
with and through partners we need to make sure that we have our
agreements in place, and where contracts need to be let, to
have that workforce in shape.
So we have begun to hire to higher capacity in our grants
and agreements staff, as well as our contracting staff, so that
we are prepared to implement the instruments that it would take
to get this work done.
We have also looked at hiring a number of engineers as
well, because that is a lot of infrastructure work, a lot of
the road work, trail work. And so now, as we speak, we are in
the process of hiring foresters, and recreation, special-use
people, to bring that capacity to the forefront.
So we are moving out on a lot of different fronts so that
we can have the best chances of success as possible, as we
implement the projects, and the works underneath the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. Senator Van Hollen.
Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; Ranking Member
Murkowski. Chief Moore, good to see you.
Chief Moore. Thank you.
Senator Van Hollen. I want to talk a little about the
Chesapeake Bay.
Chief Moore. Yes.
Senator Van Hollen. As you know, the Chesapeake Bay
Watershed comprises six states, plus the District of Columbia.
If you look at the land mass that drains into the Bay, the
ratio of that land mass to the water body is the greatest in
the country certainly.
So it is a big challenge, as more and more people move into
that watershed, and the forestry piece of this is important to
preventing the ultimate runoff of pollution into the bay. And
we have a Chesapeake Forest Restoration Strategy. As you know,
it was most recently updated in 2020, to rebuild riparian
forest buffers, tree canopy habitat, and urban and community
forestry as we work to improve stormwater management.
And the Forest Service has shown great leadership as a part
of the program's Forestry Workgroup. But we also know that back
in 2019 we, collectively, set a goal to restore an additional
900 miles of forest buffers each year, until at least 70
percent of the riparian areas in the watershed were forested,
and we are way short. We are not even close; even as we work to
meet the 2025 goals of the Chesapeake Bay Agreement.
So my question to you is, you know can we do? And what role
can you play in our effort to get back on track and meet those
goals?
Chief Moore. So thank you, Senator. And as you know, that
is more of a state and private issue. So specifically as we
relate, or as we talk about Chesapeake Bay, we are working with
the state issuing grants, as well as providing technical
assistance, to not only the state, but through the EPA as well.
Particularly as it relates to having forested buffer zone
there, I think we had about 900 miles or so, of buffer zone,
forest buffer zone.
And so we are honoring that by working with EPA and the
state, and we do provide quite a bit of technical assistance on
that, as it relates to forestry.
Senator Van Hollen. So many years ago, as part of an
earlier version of the Farm Bill, I worked to include in the
House, provisions that specifically gave the Forest Service a
more direct role within the Chesapeake Bay cleanup effort. That
then got folded into a broader national effort, but assuming
that if we provided through legislation or through
appropriations a more direct role for the Forest Service, that
you could put those resources to good use. Is that right?
Chief Moore. Well, we will honor whatever Congress wants us
to, and we would do it with delight.
Senator Van Hollen. Well, I am glad to hear that. I will be
working with my colleagues here, because we are falling short.
We are also working to reinstate, we, Senator Cardin, and
myself, and the congressional delegation, not just from
Maryland but from others, to reinstate what we call the
Chesapeake Bay Czar. This was a position that was established
during the Obama administration, as you know, to oversee all
the agencies.
And I am confident that we will have that position filled.
And I just ask you here to make sure that you and your team,
you know, are fully plugged into that effort.
Chief Moore. Sure.
Senator Van Hollen. If I can have your commitment there.
Chief Moore. You do.
Senator Van Hollen. So do you--but you are a member right
now of the overall sort of Advisory Committee.
Chief Moore. Right.
Senator Van Hollen. And as you point out, you are dealing
with a lot of state forests and private forests, but what is
your assessment as part of that team as to why we are falling
so short of the goals?
Chief Moore. I can't answer that from a Forest Service
perspective as yet, Senator. But I will certainly look into it
with staff and get back with you on that.
Senator Van Hollen. I would appreciate that.
Chief Moore. Okay.
Senator Van Hollen. If you can get back to it. That is all
I have. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. Chief Moore, one of the
conversations in my home state is about the best strategies for
making forests more resilient, more resistant to fire, and we
have a--really a consensus around, let us say, the Ponderosa
Pine Forest, where we have seen extensive thinning, mowing,
prescribed burns, a huge impact on slowing fires down, and
allowing firefighters to get through the forest to the front of
the fire, and always a real success.
And the Milli Fire was bearing down on Sisters, Oregon, and
when the fire ran into an area that had been thinned and gone
through several prescribed burns, it really came to a stop. I
mean, it was really impressive. But we have a significant
amount of different opinions over other types of forest, and
some of the Douglas-fir forests. On the one side there is an
argument that on the second-growth forest where all the
canopies are the same level, thinning really makes a
difference, slows down the fire, et cetera.
And others who bringing to bear and saying, actually when
you are opening up the canopy you end up with more oxygen
driving the fire, and it actually doesn't make the forest more
fire resilient. I just have a request that you will bring your
best scientists to bear to help us understand how, in different
types of forests, the strategies work--what strategies work
best for making the forest more fire resilient. It would be a
shame if we do things that actually don't work. And can I have
your commitment to have your scientific teams help us
understand this issue?
Chief Moore. Yes. You sure do.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. Thank you. In fiscal year 2022,
for the first time in a decade we included Congressionally
Directed Spending Projects. I don't call them ``congressionally
directed'', I call them ``community-initiated'', because they
are community initiated.
Chief Moore. Yeah.
Senator Merkley. And it is not about us making decisions,
we do that all the time. It is about communities making
decisions, and then us lobbying for what those communities say
they need. So I was really glad to see that be part of this
bill.
One example in Oregon was $500,000 that went to Lomakatsi
Restoration Project in Southern Oregon, and it will support
community-driven fuels reduction. We are receiving questions
now about what is the timeline for when these different
community-initiated project grants will actually--when they
will see a check. And any insight on that?
Chief Moore. Well, as I mentioned earlier, the budget has
already been allocated out to the regions, and so now it is
just a matter. I don't know that particular project, that
specific one, but in general, where we are now is making sure
that we have the agreements in place, and the teams should be
working at it as we speak, and as soon as that has been
checked, then we should start seeing contracts let, or
agreements begin to be implemented.
Senator Merkley. Great. If your team in Oregon is running
into any significant hurdles, I would just ask that they let me
know.
Chief Moore. Sure.
Senator Merkley. So we can try to, collectively, overcome
those and get these projects underway, because people are very
excited about getting funding for these various efforts.
I want to turn to the issue of H-2B workers, and Senator
Wyden and I pushed really hard for funding back in 2009 and
2010 for a lot of money to thin forests, produce saw logs, more
jobs, so on, and so forth, and it turned out that a lot of the
contracts were not given during a time of high unemployment to
folks who were hiring in America.
We had 5,000 people on a waiting list for forest jobs in
Oregon. They weren't even consulted or notified about these
jobs, and the contractors who were hiring from out of country
were undercutting the bids of people who were hiring in-
country.
Right now, we are at a lower level of unemployment, so it
is not quite the same situation, but I keep pushing the Forest
Service to develop regulations to make sure that contractors
who are working to hire people, who want these jobs, Americans
who want these jobs.
I come from Douglas County it is like the David Douglas
Tree Forest of the country, and people are born with a chainsaw
in their hand. They love to work in the woods. And the fact
that they are being completely bypassed by the procedures,
totally unacceptable, it was a scandal then, it will be a
scandal again, if we don't have rules and guidelines in place.
So what is the Forest Service doing to ensure that American
workers who want to take these jobs are getting fully notified,
and the contractors who are working to hire them have a full
chance to get these contracts before we turn to H-2B workers?
Chief Moore. So Senator, we do have a process where we do--
whenever we have contracts out, we send it out to a list of
contractors--who is on that list. Now if we are missing some
companies, or even some individuals in this, we would like to
know who they are, so we can add them to that--the list that we
send mailing list out on our contracts. So here again, the
specifics I am not sure of, but in general, that would be our
process for how we award contracts.
Senator Merkley. Well, I will give you an example for the
types of things that were going on. Contractors were self-
certifying that they had looked for American workers, Self-
certification wasn't working because they were advertising in
California for jobs; in Oregon they were advertising saying you
need to speak two languages, which obviously, not very many
Americans are fluent in two specific languages; all sorts of
strategies to not--and absolutely no contact with the people
who are on the state list who wanted these jobs, no
consultation.
You all have a report due to us on June 15th to analyze
this situation, I hope it is a really good report, and it is
very important that we get it on June 15th. So I wanted to
raise that. I know that it is a million things you are doing
right now, but can you make sure we get a comprehensive report
of how the Forest Service is going to address this problem?
Chief Moore. Yes, sir, Senator. In fact, I am aware of the
report, and we are working on it, and the goal is to of course,
complete it on time.
Senator Merkley. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Senator Hagerty.
Senator Hagerty. Thank you, Chairman; and Ranking Member
Murkowski. I appreciate you holding the hearing today.
Chief Moore, good to see you.
Chief Moore. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Hagerty. Chief Moore, early in the morning of
Tuesday, April 26, Tennesseans awoke to the very sad news, that
the Ocoee WhiteWater facility had been engulfed in flames.
Fortunately, first responders were there to get the fire under
control, and no one was injured. Unfortunately, the building
that hosted the first-ever Olympics kayak and canoe events
during the 1996 Olympics, and hosts now more than 300,000
visitors a year, has been deemed a total loss.
Officials with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and
the U.S. Forest Service are now investigating the cause of the
fire. The Ocoee WhiteWater Center means so much to my
constituents. The Polk County Chamber of Commerce calls it
``The Crown Jewel of Polk County.'' Local officials tell me
that the beautiful mighty Ocoee River is the tourism hub that
Polk County depends on.
Chief Moore, my first question is: Can you provide me with
an update as to where we stand, specifically, if you could
discuss the partnership that you have with state and local
officials in Tennessee?
Chief Moore. Yes. So let me first say, too, it is so
unfortunate that that happened to that facility. It was one of
the crown jewels across the country anywhere. So we are very
saddened by that as well.
Right now, our law enforcement personnel are investigating
this with state personnel. So you know, until that is complete,
we won't really know how to proceed forward with that. We do
know that our expectation is to, for the time being, seal that
off, at some point look at opening parts of it back up to the
public. How and when we do that, we will be discussing that
with a lot of our local constituents and partners out there.
Senator Hagerty. And I appreciate your working closely with
our local partners, as we enter the busiest season for outdoor
recreation in my Home State of Tennessee the local businesses
there in Polk County really depend on the tourism that the
Ocoee River attracts.
And Chief Moore, I want to ask you, if I can tell my
constituents, that despite the center being closed--and I
understand the reasons--that the river is open for business?
Chief Moore. Yes. We will look at. And that is part I want
to look at. We are not going to make this decision independent
of a lot of our involvement from the locals down there. So we
want to look at, when is it, the appropriate time to open the
river back up. The intent is to certainly open it back up, but
when, there is a lot of, you know, things that need to take
place that I am not at liberty to discuss, but we fully intend
to open it back up. And we will be engaging locals in there, in
that decision.
Senator Hagerty. Well, anything you can do to expedite
that, Chief Moore, is going to be deeply appreciated by me, and
by everyone in the State of Tennessee, and by the many people
around the country that want to use that facility. Again, it
has a dramatic economic impact for Polk County. And Polk County
has had, as many counties have, has had a rough go. So anything
that you can do to expedite that and to keep us informed of
what you need, if it is resources from us, et cetera.
Chief Moore. Certainly.
Senator Hagerty. I am going to be tracking this very
closely. In the longer term, do you have a sense of whether you
are going to construct a new building there, you know, where
the old facility was?
Chief Moore. You know, I would certainly like to tell you
that we would like to replace that. That is perhaps a
conversation that we can have with you.
Senator Hagerty. Mm-hmm. Well, perhaps what we could do is
have another meeting. We don't have to do it today, but
offline. But to really lay out what the timeline will be. The
first, get the river open, I think that is the most critical
thing, again because of its economic impact, and the longer-
term where you would see on this timeline, a rebuilding of the
facility.
But I appreciate your commitment to work with me and my
constituents as well to give regular update on this.
Chief Moore. Absolutely.
Senator Hagerty. If you could do that. I would like to turn
to another topic, the Land Between the Lakes; that is a one-of-
a-kind recreation area that sits across Kentucky and Tennessee,
and attracts millions of tourists a year, to fish, to boat, to
camp, to hike. I was there as a kid, as a Boy Scout, it means a
lot to the area as well.
And I want to say that thanks to the leadership of this
committee Congress has provided additional resources, above the
regular regional allotment, for the national recreation area
there, including the Land Between the Lakes.
There is more work to be done there though. And I co-
sponsored an important bill, led by Leader McConnell that will
help the Land Between the Lakes secure the Federal resources
that are necessary to improve recreation, maintenance, safety,
and to preserve the natural heritage there.
I am going to continue to work with state, and local, and
Federal leaders in Kentucky and Tennessee to ensure that the
Land Between the Lakes is maintained and preserved for
generations to come, just like it was there for me when I was a
boy.
Chief Moore, can you tell me how the additional resources
that have been provided by this committee, how are you going to
prioritize those?
Chief Moore. Yes. So thank you. So we started with the law
enforcement presence. You know, at one point, probably when you
were a kid growing up, we had a number of law enforcement
personnel, and of course the Forest Service was not managing it
at that time. We had gone down to about three law enforcement
personnel there to patrol that entire area.
Senator Hagerty. The area.
Chief Moore. And so we heard a lot from the local
community, about needing to get that addressed, even the law
enforcement community in that area as well. So I had sent down
our director for law enforcement to meet with law enforcement
personnel there, to talk about the long-range plan for that
area; and so since we have hired three additional LEOs, law
enforcement officers, there so now it is up to six from three.
Senator Hagerty. Okay.
Chief Moore. And so we are looking at replacing and adding
additional personnel there, because it is one-of-a-kind type
recreation opportunity there. And I think to hear you talk
about that is one thing, but to be able to visit that area it
is just a--you know, we talk about jewels here this morning,
but it is a fantastic recreation place, facility.
So our intent is to make sure that that is operating, and
that it is open to the public, and it is an enjoyable
experience.
Senator Hagerty. I appreciate that. And I appreciate you
working closely with Tennessee and Kentucky local officials to
make that happen.
Chief Moore. Yes.
Senator Hagerty. One last question. If you could discuss,
Chief, how recent changes in the Forest Service budget
structure have increased transparency, and how that provides
local leaders with more information about how the management of
the Land Between the Lakes will be undertaken?
Chief Moore. Yes. So, if you look historically at the
budget, and how it came down in the different buckets across
the agency, and as we had started losing capacity, it was a lot
of confusion in how employees were going to be funded. I think
with this new budget process we have here, we know that we have
a salary and expense bucket.
Senator Hagerty. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Chief Moore. So employees are not trying to chase jobs to
pay for their salaries. And so I think that that is a really
good thing. The other thing is that, you know, over time, I
feel like we needed to do what we are doing now, with budget
modernization. I have never been one to think that every unit
needed an entire budget structure, and so we have moved away
from every unit then having their own budget to have it, you
know, managed from a broader geographic area.
And we think that there is a lot of efficiencies, as well
as transparency in that process. And we are beginning to see a
lot of, not only salary savings, but efficiencies in how we
manage the budget. And so now, we are looking at project work
on the ground, that is what really matters, and we are not
trying to look at the different pools of salaries where you may
be working somewhere that it is not a priority.
Now, it gives us the ability to be more flexible, it gives
ability to focus on really on project-level work, and to be
able to communicate our accomplishments in the different
project-level work.
Senator Hagerty. No, anything you can do to target
resources better and prioritize them better, I applaud. Thank
you for your time here today, Chief.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Thank you, Senator Hagerty. And Senator
Tester, we are going to go with one question with the Ranking
Member before she has to run to Homeland Security, and then she
will return; and we will come to you.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And
thank you Senator Tester.
Chief, I had mentioned in my opening statement a discussion
about special-use permits and where we are with capacity to
issue all that. As you know, in Southeastern Alaska, the Forest
Service permits, as they come in for whether it is our small
air carriers who are taking people for over flights, or touch
and go in places, like Misty Fjords. Everybody has got to get
their permit. And we have had a lot of tension with that over
the years, as these have not been able to be issued and in a
timely manner.
We are really hopeful that we are going to have a strong
tourist season this year, bringing a lot of folks back to
Alaska, and they want to get around within the Tongass there.
In recent years, Forest Service has used an enterprise approach
to bringing expertise to regions with the high special-use
permit demand. I mean, we are poster child for that.
Last I heard, this effort helped Region 10 clear more than
40 percent of the special-use permit backlog. What I am--while
I recognize, okay, that is good progress there, my concern is
that a surge approach is not going to allow us to both catch up
on the remaining 60 percent, and then stay current going
forward.
So can you tell me what you are doing to put Region 10 on a
sustainable path for special-use permitting, and if you have
the capacity to do that?
Chief Moore. So thank you, Senator. So we are building
capacity, is the short answer on that. And you know, with the
bipartisan infrastructure law, it has given us the ability to
add that. One of the biggest challenges we have had across the
agency is being responsive in a timely manner to special-use
requests and permits.
And so our approach has been to really look at that
enterprise approach where we would bring in, what we would
consider a strike team to really get at a lot of the backlog of
special uses, because, you know, that is the walk-in-the-door
kind of business.
And when people are not satisfied with how responsive we
are, you know, it creates just kind of a bad environment for
the agency.
Senator Murkowski. Mm-hmm.
Chief Moore. And so we have tried to put extra focus on
that by having these strike teams to get at these backlogs, but
the requests are huge. But we are determined to work through
them. And I know cabins may come up later, but we are
determined to work through that. And I think we are making a
lot of good progress, and we will just need to continue to
build on that progress. And I am hopeful, looking at the BIL
funding, to help us do that, or sustain it.
Senator Murkowski. Well, I hope that you are right. Again,
we appreciate the fact that we have got attention to it, and we
are starting to deal with some of that backlog. But again, how
do we do this on a sustainable basis?
Chief Moore. Yes.
Senator Murkowski. So if you don't think that you have got
what you need within the Infrastructure Bill, you know, please
let us know how we can help facilitate. Before we get to
special-use, to the Forest Service cabins, and you anticipated
that question, I appreciate that. I wanted to talk about the
Chugach Region Land Study.
As you know, under the Dingell Act, the Department of
Interior, in cooperation with Forest Service, was required to
complete a study on this within 18 months of enactment of that
bill. That bill was enacted into law in March of 2019, and we
are still waiting for the results of the study.
This is one of those situations where we have to have
Forest Service and BLM working together, and each time that I
ask for both of the agencies for an update I get fingers
pointing one to the other.
And in fairness I am not interested in assigning blame
here, but I am interested in knowing when this very important
study is going to be completed. These land exchanges are super
critical to our economic health and development in the region.
And I need to know if you can give me some definitive answer in
terms of when we can expect to see this study delivered to
Congress.
Chief Moore. So you know, I personally followed up with the
Regional Forester there to get some specifics of where we are,
particularly with what we are being requested to do. So I have
been assured by the Regional Forester that as of January, that
we have given BLM everything that they need to move forward in
this decision.
And so Senator, if you are hearing something different, may
I suggest that both the Forest Service and BLM get in the same
room with you, so that we can maybe get to the bottom of where
we are with it.
Senator Murkowski. I would like to do that. I had hoped
that you might have an answer for us. This was raised several
weeks ago in Anchorage directly with the Regional Supervisor
there. And so I am a little discouraged that we don't have a
better answer than everybody sit down in the same room here,
because again, it just seems like both sides are pointing the
finger at one another.
And in the meantime, we have a situation where nothing is
moving, despite the very clear advisory that was contained--it
wasn't an advisory, it was the law, to say that this report is
out there. So I will share with you that what I am hearing on
the ground is that BLM has done everything that they need to
do, and that it is with the Forest Service at this point in
time.
So we have got conflicting information. And again, if you
are the folks that are waiting for this land exchange, you
don't care which agency is at fault. All you know is the
government is the one that is denying the completion of this
very important conveyance.
So let us get together and resolve this finally, because it
is not just the study that we are waiting for, then we have to
get the exchanges completed, and that in and of itself is yet
another exercise in time. So we will follow up with you, Chief,
on that.
Chief Moore. Well, Senator, let me say you do deserve a
better answer than perhaps what you are getting. And so I will
commit to working with my counterpart to see if we can't get a
better answer than what you are receiving.
Senator Murkowski. I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. I will be back.
Senator Merkley. Senator Tester.
Senator Tester. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chief, it is good to have you here; rather than to see you
on Zoom. So it is good to see you in person. Any of those three
people in the back do your bio, they are responsible for it?
Chief Moore. Well, they have input for sure.
Senator Tester. Do they? Well, so if you look at the third
paragraph, ``Moore began his 43-year career in 1978 with USDA-
NRCS.'' That is 44 years. Okay. And I just want to say thank
you very much for your service to this country.
Chief Moore. Thank you.
Senator Tester. Thank you very much for the job you are
doing. Although sometimes we argue and fight, that is how
democracies work, right?
Chief Moore. Right.
Senator Tester. And we find common ground. I want to come
back to an issue called the Crazy Mountains for a minute. We
have talked about this on Zoom before.
Chief Moore. Mm-hmm.
Senator Tester. Senator Heinrich and I have been talking
about this access issue for months. And so the question is, can
you explain how the Forest Service decides where and how it is
going to defend prescriptive easements?
Chief Moore. So a process, and it is in our directives, is
to really involve our publics. And so we try to work through
any kind of land disputes with the private landowner, as well
as just the publics in general. And you know, in the simplest
form, Senator that is our process of working through the
disputes, particularly as it relates to access.
Senator Tester. So is there a formal opportunity for public
input from public comment in review during the process?
Chief Moore. Are we talking specifically about the
``Crazies''?
Senator Tester. Yeah. And then after you are done with the
``Crazies'' specifically, generally, for all of them, they all
should be the same. There shouldn't be much difference, right?
Chief Moore. But yeah. We always involve the public, I
mean, as a Federal agency, we can always engage the public and
involve the publics in particular things.
Senator Tester. But there is a difference between
engagement of the public, and public comment opportunities?
Chief Moore. Yes.
Senator Tester. Is there a public comment opportunity?
Chief Moore. Well, that is why I was wanting to know if you
were speaking in reference to the ``Crazies''.
Senator Tester. Well, in the ``Crazies''--it is the public
comment, yeah.
Chief Moore. In this particular case, there has not been a
public involvement, public comment period.
Senator Tester. Okay. So I think it is important. I mean,
transparency in government is good, and nobody is perfect. Even
I make a mistake, rarely, but occasionally. And I would tell
you, you know hunting, you know habitat, you know the great
outdoors.
Chief Moore. Yes.
Senator Tester. The best habitat in the world is not worth
much unless you can get access to it.
Chief Moore. Right.
Senator Tester. Really, if you are looking at it from the
hunting side of things. So if there hasn't been public comment,
what recourse do forest users have if a trail that they have
used for decades is closed?
Chief Moore. Well, you know, here again, that is part of
that public process. If our public is concerned about a trail
that is closed, you know, they would talk and----
Senator Tester. Oh. They have been chirping, and in fact,
they even went to the courts. I mean, and I am not advocating
for any of that, but they have been talking.
Chief Moore. Yeah. We are talking about prescriptive rights
though; is that correct?
Senator Tester. Yeah. I mean, we are talking about
prescriptive easements, correct.
Chief Moore. Yeah. So Senator, you know, we have been
working on this for a while.
Senator Tester. Yeah.
Chief Moore. And, you know, we are still trying to find the
best option for working through access.
Senator Tester. Okay. So let us approach it from the
service standpoint. Does access or reduced access, which I
think can be claimed in the ``Crazies'' example, impact your
ability, as the Forest Service Chief, to manage this landscape
for logging, grazing, and other activities?
Chief Moore. Well, I think you can certainly say that there
are some potential for that to happen, and when it does happen
and we try to work through that. And sometimes it is more of an
issue with litigation that we work through, other times it is
not. It is through sitting down, and through a public
involvement, engagement process that we can come to an
agreement.
Senator Tester. All right. I am going to get back to
litigation in a second here. But does the Forest Service have a
statutory, a statutory responsibility to protect public access
to public lands?
Chief Moore. Yes. That is a very tricky question of course.
So the answer is, we don't have a statutory requirement, but
yet we do have a requirement to maintain access for public.
Senator Tester. So I hope we can continue to work on this
issue together. I think it is really important. I can't tell
you how important it is.
Chief Moore. Yes.
Senator Tester. As you know, I always tell folks, you don't
have to be a millionaire to be a hunter in Montana, because we
all own those public lands. But if you don't have access to
them, and it is sealed off because of whatever reason it might
be, I won't throw anybody under the bus, then the public really
doesn't own those lands anymore.
It is a fact. And as far as litigation goes, and look, I
have been sued a number of times, in different capacities on
Boards that I have been on; and these guys aren't crazy, they
are not. They just want to make sure that--they want to make
sure that they still have the ability to get in there and enjoy
the great outdoors.
I want to talk a little bit about Butte Basin Creek
Watershed. And I don't anticipate that you know anything about
it. What this area is, is the water supply for some would
argue, the greatest city in America, Butte.
Chief Moore. Okay.
Senator Tester. Butte, Montana. There, because of climate
change and beetle kill, there is a ton of dead trees there in
this drainage that supplies this town, city with water. Okay?
Chief Moore. Yes.
Senator Tester. Forest Service land. It is in the back
country. I mean, during the winter you can skate some miles
across the lake, but the bottom line is, is that it is going to
take some work and some planning. These logs have been down so
long that they are not dimension lumber anymore. They probably
could be used for something called biochar.
Chief Moore. Right.
Senator Tester. And which, by the way, it has got some
benefits, and something that we should be probably taking a
harder look at and pushing. But what I want from you today as
the Chief of the Forest Service, I talked to the Chief
Executive of Butte-Silver Bow last weekend, last Friday. And he
said, I need somebody out here from the Forest Service so we
can look at this, and so I can explain to them what needs to be
done, so that we can get this cleaned up.
This is one of those deals, Chief, that if we don't get--
and this ain't going to put logs on trucks, so nobody is going
to get a promotion for doing a bunch of logging. This is going
to be cleaning up a watershed that is really, really important
for this region.
And if I could get somebody that is of consequence,
somebody that you trust could actually make a difference, I
would be very grateful for that.
Chief Moore. Okay.
Senator Tester. And so, that would be something that would
be good. It is very parochial, but I wouldn't be here talking
to you about it in Washington, D.C., in front of a committee
that I could beat the hell out of you on a budget, if it wasn't
important. Okay?
Chief Moore. Yeah. Well, Senator Tester, I will tell you. I
know a little bit about that project. In fact, it is one of the
projects that we are going to be funding this year. And so you
should be seeing some activity out there taking place this year
on that particular project.
Senator Tester. Well, just so you know, and I know you know
this, I had a debate in Butte in 2006, and this issue was
brought up. This is 15 years old, and we need to really get on
it. We do. Thank you.
Chief Moore. You bet.
Senator Merkley. Thank you, Senator.
I want to turn to, the ten-year strategy, and there is not
a lot of detailed discussion in it on how the Forest Service
will work with the tribes on fuels management. That is a
significant issue in my part of the country. The Klamath Tribe
was involved in the work that helped do fuels treatment in an
area that was burned by the Bootleg Fire, and it certainly
helped.
The Klamath Tribe wants to be a partner with the Forest
Service on some of the restoration work on the Bootleg. The
Warm Springs Tribe is pursuing a co-management arrangement on
Mount Hood National Forest, which abuts our reservation.
What is your sense or vision for tribal participation in
forest management, particularly in resilience and restoration?
Chief Moore. So Senator Merkley, I think the tribes have a
tremendous opportunity as we look at trying to address the ten-
year strategy. As a matter of fact, if we look at the landscape
that we made some initial investments in, and I mentioned
earlier about the different fire sheds, within those
landscapes, where we have also created a layer, that looks at
all the disadvantaged communities across the country,
particularly in the west.
And so as we look at making decisions on how we want to
prioritize working in, that is one of the layers for
consideration of a decision, is that, does it engage
disadvantaged communities? And if so, then that could be one of
our decision points.
So there are a lot of opportunities. The other thing that
we are trying to really emphasize is that traditional
ecological knowledge which the tribes have. And they have been
doing this for many years. We want to continue to take
advantage of the opportunity that we have to engage them in how
we make decisions on those landscapes.
Senator Merkley. So tribes that are interested in
partnering with the Forest Service will, under your leadership,
the Forest Service will hold government-to-government meetings
with them to try to work out arrangements?
Chief Moore. Yes. In fact, about a-week-and-a-half ago I
had a tribal roundtable, and the whole idea was to engage them
as partners into how we make decisions, particularly as it
affects them. And so the roundtable was very revealing in terms
of information, and we were really pleased with the outcome. So
we will follow up with that. And if you are interested in
knowing more about that, Senator, we can certainly make sure
that you are----
Senator Merkley. Thank you, great. No, we will follow up on
that. There was a program, the Community Capacity and Land
Stewardship Program that was a partnership with the National
Forest Foundation, and local organizations that were working on
smaller scale restoration projects that weren't large enough,
or in the right geographic areas, to qualify for CFLR, the
Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program.
And there was a challenge as to whether those projects had
the right authorization. So we included a requirement in this
year's Omnibus to, essentially, provide that framework. And for
you all to report back to us on June 15th, how you would resume
those smaller scale projects that have been really so important
in just a whole number of communities.
And I want to make sure that----I know that you have got a
million things on your mind, that you are familiar with this,
and that these smaller projects--smaller grants have your
support.
Chief Moore. Well, they certainly do have our support, in
fact, as we look at implementing the Bipartisan Infrastructure
Law, a lot of those smaller ones are included in some of the
project work that we are doing.
Senator Merkley. Great. Great. Thank you. And I will look
forward to that June report. The Job Corps Civilian
Conservation Centers have been, for a long time, part of the
Forest Service portfolio. There was an effort under a previous
administration to close the 24 residential Job Corps Centers on
Forest Service lands, and remodel the program.
It was a huge outcry, because in my part of the country,
the folks coming out of these programs who are youth who are
trying to get back on their feet, often from a troubled or
difficult past. So it has been a real win, win; a win for these
youths who find their course in life, and get back on their
feet, and for the Forest Service that needs their skills and
training.
Can you assure me as to whether these programs have your
support?
Chief Moore. Yeah, absolutely. And they also have the
Secretary's support as well. You know, this is one of the
programs that we are really proud of. And I could tell that you
are too. We still have the 24 Job Corps Centers. And, you know,
the Job Corps Center really builds on just a long, proud
tradition of the Civilian Conservation Corps. So that is
continuing.
One of the ways that we are modernizing, or at least
broadening out the Job Corps, is to look at some of the needs
that we have on the National Forest. One is the Advanced Fire
Academy, looking at creating a curriculum within Job Corps that
gives us the opportunity to train a lot of our Job Corps
students so they can become future employees working in that,
as well as in forestry sector.
And so we are really excited about that. We had two centers
that offered the advanced fire training. We now have five. And
so it is building. We feel like there is an opportunity to
continue to increase how we engage, and interact with Job
Corps. And so that is a very important component and priority
for us, Senator.
Senator Merkley. When can we get the first one of those in
Oregon?
Chief Moore. I believe one is in Oregon, but I will double
check that.
Senator Merkley. The Advanced Wildfire Training Center? I
will check, but I am certainly interested in seeing that
program. I teamed up with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, to
save those 24 centers when they were proposed for elimination.
But we would like--so certainly I am an advocate, and I will
follow up on the Advanced Wildfire Training Centers.
Chief Moore. Yeah. My information is that one of the new
ones is in Oregon.
Senator Merkley. I am glad to hear that. I will be checking
on it immediately. Only a few seconds left, so I am going to
not ask you a question, because I know my colleague has--but I
will come back for a few more after the Ranking Member goes
through her third round.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
So as promised, Forest Service cabins; I don't know that
you and I have had a chance to speak directly about it,
certainly with your predecessor, and others, they know of my
interest, particularly in the southeastern part of the state
where these cabins are not only used by families for
recreation, but they are also oftentimes just a real safe
haven. If somebody is lost, or injured, or just needs a place
out of the cold.
And I have been concerned over the years because we had
seen these, many of these cabins that had either aged out a
little bit, or just were in areas where there wasn't high use.
The Forest Service was basically embarking on a plan to destroy
or remove the cabins.
I did work within the Infrastructure Bill to secure funding
for the operation, repair, reconstruction and construction of
these cabins. And I just want to make sure that we are clear
that these are not just priorities for Lisa Murkowski because I
was raised in that area, and know of the use, but these are
priorities for Alaskans up and down.
And again, something that really has enhanced the region,
and really enhances that relationship that the Forest Service
has with the locals in the area; so my concern is, is that I
have heard some rumors that there are still plans to remove
some cabins rather than to reconstruct, or to repair.
I have also heard that the plan is for a no-net loss of
cabin, which in other words, you take off one and you put in
another, which is not the same thing.
So if you have an update for me on the status of these
cabins and the region's plan going forward, if you have that
now that is super great. I would appreciate it. But would want
to know how the district and--excuse me--the region is
intending to use the funding that we provided within the
Infrastructure Bill.
Chief Moore. Okay. So Senator, I will look into the
removing and the no-net loss. But I will tell you that, you
know, an announcement is forthcoming where we are looking at
putting a substantial amount of BIL funding into the cabins,
looking at restoration, and reconstructing on some of them. And
so that is forthcoming.
But in terms of the no-net loss, and some of the language
that you might be hearing, I will look into that.
Senator Murkowski. Okay.
Chief Moore. I have not heard that.
Senator Murkowski. Good, good. Sometimes rumors are just
nothing more than that. So we will chase them down. I mentioned
the spruce bark beetle, and what we are seeing in parts of
Matanuska Valley, and pushing up further into Talkeetna area,
but also down on the Kenai Peninsula, a real concern, certainly
for wildland fire.
And we have, you, the Forest Service through their Western
Bark Beetle Initiative, been a key partner working with the
Alaska Division of Forestry. I think that that has been
important, focusing on the monitoring, some limited tree
removal, and education assistance.
And while the education and monitoring are important, I
think we both know that they are not enough to restore forest
to a more resilient state. And so that is why we put more
funding to mitigate wildfire in Alaska, in both the fiscal year
2022 Interior Bill, and through the Bipartisan Infrastructure
Bill.
So can you give me an update this morning in terms of how
you are planning, how the Forest Service is planning to help
get this money to communities where the beetle kill really does
pose that significant wildfire threat?
Chief Moore. So Senator, first, thank you, for all the work
that you did and given us the money to do this type of work, so
much appreciation to you, and your colleagues here, and the
committee.
I, you know, like most of our projects or--and like most of
the work that we do, our intent is to engage with the
communities out there where the work is to occur, to make sure
that, you know, they are engaged in this, but also our
partners. I think one of the questions that we have not talked
about that I would like to, at least, put on the table is that,
you know, not just in Alaska, but all across the country, you
know, we have disease and insect problems.
And we have other types of small diameter, or low value
kind of kind of material. And there is a huge opportunity to
talk about wood innovation.
Senator Murkowski. Yes.
Chief Moore. And looking at applying grants to, really look
at different uses of wood. The cross-laminated timber, the CLT
is one of those, biochar, which was mentioned earlier, is
another one of those opportunities. And so I think that as we
are working with the communities out there, we really want to
engage them, because we know that trying to create jobs,
particularly, in our small rural communities is really
important.
And we have so much material out there that there is no
reason that we could not create job opportunities in these
smaller communities. But in order to do that, we need to really
jump into this wood innovation. We are really optimistic about
what we are seeing from our scientists in this area, and I
think it is one of the frontiers that we could really utilize
there in Alaska, particularly with the problems you have there
with the spruce worm.
Senator Murkowski. Well, I am glad that you have raised
that. I can't tell you the number of people who have said to
me, you know, I am driving down the highway to go down to the
Kenai, and it is just all this dead standing stuff, and there
must be some use for it. Obviously, if it is right by the
roadside, it is easier to access. If there is no road access,
it is really difficult, it is challenging and costly.
But there, when you think about our ability to be creative,
let us create some value out of what is a dead commodity that
will just eventually topple, and be nothing more than fodder
for fires coming through. So I am interested in knowing what
the Forest Service is learning, and not only what technologies
might be out there, but the commercialization of it, and how we
actually make that real.
One more question for you. And this relates to pre-
commercial thinning, working to improve young-growth stands,
whether it is in the Tongass or elsewhere. I think we all
recognize that pre-commercial thinning is useful, it is
necessary for healthy forests, and as well as for the wildlife
habitat.
There is also a recognition that you have got a limited
time where thinning is actually effective. And then you get to
a point, there is a point there where it is really not a viable
strategy anymore. It is my understanding that to address the
PCT backlog, the Forest Service needs to treat roughly 6- to
8,000 acres a year in Alaska.
This is one of those areas where we do have broad support
amongst the stakeholders there in Southeast to do the work. Can
you give me any update there on what Forest Service is doing to
address the backlog on PCT? And what do you need to--what do
you need to do to make it happen, again recognizing that you
have got a window here?
Chief Moore. Yeah. So first of all, we agree on the
importance and the significance of this issue. And I will also
share with you that the region is receiving really a
significant amount of funding this year to address that issue.
So we are looking for them to, here again, work with some of
the locals there in Alaska to decide how best to do that.
But we are funding that effort, and we are funding it with
a significant amount to get some of this work done, because it
is critical.
Senator Murkowski. Well, critical and time is important. So
I appreciate that. The last thing I am going to raise, is just
putting something on your radar--I don't know if you have heard
of our effort on the Alaska Long Trail?
Chief Moore. Yeah.
Senator Murkowski. This is something that a lot of people
know about the historic Iditarod Trail, but what we would like
to do is understand the feasibility of whether we could add
this Alaska Long Trail to the list of national scenic trails.
This would include a portion of the Iditarod, but it would
effectively go from Tidewater all the way up to Fairbanks.
It is something that there is a great deal of interest. We
actually included in an Energy Bill, out of the committee
yesterday, a review or a study to determine the feasibility of
adding the Long Trail. So I just kind of put that out on your
radar there. We did include funding within the fiscal year 2022
bill to work on the Southern Trek of the Iditarod Trail, which
would, again, be part of it.
So just hoping that you would work with us as, we try to
provide further recreation opportunities on portions of the
trail that move through Forest Service lands.
Chief Moore. Sure. We would.
Senator Murkowski. Good. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Senator Merkley. So a couple more questions. And one
development is that Oregon had 14 timber companies, and 14
environmental groups that produced a Private Forest Accord, and
this Private Forest Accord was then enacted by the State
Legislature to modify our Forest Practices Act. One of the
issues that they are wrestling with is the implementation in
regard to stream buffers, and how those stream buffers affect
sedimentation and other impacts on the streams in terms of both
the trout and the salmon.
And they would like to get a lot of help from the Pacific
Northwest Research Station to understand how to implement this
in a most effective fashion. This is a place where the Forest
Service's research efforts could be--get real significant
results at a time when people are looking for answers. Can we
get the help of the Forest Service in figuring out how to--I
realize it is a state law--but how to implement this in an
effective fashion?
Chief Moore. Yeah, yeah, it is a state law, and I would be
interested to know what type of help would be most useful from
PNW.
Senator Merkley. Great. Great. We will follow up with you
in that regard. And then, while we are on the topic of
research, there is a lot that the Forest Service is doing on
mass timber, which is important to our state, and
nanotechnology and wood strength, the ability to develop the,
you know, 4- to 18-storey buildings with mass timber.
Not until recently, we were talking about 4 to 12, and 4 to
14, and 4 to 18, as we understand the technology better. But
the main point I want to make is that the work that the Forest
Service is doing in these areas, including the work on sudden
oak disease, suppression, improving carbon sinks, documenting
lifecycle carbon impacts. Identifying the best forest
management strategies for wildfire resiliency, as I mentioned
before, is to be able to translate that research into products
that Congress, members of Congress, and members of the House
and Senate can say, okay that helps inform us about the
conversations we are having here.
I am basically encouraging you, and just to get your
response that your team doing all this excellent work can help
translate it into products to help inform the debate and
discussion up here on Capitol Hill.
Chief Moore. Yeah. I think we would certainly love to be a
part of that. As you may know the Forest Product Lab in
Madison, Wisconsin, is one of the premier labs anywhere in the
world. And so I think when we talk about new technologies and
wood innovations, we would love to be a part of that
discussion. So we would be happy to work with you.
Senator Merkley. I just went to the Mass Timber Conference,
and it has developed into an industry that has an annual event,
that has so many companies doing so many fascinating things,
and numerous different strategies of cross-laminated timber,
and mass plywood. And we have got a lot of research done,
through the Oregon State Center, on charring, on how to design
the joints. It is just a continuous evolution. How to make it
more beautiful than it already is, et cetera, more earthquake
resistant than it already is. And so it is an exciting
development. We hope to really produce and manufacture mass
timber products to export to the world. And so it is an
exciting development.
Thank you very much. Let me turn to my colleague to see if
she has any final questions.
Senator Murkowski. Mr. Chairman, I have nothing further. I
have got some follow-ons that I think we will do with the Chief
and his team. But just, thank you for being here, and giving us
your time this morning. And the follow up that we know will
come.
I think we both have talked about a lot of the resources
that are coming as a consequence of the Infrastructure Bill,
and I think there is opportunity and promise, but we still are
talking an awful lot about how we build the capacity.
And Chief, I hope you are right that you think we are going
to be able to get the necessary folks in time for what we fear
will be a tough fire season. I recognize that it is really hard
to find anybody for any jobs right now. And these are tough
jobs. We recognize that. So just thank you for your efforts.
Chief Moore. Thank you.
Senator Merkley. Thank you for your insights, we both come
from states where forests are a very big deal to us. And so we
are delighted to have your partnership as we wrestle with these
issues.
ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS
And if there are no other statements; hearing record will
be open until the close of business on May 11th, 2022. Thank
you.
Questions Submitted by Senator Patrick J. Leahy
Question. The Northeastern States Research Cooperative (NSRC)
awards competitive grants for Northern Forest Research, directed
through the Northern Research Station, the Forest Service, the Hubbard
Brook Research Foundation, and institutions in each of the four
Northern Forest states, including the University of Vermont's
Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources. The program
supports cross-disciplinary, collaborative research across the 26
million acres of forests, and it focuses research that directly
supports rural communities and forest-based economies in this
economically-stressed region. I have been a strong advocate for this
program since it grew out of the Northern Forest Land Council and was
authorized through the 1998 Farm Bill.
The Forest Ecosystem Monitoring Cooperative (FEMC) serves as a hub
to facilitate collaboration among Federal, state, nonprofit,
professional, and academic institutions for monitoring of forested
ecosystems, maintaining long-term data, and facilitating its use by
researchers. The states of Vermont, New York, New Hampshire,
Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine all actively participate in the
cooperative. The program is a critical resource for the study of
ecological trends over time, such as climate change. The FEMC and its
predecessor, the Vermont Monitoring Cooperative, have, with my support,
been included in each budget for the U.S. Forest Service since 1990.
Will the Forest Service continue supporting the Northeastern States
Research Cooperative and the Forest Ecosystem Monitoring Cooperative?
Answer. The Forest Service supports the mission and goals of the
Northeastern States Research Cooperative (NSRC) and appreciates our
many past and present collaborations with the universities and
institutions that participate in the Cooperative. Since the Cooperative
was founded in 2001, it has led more than 300 research projects at 45
institutions. The agency values mutually beneficial partnerships with
universities, non-profits, and State cooperators to leverage agency
resources to deliver reliable and actionable science to inform forest
management. Resources available for strategic partnerships depend on
the overall funding level for Forest and Rangeland Research. Language
directing funding above the fiscal year 2022 enacted level to NSRC
without a commensurate increase in overall funding to Forest Service
Research and Development would reduce resources available to address
critical science needs identified by land managers and other
stakeholders outside the four-state collaborative across the Eastern
Region. The increasing percentage of the R&D budget committed to
spending directives like NSRC (50 percent of the R&D budget in fiscal
year 2022, up substantially from approximately 20 percent in fiscal
year 2020 and 25 percent in fiscal year 2021) increasingly constrains
the agency's ability to support ongoing research and science delivery
addressing other high priority forest science needs. Collaborative
research partnerships are essential to achieving the agency's mission,
and these partnerships are most productive and cost effective when the
agency has discretion to engage with the broadest range of partners
possible.
The Forest Service has a long-standing relationship with the Forest
Ecosystem Monitoring Cooperative (FEMC) and has provided financial
assistance through State and Private Forestry for several decades. We
are pleased with the direction the organization has taken to develop a
strategic plan for broadened regional engagement and cooperation and
its focus on priority issues. This work supports the production of
information resources and data that enable science to inform resource
management in the region. We will continue to participate with the FEMC
and support its efforts.
Question. Will the Forest Service include these long-standing
regional programs in its fiscal year 2024 budget request?
Answer. In planning its outyear program of work, the Forest Service
anticipates continuing support for NSRC and FEMC as collaborative
partners to address priority work across the region. This approach
prepares the agency to meet the expectations Congress provided in the
report language for the upcoming year. Because we do not have plans to
have NSRC and FEMC become independent Forest Service programs, funding
requests for NSRC and FEMC would not be called out explicitly in the
Agency's fiscal year 2024 budget request. These programs would continue
to be supported through Forest and Rangeland Research and State and
Private Forestry.
Question. One of my greatest achievements while serving Vermont in
the United States Senate has been supporting the U.S. Forest Service in
adding well over 100,000,000 acres--more than 25 percent--to the Green
Mountain National Forest. Vermonters treasure open space and generally
see the Forest Service as a good steward of the land. In fiscal year
2022, I secured funds through Congressionally Directed Spending for the
pending Roaring Branch project. Meanwhile, the Big Spruce/Taconic
Gateway--another significant potential acquisition--is currently
unfunded.
How and on what timeline are you planning to address permanent
protection of the Big Spruce/Taconic Gateway project?
Answer. The Forest Service considered the Big Spruce--Taconic
Gateway project for fiscal year 2023 Land and Water Conservation Fund
(LWCF) funding; however, the project did not rank high enough under the
nomination criteria for inclusion in the fiscal year 2023 President's
Budget. We will be reviewing the project again for fiscal year 2024
funding and will work with the local unit and partners to strengthen
the project's nomination package.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Lisa Murkowski
Question. Alaska, and many of the western states, have numerous
historical fuel and fire breaks on Federal and non-Federal lands that
are in need of maintenance to remain effective. The ability to utilize
Federal funding to strengthen historical breaks would provide for both
firefighter safety and protection of communities.
How will funding provided through the Infrastructure Investment and
Jobs Act and fiscal year 2022 discretionary funded be allocated and
applied to the maintenance/preservation of these valuable investments?
Answer. Maintaining investments in existing fuel and fire breaks is
essential as we move forward in implementing the 10-year Wildfire
Strategy, and at the national level, a significant portion of our
regular hazardous fuels appropriations will be allocated to this
maintenance work. The Alaska Region, however, has not allocated funds
specifically to maintaining historical fuel breaks in fiscal year 2022
because of the need to respond to the ongoing spruce bark beetle
outbreak. In the last 2 years, the Alaska Region has focused most
fuels-related work on addressing the outbreak and we anticipate the
same emphasis will be necessary over the next 3 to 5 years. Notably, we
estimate that 15 percent of the acres identified for beetle-related
treatment overlap or are adjacent to previously treated areas. Treating
these acres to address the beetle epidemic will also strengthen the
existing fuel and fire breaks. In addition, under State and Private
Forestry, the Forest Service is working on cooperative agreements to
obligate Congressionally directed spending to the City of Kenai, Mat-Su
Borough, and the State of Alaska Division of Forestry. This funding
will be geared toward fuel breaks and to deal with a significant number
of dead white spruce.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Mitch McConnell
Question. I recently introduced a bill, the Land Between the Lakes
Recreation and Heritage Act (S.3997), to ensure the U.S. Forest Service
devotes the appropriate and necessary funds for recreation and
maintenance purposes at Land Between the Lakes (LBL). This was
necessary due to ostensive neglect towards this unit from the Forest
Service (USFS). In fact, while appropriations to USFS as a whole had
increased by 36 percent over 10 years, allocations to LBL had actually
decreased. As a result, LBL has had to dip into their reserve funds to
cover costs that should be provided through the region's allocations.
Will you commit to working with the unit and regional office to
devote the appropriate funds and resources to LBL in fiscal year 23 and
beyond?
Answer. We commit to working with the unit and regional office as
resources are allocated to the field. Further, we commit to working
with your office to ensure your questions regarding allocations are
answered.
Question. Diminished funding has forced LBL to restructure their
budget to meet salaries and expenses. It has also rendered it unable to
devote resources to improving the unit through maintenance and
recreational activities. It appears LBL is being punished for
performing well.
Does the Forest Service view the LBL reserve account, funded by
collected fees, as a reason to allocate less to the unit?
Answer. No, the reserve account is not viewed as a reason to
allocate less to the unit. In fact, the Forest Service has made a
significant and sustained investment in the Land Between the Lakes
National Recreation Area (LBL) through annual appropriations and other
sources of funding authorized for LBL. LBL receives 10.04 percent of
the base recreation allocation to the units (not including
Congressional Directives to LBL). That is the second highest in the
region behind National Forests in NC at 11.25 percent. The
Congressional Directive funds received by LBL in fiscal year 2021
($666,668) and fiscal year 2022 ($1 million) increased the LBL
allocation for recreation to the highest in the Southern Region. In
fiscal year 2022, LBL received 52 percent of the base recreation
allocation to the units due to the $1 million Congressional Directive.
As a result, the recreation allocation to LBL increased by 67 percent
while all other units across the Southern Region decreased by 28
percent. LBL ranks 11th in the Southern Region in visitation with
958,000 visits or 4 percent of the visits in the region. LBL is ranked
14th in national forest acres in the region with 171,000 or 1 percent
of the total acres.
Additionally, as expenses have increased, reliance on the reserve
account has also increased. The Forest Service is committed to being
the best stewards of the dollars we are provided and will continue to
look for new ways to maximize our existing funding.
Question. Should the LBL Recreation and Heritage Act become law,
will you commit to carrying it out exactly as the language intends?
Answer. The Forest Service recognizes the significance of the Land
Between the Lakes Protection Recreation and Heritage Act and the
uniqueness of this treasured piece of public land within the National
Forest System. We share the commitment to ensure the LBL is a safe and
enjoyable place for visitors to recreate. The Forest Service would like
to work with the Minority Leader and Congress to address our concerns
with the LBL Recreation and Heritage Act to ensure we continue to be
good stewards of the LBL.
Question. It has been stated that the main purpose of a National
Recreation Area is to preserve and enhance recreational opportunities,
rather than natural resource utilization.
With this in mind, how do you intend to administer the fiscal year
23 Budget for LBL?
Answer. The LBL intends to use fiscal year 2023 funding in the
following order of priority:
1. Road and facility maintenance.
2. Infrastructure improvement.
3. Additional fencing on the Elk and Bison Prairie to protect the
elk herd and manage chronic wasting disease
Question. Will you also commit to better transparency and
collaboration with local officials and residents to ensure the unit is
managed in a way that is suitable for those who use it most?
Answer. LBL leadership has spent several years working diligently
and purposefully to develop open discourse between the unit and local
leaders, including engagement and education on the unit's finances. The
Forest Service intends to continue its investment in LBL through our
people, funding, and the strong partnerships we have developed with
local organizations and the communities we serve. We continue to work
closely with local leaders and staff from the Kentucky and Tennessee
Congressional Delegations to be transparent with financial data. For
example, Chief Moore committed to sending the National Law Enforcement
Director to the LBL to meet with cooperators regarding law enforcement
on the LBL. This meeting occurred on April 13, 2022, and additional
meetings will follow. We are committed to continuing local dialogue
with county officials and Congressional offices around strategic
investments and opportunities at LBL, and we will continue working with
our cooperators to support law enforcement needs at LBL.
______
Question Submitted by Senator Marco Rubio
Question. In January, the U.S. Forest Service announced a 10-year
``Wildfire Crisis Strategy'' to comply with the provisions of the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which appropriated $5.5
billion to the Forest Service for land management on National Forest
Service lands, including for active land management and hazardous fuels
reduction. The Strategy focuses primarily on wildfire risk in western
states, and does not mention Florida once, despite Florida being home
to three national forests. Additionally, the Forest Service announced
$131 million in funding from IIJA in April, with none for Florida.
How will the Forest Service make equitable allocations of IIJA
monies moving forward to ensure that wildfire risk can be mitigated
across all of our National Forests?
Answer. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided the Forest
Service a down payment on the work the agency intends to accomplish
under the Wildfire Crisis Strategy. The 10 priority landscapes
announced in April 2022 in support of the Wildfire Crisis Strategy
focus on the West because of the fire history there over the past
several years. The agency has been working with external partners,
using science and fire history as an underpinning for determining where
to prioritize investments. Most of the exposure to communities from
wildfire exists in the west, and specifically, 80 percent of that
exposure exists in 10 percent of the landscape within a mixed conifer
vegetation type.
Our focus with the Wildfire Crisis Strategy is to mitigate exposure
as much as we can to high-risk communities, while also maintaining and
creating resilient landscapes. In addition to this approach, we have
also looked at other funding sources like disaster relief funds and
regular appropriation funds to invest in areas like Florida that are
not priority areas within the Strategy but still need fuels work done
both on and off national forests.
The National Forests in Florida received a $720,698 hazardous fuels
allocation from base appropriations for fiscal year 2022. Additionally,
of the $6 million the Southern Region received in disaster supplemental
hazardous fuels funds enacted in the 2022 Continuing Resolution, $1.03
million was sent to the Ocala National Forest in Florida.
SUBCOMMITTEE RECESS
Senator Merkley. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:38 a.m., Wednesday, May 4, the
subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene subject to the call of
the Chair.]
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2023
----------
WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2022
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met at 10:00 a.m. in room SD-124, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Jeff Merkley (chairman) presiding.
Present: Senators Merkley, Tester, Van Hollen, Heinrich,
and Murkowski.
INDIAN HEALTH SERVICE
STATEMENT OF HONORABLE ELIZABETH FOWLER, ACTING
DIRECTOR
ACCOMPANIED BY JILLIAN CURTIS, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JEFF MERKLEY
Senator Merkley. Today, we convene this hearing at an
important time when health care remains at the forefront of our
minds as we attempt to move past the COVID-19 pandemic. We
faced a number of challenges with wave after wave of new
variants, and we continue to confront the challenges of new
variants to come.
But I'm hopeful that we're finally making progress and
emerging from this pandemic with a better understanding of the
virus and with more tools in our toolbox available to fight its
effects and the fact that we're all here in person today is a
very good sign of the progress that we have made.
Welcome, IHS Acting Director Elizabeth Fowler. Good to have
you as well as Indian Health Service (IHS) Chief Financial
Officer Jillian Curtis. Good to have both of you here today and
for your willingness to answer the questions that the Senators
may have.
I look forward to hearing from both of you on how a
combination of fiscal year 2022 funding and previously-
appropriated supplemental funding is being used to address the
pandemic's ongoing impacts in Native communities, how we are
working to improve patient outcomes, how bipartisan
infrastructure funding will make an impact on water
infrastructure, and most importantly, how we are planning to
deal with future health care challenges with your agency's
proposed fiscal year 2023 budget.
Native communities have been disproportionately affected by
the COVID-19 pandemic with Native COVID mortality rates twice
as high as non-Native populations. Native Americans and Alaska
Natives have been hospitalized due to COVID-complications at a
rate four times higher than non-Hispanic white individuals.
Unfortunately, these differences are not uncommon even
outside the context of COVID-19. These disparities in health
care have long existed. The pandemic simply highlighted and
exacerbated them.
So the work to improve health outcomes for Native American
communities remains a vital challenge that we must tackle. To
that end, this committee provided Indian Health Service with
6.6 billion in the fiscal year 2022 Omnibus, a 394 million
increase in the agency's funding.
These increases were provided in the hope that we can move
the needle towards bettering the lives of Native Americans.
This is not only a moral obligation, it's a trust and treaty
responsibility that we must never lose sight of.
We can never fully atone for the sins of the past in this
country but we can and must do our best to live up to our
responsibility for providing the best available health care as
enshrined in treaties. Because no matter who you are or where
you live, health care simply is and ought to always be a
fundamental right in America.
I am pleased to see the Biden Administration shares this
commitment and has proposed significant new investments in the
Indian Health Service. The request includes $9.1 billion in
funding for fiscal year 2023 or a 2.49 billion or 38 percent
increase, and for the first time the request includes a
proposal to move IHS from discretionary funding to mandatory
funding.
I am keeping an open mind on this proposal and look forward
to discussing this in more detail in this hearing during our
questions, but I'll say right now that I agree with the
sentiments to want to provide financial stability to the agency
and to Native communities, and I'm pleased to see ideas being
proposed to prompt discussion on how we can address chronic
problems.
I do have concerns, however, that despite the significant
important reasons to change the funding trajectory, we need to
also make sure that there is an important congressional
oversight role and so how do those two pieces fit together: the
possibility of mandatory funding and congressional oversight.
I think I speak for most, if not all, of my colleagues on
this committee when I say this is something we are not easily
willing to forego. We feel that annual appropriations is an
important tool for ensuring close oversight and a close working
relationship with agencies and the programs we oversee.
We need to learn a lot more about how this proposal would
work and I look forward to having that detailed discussion with
you in the near future.
I am pleased to see proposed IHS facilities requests of
$1.6 billion, an increase of 626 million or 67 percent, for
tribal infrastructure, medical equipment, water infrastructure
investments to improve access to drinking water and clean water
systems in Indian Country.
This investment in water infrastructure is critically
important for the health and well-being of any community. The
water infrastructure funding provided for fiscal year 2022
comes on top of the $3.5 billion that I'm proud we're able to
provide for tribal water systems in the bipartisan
infrastructure law.
There is a direct correlation between improved water and
sanitation systems and improved public health. The
infrastructure funding was, frankly, an astounding level of
investment. It cleared out a backlog that we know will soon be
replaced by other projects that are desperately needed by other
Native communities.
I look forward to hearing how all of this funding is being
spent and how we can continue to focus on these investments.
In Oregon, for example, the Confederated Tribes of Warm
Springs has 57 miles of pipes in such a state of disrepair that
much of the community is repeatedly left without running water
and are under almost perpetual instructions to have to boil
their water to make it safe to drink.
The system is operated by a computer that was established
from a landfill that's running on a very old and unsecured
version of Windows. It's been obsolete for many years, just a
symbol, if you will, of how out of date this infrastructure is,
how much it's in need of restoration.
In 2022, these are stories we shouldn't be hearing about in
the United States of America. We must do better. So there's a
lot to discuss and I look forward to that conversation.
And now I'd like to turn to our Ranking Member Senator
Murkowski for any opening remarks that she would like to make.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR LISA MURKOWSKI
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good
morning. Good morning, Ms. Fowler. It's good to have you before
the committee here this morning. We had an opportunity to have
you before the Indian Affairs Committee last week, so
appreciate you coming back to the Hill, and an opportunity to
discuss the fiscal year 2023 budget proposal.
Mr. Chairman, you have noted the issue about the decision
that has been made by the Administration proposing to
reclassify the entire agency's budget and so I just want to
thank you for having a hearing on this proposal because given
that we're looking at this proposed reclassification to put the
entire agency budget for fiscal year 2023 as mandatory, really
the 2023 IHS budget proposal is technically not in the
jurisdiction of the Appropriations Committee.
So I'm glad that we are having the decision to move forward
with this hearing despite some jurisdictional issues.
While we're not completely back to pre-pandemic level of
activity, I am hopeful that we've turned the corner on COVID.
Over the course of the pandemic, IHS received approximately
nine billion in supplemental funding to address both pandemic-
related expenses and other long-term infrastructure needs, like
electronic health records, information technology, and, in
addition to the investments made by COVID supplemental
packages, the bipartisan infrastructure law enacted last year
dedicated 3.5 billion for the IHS to fund all listed wastewater
and sanitation projects, as the Chairman has mentioned.
I have consistently raised this funding as a priority in
our hearings. So it's no secret that securing the money to
address the IHS backlog was something that I worked really hard
on to make sure it was included in the final infrastructure
package.
We've heard about potential administrative cost concerns
associated with these funds. So I'll have some follow-up
questions related to this in our back and forth after
statements here.
When you consider the COVID supplemental packages, the
bipartisan infrastructure law, and the annual appropriations
bills, the IHS has received approximately 37.5 billion over the
preceding 4 years. I think that this demonstrates our
commitment to working together in a bipartisan manner to
address our shared tribal priorities across the board.
Whether working together to navigate the budget
unpredictability and instability surrounding the 105L issue,
providing money to fully fund staffing packages, or trying to
address the overall needs of the entire health delivery system
while also taking into consideration administration and
congressional interests during a pandemic, I think the work has
been together and that has been so important.
When I became Chairman of this subcommittee back in 2016,
the annual appropriations level for the agency was 4.8 billion.
An indefinite appropriation for contract support costs was
created in my first bill as Chairman. Tribal lease payments
were not a significant portion of the budget, and one of my
priority issues, sanitation construction, was funded at 99
million.
Last year in Fiscal 2022, the agency received 6.6 billion.
In 7 years, the IHS has received an approximate 37.5 percent
increase in programmatic funding while the overall allocation
of the Interior Appropriations bill received an estimated
increase of 15 percent over this same period.
So I think it's important to recognize that this could not
have been accomplished if IHS was only my priority. This had to
be a shared priority and it clearly, clearly was.
The increases the IHS has received relative to the overall
increases for the Interior bill clearly sends the signal that
this agency is of bipartisan/bicameral importance, and the fact
that this subcommittee provided significant increased funding
to the IHS even during times of budget constraints and caps
should indicate that we are all dedicated and all committed to
ensuring access and quality care for Indian Country.
So in light of all of our shared accomplishments, I was
disappointed to read the 2023 budget proposal. Last year the
Administration proposed advanced appropriations for the entire
agency as well as a budget reclassification for the contract
support costs and the highly unpredictable 105L tribal lease
payments.
Advanced appropriations, as you know, Ms. Fowler, is
something that I have personally been supportive of over the
years. I also know that when this concept was proposed in the
budget last year, many of my colleagues and staff had technical
questions that went unanswered unfortunately and unexplained
for months.
This delay likely contributed to the omission of this
concept in the final Omnibus bill, but I was hopeful that those
conversations would have carried forward in an effort to
potentially set us up for success for at least some accounts in
fiscal year 2023, but this doesn't appear to be the direction
that the Administration took.
Not only does this budget proposal fail to take a lessons
learned approach in an effort to be successful, this budget
proposal takes a series conversation and I think it makes it
less serious which is disappointing.
Another area of concern is the recent actions of the agency
related to contract support costs. As you know, a large number
of tribes and tribal organizations are concerned the agency is
attempting to change the way these costs are calculated as a
result of the Cook Inlet Tribal Council decision and the Fort
Defiance letter.
So I appreciate the answers to my letter on this topic, but
I hope that we can get some additional information here today,
and while we're glad you are here today to provide testimony
and answer questions, I think it's just so important. We need
permanent leadership. We need permanent leadership at IHS.
As we all know, the agency was first put on GAO's High Risk
List back in 2017 and it's still there. It's critical the
agency have stable executive leadership in place to make
decisions and address those high-risk concerns.
So this past March the Administration nominated Ms. Roslyn
Tso, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and current Director of the
Navajo Area Indian Health Service, as the new Director. I do
believe that this is one of the last nominations for agency
leadership positions to be received in the Senate.
So while this is welcome news for us, I am concerned about
the length of time that it has taken to receive the nomination.
The annual appropriations process is never easy or quick,
but it is one that we work on together. So as we look to fiscal
year 2023, I hope that we're able to continue this bipartisan
tradition.
With that, Mr. Chairman, back to you, and I look forward to
the discussion this morning.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Senator.
Now we turn to Honorable Elizabeth Fowler. Welcome.
SUMMARY STATEMENT OF HON. ELIZABETH FOWLER
Ms. Fowler. Good morning. Chairman Merkley, Vice Chairman
Murkowski, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify on the President's fiscal year 2023
Budget Request for the Indian Health Service.
Before I turn to the fiscal year 2023 Request, I want to
first acknowledge and thank each of you for your work over the
years in growing the IHS budget and prioritizing tribal issues
within your bill.
With your support, the IHS budget has grown by 57 percent
in the last decade, and we know that type of growth is
challenging to accomplish in a constrained discretionary
funding environment.
Patients across Indian Country have benefited from your
efforts. This growth in funding has enabled us to address some
of the most critical issues facing the Indian Health System,
from addressing exponential growth and legally-required
contract support costs and Section 105(l) lease agreements to
resolving accreditation emergencies to bolstering the core
administrative functions of the agency.
We know you also fought hard to tackle urgent disparities
facing Indian Country, such as the opioid epidemic, HIV,
maternal health and suicide prevention.
Over the years this work has always been underscored by our
shared goal to improve health outcomes for all American Indians
and Alaska Natives. HHS deeply appreciates this partnership and
commitment.
It is with this shared goal in mind that the Administration
approached the fiscal year 2023 Budget Request for the Indian
Health Service. We know that despite our shared efforts, IHS is
still underfunded. Whether you look at per capita spending
rates compared to other Federal health programs or other
national health expenditure benchmarks, it is clear that
current funding is not sufficient to meet the needs of the over
2.7 million American Indians and Alaska Native patients that
IHS serves each year.
This underfunding of the Indian Health System directly
contributes to stark health disparities in tribal communities.
American Indian and Alaska Native people born today have a life
expectancy that is 5.5 years shorter than the U.S. all races
population with some tribes experiencing life expectancy as
much as 12 years shorter than the general population.
Longstanding health disparities were compounded by the
pandemic with American Indians and Alaska Natives experiencing
disproportionate rates of COVID-19 infection, hospitalization,
and death. Addressing these inequities is a moral imperative
for our nation, and it will require bold action from all of us
to ensure we are upholding our commitments to Indian Country.
IHS MANDATORY FUNDING PROPOSAL
That is why the President's fiscal year 2023 budget
proposes the first-ever mandatory budget for the Indian Health
Service. I acknowledge that this is a substantial change that
would fundamentally impact how IHS receives funding from
Congress. The Administration did not propose this change
lightly.
We believe that a change of this magnitude is needed to
deliver on the government's health care responsibility for
Indian Country.
This proposal is in line with longstanding recommendations
from tribal leaders across the nation, including in the Tribal
Consultation and Urban Confer HHS conducted last year on long-
term funding solutions for the IHS.
The fiscal year 2023 IHS budget is a starting point for
ongoing conversations with tribes and Congress to consider and
refine the proposal through the legislative process.
Just to summarize, the fiscal year 2023 budget includes a
total of $9.3 billion in mandatory funding for the Indian
Health Service which is $2.5 billion above the fiscal year
2022-enacted level.
For fiscal year 2024 to 2032, the budget would grow
automatically to account for the growing costs of providing
health care as well as population and pay growth.
This budget would address the three core issues identified
by GAO: funding stability, predictability, and adequacy. These
changes will allow IHS, tribal health programs, and urban
Indian organizations to more effectively plan and implement
health care services to best meet their community needs.
As we work towards securing stable and predictable funding
to meet the needs of Indian Country, we are committed to
working closely with our stakeholders and understand the
importance of working with partners, including Congress.
Thank you again for the opportunity to speak with you
today, happy to answer any questions that you might have.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Elizabeth Fowler
Good afternoon Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski, and
Members of the Committee. Thank you for your support and for inviting
me to speak with you about the President's fiscal year 2023 Budget
Request for the IHS.
The Indian Health Service (IHS) is an agency within the Department
of Health and Human Services (HHS) and our mission is to raise the
physical, mental, social, and spiritual health of American Indians and
Alaska Natives to the highest level. This mission is carried out in
partnership with American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal communities
through a network of over 687 Federal and Tribal health facilities and
41 Urban Indian Organizations (UIOs) that are located across 37 states
and provide healthcare services to approximately 2.7 million American
Indian and Alaska Native people annually.
On March 28, 2022, the White House released the President's fiscal
year 2023 Budget, which proposes the first-ever fully mandatory budget
for the IHS. The bold action taken in the fiscal year 2023 President's
Budget demonstrates the Administration's continued commitment to
strengthen the nation-to-nation relationship. This historic proposal
addresses long-standing challenges that have impacted communities
across Indian Country for decades.
The Indian Health system is chronically underfunded compared to
other healthcare systems in the U.S.\1\\2\ Despite substantial growth
in the IHS discretionary budget over the last decade, by 57 percent
from fiscal year 2012 to the current fiscal year 2022 enacted level,
the growth has not been sufficient to address the well documented
funding gaps in Indian Country. These funding deficiencies directly
contribute to stark health disparities faced by tribal communities.
American Indian and Alaska Native people born today have a life
expectancy that is 5.5 years shorter than the U.S. all-races
population, with some tribes experiencing life expectancy as much as 12
years shorter than the general population. They also experience
disproportionate rates of mortality from most major health issues,
including chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, diabetes, unintentional
injuries, assault and homicide, and suicide. The pandemic compounded
the impact of these disparities in tribal communities, with American
Indians and Alaska Natives experiencing disproportionate rates of
COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, and death.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Government Accountability Office Report--Indian Health Service:
Spending Levels and Characteristics of IHS and Three Other Federal
Health Care Programs https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-19-74r.pdf
\2\ U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Report--Broken Promises:
Continuing Federal Funding Shortfall for Native Americans https://
www.usccr.gov/files/pubs/2018/12-20-Broken-Promises.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
long-term funding solutions
Our budget plays a critical role in advancing a healthier future
for American Indian and Alaska Native people. Growth beyond what can be
accomplished through discretionary spending is necessary to address
funding gaps and remediate health disparities. Mandatory spending is a
more appropriate avenue to provide high-quality healthcare that is
reliable and widely available for American Indians and Alaska Natives.
To address this historic underinvestment in IHS, the mandatory
budget provides $9.3 billion in fiscal year 2023, which includes $147
million in current law authorized funding for the Special Diabetes
Program for Indians. This is an increase of +$2.5 billion or 37 percent
above the fiscal year 2022 enacted level. This immediate surge of
funding is necessary to address long-standing gaps in healthcare and
tackle chronic health disparities faced across Indian Country.
Mandatory funding for the IHS provides the opportunity for
significant funding increases that could not be achieved under
discretionary funding caps. Further, this mandatory funding proposal
would authorize and appropriate funding over 10 years, through fiscal
year 2032, ensuring predictability that would allow IHS, tribal, and
urban Indian health programs the opportunity for long-term and
strategic planning. This increased stability and ability to conduct
longer-term planning will improve quality of healthcare, promote
recruitment and retention of health professionals, and enhance
management efficiencies for individual health programs and the Indian
Health system at large.
Specifically, the mandatory budget proposal culminates in a total
funding level of approximately $36.7 billion in fiscal year 2032. When
compared with the fiscal year 2022 enacted level of $6.8 billion, the
Fiscal year 2032 proposed funding level represents an increase of
nearly +$30 billion or +442 percent. In total, the 10-year budget
includes over $248 billion for the IHS.
The budget also exempts the IHS from sequestration for proposed
funding, which is the legislatively mandated process of budget control
consisting of automatic, across-the-board spending reductions to
enforce budget targets to limit Federal spending. Exempting the IHS
budget from sequestration ensures funding for direct healthcare
services for American Indians and Alaska Natives is not reduced and is
consistent with the treatment of other critical programs such as
veterans' benefits and nutrition assistance programs. The budget also
includes inflation factors to address the growing cost of providing
direct healthcare services, including pay costs, medical and non-
medical inflation, and population growth.
This request responds to the long-standing recommendations of
tribal leaders shared in consultation with HHS and IHS to make IHS
funding mandatory, and IHS will continue consulting with tribes to
inform future policy and budget requests.
prioritizing high quality health care
In fiscal year 2023, the budget prioritizes investments that
advance high quality healthcare and tackle the stark inequities that
exist in the Indian Health system. This includes a +$243 million
increase to the Indian Health Care Improvement Fund to provide
additional health services and address resource disparities across the
Indian health system. Likewise, the budget prevents a sharp reduction
in services by providing an additional +$220 million to partially
sustain the one-time American Rescue Plan Act investments that were
appropriated to expand access to mental health and substance abuse
prevention and treatment services, and to expand the public health
workforce in Indian Country.
The Budget also includes a +$215 million general increase to
Hospitals and Health Clinics to expand access to direct healthcare
services, which would provide an estimated 41 thousand inpatient
admissions and almost 16 million outpatient visits at IHS and Tribal
facilities. The Purchased/Referred Care program, which supports the
purchase of essential healthcare services not available in IHS and
Tribal healthcare facilities, is expanded by +$206 million, providing
an estimated 7,333 additional inpatient admissions; 182,319 additional
outpatient visits; and 8,006 additional patient travel trips. This
Purchased/Referred Care increase would also support establishment of an
Arizona statewide Purchased/Referred Care Designation Area, as directed
in the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, which will expand access to
care for over 67,000 IHS patients in Arizona. The Budget also expands
dental health services by supporting an additional estimated 1 million
dental visits in fiscal year 2023 through a +$48 million investment.
Expansion of these programs is essential to ensure that IHS can provide
high quality medical services and support critical healthcare services
through contracts with hospitals and other healthcare providers to
purchase specialized or critical care when IHS and tribally-managed
facilities are unable to provide the services directly.
In addition, Current Services, which offset the rising costs of
providing direct healthcare services, are fully funded at +$207
million. These resources will help the IHS to maintain services at the
fiscal year 2022 levels by shoring up base operating budgets of IHS,
Tribal, and urban Indian health programs in the face of increasing
costs. Similarly, +$102 million is provided to fully fund staffing and
operating costs for eight newly-constructed or expanded healthcare
facilities. These funds support the staffing packages for new or
expanded facilities, which will expand the availability of direct
healthcare services in areas where existing healthcare capacity is
overextended.
The budget also makes targeted investments to address our Nation's
most pressing public health challenges, which disproportionately impact
American Indian and Alaska Native communities. This includes HIV and
Hepatitis C (+$47 million), improving maternal health (+$4 million),
and addressing opioid use (+$9 million).
IHS also recognizes the importance of providing culturally
competent care to American Indians and Alaska Natives who live off-
reservation or in urban areas. To address this, the Urban Indian Health
Program is expanded by +$27 million to provide additional culturally
competent direct healthcare services through a network of 41 Urban
Indian Organizations located in urban areas across the country. This
investment will provide an estimated 1.1 additional million healthcare,
outreach, and referral services to urban Indian users in fiscal year
2023.
In fiscal year 2023, the budget also makes numerous investments in
high priority areas, such as recruitment and retention of high quality
health professionals, expansion of the successful National Community
Health Aide Program, expanding emergency medical services, and other
activities that support high quality healthcare.
While these fiscal year 2023 investments will make significant
progress to address the most urgent healthcare needs, further growth is
needed to address sustained underfunding of the Indian Health system
that has resulted in documented gaps in funding and service provision.
Over 5 years, from fiscal year 2024 to fiscal year 2028, the budget
grows to address the funding gap for direct healthcare services
documented in the fiscal year 2018 level of need funded analysis.\3\
The level of need gap analysis calculated $11.2 billion as the point in
time estimated funding shortfall identified for a baseline of health
services in fiscal year 2018. This funding increase would be
distributed across the IHS funding lines that provide direct healthcare
services, ensuring a broad benefit of this investment for all tribes,
while also seeking to address funding disparities within the Indian
Health system.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ (FY) 2018 Indian Health Care Improvement Fund Workgroup Interim
Report https://www.ihs.gov/sites/ihcif/themes/responsive2017/
display_objects/documents/2018/2018_IHCIF_WorkgroupInterimReport.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
modernizing critical infrastructure
In addition to funding for direct healthcare services, additional
investments are needed to address substantial deficiencies in physical
and information technology infrastructure across the IHS system.
Outdated infrastructure can pose challenges in safely providing patient
care, recruiting and retaining staff, and meeting accreditation
standards. From fiscal year 2023 through fiscal year 2028, the budget
includes critical funding increases to reduce or eliminate existing
facilities backlogs and modernize the IHS Electronic Health Record
(EHR).
Specifically, the budget provides $285 million in fiscal year 2023
and +$6 billion from fiscal year 2024 to fiscal year 2028 to stabilize
the current system and replace IHS's EHR with a modernized system. The
current IHS EHR is over 50 years old, and the GAO identifies it as one
of the 10 most critical Federal legacy systems in need of
modernization. The IHS relies on its EHR for all aspects of patient
care, including the patient record, prescriptions, care referrals, and
billing public and private insurance for over $1 billion reimbursable
healthcare services annually. The EHR holds an extremely high degree of
mission criticality given the ability to provide much-anticipated
clinical and administrative capabilities used in modern systems for the
delivery of timely and impactful healthcare. Expected benefits from
adopting and implementing a modernized system include, but are not
limited to, improved patient safety, improved patient outcomes, better
disease management, enhanced population health, improved clinical
quality measures, opioid tracking, patient data exchange, third party
revenue generation, and agency performance reporting. Additionally, the
new system will be interoperable with the Department of Veterans
Affairs, Department of Defense, tribal and urban Indian health
programs, academic affiliates, and community partners, many of whom are
on different health information technology platforms.
The IHS system also faces substantial physical infrastructure
challenges--IHS hospitals are approximately 40 years old on average,
which is almost four times the age of the average hospital in the
United States. Infrastructure deficiencies directly contribute to
poorer health outcomes for American Indians and Alaska Natives. The
Budget addresses these needs by fully fund the 1993 Health Care
Facilities Construction Priority list. The remaining projects on the
list include the Phoenix Indian Medical Center, Phoenix, AZ; Whiteriver
Hospital, Whiteriver, AZ; Gallup Indian Medical Center, Gallup, NM;
Albuquerque West Health Center, Albuquerque, NM; Albuquerque Central
Health Center, Albuquerque, NM; and Sells Health Center, Sells, AZ.
Furthermore, the budget includes $102 million in fiscal year 2023
and +$454 million over 5 years, from fiscal year 2024 to fiscal year
2028, to ensure IHS can replace medical and laboratory equipment at the
end of its six to eight-year life cycle. Many IHS hospital
administrators reported that old or inadequate physical environments
challenged their ability to provide quality care and maintain
compliance with the Medicare Hospital Conditions of Participation. The
administrators also reported that aging buildings and equipment is a
major challenge impacting recruitment and retention of clinicians.
Maintaining reliable and efficient buildings is also challenge as
existing healthcare facilities age and the costs to operate and
properly maintain healthcare facilities increases. Many IHS and Tribal
healthcare facilities are operating at or beyond capacity, and their
designs are not efficient in the context of modern healthcare delivery.
In fiscal year 2023, the Budget tackles this challenge by including a
+$172 million increase for maintenance and improvement to reduce the
Backlog of Essential Maintenance, Alteration, and Repair, as well as
routine maintenance and repair to sustain the condition of Federal and
Tribal healthcare facilities, and environmental compliance projects to
meet changing healthcare delivery needs. The Budget proposes to fully
fund all existing projects by fiscal year 2028.
Lastly, the IHS is grateful for the additional $3.5 billion in
Sanitation Facilities Construction funding provided by the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). These funds will make a
transformational impact in shoring up essential sanitation facilities
across Indian Country. In order to maintain existing project completion
deadlines and support IHS and Tribes in successfully implementing IIJA
resources, the budget includes +$49 million to support implementation
of the $3.5 billion provided by the IIJA for Sanitation Facilities
Construction (SFC). This funding will support additional salary,
expenses, and administrative costs beyond the 3 percent allowed in the
IIJA. These funds would also be available to Tribal Health Programs,
which is not currently permissible under the 3 percent set-aside for
administrative costs in the IIJA.
The budget also proposes a new $18 million program to recruit and
retain new public health engineers by partnering with colleges and
universities to implement a scholarship program with service
requirements in support of Sanitation Facilities Construction projects
across Indian Country. The IHS owns over 10.2 million square feet of
facilities across 2,119 buildings and 1,758 acres of Federal and trust
land. The nature of this space varies from sophisticated medical
centers to residential units and utility plants. Facilities range in
age from less than 1 year to more than 167 years. A professional and
fully- functional workforce is essential to ensure effective and
efficient operations.
supporting self-determination
IHS continues to support the self-determination of tribes to
operate their own health programs. Tribal leaders and members are best
positioned to understand the priorities and needs of their local
communities. The amount of the IHS budget that is administered directly
by tribes through Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance
Act contracts and compacts has grown over time, with over 60 percent of
IHS funding currently administered directly by tribes. Tribes design
and manage the delivery of individual and community health services
through 22 hospitals, 319 health centers, 552 ambulatory clinics, 79
health stations, 146 Alaska village clinics, and 8 school health
centers across Indian Country. In recognition of this, the budget
includes a mandatory indefinite appropriation for Contract Support
Costs and Section 105(l) lease agreements with estimated funding levels
of $1.1 billion for Contract Support Costs and $150 million for Section
105(l) Lease Agreements in fiscal year 2023. The budget maintains
indefinite mandatory funding for these accounts across the 10-year
budget window to ensure these payments to tribes are fully funded.
covid-19 response and future emergency preparedness
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the IHS has made incredible
achievements to save lives and improve the health of American Indian
and Alaska Natives across the nation. The IHS has worked closely with
our Tribal and Urban Indian Organization partners, state and local
public health officials, and our fellow Federal agencies to coordinate
a comprehensive public health response to the pandemic. Our number one
priority has been the safety of our IHS patients and staff, as well as
Tribal community members.
However, it is clear that COVID-19 has disproportionally impacted
American Indian and Alaska Natives. Deficiencies in public health
infrastructure exacerbated the impact of COVID-19 on American Indians
and Alaska Natives. Based on data from 14 states, age-adjusted COVID-19
associated mortality among American Indians and Alaska Natives was 1.8
times that of non- Hispanic Whites. In 23 states with adequate race and
ethnicity data, the cumulative incidence of laboratory-confirmed COVID-
19 among American Indians and Alaska Natives was 3.5 times that of non-
Hispanic Whites. In the state of Montana, COVID-19 incidence and
mortality rates among American Indian and Alaska Natives were 2.2 and
3.8 times those among White persons, respectively. The CDC has also
reported that 1 in every 168 American Indian and Alaska Native Children
experienced the death of a parent or primary caregiver due to COVID-19,
4.5 times more likely than non-Hispanic White children.
The budget's proposed investments proposed in direct services and
infrastructure will make substantial progress toward ensuring these
stark disparities are not repeated in future pandemics. Additionally,
to ensure that the IHS is prepared for future emergencies, the budget
requests +$10 million for emergency preparedness activities at IHS
Headquarters and Area offices to establish a dedicated emergency
preparedness workforce at IHS and support relevant training and
capacity building efforts. These additional resources will ensure IHS
has adequate emergency preparedness capacity to serve American Indian
and Alaska Native communities during future public health emergencies.
closing
The fiscal year 2023 budget makes bold strides toward the goal of
ensuring stable and predictable funding to improve the overall health
status of for American Indian and Alaska Natives. The budget is a
historic first step and the start of an ongoing conversation with
tribes to ensure the IHS system is meeting the healthcare needs in
Indian Country. HHS looks forward to working in consultation with
tribes, urban Indian organizations, and Congress to refine this
historic proposal through the legislative process to achieve sustained
improvements in health status and strengthen the Nation-to-Nation
relationship.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, and with your
agreement, we'll put your entire written testimony into the
record. No objections on the committee, so ordered.
And let's start with this question of the mandatory
funding. So it certainly does relate to having stable and
predictable budget, but as I mentioned in my initial testimony,
there's always some reservation on Capitol Hill to forego the
oversight function, and this is set up as a structure for a 10-
year period, and it's quite different from the advanced
appropriation request that I championed last year at the
request of IHS and that we supported in our Senate bill.
ADVANCE APPROPRIATIONS
We ultimately did not get agreement on the final
negotiations between the four corners, the final decision-
makers, but I thought that that had a lot of merit to make sure
Indian Health Services did not shut down during an government
shutdown which was a previous significant problem.
Is it the case that the Administration is dropping its
request for advanced appropriations in favor of the
reclassification of mandatory spending?
Ms. Fowler. So the mandatory proposal for the Indian Health
Service, if enacted, would eliminate the need for advanced
appropriations for the agency.
CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT
Senator Merkley. Okay. So the answer is yes, and how would
you envision that there would be any congressional oversight
under that structure?
Ms. Fowler. We understand that if the mandatory proposal
were to be enacted, that we would fall under the jurisdiction
of our authorizing committees which we would work with in an
oversight role, but we also understand the need to continue to
be responsive to the Appropriations Committees, as well, and we
would be happy to work with the Appropriations Committees on
any questions or inquiries or any interests that they have in
continuing to review our budget and request information from
us.
Senator Merkley. So in partnership with our colleagues from
Indian Affairs, we've been trying to schedule a meeting with
OMB and IHS to explore the technical details and there's not
been a responsive communication from the Administration.
So can we get your assurances that this meeting will happen
shortly?
Ms. Fowler. Yes, as I understand, OMB will be leading a
briefing that we anticipate will occur next week.
Senator Merkley. Okay. Great. Because if the Administration
is not responsive, then it's clear it's not a serious proposal
and so we're ready to dive into the details and explore it, but
we need the partnership from the Executive Branch in that
regard.
COVID PREVALENCE
So let's turn to COVID. So the positive test rate remains
high, and we are seeing across the country stagnating vaccine
rates.
Are we seeing the same trends across Indian Country?
Ms. Fowler. We are. We are seeing higher positivity rates,
but we believe that is from more patients coming in who are
symptomatic for testing but a lower volume of testing and so as
an example, in January there were 12,000 COVID tests performed
and in April there were 2,000 tests performed. So the positive
test results combined with the lower denominator is resulting
in a higher positivity rate.
Senator Merkley. That makes sense. Thank you for explaining
that.
COVID VACCINES AND THERAPEUTICS
And the Administration has requested $22.5 billion for
COVID response and there was no specific request for IHS, but
it's my understanding that the funding requested by HHS, Health
and Human Services, that a certain share would be transferred
to IHS. Is that your understanding, as well?
Ms. Fowler. Yes, IHS is a jurisdiction that receives
vaccines and therapeutics from the HHS.
Senator Merkley. Okay. Do you know how much would be
transferred under the Administration's vision?
Ms. Fowler. It's not a funding amount that gets
transferred. We receive the vaccines directly and we receive
the therapeutics and some supplies directly.
Senator Merkley. So let's talk about the therapeutics.
We've got a couple companies that have produced pills, Merck
and Pfizer that seem to be significant.
Are these pills being currently distributed to IHS
facilities? Do people who need those therapeutics, can they
readily access them?
Ms. Fowler. Yes, currently we are able to meet 100 percent
of the demand from the IHS, Tribal, and Urban Facilities that
are requesting those therapeutics.
Senator Merkley. You are requesting therapeutics?
Ms. Fowler. I said we're able to meet 100 percent of the
demand from those facilities that are requesting therapeutics.
Senator Merkley. Okay. Great. We've seen interesting
reports across the nation from health care clinics that
essentially have had the therapeutics, but they don't even
prescribe them when people come in. It's been a strange
arrangement where we've got a tool that can be very helpful and
when a person is early in the phase of the infection and not
necessarily being fully utilized.
I'm not talking about Indian Health Service specifically,
more health services more broadly.
WARM SPRINGS WATER INFRASTRUCTURE
Let me turn to Warm Springs water infrastructure, and as
we've discussed in the past, they've got an ancient system of
pipes. The pressure gauges are always breaking or pressure
control valves. The pipes are splitting. It's just the
contamination results in a lot of the times the water simply is
unsafe to drink. They've been under the continuous boil
notices, meaning they have to boil their water to drink it.
So we are really pleased that the infrastructure bill had
$3.5 billion to clear the backlog on the sanitation
deficiencies list at the time of passage and we're looking
forward to seeing the projects actually get done.
Do you have a timeline for the Warm Springs project?
Ms. Fowler. So the last time we talked, there was a
preliminary engineering assessment that was going to be
completed, which has been completed. We now know that the
project will cost roughly $24 million to complete. It is a Tier
1 project. So we do anticipate that it will be funded with
fiscal year 2022 funding, whether from the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act funding or the annual appropriation.
As I understand it, it will take 30 to 36 months to
complete once we have the funding available for the project,
which we anticipate will be very soon.
Senator Merkley. Great. Is very soon like within the next
couple weeks?
Ms. Fowler. I would think so, yes.
Senator Merkley. Can you personally keep me briefed on
this? It's so important to the Warm Springs Tribe in my state.
Ms. Fowler. Yes.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much.
I'll turn to Senator Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
CHANGE IN IHS BUDGET PROPOSALS
Ms. Fowler, I'd like to go back to the discussion that the
Chairman has raised about mandatory versus the discretionary.
You confirmed to him that in fact the Administration has now
decided to take an approach on mandatory as opposed to the
advanced appropriation, and you indicated that, well, if we
move to mandatory, that means that we don't have to look to
advanced appropriations.
But I guess I'm trying to understand why, why the
Administration chose to move in this direction instead of
proposing advanced appropriations again.
Ms. Fowler. Thank you, Senator Murkowski.
I'm just going to be frank here. The Indian Health System
needs substantial funding to meet the needs that are out there
in Indian Country, and we're not able to accomplish that within
the discretionary spending caps on the mandatory side of the
budget as has been proposed for fiscal year 2023 and the 10-
year timeframe.
We're proposing that the budget will grow by almost 300
percent over that 10-year period, and so we believe that it is
an approach that is more suitable for funding Indian health
care.
MANDATORY FUNDING LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL
Senator Murkowski. Well, as I mentioned in my statement and
as I have said over the years, I believe that IHS has been
chronically underfunded and we need to make improvements.
You and I both noted in our comments that those
improvements over the years have been dramatic in terms of the
funding, but with funding also comes the role of oversight and
that's where the committees come in.
I am in that enviable position, maybe it's not so enviable,
maybe it's just more responsibility, but I am not only the
appropriator for IHS as the Ranking Member on this subcommittee
but I'm also the authorizer as the Ranking Member on Indian
Affairs Committee, and so I appreciate what you've shared that
there's going to be a meeting with OMB coming up.
This is the first that I have heard of it. I'm asking my
staff to confirm whether they have been notified of any such
meeting because so far as I know, there is no legislative
proposal out there in terms of new authorizing language to
account for this shift and what we're trying to figure out here
is whether or not you have identified how you're going to be
paying for the shift to mandatory appropriations.
At what point do you expect that you will send to the
Indian Affairs Committee a legislative proposal to mark up a
mandatory funding bill for fiscal year 2023?
Ms. Fowler. I know that there's a supporting document that
is under development. I will have to get back to you on that
timeframe of when we'll be able to submit it.
Senator Murkowski. So I guess I have to admit a little bit
of confusion here because what we've got is technically there's
no discretionary appropriations language or money proposed for
fiscal year 2023. The discretionary funding levels for the IHS
in fiscal year 2022 was $6.6 billion.
So in theory, if there's not a discretionary proposal for
the Interior bill this year, there's $6.6 billion that is
currently unaccounted for.
So, Mr. Chairman, we're looking here at $6.6 billion in
base Indian Health Service funding that can't be used by an
authorizing committee to pay for mandatory funding on an annual
basis. It certainly wouldn't cover the scoring for a 10-year
window that you've just noted, but it's also been 2 months now
since the budget was released.
The end of the fiscal year is a little over four and a half
months away. So the clock is ticking here. So if you're
planning on sending this plan up, I don't see how you're giving
us the time as whether we are authorizing or whether we are
appropriating to consider this in a way that is viewed as a
serious proposal, and so I share the Chairman's concern here
that if this is serious coming from the Administration, if we
recognize that we've got to be doing this together, you've got
to be working with us a little bit more instead of coming to a
hearing and saying, well, we're going to sit down and talk with
you about what the plan is.
We are in the midst now of these budget and appropriations
discussions. So I don't know. Is it your proposal that there be
no IHS title in the fiscal year 2023 Interior appropriations
bill this year?
Ms. Fowler. That is the proposal, yes.
Senator Murkowski. So there would be nothing in the IHS
title?
Ms. Fowler. Correct.
APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE OVERSIGHT
Senator Murkowski. So oversight again absolutely key to
everything that we do around here. In fairness, I don't think
we do enough of it, but I think that this is one of the areas
within the Appropriations Committee where we are able to do
active oversight.
Will you commit to answering questions from this
Appropriations Subcommittee even though you would propose to
delete the discretionary account from the Interior bill?
Ms. Fowler. Yes, we will commit to that.
CONTRACT SUPPORT COSTS (CSC)
Senator Murkowski. Let me ask about contract support costs.
I've raised the issue of the decision in Cook Inlet Tribal and
the Fort Defiance letter. There's a lot of questions and
concerns. Again, we received your response last week, but
there's still some things that I need some clarification on.
For the record, in your letter you state that ``the agency
interprets the Cook Inlet decision and the Fort Defiance letter
as a restatement of current law and practice.'' You also say
that ``the IHS will maintain current methods for calculating
CSC and that there's no plan to change any of the
calculations.''
So the question that I would have for you this morning is
are both of those statements correct and would you support
codifying current practice in legislative text if you would
agree that those statements are correct?
Ms. Fowler. I agree that the statements are correct. We're
not changing any method of calculating contract support costs
as a result of the Cook Inlet decision. We believe the Cook
Inlet decision affirms current statute, and current
interpretation of the statute, and therefore we believe that
there's not a reason to codify the current practice of
calculating contract support costs.
Senator Murkowski. So there's some buzz out there that this
may be a situation where Cook Inlet was just one example. In
the case of the Fort Defiance letter, it stated that the
``Federal Government errantly overpaid CSC in prior years and
were seeking to correct it.''
So the discussion that is out there is whether or not the
Fort Defiance issue is the only example where the Federal
Government errantly overpaid. So the question that I would have
of you is whether you know if this is the only instance in
which IHS has made overpayments and whether or not you
conducted any type of an analysis that would lead you to that
conclusion.
Ms. Fowler. So there's a process for reconciling contract
support costs owed to tribes. We're required to fully pay the
amount of contract support costs required for a tribal
contract.
During that process of reconciliation, sometimes there are
overpayments that are identified. Sometimes there are
underpayments that are identified. The tribe can bring a
Contract Disputes Act claim for an underpayment, and IHS can do
the same for an overpayment, and there are other instances
where the Indian Health Service has identified overpayments of
contract support costs and has sought repayment or has sought
to reconcile the overpayment through the means that are
available to us.
Senator Murkowski. So, Mr. Chairman, my time is well over.
I may come back to this because I'm trying to determine whether
or not there's been any type of a comprehensive analysis of
whether or not overpayments are at issue and the extent of
that.
I'll defer now to my colleague.
Senator Merkley. Thank you.
SANITATION AND FACILITIES PROJECTS
Senator Heinrich.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman.
Ms. Fowler, there are literally hundreds of projects
representing over $3.3 billion on the IHS fiscal year 2021
Annual Report of Sanitation Deficiency Levels. Projects in my
state alone represent nearly $200 million in water and
sanitation projects.
As you know, Congress included a total of $3.5 billion for
the IHS Sanitation and Facilities Account to be spent over the
next 5 years in the infrastructure law.
Walk us through what the current status of actually getting
that funding on the ground and how IHS is preparing agency
personnel and resources to get those projects on that list
built.
Ms. Fowler. Thank you, Senator.
When the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was passed,
Indian Health Service quickly planned and implemented a
consultation process on an allocation method for that funding.
We held some sessions in December and a session in January. So
we held several consultation sessions on the funding.
Once those sessions were completed, we compiled the
comments. We reviewed the comments and considered every piece
of input that we had received from the tribes. We then began
working on a spend plan.
We also worked on a spend plan for the administrative
portion of the funding and working to identify what staffing
resources were going to be needed in order to implement the
funding and worked to identify how we were going to hire that
many staff. It's a considerable number that are going to be
needed. And so we had a couple of different tracks that were
moving, proceeding.
We're at the point now where our spend plan for the
projects is in the last stage of review, and we anticipate that
we'll be able to announce the decision that we made for which
projects are going to be funded with the fiscal year 2022
portion of the $3.5 billion very soon.
We are also putting----
Senator Heinrich. How much will that represent in actual
projects? Do you have a dollar figure yet?
Ms. Fowler. Let's see. It's $700 million per year and then
there's three percent--sorry. I'm going to ask my Chief
Financial Officer. She probably has the numbers at her
fingertips.
MS. CURTIS: Certainly. We do expect that the bulk majority
of the resources will be used specifically for project
construction. There is the $21 million for admin, of course,
and then the small portion of funding that goes to the OIG who
we have already started engaging with on oversight issues, but
we expect----
Senator Heinrich. So you're planning to largely just split
it up equally over the 5 years?
MS. CURTIS: Since we received the same $700 million each
year, we will take a similar approach each year.
TIMELINE FOR PROJECT CONSTRUCTION
Senator Heinrich. Okay. How soon do you think we can see
actual work on the ground within the projects that you've
selected? Not trying to micromanage which projects make it into
that first tranche, but when are we going to see the actual
work begin?
Ms. Fowler. I would say actual construction is actually
going to take some time. It's going to take several months
because even the Tier 1 projects, which are ready to fund,
still require some additional documentation to be completed and
so that will take some months to complete.
So before actual construction and on the groundwork begins,
I would say it's going to be into next year before that even
begins on any project.
ALBUQUERQUE IHS SYSTEM
Senator Heinrich. Okay. Let me shift gears to over the
course of the last year, the Albuquerque area IHS System closed
two hospital intensive care units, one at Acoma-Canoncito-
Laguna, another at Mescalero. They did that citing lack of
resources as a contributing factor to the closures, and IHS has
now decreased service in both locations to only business hour
urgent care centers.
As you know, Congress has passed historic funding for the
IHS through CARES, through the American Rescue Plan, and this
budget also increases overall funding for the IHS.
So I'm trying to reconcile the disconnect between the
historic funding that we've passed in the last 2 years, the
increase in the current budget, the increase that we heard of
about over the course of the last 5 years, and the disconnect
between that and the lack of service at Acoma-Canoncito-Laguna
and at the Mescalero site.
Why are we seeing those reductions in services at the same
time we're increasing overall funding?
Ms. Fowler. Let me start with the Acoma-Canoncito-Laguna
facility. The lack of resources there was the result of two of
the three tribes withdrawing and seeking to manage their own
health care programs under the Indian Self-Determination and
Education Assistance Act.
Senator Heinrich. The 638 Program?
Ms. Fowler. Yes, the 638. So the resources that were left
that were the Pueblo Acoma share of that funding of that
hospital was not enough to sustain an inpatient facility and so
we did use CARES Act funding. We did use some supplemental
funding to maintain operation, ER and inpatient services, at
that facility for a year beyond the intended closure of the
facility, but at that point there were no other resources that
were available to us to continue those services.
The Mescalero facility, the issue there is the inpatient
census had been decreasing to the point that we could not
accomplish accreditation as an inpatient facility.
The Joint Commission would not survey the facility as an
inpatient facility because there were not enough inpatients
that it would consider it to be a hospital at that point.
I don't think that that is unusual in very rural areas of
the country, and so we started to consider what is the best way
to continue to ensure access to primary health care for the
tribal members who reside in that location and taking the
resources, running an inpatient facility is very expensive
because you have the 24-hour support that's needed, and so we
began to consider what is the best approach for some of our
hospitals that were unable to achieve that accreditation that's
necessary and also to assure the quality and safety of the care
that's being provided.
And so we chose to shift to the urgent care model and the
primary health care availability during the normal business
hours of the clinic.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Senator Van Hollen.
AMERICAN INDIANS IN URBAN AREAS
Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Fowler, it's great to have you here and it's great to
have a University of Maryland alum.
Let me turn to the issue of American Indians in urban areas
because in the state of Maryland, we have 40,000 individuals
who identify themselves as American Indian or part American
Indian and nearly half of that population resides in Baltimore,
and as you know nationally seven out of 10 American Indian or
Alaska Native people reside in urban areas.
In my view, this is a population that has not received the
attention or services that are deserved. That's why earlier
this year Senator Padilla and I and a few others wrote to the
President and the Vice President asking the Administration to
form an Urban Indian Interagency Workgroup. We've not gotten a
response yet. So my opportunity is to ask you about this.
Would you support the creation of such a workgroup and work
with us to focus more closely on the needs of American Indians
in urban areas?
Ms. Fowler. The Indian Health Service considers urban
Indian organizations to be a vital component of the Indian
Health System, and we would gladly participate and support any
interagency efforts to address health care for urban Indians.
Senator Van Hollen. Well, if you could do me a favor, we
can give you a copy of this letter that was sent by a number of
Senators, we would like a formal response from the
Administration as to whether they support our request to
establish this kind of workgroup which we think would be
important. Can you do that for us?
Ms. Fowler. Yes, we will.
SUPREME COURT DECISION ON ROE V. WADE
Senator Van Hollen. All right. As you know, there's lots of
concern and uncertainty with the real prospect the Supreme
Court could overturn Roe v. Wade. We don't know what the final
decision is but that's certainly what the draft decision
indicates.
As you know, the Indian Health Services are the sole
providers in many cases of reproductive health services to
American Indian populations.
We also know that the Hyde Amendment has restricted the
ability of many of these women to obtain reproductive services.
We also know that in the cases of rape where the Hyde Amendment
does permit the use of these funds that has to be reported to
the police within 60 days, and we also know and Senator
Murkowski and others have highlighted the fact that American
Indian women have been especially vulnerable and targeted for
violent crime, including rape.
So I guess my question to you is if the Supreme Court
decision does knock out the right to an abortion pursuant to
Roe v. Wade, what planning do you have in effect to ensure that
women, including victims of rape, have access to reproductive
health services?
Ms. Fowler. Great question. We've actually begun some
discussions around this topic. I don't have anything specific I
can share with you today, but we are considering there is some
regulations specific to the Indian Health Service that we're
looking at that pertain to this area and our chief medical
officer will be working with our reproductive health experts on
reviewing and examining the current Indian Health Service
policy and considering any updates that will be necessary.
Senator Van Hollen. Well, I appreciate that. We've been
looking over the current policy in light of what could come
from the Supreme Court, and I do think it requires updating to
ensure that these women have the reproductive health services
they need.
I have no further questions. Thank you.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Senator. It's so rare
to leave a little bit of time on your clock. Thank you.
Senator Tester.
IHS STAFFING
Senator Tester. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I'll use it.
So thank you, Senator Van Hollen.
It's good to have you here. Thank you very much for being
here in front of the committee.
What would you say the biggest challenge is for IHS right
now?
Ms. Fowler. Staffing.
Senator Tester. Right answer. Thank you. You didn't have to
go down this line like I did a few years ago.
This budget puts significant money, $21 million,
additional, I believe, is that correct, into staffing? You can
correct me if I'm wrong. I'm just looking at some notes I've
made here very quickly.
Ms. Fowler. Well, when you're referring to staffing, is
that to hire staff or is that for recruitment and retention?
Senator Tester. Hopefully that's for both. Is it more than
that?
Ms. Fowler. It's more than that.
Senator Tester. Okay. Good. So the question then that I
would ask is, is that, I think your priorities are correct in
this budget. Staffing is a problem. Doctors, nurses. Do you
have a plan on how to utilize those dollars to get the biggest
bang for the buck and get the people onboard that you need
because I think there's a GAO report from a few years back that
said you were about 25 percent short?
Ms. Fowler. So the funding that we've requested in the
President's budget is there are a number of items that are
included that will be really helpful to us in addressing our
staff shortages from incentives, additional compensation.
There's a legislative proposal to exempt our loan repayment
and scholarship programs from taxes. There is not a provider,
but we are proposing $18 million to establish a scholarship
program with payback obligations for engineers.
Senator Tester. And these are new programs, correct? These
are programs that you haven't had in the past?
Ms. Fowler. They're expansion. They're either enhancing our
current programs. There are some new ones, as well.
Senator Tester. Okay. So in Montana, for example, it
doesn't matter if it's Indian Country or if it's in urban
clinics, we need more people. So how are you going to get out
to recruit those folks? How are you going to tell them that you
have these new programs out there available to them and that
IHS is a good place to work?
Ms. Fowler. Well, I think that part of the funding that
we're asking for, if it's enacted, will help us to beef up our
recruiters so that we can do more work, direct hands-on work
with students. We're working to increase our residency
programs.
We want to get students into the Indian Health Service
before they graduate, so they'll be interested and come work
for us. There's actually several strategies that we're already
employing, we hope to deploy, as well, using the new funding.
Senator Tester. That's good. My advice is to be as
aggressive as you possibly can. Otherwise, it's going to be
hard to make this happen because the doctor shortage is
everywhere and IHS, because of trust responsibilities we have
and because it provides health care to people who really need
health care, we need to make sure we're staffed up.
IHS FACILITIES
Can you talk about the facilities line items in your budget
a little bit? Are they plussed up because if you don't have
good facilities, you're not going to be able to recruit doctors
and nurses? So are the facilities line items plussed up to a
point where it's adequate and, if so, tell me why?
Ms. Fowler. Yes, as a matter of fact, the budget proposes
to complete the Health Care Facilities Construction Priority
List that was established in 1993 within the first 5 years of
this 10-year proposal. It will provide an additional $72
million for our equipment needs so that we can--when we get
providers who are just coming out of medical school and coming
to work for us, they're used to some bells and whistles, and
they don't currently see that within the Indian Health Service.
So being able to upgrade and keep our equipment updated is
going to be helpful in that regard.
Senator Tester. Okay. So you're a hundred percent correct
and with the increases in budget also comes accountability and
so I would expect that you guys will be very transparent in how
you're doing business so that we know that the dollars that are
appropriated at whatever level gets to the ground because
there's a lot of need out there, both in staffing and
facilities, as you already know.
ADVANCE APPROPRIATIONS
Can I ask, IHS did not include advanced appropriations in
the 2023 budget, is there a reason for that?
Ms. Fowler. If the mandatory budget proposal is enacted,
then advanced appropriations will not be necessary because the
mandatory proposal will automatically appropriate the funding
each year for the next 10 years.
Senator Tester. Okay. So are you advocating, just to help
educate me on this, that this entire budget be mandatory
funding?
Ms. Fowler. Yes.
Senator Tester. What percentage is mandatory funding now?
Ms. Fowler. Only $147 million for the Special Diabetes
Program for Indians.
Senator Tester. How much is the rest of the----
Ms. Fowler. The total $6 billion budget.
Senator Tester. And a $147 is mandatory?
Ms. Fowler. $147.
Senator Tester. So in the case of a potential government
shutdown, you guys have to shut down, and if there was
mandatory funding you would not?
Ms. Fowler. So let me clarify. Because we provide health
care, we don't shut down. We're considered excepted. We just
can't pay our staff if we don't have any other source of
funding.
Senator Tester. But that's a problem.
Ms. Fowler. Yes, it is.
Senator Tester. Okay. All right. Have you had consultations
with Indian tribes on the issue of mandatory versus
discretionary funding?
Ms. Fowler. Yes, we have.
Senator Tester. And on advanced appropriations, also?
Ms. Fowler. We've not consulted on advanced appropriations,
but we've been hearing for years from tribal leaders that they
desire advanced appropriations.
Senator Tester. Okay. All right. Well, I want to thank you
for being here. Thank you for your knowledge on this budget,
and I appreciate the opportunity.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Murkowski.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Senator Tester.
BIPARTISAN INFRASTRUCTURE BILL
I want to turn to the bipartisan infrastructure bill and
one of the things that is in it is a limit of 3 percent for
``administrative costs,'' but administrative costs apparently
includes project critical activities, like the engineering, in
which case 3 percent doesn't make sense because the engineering
is often more than that and so like designing a new water
system is a significant undertaking.
I don't think of that as administrative costs at all. I
think of it as a core part of the construction from beginning
to end to get it designed right.
So I have pushed for a higher limit of 10 percent on this,
but from your experience, is this 3 percent limit a problem?
Ms. Fowler. It is a problem. We do not believe that it will
fully fund all of the administrative costs that are necessary
to implement the IIJA funding in a timely way.
Senator Merkley. Okay. Well, thank you. We want to keep
working with you to explore that question.
Maybe the key is that engineering shouldn't be identified
as an administrative cost. I mean, administrative costs, you
think of payroll and communications and so forth, but
engineering is not what I think of in that category.
URBAN INDIAN ORGANIZATIONS
We'll continue that conversation with your team and with
our colleagues here, and let me turn to the Urban Indian
Organizations and Senator Van Hollen mentioned the importance
of that, certainly important in my state of Oregon, and we did
have the increased funding of--well, it was 17 percent
increase.
Did more grants go out to Urban Indian Health Organizations
as a result?
Ms. Fowler. We did not fund any more, any additional Urban
Indian Organizations with that funding, but what it will do is
allow some of the programs that are currently referral-only
programs to initiate services, actual clinical services to
provide the patients.
Senator Merkley. Okay. I will submit questions for the
record to better understand how we're spending the additional
money in that account and understanding how urban Indian
population is being better served, like what specific changes
have occurred. Thank you.
STUDENT LOAN REPAYMENT PROGRAM
And Senator Tester raised the issue over staffing,
significant issue, and one of the things that you testified
last year was the Student Loan Repayment Program was the most
effective tool you have in recruiting.
Have you done specific changes to that program as a result
of the additional funding for staffing?
Ms. Fowler. We haven't made changes to the program, but
what it does is allow us to fund more providers with loan
repayment. The five million that's provided in fiscal year 2022
will fund a hundred additional providers.
Senator Merkley. Okay. So the program remains the same, but
it remains available at more locations in Indian Country?
Ms. Fowler. Yes.
Senator Merkley. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you.
PROVIDER ABUSE
I want to turn to the Weber Report and the Weber Report,
it's a terrible story about how there was a doctor, Dr. Weber,
who abused children within the Indian Health System and we had
an independent report that was commissioned by IHS that found
that officials at the Federal Agency on--I'm quoting now from a
New York Times article in October ``silenced and punished
whistleblowers in an effort to protect the doctor who sexually
abused boys.'' This is like the story we never want to hear.
Have those individuals who silenced and punished
whistleblowers been fired?
Ms. Fowler. So a number of those individuals that were
involved in the Weber case are no longer with the Indian Health
Service and any individuals who were found by the Office of
Inspector General who needed to be disciplined or should be
disciplined were disciplined.
Senator Merkley. Can we get details on that?
Ms. Fowler. To the extent that we're able to provide that
type of information.
Senator Merkley. Okay. The report has a number of
recommendations and other ideas have also been mentioned. So
I'll just quickly run through them.
One recommendation of the report was you put in place
whistleblower protection coordinators at 12 regional offices.
Have you done this?
Ms. Fowler. We've not done that yet.
Senator Merkley. Why not?
Ms. Fowler. Funding and it's a resource issue.
Senator Merkley. Hmm. Okay. I am kind of stunned by that
answer because if we're talking about 12 individuals in a
system as large as the Indian Health Service to make sure that
whistleblowers are protected, it seems like it should be a very
high priority, should it not?
Ms. Fowler. Well, the approach that we've taken to the
recommendations, not only to that report but to recommendations
from the OIG, from the past Administrations, White House Task
Force on Protecting Children, we've consolidated those
recommendations.
There was some overlap, but there are some differences
amongst those recommendations, as well. We currently have a
chartered committee that has reviewed each and every one of the
recommendations, determined that their status of implementation
within the agency. They're reviewing those recommendations that
have not been implemented yet, which would include the
whistleblower coordinators, and they are going to make
recommendations on the priority for implementing those
recommendations and whether or not additional resources will be
required to implement them.
Senator Merkley. All right. I'll tell you what I think why
it feels to me like this is such an important question because
in the medical community, there is a huge reluctance to report
on the conduct of any other members of the medical community
and so those who do so, it's very difficult for them to do so,
and if they are not protected, if they are essentially fired,
it sends a message that no one else will report and if no one
else will report, if no one reports, abuse occurs, and so I see
whistleblower protection as essential.
Now I will in follow up to this hearing ask about this long
list of suggestions, and I think one of them you have
implemented. There is a Hotline in place. There's a number in
place to call, is there not?
Ms. Fowler. There is a dedicated Hotline for reporting.
Senator Merkley. Great. And is that well publicized
throughout the system now?
Ms. Fowler. It has been publicized, but we are currently
planning to increase the visibility of the Hotline and make
sure that it is well publicized.
Senator Merkley. Okay. And I'll want to get details on it,
find out how many--when it went live, how many calls have come
in, are they being responded to.
Again, people will be reluctant to call if their careers
are at risk because they share information, and, you know, we
have seen this issue that arises in every institution. Yeah. I
mean, it does so much damage to every single child who is
abused, for a lifetime, that there has to be a huge priority.
Another is on training and so I'll want to get details
about what you've done to implement training for IHS employees
and contractors. Stronger patient safety protocols that are
recommended, I'll want to get details on that.
The preservation of records, which apparently were very
poorly done in the past, I'll want to get details on that, and
the Blackfeet Nation in Montana, which was very directly
affected by Mr. Weber's abuse, is asking for an apology from
IHS, and I'll want to get details on whether IHS has responded
to that request or if perhaps you know now, you can tell me.
Ms. Fowler. I don't know the status of that request.
Senator Merkley. Okay. Thank you. This should be a huge
priority. Not one more child should be at risk. I mean, we keep
seeing these horrific things that occur in organization after
organization, like, for example, the Olympic Gymnast
Association, like who would imagine, and so if people who are
sexual predators know that they will be reported on and that
those who report will be protected, it dramatically changes the
situation.
IHS MANAGEMENT
One of the things I was very struck about in this article
was that it said, ``IHS management ignored or suppressed
efforts to address this danger.'' Well, when that happens, that
means more children are abused, like a thousand percent
unacceptable.
Ms. Fowler. Senator, I agree with you 100 percent. I
believe we have taken many steps that are addressing the root
causes of the failures that occurred in the Weber case. I
believe we made many improvements and I believe the culture is
changing within the Indian Health Service, and we're happy to
provide those additional details.
Senator Merkley. Thank you.
Senator Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and know that I
absolutely agree with your concern about this.
Ms. Fowler, you mentioned that it is a matter of
resourcing. Yes, it's always about our resourcing, but it's
also a matter of prioritization, and if this was something that
had just hit the news and we were responding to it, it's one
thing, but it's not. It's been out there for awhile and again I
think this is where I still remain a little bit concerned about
the approach the Administration is taking with regards to
moving over to mandatory.
You have been on the GAO's High Risk List since 2017. I
mentioned that we are just now at a point where we're going to
be able to take up the confirmation of the Administrator for
IHS, and, you know, the fact that maybe it's just a hard
position to fill. I think it really is. I think it's very, very
hard, but still it makes me think that the Administration
doesn't place a high enough priority on it to really try to
move that, and when you're going to be implementing such a
really systemic change, when you move an entire, an entire
Indian Health System to a new approach and you don't have an
IHS Administrator in place, it makes me question whether or not
you have the talent that you need, the senior executive team
that you need to make some really important decisions that will
need to be implemented and implemented in such a way that it
gives members who have been around these issues a long time.
Senator Tester, as you know, was formerly Chairman of the
Indian Affairs Committee. I've been on the Indian Affairs
Committee for 20 years now and have served as the Ranking
Member now several different times.
These are issues that we all care very deeply about, but
this is leadership and when leadership is saying a
whistleblowing protection is not going to be prioritized as it
needs to be doesn't give me the degree of confidence where I
can say all right, as the appropriators, we're not going to be
in there on an annual basis and having the input that the
appropriators do.
I appreciate what you said, but you'll come back to the
committee, but I know for a fact that we oftentimes have to use
the hammer, if you will, of we're going to bring in front of
the committee to answer to you about where these funding
priorities have been.
FOLLOW-UP IHS MANDATORY PROPOSAL BRIEFING
I just want to add that I did check with my folks on Indian
Affairs and have been made aware that OMB is having a tribal
consultation on the fiscal year 2023 budget with tribes, but
we're not aware of any other meeting out there and recognize
that OMB tribal consultation and a meeting to discuss this
shift to mandatory in my view would be very, very different. So
again I just raise this to underscore my concern.
CONTRACT SUPPORT COSTS
I was talking about contract support costs before I
deferred to my colleague here, and I wanted to just ask a
further question in this vein.
The issues of contract support costs and the situation with
Cook Inlet Tribal and Fort Defiance arose during a
renegotiation. So what guidance have you given tribes or tribal
organizations who are expected to renegotiate agreements with
IHS and do you anticipate that those agreements are going to
have to go through an added level of scrutiny now, now that
this has all transpired?
What's the situation with these renegotiations in light of
Fort Defiance?
Ms. Fowler. The process for negotiating contract support
costs is outlined in our Contract Support Cost policy, which
was developed with a tribal workgroup, tribal Federal
workgroup, and then we did full consultation on that policy.
So we do have a policy that has been agreed upon with
tribes for addressing when a contract is coming to an end, how
we look at the terms of the contract, including contract
support costs.
Senator Murkowski. Including whether or not overpayments
have been made?
Ms. Fowler. And it includes a process for reconciling the
contract support costs because the way the process works, we
pay contract support costs at the beginning of the period of
performance, at the beginning of the fiscal year, if that's the
period of performance, based on the budgeted amounts, and then
it's reconciled against what the actual contract support costs
need was once that need is known which is after the end of the
fiscal year.
So there's a process in place that where it's routine and
it's normal to identify whether there's an underpayment or
overpayment that exists for that contract, for contract support
costs.
Senator Murkowski. So you don't see that there would be any
additional scrutiny or anything that would slow or hinder these
renegotiations then?
Ms. Fowler. No additional scrutiny than the current process
that we currently use.
105(L) TRIBAL LEASES
Senator Murkowski. Okay. Let me ask about 105 tribal lease
payments. This is something that I raise every year before the
committee, that and village-built clinics.
In the fiscal year 2021 Omni, we all agreed to separate out
the 105(l) costs. We created a separate appropriations account
similar to what we did with contract support.
Additionally, there was a general provision that was
included that directed both IHS and Interior to begin this
process to establish guidelines regarding the parameters for
which lease agreements could be structured and paid for.
But since the 105(l)s have started being paid, we've seen
estimates really kind of all over the board, I think wildly
unpredictable, and they have certainly injected some budget
uncertainty into the process.
Do you consider that the 105(l) leases are stable and are
predictable?
Ms. Fowler. I would say no and that makes it very difficult
for us to identify the amount that's needed to fund them.
Senator Murkowski. Which has been a frustration of mine
because again we've got to figure it out here and we're all
trying to look into that crystal ball to understand where we're
going, what is it going to look like, and we've asked for a
more reliable schedule.
So then going to the Administration's fiscal year 2023
mandatory appropriations proposal, you have a $150 million
proposed there. So is that the current up-to-date estimate for
the tribal leases because again you and I have both recognized
we haven't seen a level of stability and it's hard to predict.
We've seen estimates that are shifting anywhere from $10
million to $50 million in a matter of months. So what are you
basing the $150 million on, and do you think that that is a
figure that you can actually rely on then by the time that IHS
would submit mandatory funding text?
Ms. Fowler. So the $150 million was based on the best
information available at the time. So we don't know what the
final amount is going to be. We don't know if there are going
to be any additional tribal leases that are proposed. So it is
going to be very difficult to provide a firm number for the
amount that's needed.
However, we do expect that the amount for both contract
support costs and the 105(l) lease agreements would remain an
indefinite appropriation because of the very nature of those
two funding accounts.
Senator Murkowski. So, I mean, this has been the challenge,
is the ability to understand and predict what we can anticipate
year over year. So if you've got a new account structure,
105(l) has been separated from the village-built clinics but
both provide funding for lease agreements.
So the question for you is whether or not the village-built
clinics should be funded from the same account as 105(l)s,
recognizing that they both provide for funding for lease
agreements, because in last year's Omni we included report
language for the IHS to include an analysis or a study on the
funding levels for village-built clinics. We're trying to get a
handle on that one, as well.
So your thoughts on whether you separate them out and can
you tell me where you may be on this report for village-built
clinics (VBCs)?
Ms. Fowler. We're currently gathering the information for
the report, and we do anticipate meeting the deadline that was
in the bill which I believe was 270 days we were provided.
Regarding the two programs, village-built clinics, as you
stated, is separate from the 105(l) lease agreements account.
It's funded within the services appropriation. It operates in a
different way. It's under a different authority and so there
are some village-built clinic leases that are not eligible to
be funded through a 105(l) lease.
In addition, there are some tribal programs who prefer to
continue to have the VBC versus a 105(l) because the VBC leases
are part of their self-determination agreement on a recurring
basis, they get paid on a recurring basis, versus the 105(1)
process which requires a proposal and some negotiation
regarding what's in the proposal.
So I think there's going to continue to be a need for both
the village-built clinics program and the 105(l) lease account.
IHS BUDGET PROPOSAL CHANGE
Senator Murkowski. Well, I don't know. I'm listening to
this, Mr. Chairman, and the more we have discussions on some of
these very granular details that are very, very budget-
specific, again it brings me back to what the committee had
thought was a pretty workable proposal in terms of advanced
appropriations and so I'm still trying to reconcile with the
fact that we've seen a pretty dramatic shift in the
Administration's views on how they want to address the IHS
budget and moving it completely to mandatory, completely
eliminating the discretionary aspect of it, and also given that
there's some very technical things, like we're talking about
the distinction between the 105Ls and the VBCs, I'm concerned
about the proposal that we have out there and don't believe
that it is fleshed out enough.
Certainly we will look forward to having conversations with
folks in the Administration.
ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS (EHR)
The last point that I will raise is we've been talking
about electronic medical records for forever, it seems. Last
year finally IHS did a data call with tribes and I think that
that was good, but again we now have to make sure that our
systems are talking with one another, whether it's IHS through
VA, which is a big deal for us in Alaska.
We need to understand who's going to pay for any necessary
upgrades to the system, whether tribes are responsible for the
cost or whether IHS is planning to do this. So there's a lot
more to do with implementation, but again I think that that
will help with some of the efficiency that we need within IHS.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Thank you, Senator Murkowski, and I so
much appreciate your attention to detail on these programs
because how they get implemented makes a big difference on the
ground to so many people in Indian Country.
PURCHASE AND REFERRED CARE
I want to note a last issue before we adjourn. I had
requested information about purchase and referred care, the PRC
Program, and was supplied with a chart that I'll ask consent to
put into the record.
So ordered.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Merkley. I looked at it and I just went my
goodness, this is a nightmare for how a person, a member of a
tribe in a place like Washington, D.C., accesses medical care,
and if they have a medical emergency and they have to go to the
emergency room, they have to give notice within 72 hours after.
They might still be very, very sick or still be in the hospital
at that point to have a chance to apply and this chart says,
you know, the PRC fundings are not sufficient to pay for all
needed services and so it's basically saying we're not sure
even if you get a setup, that notice in 72 hours that you're
going to get helped and this is what's wrong with health care
in America.
When accessing medical services requires a complicated
chart like this going through like, I don't know, what is it,
about 12 different bubbles of checks and while you're trying to
recover from an illness or an injury.
So I will have questions to follow on with about this. One
of the fellows on my team is a tribal member who has brought to
my attention this real-life example of here in Washington,
D.C., that he would have to go to New York or North Carolina to
receive care or to get a referral to another facility.
So I will be exploring with you how we can make this system
work better, and one of the questions I will ask about is
whether tribal members are given equivalent insurance card to
be able to submit when they need to get medical services or
emergency services in a location where there is not an IHS
facility.
ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS
So with that, thank you, Senator Murkowski and Members of
the Committee, and if there are no other statements, the
hearing record will be open until close of business on May
18th, 2022.
Thank you. Thank you, Director Fowler, and thank you, Ms.
Curtis, for your expertise and hard work to make this system
work well all across Indian Country.
SUBCOMMITTEE RECESS
[Whereupon, at 11:27 a.m., Wednesday, May 11, the
subcommittee was recessed to reconvene subject to the call of
the Chair.]
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2023
----------
WEDNESDAY, MAY 18, 2022
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met at 10:00 a.m. in Room SD-124, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Jeff Merkley (chairman) presiding.
Present: Senators Merkley, Reed, Tester, Murkowski, Capito,
Hyde-Smith, and Hagerty.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL REGAN, ADMINISTRATOR
ACCOMPANIED BY MR. DAVID BLOOM, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JEFF MERKLEY
Senator Merkley. Ranking Member Murkowski, Administrator
Regan, Mr. Bloom, welcome. We are delighted to have this
hearing today.
Welcome to this Appropriations Hearing on the fiscal year
2023 President's Budget Request for the Environmental
Protection Agency.
Administrator Regan, we are in a climate emergency, and
everyday life, we are feeling the impacts. And out in Oregon we
feel it through the wildfire season, we are seeing it through
heat waves, and through drought, through dropping groundwater
levels, through decreased average snow packs, through warmer,
smaller streams for our trout and our salmon, and we certainly
see it offshore where our kelp forests are being decimated by
an ecosystem driven out of balance by the warmer, more acidic
ocean waters.
As we come together today a massive wildfire is threatening
communities in New Mexico, been doing so for more than a month,
uprooting lives and communities, as tens of thousands of people
have been forced to evacuate. And it is shocking how normalized
deadly months-long fire seasons have become over just a decade.
As you know, the Environmental Protection Agency has a
critical role in tackling climate chaos, the Clean Air Act
charges EPA to protect our communities from greenhouse gas
pollution, and those same communities are counting on EPA to
act swiftly and boldly. The impacts are here now, and we don't
have any time to waste.
We need to act with urgency to address our country's long
history of environmental injustice. Everyone in this country
deserves clean air, clean water, and a stable climate. But we
know that the burdens of environmental pollution
disproportionately fall on the shoulders of low-income
communities, and communities of color.
And I am very pleased that our fiscal year 2022
Appropriations Bill took an important step to address this
injustice, providing historic level of $100 million for EPA's
Environmental Justice Program.
This significant increase will support community-driven
projects to improve local environments and public health, will
embed environmental justice voices throughout the Agency,
helping ensure the EPA programs and decisionmaking are
responsive to on-the-ground stakeholders. Of course, much more
work remains to make the progress we need to remedy
environmental justice challenges.
Administrator Regan, I applaud your continued focus on
expanding EPA's efforts, as reflected in the fiscal year,
fiscal year 2023 Budget Request. And I look forward to hearing
how the Agency has moved to spend last year's fiscal year 2022
money effectively, efficiently, and for this proposed increase
that you have in this budget.
And I want to emphasize the importance of continuing the
work to ban asbestos from our shelves, more than 60 nations,
virtually every developed nation, has already recognized
asbestos as a deadly substance, and has acted to protect
citizens by banning it. It is time for us to join the rest of
the developed world, and I appreciate EPA's recent commitment
to ban the most common form of asbestos, one of the six
asbestos fibers. It is a welcome progress, but we need to
absolutely end this dangerous public health threat once and for
all.
Today is also an opportunity to hear about how EPA is
administering the more than $55 billion for water
infrastructure, Superfund cleanups, and other programs funded
in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill; these resources will
help communities finally make progress on long-standing
challenges.
All across Oregon, I hear from small, underserved
communities with crumbling water infrastructure that struggle
to provide reliable, clean drinking water, or maintain
wastewater systems. We need to prioritize programs that can
reach these communities who can't come up with financing or
matching funds equal to the huge price tags that these water
projects require.
I look forward to discussing with you how EPA is working to
ensure the funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, and
EPA's existing water programs is reaching these underserved
communities, and how this subcommittee can be a partner in that
effort.
These one-time investments can make a real difference
across the country. But we shouldn't have reached this crisis
point in our infrastructure in the first place. We need
enduring, consistent progress in addressing our environmental
challenges, and for that we need major changes to our annual
budget. We need to rebuild our environmental protection
framework which was battered by the decade of budget caps, and
by short-sighted efforts to deliberately dismantle or damage
this framework.
As Congress has charged EPA with additional
responsibilities to address toxic chemicals, eliminate climate
warming hydrofluorocarbons, support water infrastructure, and
the Agency's resources have not kept pace with these expanded
duties. They have not even remained level. The Agency's
workforce is down nearly 3,000 staff below its 2010 total, down
to numbers not seen since the 1980s. And we certainly know that
the challenges are increasing, not decreasing.
And as states, tribes, and local partners have faced new
responsibilities their grant funding has also deteriorated in
real terms.
I was disappointed that the fiscal year 2022 budget deal
did not allow us to accommodate the full scale of need for
rebuilding the EPA and its grant programs supporting state,
tribal, and local programs. And I am relieved we were able to
avoid more of a backslide, but I look forward to the
conversation today on the fiscal year 2023 request on where we
can actually make additional progress.
On far too many of the challenges our communities face
there is a common theme, we are behind, we are overdue, we are
late. We need urgency, we need boldness, the impacts are here
now, there is not a second to waste.
I want to impress upon you today the urgent need for EPA to
take bold action on its vital mission of protecting human
health and the environment.
And with that, I will turn the microphone over to Ranking
Member Murkowski.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR LISA MURKOWSKI
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good
morning.
Administrator, welcome back to the committee; I am glad to
be talking about EPA's fiscal year 2023 Budget Request. I think
it is fair to say that it has been a big year for the Agency
since you testified before us last June. In that time Congress
passed both the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, as well as the
fiscal year 2022 Omnibus.
As one of the negotiators for that Bipartisan
Infrastructure Bill, I am very proud of what we were able to
include with over $60 billion in needed investments to our
aging infrastructure through EPA programs.
The Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act included almost 50
billion for water infrastructure improvements, 5 billion to
help clean up contaminated sites, and also 275 million for a
new grant program under the Save Our Seas Act, to help our
communities better handle waste and recycling management.
I have always prioritized funding for EPA programs that
really do focus on getting tangible results in providing
cleaner air, cleaner water, and support for our lands across
the country.
As you know, because we have had many conversations about
this, Alaska has some unique needs and challenges on
infrastructure, and therefore it is just an imperative that we
continue to work together to ensure that Alaska receives the
intended benefits from these investments that we have just
talked about.
I do appreciate, I am very grateful that representatives
from the Agency attended a grant symposium that we held in
Anchorage just last month. It was not only well attended, it
was extraordinarily well attended by people from across the
state; about 1,300 people flew into Anchorage, to come, to
listen to representatives from the agencies.
And what I got back in terms of feedback was, it was not
only that I got a glossy brochure on the benefits of certain
programs, they actually got answers to status on different
projects. And so very appreciative for that level of
engagement, but I do hope that a high level of engagement will
continue as the Agency rolls out this infrastructure funding,
but also with the congressionally directed spending projects
that are contained in the fiscal year22 Omnibus.
I know that many in my state are particularly anxious right
now as they are awaiting the guidance on CDSs from the Agency
on how and when they might receive their funding.
While we have done a lot of great work together on
infrastructure and other issues I, unfortunately, must note
that I do have some serious concerns on some of the regulatory
actions under this administration, and particularly as it has
to do with waters of the United States.
I believe that the new WOTUS Rule proposed last year is too
broad, and it fails to recognize the special characteristics on
the ground in Alaska, and this continued ambiguity on a
definition, along with the overreach of the current proposal is
going to have impact. And it will be a negative impact on
economic development within Alaska.
I was happy to be able to host a WOTUS roundtable in
Alaska. Thank you for making sure that Assistant Administrator
Fox was there. I think that that was a very good opportunity
for that kind of back and forth. It is my hope that many of the
concerns that were voiced by state officials and other Alaskans
that she heard at that roundtable will be reflected in the
Final Rule.
So unsurprisingly, we can't agree on every issue out there,
but know that I do appreciate your willingness, your continued
willingness to hear me out on some of these issues. Some of
them are more controversial than others, but also your
commitment to work with me on so many of these important
matters to Alaska.
One long-standing issue to my state has been the
contaminated lands that the Federal government conveyed to
Alaska and to Alaska native communities, decades ago. A large
percentage of these contaminated lands, as you know, have not
yet been cleaned up, and the Federal government, for too long,
has not shown any real willingness or interest to accept the
responsibility that is theirs, for the remediation of these
lands.
And we know, we know because we see it played out all the
time. If these were--if this was a private entity, some
business or corporation and they failed to comply with cleanup
and remediation, they would be out of there, they would be
sued. Instead, it is the Federal government. And even adding
further insult to the injury, is knowing that in so many cases
contaminated lands were conveyed to Alaska Native peoples as a
settlement for their native claims in--as part of the Native
Claims Settlement Act.
So Administrator, I appreciate the openness that you and
your team have shown so far in engaging on this issue, and for
agreeing to explore some creative solutions. I think you know,
I think Assistant Administrator Fox clearly felt, this is a
matter of environmental justice to our Alaska Native, and to
our rural communities. And I know that that is important to
you. I know that is important to this administration.
So as the Agency looks to expand its role in helping on
contaminated lands, I am going to be asking for your support in
having us work together to make some real progress on this
issue.
So as we look to the Fiscal 2023 Budget Request, the Agency
proposes significant new increases across accounts. There are
some proposed increases in the request that I can support, a
number that I can't. And I commend the request, though, for
maintaining strong support for state, and tribal grant, and
loan programs, along with the other infrastructure investments
already mentioned. I think that these programs achieve real on-
the-ground improvements for communities nationwide.
I am also pleased to note that the request prioritizes
funding for efforts to better understand and tackle PFAS, so
many communities in my state, and I know in others as well,
face PFAS contamination and the problems--that poses for
providing clean water and other services to residents.
So we need to both prevent new PFAS contamination, as well
as remediate contaminated areas as soon as possible. So I am
hoping to hear more on how the budget request will achieve just
that, and build upon the funding that we provided in the
infrastructure law to help with PFAS remediation.
So again, I want to express my appreciation for your
personal commitment to work with me on many of these issues
that may be very discreet, very unique to Alaska. I do hope
that, along with our conversations, our staffs can once again
set up the All Things Alaska call, so we can kind of go down
our list as we work through some of these measures.
So I will have an opportunity to present some questions to
you throughout, but again, my thanks for being here this
morning, and for the level of engagement that we have had
today. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Administrator Regan, we look forward to
your testimony.
SUMMARY STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL REGAN
Mr. Regan. Well, thank you, Chairman Merkley, and Ranking
Member Murkowski, and members of this committee, I truly
appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to
discuss the bold vision laid out in the United States EPA's
Proposed fiscal year 2023 Budget Request.
In this budget request we lay out an ambitious and
transformative plan for the EPA, with the goal of a healthier
more prosperous Nation, where all people have equal access to
clean air, clean water, and healthier communities,
President Biden's proposed fiscal year 2023 Budget Request
for EPA provides 11.9 billion to advance key priorities,
including tackling the climate crisis, delivering environmental
justice and equity for all, protecting air quality, upgrading
the Nation's aging water infrastructure, and rebuilding core
functions at the Agency to support and keep pace with the
growing economy.
Over the last year, we have made important progress towards
many of these goals. And I am proud of the foundation that we
have laid together throughout our partnerships that have
underpinned our success.
But there is still much more work to be done to ensure that
all children have safe, healthy places to live, learn, and
play, build a stronger, more sustainable economy, and to
advance American innovation and ingenuity.
Put simply, investing in EPA is an investment in the health
and well-being of all the communities we serve, and in the
economic vitality of this great nation.
I have had the privilege to visit many of your communities
in your states, and see first-hand the environmental and public
health challenges many of your constituents continue to
experience. From unprecedented flooding events, to crumbling
wastewater infrastructure I have even spoken to mothers whose
children have been lead poisoned. I have met with people who
are living with toxic waste in their backyards. I have seen
conditions that are simply unacceptable in the United States of
America. From investing in our nation's climate resilience, to
cleaning up contaminated lands, there is no shortage of
critical work to be done.
But members of this committee; let me assure you, EPA is up
to the task. We are eager to work with all of you to deliver
for our fellow Americans, and to secure our Nation's global
competitiveness. But we need your support.
Both the urgency and economic opportunity presented by
climate change require that we leave no stone unturned. The
2023 budget invests 773 million towards tackling the climate
crisis, and reaping the benefits that come with it. Healthier
communities, good-paying jobs, and increased energy security.
The communities hit the hardest by pollution and climate change
are most often communities of color, indigenous communities,
our rural communities, and economically disadvantaged
communities.
For generations many of these communities have been
overburdened with higher instances of polluted air, water, and
land. This inequity of environmental protection is not just an
environmental issue, a justice issue, but it is a civil rights
issue as well.
In fiscal year 2023 EPA will expand upon its historic
investments made in Environmental Justice and Civil Rights, to
reduce the historically disproportionate health impacts of
pollution in communities with environmental justice concerns.
Across the budget, EPA is investing more than 1.4 billion
to advance environmental justice, clean up legacy pollution,
and create good-paying jobs in the process. Across the country,
poor air quality affects millions of people, perpetuating
harmful health and economic impacts. In fiscal year 2023, the
Agency will protect our air quality by cutting emissions of
ozone forming pollutants, particulate matter, and air toxics.
The President's budget includes 1.1 billion to improve air
quality and set standards that reduce pollution from both
mobile and stationary sources.
A thriving economy also requires clean and safe water for
all. Although progress has been made, many still lack access to
healthy water, face inadequate wastewater infrastructure, and
suffer the effects of lead pipes.
America's water systems are also facing new challenges,
including cybersecurity threats, climate change, and emerging
contaminants such as PFAS. This budget proposes more than four
billion to upgrade drinking water and wastewater infrastructure
nationwide, with a focus on underserved communities. These
investments build on historic resources allocated in the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
The fiscal year 2023 President's Budget positions EPA to
create durable environmental policy that sets our nation on a
path to win the 21st century. It increases the Agency's
capacity to allow us to meet the pressing need faced by
millions of Americans, and fundamentally improve people's lives
for the better.
Thank you all for the opportunity to be here today, and
offer this testimony. And I look forward to our continued
partnership to achieve these ambitious yet necessary goals.
And I welcome all of your questions. Thank you all.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Michael S. Regan
Thank you, Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski, and members
of the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you
today to discuss the bold vision laid out in the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's proposed fiscal year 2023 Budget request. In this
Budget request, we lay out an ambitious and transformative plan for the
Agency with the goal of a cleaner, healthier, and more equitable Nation
where all people have equal access to safe and clean water, air, and
communities.
the fiscal year 2023 president's budget request
President Biden's proposed fiscal year 2023 Budget request for EPA
provides $11.9 billion to advance the key priorities outlined in our
new fiscal year 2022-fiscal year 2026 EPA Strategic Plan, including
tackling the climate crisis, delivering environmental justice,
protecting air quality, upgrading the Nation's aging water
infrastructure, and rebuilding core functions at the Agency. Almost
half of EPA's Budget request, $5.7 billion, is directed to support
Tribal, state, and local partners through grants and to directly reach
communities. Additionally, the Budget includes an increase of more than
$900 million to fully fund the water programs authorized in the
Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act (DWWIA). The Budget
complements the resources provided in the bipartisan Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and will expand the Agency's capacity to
protect human health and the environment across the Nation.
tackling the climate crisis
Under the continued leadership of the Biden-Harris Administration,
EPA is prioritizing addressing climate change with the focus and
resources the crisis demands. President Biden has directed a whole of
government effort to confront this urgent threat, and EPA will be at
the center of delivering on this agenda. The fiscal year 2023 Budget
invests $773 million towards the strategic goal of tackling the climate
crisis while also uplifting underserved and overburdened communities,
creating good-paying jobs, and building a cleaner energy economy.
At EPA, we know both climate mitigation and adaptation are
essential components of the strategy to reduce the threats and impact
of climate change. We will invest in programs to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions, including an additional $100 million for air quality grants
to states and tribes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on a local and
regional scale. We will direct an additional $60 million to improve
knowledge of the impacts of climate change on human health and the
environment through our research programs--an increase that more than
doubles EPA's climate change research. We will leverage an additional
$35 million to implement the American Innovation in Manufacturing Act
to continue phasing out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and we will invest
an additional $13 million in wildfire prevention and readiness.
Tackling the climate crisis depends not only on the Agency's
ability to mitigate the effects of climate change, but also our
capacity to adapt and deliver targeted assistance to ensure our
partners across the Nation are also prepared to meet these challenges.
As part of a whole-of-government approach, EPA will directly support
Federal partners, Tribal governments, states, territories, local
governments, environmental justice organizations, community groups, and
businesses as they deal with the impacts of climate change. As part of
this effort, the Budget provides $150 million to expand the
availability of Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) grants and
rebates, focusing on school buses, ports, and where conditions
disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, including our
children. EPA will provide $20 million for climate adaptation efforts
to strengthen the adaptive capacity of our partners. In addition, the
Agency will lead through example and prioritize climate resiliency
investments across EPA-owned facilities. We will invest $35 million to
pursue aggressive energy, water, and building infrastructure
improvements to advance the Agency's use of carbon-pollution free
electricity.
elevating environmental justice
The communities hardest hit by pollution and climate change are
most often communities of color, indigenous communities, rural
communities, and economically disadvantaged communities. For
generations, many of these vulnerable communities have been
overburdened with higher instances of polluted air, water, and land.
This inequity of environmental protection is not just an environmental
justice issue, but also a civil rights concern. Neither an individual's
skin color nor the wealth of their zip code should determine whether
they have clean air to breathe, safe water to drink, or healthy
environments in which their children can play. And yet, the
development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws,
regulations, and policies has not always ensured the fair treatment and
meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color,
national origin, or income.
To address these inequities, EPA recognizes that effective
environmental policy must clean up the legacy pollution that many
historically overburdened and underserved communities have lived with
for far too long and ensure equitable practices for the future. A
foundational component of the Agency's work to address environmental
justice is the President's Justice40 Initiative, with the goal of
delivering at least 40 percent of the overall benefits of relevant
Federal investments to underserved and overburdened communities.
In fiscal year 2023, EPA will expand upon the historic investments
made in fiscal year 2022 towards advancing environmental justice and
civil rights, aimed at reducing the historically disproportionate
health impacts of pollution in communities with environmental justice
concerns. Across the Budget, EPA is investing more than $1.45 billion
to advance environmental justice by cleaning up legacy pollution in
overburdened and underserved communities and creating good-paying jobs.
To ensure the success of these investments, we propose creating a new
Environmental Justice National Program to be led by a Senate-confirmed
Assistant Administrator to elevate and maximize the benefits of
environmental justice efforts across EPA. Under this new Program area,
more than $300 million is included for the Environmental Justice
program to expand support for community-based organizations, indigenous
organizations, Tribes, states, local governments, and territorial
governments in pursuit of identifying and addressing environmental
justice issues through multi- partner collaborations. This includes
$150 million in six environmental justice grant programs to support
states, tribes, and local communities in addressing the impacts of
environmental harms. Importantly, the Budget includes $25.9 million to
increase civil rights capacity across the Agency and ensure recipients
of EPA's financial assistance comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights
Act. The budget would also invest $100 million will support a new
community air quality monitoring and notification program. The Budget
proposed additional funds and FTE to increase fenceline inspections in
communities with disproportionately high pollution exposure.
enforcing environmental laws
Enforcing and ensuring compliance of our Nation's environmental
laws is central to achieving EPA's mission. The Agency holds, and will
continue to hold, bad actors accountable for their violations, with a
particular focus on communities with multiple pollution sources. This
Budget invests $213 million for civil enforcement efforts, such as
increasing enforcement efforts in communities with high pollution
exposure and preventing the illegal importation and use of
hydrofluorocarbons in the United States. The request also includes $148
million for compliance monitoring and $7 million to implement a coal
combustion residuals compliance program.
We know that overburdened and underserved communities are often
victims of environmental crime. Accordingly, the Budget sets aside $69
million for criminal enforcement efforts, including funding for a
specialized Criminal Enforcement Initiative focused on addressing
environmental justice issues in partnership with the Department of
Justice (DOJ).
ensuring clean and healthy air for all communities
Poor air quality still affects millions of people across the
country, perpetuating harmful short- and long-term health and quality
of life impacts. In fiscal year 2023, the Agency will improve air
quality for communities by reducing emissions of ozone-forming
pollutants, particulate matter, and air toxics. The President's Budget
includes $1.1 billion for the strategic goal of improving air quality
and reducing localized pollution, reducing exposure to radiation, and
improving indoor air for communities across the country. The Budget
dedicates $152 million to the development and implementation of
national emission standards to reduce air pollution from vehicles,
engines, and fuels. EPA's work to set these standards provides
certainty to industry, builds on advances in technology, and reinforces
market movement towards a cleaner energy system that provides reliable
and affordable energy.
The Budget includes $289 million to assist Tribal, state, and local
air pollution control agencies in the development, implementation, and
evaluation of programs for the National Ambient Air Quality Standards
(NAAQS) and to establish standards for reducing air toxics. EPA will
continue to build on its historic progress in protecting human health
and the environment from the harmful effects of air pollution and work
to assure clean air for all Americans, with a particular focus on those
in underserved and overburdened communities.
achieving clean and safe water for all communities
Clean and safe water is a foundation for healthy communities and a
thriving economy, and the Agency is committed to ensuring clean and
safe water for all, especially for overburdened and underserved
communities where adequate drinking water and wastewater infrastructure
has not been a priority. Although immense progress has been made across
our Nation, many still lack access to safe and clean water and suffer
the effects of aging infrastructure and legacy lead pipes. America's
water systems also are facing new challenges, including cybersecurity
threats, climate change, and emerging contaminants of concern, such as
PFAS.
In fiscal year 2023, EPA will continue our work with Federal,
Tribal, state, and nongovernmental partners to advance water quality
science, provide clean and safe water for all communities, and protect
our Nation's waterbodies from degredation. The Budget proposes more
than $4.1 billion to upgrade drinking water and wastewater
infrastructure nationwide, with a focus on underserved communities.
This includes a total of $2.8 billion for the Clean Water and Drinking
Water State Revolving Funds and $80 million for the Water
Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program. Also
included is $1.2 billion for grant programs authorized in the Water
Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act of 2016 (WIIN), the
America's Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 (AWIA), and the Drinking
Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021 (DWWIA) and $25 million
for a new water sector cybersecurity grant program dedicated to help
utilities and operators protect their systems. EPA requests to fully
fund all the water programs authorized by DWWIA, including $565 million
to create 20 new water grant programs, a $240- million increase to the
Sewer Overflow and Stormwater Reuse grant program, and other critical
water infrastructure investments. To further the President's goal of
replacing all lead pipes within the next decade, the Budget proposes a
$160-million increase for grants to reduce lead in drinking water. This
Budget request will complement the supplemental funds provided by the
bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), totaling $8.4
billion in EPA's State Revolving Funds for fiscal year 2023.
In fiscal year 2023, EPA will continue to work across environmental
programs to advance Agency efforts to tackle Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl
Substances (PFAS) pollution. As part of the President's commitment to
tackling PFAS pollution and EPA's PFAS Strategic Roadmap, the fiscal
year 2023 Budget proposes approximately $126 million for EPA to
increase its understanding of PFAS and their human health and
ecological effects; restrict PFAS use to prevent new PFAS pollution
from entering the air, land, water; and remediate PFAS that have been
released into the environment.
From the Chesapeake Bay to Lake Pontchartrain to the Puget Sound,
the United States is home to water bodies of ecological, cultural, and
economic significance. The Budget invests $578.6 million to continue
strong support for EPA's Geographic Water Programs to protect and
restore these water bodies of special ecological and economic
importance to the Nation. EPA's Geographic Programs deliver technical
and financial assistance to solve problems and support healthy
resilient ecosystems and to maintain, restore, and improve water
quality, which yields environmental, economic, and recreational
benefits to their communities.
safeguarding and revitalizing communities
Preventing and cleaning up environmental pollution that harms
communities and poses a risk to public health and safety continue to be
a top priority for the Administration. The fiscal year 2023 Budget
enables the Agency to clean up hazardous waste sites in communities
across the Nation, including those where vulnerable populations, such
as children, the elderly, and economically-disadvantaged individuals,
reside. EPA collaborates with Tribal, state, and local partners to
improve the livelihood of all residents of the United States by
addressing contaminated sites, including Superfund, brownfields,
leaking underground storage tanks, and other waste sites and restoring
them to productive use. Reuse and restoration of these sites directly
support President Biden's Justice40 initiative.
The Budget provides $1.15 billion for EPA's Superfund programs to
continue cleaning up some of the Nation's most contaminated land and to
respond to environmental emergencies. In fiscal year 2023, EPA will
begin to use the Superfund chemical tax revenue collected in fiscal
year 2022, along with the $3.5 billion provided to EPA under IIJA and
other appropriated resources, to implement the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA). The
Budget also includes $215 million for EPA's Brownfields programs to
provide grants and technical assistance to communities along with 60
additional Brownfields community specialists. Taken together, these
investments will ensure EPA is cleaning up sites and fully engaging the
communities we serve in the process.
ensuring the safety of chemicals for people and the environment
Chemicals and toxic substances are ubiquitous in our everyday lives
and are often released into the environment from their manufacture,
processing use, or disposal. EPA has significant responsibilities under
amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to ensure the
safety of chemicals in or entering commerce and addressing unreasonable
risks to human health or the environment. The Budget provides $124
million and 449 FTE to implement TSCA and deliver on the promises made
to the American people by the bipartisan Lautenberg Act, an increase of
more than $60 million. These resources will support EPA-initiated
chemical risk evaluations, issue protective regulations in accordance
with statutory timelines, and establish a pipeline of priority
chemicals for risk evaluation.
The Agency also has significant responsibility under the Federal
Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) to screen new
pesticides before they reach the market and ensure pesticides already
in commerce are safe. In addition, EPA is responsible for complying
with the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and ensuring that federally
endangered and threatened species are not harmed when the Agency
registers pesticides. The fiscal year 2023 Budget includes an
additional $4.9 million to enable the Pesticide program to integrate
ESA requirements in conducting risk assessments and making risk
management decisions that protect federally threatened and endangered
species from exposure to new active ingredients.
restoring epa's core capacity and following the science
The Budget strategically increases the capacity of the Agency
across both mission and mission support functions to position the EPA
to address both current challenges and prepare for the future. EPA has
lost nearly 1,000 staff in recent years, hindering the Agency's ability
to carry out its mission to protect human health and the environment.
The Budget looks to restore EPA's programmatic capabilities that focus
on achieving clean air, land, and water and tackling climate change.
Restoring capacity across the Agency and building a diverse and
equitable workforce will strengthen our ability to tackle multiple
priorities, from clean air and water, to cutting edge research at the
Agency. Underpinning all our work is a commitment to follow the
science, which is why this budget includes $864 million for the Science
and Technology account, an increase of more than $100 million above
current levels that will ensure programs have the best available data
to inform decisions.
The Budget increases the Agency workforce by more than 1,900 new
FTE relative to current levels, for a total of more than 16,200 FTE.
The Budget will also dedicate resources to continue strengthening the
Agency's ability to recruit, hire, develop, promote, and retain top
talent and remove barriers to equal opportunity at management and staff
levels to strengthen and advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and
accessibility.
conclusion
The fiscal year 2023 President's Budget positions the EPA to
advance our important goals of protecting human health and the
environment, championing environmental justice, and tackling the
climate crisis. With these investments we can advance a better future
for all our citizens and ensure the benefits of a cleaner environment
for future generations.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to submit this
testimony for the record. I look forward to our continued partnership
to achieve these ambitious yet necessary goals and welcome any
questions you may have.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much for your testimony.
And we have your lengthier, more detailed written testimony,
which I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record; so
ordered.
So you mentioned climate and the funding for climate; what
are the most important funding increases for making progress in
tackling climate chaos, in staff, in research, in grants, what
is the vision?
Mr. Regan. You know, thank you for that question. We have a
very strong vision, and the 2023 budget request covers a range
of those. On standards we want to focus on the implementation
of the bipartisan AIM Act which will phase down the consumption
and production of HFCs, we want to hit that mark of 85 percent
reduction over the next 15 years, so the Agency requests an
additional $35 million, and 28 FTE to be sure that we can do
that.
We also want to continue to focus on keeping pace with the
growing economy, and the demands of the market, and the
employment of our strong unions, by continuing to push on the
light-duty vehicles, and the heavy-duty vehicles transition to
a lower carbon transportation economy.
We want to continue to focus on very innovative and
transformative technology standards, like the one to reduce
methane from the oil and gas sector, technology standards that
allow for artificial intelligence, remote sensing, and just
fascinating innovation and entrepreneurship that can help
capture that lost product, while also protecting the planet.
And then also, we are having some very engaging
conversations around the power plant sector. The budget
requests $100 million for air quality grants for states and
tribes. We believe that states, and tribes, and localities know
their communities better than the Federal government ever
could; and on the research side $60 million to improve the
knowledge of the impacts of climate change on human health.
So we have got some really, what I would call, pragmatic
but focused request as it relates to climate change and public
health.
Senator Merkley. You can largely sum up the challenge ahead
as electrifying everything with renewable energy to decrease
both the massive methane and carbon dioxide releases, and one
piece of that is electric vehicles; and you have laid out in
the, or we have laid out in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,
5 billion to replace diesel school buses. So it is one piece of
that initiative.
And we have in the Omnibus, fiscal year 2022 Omnibus, $92
million to replace diesel engines through, DERA, the Diesel
Emission Reduction Act. And so we are starting to see the
impacts of this, 11 school districts in Oregon are preparing to
use electric school buses as part of their fleet, but it is
just the very beginning of this effort. How will this new
funding speed up the transition to electric vehicles?
Mr. Regan. It is critical. We are definitely building on
the success of the DERA program, and we are grateful for those
resources to do that. DERA for a long time has demonstrated how
funding support for cutting-edge clean technologies reduce
exposure to diesel emissions for all people. I am really
excited, and get really excited to talk about the $5 billion
for clean school buses.
There is nothing more important than cleaning up the yellow
school buses that carry our most precious cargo to and from
school every day. And so there are approximately 500,000 school
buses on the road right now, the $5 billion for clean school
buses is going to be transformational in terms of better
protection for our children, and our school bus drivers, but it
sends a very strong signal to the manufacturers as well, that
there is a market demand for these cleaner vehicles.
Senator Merkley. Okay. So brass tacks, when will you start
awarding the School Bus Replacement Grants?
Mr. Regan. We are going to make an announcement very soon
about the first tranche of grants, it will be $500 million.
That is very soon, and we are excited about that. And then the
second tranche will come a few months after.
And by the way, we are going to make it as easy as
possible, we want these resources to be able to go directly to
these school districts, so we are going to have online access,
and we are going to have easy forms, and we are also going to
have built-in technical assistance to these school districts to
be sure that those districts that need them the most actually
get the resources.
Senator Merkley. Is very soon, like June?
Mr. Regan. Very soon is next couple of weeks we are going
to make a very important announcement.
Senator Merkley. Good. Okay, great, great. And then I want
to turn to the issue of wildfire smoke. We didn't use to talk
about smoke, but so many of our fires burn so long, and in such
a fashion that smoke is having a huge impact. It is affecting
our agriculture. It has affected the grapes, our wine grapes.
It has affected all kinds of community efforts.
You know, including like, for example, the furniture
salesman who says, how do I sell this furniture that, you know,
everything smells with wildfire smoke? Not to mention what
people are breathing, and their need for places they can go, of
the aggravation of asthma, it is just having a significant
impact. Impact on our children, impact on our adults, the
problem is getting worse.
So I am very pleased that in the Omnibus I secured $4
million to start a new EPA grant program that helps communities
prepare for, and protect against wildfire smoke.
So can you tell me? Have grants gone out the door? And is
this going to help communities better protect themselves and
their community members?
Mr. Regan. It absolutely will help us communicate more
effectively, to moms who want to go out for jobs, or children
who want to go out and play, and are not really understanding
what the implications of wildfire smoke may be from thousands
of miles away.
So this is going to give EPA a competitive advantage to
communicate these health disparities to those who need it the
most. We are currently planning stakeholder engagements this
summer to inform how we can best assist states, tribes, and
public preschools, local educational agencies, and we are going
to issue a competitive grant solicitation targeted for this
fall, late this fall, that meets the needs of the impacted
community.
So we want to do a little bit more homework up front, make
sure that the impacted community has what it needs in terms of
communication, and then put that grant process out there.
Senator Merkley. Great. And I hope you will also replicate
your emphasis on simplicity. So many of the small communities,
you know, do not have grant writers, they find that the process
is so complicated that they give up, and don't apply in the
first place.
Mr. Regan. Yeah.
Senator Merkley. And my team tries to assist them, and
guide them, how they can effectively apply, but we want to make
sure that small communities, and small counties, with limited
staff are able to apply effectively.
Mr. Regan. Absolutely. And one of the things that we have
really focused on with our core budget, and flexibility with
the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, EPA providing technical
assistance, and that is where you see us asking for additional
resources in our regional offices.
We know these communities don't have the technical
capacity, and there are many aspects of that that I have quite
frankly wanted to replicate, and spending time with Tom Vilsack
and USDA, having people on the ground to provide that technical
assistance is invaluable.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. Senator Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Administrator, I might commend to you and your team to do a
check-in with the school district in Tok, Alaska. They have
been engaged in a pilot of an EV school bus up there, how these
buses--or how this bus operates in extreme cold weather
environments. I am not going to comment on the success, or lack
of success, but just to recognize that there are some
considerations, and I think we can learn something from what
they are doing up there.
I want to direct my first questions to you regarding waters
of the United States. And as I mentioned in my opening, there
is perhaps different impact to a state like Alaska where a
significant portion of our state is considered to be wetlands.
So it kind of puts us in a different place than most other
states, and it impacts economic development, particularly in
our rural communities that are trying to do very small, perhaps
very routine projects, and get stopped after this.
So this was, again, a good roundtable that Assistant
Administrator Fox was able to engage in. And so I would like
you to share with me this morning, how you plan to integrate
the feedback that was heard at that roundtable from Alaska
constituencies, and more specifically, to the issue of
compensatory mitigation.
One of the challenges that we have with compensatory
mitigation in the state is that we don't have areas that are in
need of mitigation. For us, we may need some more creative
solutions allowing the Agency to explore whether its projects,
like water infrastructure projects, that are desperately needed
in rural Alaska and Alaska Native villages that will improve
water quality, just improve life there.
So what are you planning to do with the feedback that you
have received? And are you considering these beneficial
proposals in lieu of what could--what would be determined more
typical compensatory mitigation?
Mr. Regan. Well, thank you for that question. I can tell
you that we were very thoughtful in these regional roundtables,
and we chose 10 regions that we believe would be more
reflective of the diversity across the country. And Assistant
Administrator Fox came back from Alaska with a lot of great
intelligence.
We are definitely not just checking boxes or going through
the motions, these round tables are very instructive for us,
and will inform how we approach waters of the U.S. As a former
state regulator, I know the difficulties of ambiguity. I also
understand the frustrations of an overly complex and
administratively burdensome rule, that doesn't necessarily
reflect the needs of North Carolina, or Alaska, but maybe
advantages a state like Florida.
And so what we are trying to do is to strike a balance,
where we meet our legal obligations under the Clean Water Act,
as a Federal agency and a Federal government, but also provide
the flexibility and autonomy that we know states need to handle
some of the conditions that are on the ground.
And so that is the goal we are trying to achieve. I believe
that when you look at the current proposed rule, it goes back
to 2015 which was a--in my opinion--a simpler rule prior to
some of the changes that were enacted. It will codify some of
the decisions that the Supreme Court has made. But it will
retain the permitting exemptions, which are identified in the
Clean Water Act itself, and a lot of the exclusions that we
know our farmers and ranchers in states like Alaska will need.
So we are trying to strike a balance where we get a legally
sound, durable rule that gives states the flexibility to do
some of the more innovative things that I think Assistant
Administrator Fox heard during the Alaska roundtable.
Senator Murkowski. I am glad to hear you use the word
``flexibility''. Again, this is not an effort to get around a
rule, this is just a reality that we don't have a system that
accommodates what compensatory mitigation might look like in
other parts of the country. And yet you have extreme need,
extreme need, when it comes to certain aspects of water, water
quality, water safety; and so just your commitment to keep
working on this to ensure that the state's input is considered
is appreciated.
Mr. Regan. Okay.
Senator Murkowski. Let me switch to the contaminated lands,
and again you have heard me express my concerns and how
critical an issue this is, and how unacceptable it really is
that so little progress has been made to date by the Federal
government.
We have to do better on this, we must do better on this,
and again I want to make sure. I am not blaming your Agency, I
am not blaming the EPA, but I do think that EPA is uniquely
positioned to help us find a real--and to use your word--a
durable solution to this problem that has plagued these
communities in Alaska for so long.
So thank you for your willingness to engage on this. I
appreciate what you have done so far, but we are here in the
committee now, we are talking about providing resources and to
help drive new initiatives within the Agency. So I would ask
for your commitment today, to have our two staff sit down
together by the end of this month, and begin to explore some
creative solutions to this problem.
Mr. Regan. You absolutely have my commitment there, and I
think your staff will find that the Acting Assistant
Administrator Carlton Waterhouse, who grew up and spent some
time in Alaska, who was leading our Superfund and Brownfield
efforts, has some really innovative ideas about how we can
approach this problem. And he has been doing a great job
conversing with DOI, DOD, DOE, NOAA.
So we have got some ideas. We need the resources, we need
to start putting shoulder to this wheel. And you have my
commitment, you also have Carlton's commitment, to focus on the
unique issues that are facing the Alaska natives.
Senator Murkowski. Well, I appreciate that. And you are
right, we need to resource it, we just can't talk about it, we
have been talking about it for too long, and the result has
been the same, which is, nothing. So I appreciate this
willingness to work together, and I look forward to what we are
going to do to change this dynamic.
Mr. Regan. Absolutely.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. Senator Tester.
Senator Tester. Yes. Thank you, Chairman, Ranking Member.
Administrator Regan, thanks for being here.
I want to start out parochial. Last week I talked to you
about getting people on the ground at Columbia Falls, to talk
about the issue that they have. My staff tells me that they
were there yesterday; is that accurate?
Mr. Regan. It is, yes.
Senator Tester. Okay. So the Superfund process tends to be
a little bit--well, we will call it clunky; there is probably a
better word for it than that, but it is pretty complicated. Are
there plans to ensure that the public has an opportunity to
give input on any potential solution, and are there plans for
the people to be able to give input after the remediation plan
goes public; both ``pre'' and ``post''?
Mr. Regan. Absolutely. This is an area where we, number
one, we believe in community engagement.
Senator Tester. Okay.
Mr. Regan. To your point, this is especially important. So
we did have a meeting just yesterday, and I think the report
back to me was it was a great meeting. We are also planning
monthly activities with the community leading up to any release
of any proposed plan.
Senator Tester. Good.
Mr. Regan. We want to be sure the community has active
opportunities to contribute to the process.
Senator Tester. I appreciate that, and look forward to
making sure that that does happen because it is critically
important.
Now I want to talk about waste in place. We have got a
number of places in Montana. You know this, Butte, Smurfit-
Stone, potentially, Columbia Falls, where Waste in Place is
used.
Let us stick with Columbia Falls, we could go to either one
of them, and Smurfit-Stone is the same kind of thing. We have
got an area of land that has been contaminated, that is next to
the Flathead River that flows into Flathead Lake; that is at
the headwaters, of water that impacts the entire west. Okay?
If it is Waste in Place, the question becomes why do we
even do that, number one? And number two, is there adequate
testing that can be done to make sure that this stuff isn't
leaching? Because the reason it was brought to the attention of
the EPA to begin with, is because common sense would tell you
this stuff is going to leach into a river that runs right
through it.
And so the question is, is that when it comes to Waste in
Place, do you have accurate or adequate testing regime to be
able to make the determination, or whether it is actually the
right thing to do?
Mr. Regan. We do under the Superfund Program and the
Circular Program we have in place the abilities to do a
thorough scientific evaluation, and we also have the
methodologies in place to do the appropriate monitoring if
Waste in Place is the proposed option.
Senator Tester. So if Waste in Place is a proposed option
it doesn't, like I said, it doesn't matter where it is, we have
got the same kind of situation on Smurfit that is going to be
dealt with. Can that area ever be developed?
Mr. Regan. You know, I would have to circle back with the
experts to determine, number one, what the cleanup levels would
be around there. And two, what the developmental opportunities
would be at the point of the closure, and the securing of it,
and any kind of future economic development opportunities.
Senator Tester. Because the reason I say that is because
when I was in Columbia Falls, in particular, but it is the same
thing with any of these, these places are pretty landlocked. I
mean, they are in the middle of mountains, and they have got
water running, and this area had been industrial.
And I think the hope the hope that I had, the community
could have a different hope, and I would absolutely yield to
them on their opinion, but the hope that I had is it would be
cleaned up to a point where it could be developed. And it would
be cleaned up to the point where we didn't have to worry about
a river that is--the headwaters would pollute one of the
largest lakes in the west, and everything downstream from it.
Mr. Regan. Yes. Well, I can assure you that any remedy
chosen is to protect public health, first and foremost, as well
as the environment. I will circle back with you on the answer
of future economic development opportunities.
Senator Tester. Yes.
Mr. Regan. But I can tell you, we thoroughly look at what
is most protected, disturbing, trying to move, and excavate,
and transport radioactive materials, or looking at a way we can
contain it to be most protective of public health and the
environment. So I will circle back with you on the future
development pieces, but I can assure you, it is designed to
protect public health.
Senator Tester. Okay. That is good, because last time I
checked, as my Native American friends would say, ``Water
literally is life'', you can live without a lot of things, you
can't live without clean water.
Mr. Regan. I agree.
Senator Tester. I want to thank you and your staff for your
work on the Kootenai. As you well know, this is an impaired
watershed with selenium flowing into the United States from
Canada. I have been trying to get attention to this issue for
some time, and your regional staff have been very helpful in
organizing a multi-agency response.
I am frustrated that negotiations with Canada seem to have
stalled again, but I want to make sure you have the resources
and staff that you need to support the State Department in
those conversations, and from the International Joint
Commission. In depth, if we ever get to a reference, is there
anything we can do to help you with the fight?
Mr. Regan. I think the support that you have given. I
greatly appreciate it. And we are positioned very well to
support the State Department, this has been a priority for me.
As you know, I have also sent the word directly to my
counterpart in Canada through our international bilaterals as
well. And so we hope to get it unstuck and continue to make
progress.
Senator Tester. And this isn't in your bailiwick, but it
certainly is in the State Department's. I mean, Canada is a
huge friend of ours, a great trading partner, and the fact is
that there is water that flows from United States North, we
shouldn't be polluting them, and they shouldn't be polluting
us. And that is really the bottom line.
I want to talk very, very briefly, in the next 40 seconds,
and about what we are doing in the area of climate change. Now,
we have got gasoline, diesel price is 5.50 a gallon. Last week
I had one of these hearings, it was 5.44, it is 5.50 this week.
God knows what it is going to be next week. And I think this is
a real opportunity to get more energy into the marketplace.
And I would encourage you, as we talk about batteries, and
buses, which is important, but let us get it so we can have
batteries and cars that go more than 350 miles. Let us get it
in over-the-road semis that emit a lot, let us get it in my
field tractor.
Mr. Regan. Yes.
Senator Tester. Let us get that battery technology. I think
the motor technology is there, the battery technology is not.
So I would encourage you to do what we can do to get that, and
get it affordable. If it is affordable, and if it is in the
marketplace, people will change overnight, and we don't have to
give subsidies for it. And so I would just encourage you to try
to push that envelope as much as possible.
I like tax incentives, they are great, but they don't fix
the problem. If we have affordable battery technology, that
fixes the problem.
Mr. Regan. I agree. And I can tell you I have spent time
with the executives, and the CEOs, and the presidents of Mack
Truck, Volvo, and others, the technology is there, it is on the
horizon, we are looking at the cost effectiveness of it. But
when we look at our heavy-duty vehicles rules, stages one and
two, we are just as focused on our longer range vehicles and
our trucks, as we are on our light-duty vehicles as well. So I
agree with you.
Senator Tester. I appreciate that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member.
Senator Merkley. Senator Hyde-Smith.
Senator Hyde-Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Mr. Regan, for being here today; and you
know exactly what I am going to talk about, because it is one
of my very top concerns, as being the Senator for Mississippi,
and always has been since the day I got here.
The Yazoo Backwater Area Pump Project, and it is a concern
to me, but it is definitely a concern to the Mississippi Delta.
The November 17th, 2021, letter from the EPA Office of
Water, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, brought this long
overdue, congressionally authorized flood control project to a
screeching halt, leaving thousands of Mississippians without
hope of decent flood control, and more than $10 million in
taxpayer money totally just flushed down the drain.
Mr. Administrator, I cannot begin to express my frustration
and disappointment by your Agency's decisions, which was, by
all accounts, an abuse of the EPA's authority under the Clean
Water Act.
And to my colleagues on this committee, this may be a
Mississippi issue today, but make no mistake, the same abuse of
authority may end up in your backyard tomorrow.
Mr. Administrator, you and other administration officials,
including the White House Council on Environmental Quality,
profess that the Yazoo Backwater pumps are a priority, and that
you are actively looking for a solution. And talk about an
environmental injustice, this is a true minority community who
live in true poverty. They cannot afford homeowners' insurance.
And you heard a testimony, I think, of Mr. Anderson Jones
that talked about an elderly man that talked about his Senior
Class Party that he went to with mud on his pants because he
had to wade through the water. And he said, ``My grandchildren
are wading through those same waters.'' I will never forget
that man's testimony.
What is the status of that process? And are you involving
local stakeholders? Are the congressionally authorized pumps an
option under this administration, and if not, why not?
Mr. Regan. Well, thank you for that question. And I also
thank you and the delegation for the invitation to host me in
Mississippi and Vicksburg, and actually see it firsthand. That
was really helpful.
You know, I am going to stay with my commitment to you,
which is this process is a priority. I think what I agree to,
and we are meeting that obligation, is I pull the White House
in. I think there is been a--number one, this issue has been
there for decades. We can agree that it is not political
because I think it was the Bush administration that put the
veto in place, and the Trump administration that had a process
that was deemed political interference to change the Bush
administration's decision on this project.
But that aside, I have asked the White House, the Council
For Environmental Quality, to convene all of the Federal
agencies that are involved: U.S. Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Army,
USDA, and FEMA, to focus on this project. And we have done just
that. We have got technical experts from all of those agencies
reviewing all of the available data. There are no options off
the table, to your question.
Green and gray, hard and natural infrastructure solutions
are on the table. What I can say is our teams have started
meetings, and there are weekly two-hour meetings occurring over
the next month to put solutions in front of both leadership at
EPA, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
So we are tracking on that timeline that I committed to you
on. We have got all of the agencies; we have an interagency
council actually focused on this problem. I committed to you
and Senator Wicker that, instead of continuing to kick the
football down the road, like we have seen for the past 20, 30
years, we are going to get a solution to this problem.
Senator Hyde-Smith. During all these meetings, and all
these hearings that you are having, and all the agencies that
you say you are bringing in, it should be very clear that the
letter that was sent, that the pump project is subject to EPA's
2008 veto of a different Corps plan. You should easily find
that.
According to the EPA Assistant Administrator of the Office
of Water, the 2020 proposed plan is the same plan proposed by
the Corps in 2007. The 2020 proposed plan would discharge fill
material into the same disposal site prohibited under EPA's
2008 veto.
This is just not true. The facts are, the proposed location
of the pump station in the new 2020 plan is in a completely
different county than the 2007 plan's project site. That is a
big difference. And when I got that, and I saw that you were
looking at the things in 2007 in a completely different county,
I was just totally amazed.
Another fact, the 2020 plan included in the new mitigation
features to help sustain aquatic habitat, fisheries, and
mussels during low flow season, the 2007 plan called for
nothing of that sort. That is a big difference.
Another fact, the 2020 plan included an adaptive management
plan in light of the uncertainty related to the effects of
pumping out surface water within that area, and to allow the
flexible decisions making when operational adjustments are
needed. The 2007 plan did not include any of that. So this is a
big difference. And the list goes on.
The bottom line is, the 2020 plan is not the 2007 plan,
given the long list of differences detailed in the Corps' Final
Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, how can your
Agency determine that these two plans are basically one and the
same?
Mr. Regan. I think that, you know, the experts--I think you
we can agree that this issue has been going on since 1940 or
50s, and EPA, and Army Corps, and Fish and Wildlife, these
agencies have been having this discussion for 50 years, and
placing the blame in different categories.
Senator Hyde-Smith. But it is time to straighten it out
Mr. Regan. It is. Which is why I am proud to say that for
the first time in 50 or 60 years, I got the White House to
convene an interagency council to pull all these agencies
together so that staff can't hide, people can't hide, we are
going to take a look, we are going to do the analysis, and we
are kind of--we are going to come out with a solution.
And I feel very good about the process that we have
underway, because it has never been done before. And what you
are going to find, with the proposed solutions, is for the
first time in decades you are going to see a U.S. EPA, a USDA,
you are going to see an Army Corps, and a U.S. Fish and
Wildlife in the same administration stop bickering, and agree
on what we believe to be a legally sound, and engineering
durable solution to the Yazoo pump issue.
The other thing that we are going to also do, because you
raised Environmental Justice, is Army Corps' evaluation of the
Yazoo Pumps Project has never done an evaluation on EJ, never
provided any data to support that. We are going to do that this
time around.
So we want to button this thing up. I want to button this
thing up, probably not as much as you do, but I want to button
this thing up, because it is the right thing to do. And I
believe we can get it done.
Senator Hyde-Smith. Well, if you look at the facts and the
science, you can get it done. And I am just asking that all of
this is cleared up, because this is information coming from
your office that needs to be cleared up, and I truly appreciate
you trying to find the solution.
And it has been a long time coming, and I just hope that
this is a quick resolution to this, and that it is not two or
three more years down the road, because these people in the
Mississippi Delta need your help. And it did come to a
screeching halt after it was congressionally approved.
So I think you have got a lot of explaining to do. I think
you have got a lot of corrections to make. And I truly
appreciate your efforts in this.
Mr. Regan. Well thank you. And I agree with you, 50, 60, 40
years, however many years, is way too long. And this is a
priority for me, and we want to find the solution.
Senator Hyde-Smith. Thank you very much.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. Senator Capito.
Senator Moore Capito. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Administrator. Good to see you again. And I
look forward to our visit together, to West Virginia in June.
And thank you for agreeing to do that. I appreciate that.
I am going to follow up on a topic we have talked about, I
think it is about 13 months now, and that is the EPA's
involvement in developing the U.S. nationally determined
contribution target. Since you testified in April we did
receive some documents. And thank you for that. So your staff
had also agreed to schedule a briefing.
So that has not been scheduled yet. So I am asking you to
please have that briefing scheduled as soon as we can with my
staff.
Mr. Regan. Okay.
Senator Moore Capito. Good.
Mr. Regan. And it is that briefing on?
Senator Moore Capito. On the materials that were submitted.
Mr. Regan. Okay.
Senator Moore Capito. The other question on those
materials, there was information that--I think there was a
feeling that maybe not all of the information was brought
forward. You had previously said that EPA provided qualitative
information about our regulatory and voluntary programs, and
discussed approaches to quantitative analysis.
So in the materials we didn't see any of that quantitative
analysis. And I am wondering, did we get all the materials? I
mean, are you satisfied that you have presented all the
materials to our staff that we have been requesting?
Mr. Regan. I am. I posed this question just yesterday, and
my staff knows how serious I am about being responsive to your
requests.
Senator Moore Capito. You knew you would see me, right?
Mr. Regan. And so to the best of my knowledge, you all have
all of the materials that we have.
Senator Moore Capito. Okay. And I look forward to the
briefing. I think that will help us understand more some of the
data. I think there were some questions as to how the data was
presented.
Mr. Regan. Okay.
Senator Moore Capito. I did ask you, and this is a
question, and there have been a couple articles about, you are
asking for a thousand more employees in this budget. How many
people are presently full-time at EPA?
Mr. Regan. We have--let me get you an accurate number
here--we have right now 14,000--about 14,824 employees.
Senator Moore Capito. Okay. So the thousand would take you
up to 16,200, so you are not even at your full capacity right
now?
Mr. Regan. Yes, our fiscal year 2023 budget request would
support right around 16,000.
Senator Moore Capito. Right, so you are still, you are
still shy. You are still not hiring into the max that you have
from last year quite yet? You must not be, because a thousand
would be 15,200, so you are 600 people shy of your max.
Mr. Regan. We are still hiring.
Senator Moore Capito. Are all of those people back in the
office and working post-pandemic?
Mr. Regan. Yes. Our return to work strategy was, it began
February 28th, our political appointees, and senior Agency
leadership returned. Beginning March 28, our managers, and our
non-bargaining staff returned. So we are still--we worked
extensively with our unions, still working with our unions. But
you know, we are, in the coming weeks, all of our EPA employees
will be fully phased into, what we are calling our new
schedules.
Senator Moore Capito. Yeah. And your new schedule for some
people includes fully remote work, right?
Mr. Regan. Well, yes.
Senator Moore Capito. According to an article, yeah, that I
read.
Mr. Regan. Yes.
Senator Moore Capito. And then also, coming in one day
every two weeks, another----
Mr. Regan. Yes we have a range of flexibilities----
Senator Moore Capito. So this is not actually everybody
coming in, it can be a blended system, correct?
Mr. Regan. Correct.
Senator Moore Capito. Okay. You know, I had a meeting
yesterday with some energy folks, and you have been, in your
confirmation, and I think every time you have been in front of
all of our committees, and I think you have exhibited this. In
certain instances you have pledged to have all stakeholder
involvement to listen to everybody before making a decision,
knowing that you are not going to please everybody in the room.
And there was a general feeling within this as related to
pipelines, and natural gas development, that they had made
numerous requests to EPA to be a stakeholder, to have their
positions heard.
And I think we all see what is happening in Europe, we know
that the reliance on our own natural--our own energy resources,
in an all-of-the-above energy plan, and we are feeling--I think
most of us in energy states feeling as though that is not
really moving forward through the administration with some of
the pipelines that have been canceled. I have an MVP pipeline
in West Virginia that has had some huge difficulties, even
though it is 95 percent complete.
I just want to ask for your pledge again, that folks in the
energy industry have an ability to come, knock on your door,
and actually have their side of the story heard. I think they
are doing a lot to reduce their emissions in half on the
methane side, and other side, I know you are getting ready to
do a Methane Rule.
I sense some frustration with them. Do you publish who you
meet with? And have you had meetings with folks in that
industry around the Methane Rule?
Mr. Regan. Yes, we are fully transparent with who I meet
with, and who staff meets with. And yes, I have met with
leadership from the power sector, the oil and gas sector. I was
down in Houston at a CERA Conference meeting with executives
around all of the potential for methane capture, and the like.
And so if there is a frustration, I would love to get that
from you and your staff. But it is my understanding, and
personal experience, that we are meeting with all of our
stakeholders.
Senator Moore Capito. Well, I will circle back with them
and make sure that that your door is open and that you are
willing to meet with them.
Mr. Regan. Yes.
Senator Moore Capito. Maybe it is just not this
particular--these were a whole variety of different people, and
I was sort of frustrated by that.
On the Justice40 issue, I have tried to, like, dig deep
into that to see--it is pledged that 40 percent of the funding
that is going, is going to go to justice communities. Are you
quantifying that? I mean, is there a website that we can go to
that is going to show me where and how this pledge of 40
percent is actually being translated into different
communities, in Alaska, or West Virginia, or Mississippi?
Mr. Regan. Yeah I think that--so the Justice40 Initiative,
obviously, is being quarterbacked out of the White House and
so----
Senator Moore Capito. So who would we go to at the White
House?
Mr. Regan. The Center for Environmental Quality, Brenda
Mallory's job.
Senator Moore Capito. Right. Okay.
Mr. Regan. And as agencies, we all participating in pilot
projects to demonstrate how to do this. So let me give you a
couple examples. With the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the $5
billion for Superfund and Brownfield, as we put that money out,
you know, we have got more than 50 or 60 percent--I will get
you the right number--that goes to disadvantaged communities.
When we look at our----
Senator Moore Capito. Are you using the screening tool that
the CEQ put together?
Mr. Regan. No we have our own screening tool.
Senator Moore Capito. Is it different than CEQ?
Mr. Regan. I think there are some differences, and EPA has
had an Environmental Justice screening tool for decades. We
also are very well versed in environmental justice, we are one
of the agencies that has been doing this for a number of years,
and some of this is actually built into our programs.
Like with the State Revolving Loan Funds, 49 percent of our
dollars have to go to disadvantaged communities. So EPA has
some built-in infrastructure that really does a good evaluation
of where our resources actually go. So we are using ourselves
as pilot projects for the Justice40 Initiative, as some of that
has been built out.
Senator Moore Capito. And then you feed that up to CEQ?
Mr. Regan. That is right.
Senator Moore Capito. Are you satisfied you are reaching
the 40 percent?
Mr. Regan. I am very satisfied with the focus that my
Agency has given to environmental justice, and equity issues,
and when I look across my programs, numbers matter to me, data
matters, fairness, and equity, and transparency matters. With
our State Revolving Loan Fund Program, with our Brownfields and
Superfund, we are doing an excellent job making sure that the
people that need these resources the most, are actually getting
the resources.
Senator Moore Capito. Thank you.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Senator Capito.
Senator Reed.
Senator Reed. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And welcome, Mr. Administrator. Good to see you. I am
looking forward to hosting Deputy Administrator McCabe, in our
Region 1, Administrator David Cash from Rhode Island to
celebrate the success of the Southern New England Program, or
the SNEP program as we call it.
I once had the privilege to work as chairman of the
subcommittee, along with my ranking member, Senator Murkowski,
to create the SNEP program.
Thank you, Lisa.
And it is doing a lot of great work in Southern New
England, the estuaries, and the Narragansett Bay, and all
throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Can
you speak to the importance of these geographic programs in
terms of your overall mission?
Mr. Regan. Oh. Well I listen there. They are national
treasures, they are invaluable, and we are thankful to Congress
for the resources that we received in the 2022 budget to help
accentuate the value there, not just from an ecosystems'
protection standpoint, but that many of these geographic
programs provide drinking water for so many millions of
Americans.
The $15 million in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,
specifically for the Southern New England Program, will
definitely surge the efforts to protect water quality and
ecological health for diverse habitats.
But you know, I think that the program, this specific
program ensures that the strategies that we are putting in
place are comprehensive, durable, and sustainable. So the short
answer is invaluable, we have it as a high priority, the budget
reflects that priority, and we are doing the most with the
resources that we are applying.
Senator Reed. Well, thank you, Mr. Administrator. One of
the aspects why this program is so important is that the
Narragansett watershed, actually most of it is in
Massachusetts. So Narragansett Bay is in Rhode Island, so if we
get funding for Narragansett Bay, that is nice, but if we are
not dealing with the source of pollution in Massachusetts and
elsewhere, and this program's flexibility, given the Regional
Director the ability to fund projects in Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, that ultimately enhance the
quality of the Narragansett Bay, it is just first rate. So
thank you for your support.
Mr. Regan. Okay.
Senator Reed. Environmental justice is a critical issue. In
this pandemic we saw the impacts, dramatically, of disparities
between racial and ethnic groups, in terms of so many different
programs, and Environmental Quality is one of those programs.
I was pleased to see the President included it in the '23
budget EPA's State Environmental Justice Cooperative Agreement
Program. In my Department Of Environmental Management, excuse
me, is working to set up its own justice program. Can you talk
about how you are going to help develop these local
Environmental Justice programs?
Mr. Regan. Absolutely. And I believe it is critical that
they are developed at the local levels, and I believe it is
critical that the communities are involved. And I thank you for
your leadership in this space.
Senator Reed. Sure.
Mr. Regan. And what Rhode Island is doing. We are excited
about what Rhode Island is doing. I know my team has recently
connected with your staff to think through how to stand this
up. And we want to be sure that that the state is aware of the
Environmental Justice Cooperative Agreement Grant Program,
because we believe it will be instrumental in not only setting
up the program in Rhode Island, but pulling some of the best
management practices from programs that we have seen all across
the country.
And so we are excited, we are engaged, and if there is
anything that we can do to help with that success, we stand
ready.
Senator Reed. Well, thank you. I am going to sort of put on
my hat, in my service as committee member, and ask you about
cybersecurity challenges in your department. Unfortunately, no
area of life today is immune from cybersecurity, and that is
something that has sensitivity in national security agencies,
but I don't know of the same sensitivity in quote-unquote,
``domestic agencies''.
But can you just comment, from your perspective, as to your
cybersecurity issues?
Mr. Regan. There are. We are laser focused on this, this
has been a high priority for me since becoming administrator,
because as a state regulator I recognize the vulnerabilities
when I was director in North Carolina, 180,000, I believe,
independent water systems in this country, most states don't
really have a good understanding of the cyber-protective
measures that are in place, and how vulnerable they are.
Senator Reed. Yes.
Mr. Regan. And so, yes, in this budget we are requesting
15.5 million for EPA's activities to help enhance the states'
cybersecurity: 25 million to create a new grant program that
helps water systems establish and build necessary capabilities,
35 million for technical assistance, and then 50 million to
support a new grant program for the resilience and
sustainability of public water systems serving more than 10,000
people. This is a priority for us, and we are laser-focused on
it.
Senator Reed. Well, I appreciate it, because there are--we
have in Rhode Island a major water system, the Providence Water
System, which through the foresight of my ancestors many, many
years ago, they bought a large part of Scituate, which is a
community to the west, and they are supplying most of the
state.
But we have small systems that are being operated by three
or four people, and they do not have the sophistication to deal
with, you know, any type of cyber attack. So I think you this
is a good start, but we have to be able to reach down to the
lowest----
Mr. Regan. Yes.
Senator Reed [continuing]. you know, the smallest areas,
and also don't assume that that the big water systems know what
they are doing either. This is rather novel for these types of
organizations. But thank you very much for your great work, and
I look forward to working with you.
Mr. Regan. Thank you.
Senator Reed. Yes. Thank you.
Senator Merkley. Senator Hagerty.
Senator Hagerty. Thank you, Chairman Merkley, and Ranking
Member Murkowski. It is good to be with you today.
Administrator Regan, good to see you as well. First, I want
to talk a bit about the proposed Environmental Management
Disposal Facility, we call the EMDF at Oak Ridge, in my Home
State of Tennessee. DOE is cleaning up legacy waste and
buildings from the Manhattan Project era of the Cold War.
The cleanup has been a success story so far. For the first
time in history the United States has cleaned up a former
uranium enrichment complex, it has done so 4 years early, and
under budget. I am sure my colleagues here are pleased to hear
that. It has made more land available for economic development,
and like you, I served in my Home State Cabinet.
We are excited about the potential this creates from an
economic development perspective, and it gives us an
opportunity to reuse some previously contaminated land for
other DOE purposes as well. One of the concerns about this
though, is that the current on-site disposal facility will be
full by 2028, and that threatens to delay clean up, leave
contaminated buildings on site, it could cost hundreds of jobs
and waste, again, millions of taxpayer dollars.
For over a decade the State of Tennessee, the Department of
Energy and the EPA, have been discussing approval of a second
disposal site. And the process has been transparent, it has
been rigorously reviewed, I must say, it has been open to
public comment.
And I was very pleased to hear that on May 4th the DOE, the
EPA, and the State of Tennessee reached an agreement on site
groundwater study, waste acceptance criteria, and protection of
water quality in Bear Creek, in this area.
DOE is currently hosting a 30-day public engagement period,
and just last night DOD hosted a public meeting in Oak Ridge,
Tennessee, to discuss this facility.
I want to particularly call out and commend one of your--
one member your team, Jeff Prieto, your General Counsel, who
has done an excellent job. He and I talked about this before
his confirmation. He stayed in touch with me. I appreciate him
working with me on this issue to get us to this point.
So Administrator Regan, on June the 7th, next month, when
the 30-day comment period closes, what will the next steps be
for your Agency to get through the process and sign a Record of
Decision?
Mr. Regan. Well, and Senator, thank you for that. I think
our staffs are very proud that we are on time, under budget,
and making some headway here. What I will do is I will circle
back with you and your team on what those exact next steps are,
because I don't have that right here at my fingertips.
Senator Hagerty. Understood, my main goal is to see that
there will just be no further delays in the process. That we
get it done, get it approved, get the Record of Decision in
place. There are substantial costs--risk of cost overruns
associated with this, if we don't get the agreement in place
now, the timeline is going to get pushed, and we are going to
have a real problem in terms of running out of storage space
there.
Mr. Regan. I hear you loud and clear.
Senator Hagerty. I appreciate your personal attention to
that.
Mr. Regan. Absolutely.
Senator Hagerty. Thank you, Administrator. I would like to
turn now to another topic that impacts our Nation's gas prices,
and capacity, and that is the topic of small refinery
exemptions. I am sure you are well familiar with this.
You know, prices at the pump are at record highs, Americans
are feeling a lot of pain right now, and there doesn't seem to
be major relief in sight. However, your Agency continues to
move forward with attacking small refineries by denying all
petitions for small refinery exemptions from the renewable fuel
standard. My understanding is that the EPA has already issued
31 retroactive denials for petitions that were awarded in 2019,
that covered the 2018 compliance years.
And industry anticipates that you will deny all 60-plus SRE
petitions that are pending for 2019, 2020, and the 2021
compliance years. I just want to ask, Administrator Regan, is
that accurate?
Mr. Regan. We have made the first tranche of decisions
because of a court order deadline. And the second tranche of
decisions have not been made yet. What I will say is I think
that the 10th Circuit's decision really informed how the Agency
should approach these SREs.
And what we have tried to do also, in addition to the SRE
issue, is not necessarily have it in isolation, but in the
context of thinking about how we look at refineries, and
biofuels, and RVOs, and just getting that program on a much
stronger footing.
So what I can commit to you is that we are looking for a
way to provide certainty to both the AG industry, and refining
industry in terms of those obligations under the RVO Program,
and how that plays into these exemptions--that these exemption
decisions that the Agency is having to make.
Senator Hagerty. One thing I want to point out is that how
these decisions unfold will have a real impact on compliance
cost. And compliance costs, particularly with respect to these
exemptions that we are talking about, have grown, my
understanding, is 69 percent since the EPA published the 67
percent of--the proposal to eliminate small refinery
exemptions.
That moves, what was a 0.13 cent per gallon compliance
cost, up to 0.22 cents per gallon. And if all of these further
exemptions are denied that will take that compliance cost even
further.
Mr. Regan. Yeah, I would like to--and I think we would have
to sort of look at those sort of site-by-site, because when you
take a look at the exemptions that were not recently granted,
there is also compliance flexibility built into that. So it
ranges from, you know, some decisions have been made in the
past so far back that some of that compliance was forgiven.
There is also some that were made more recent that have
payment plans, or compliance plans, put in place in a phased
way. So it wasn't a blanket denial, you are on your own. I
think that that was carefully thought through, and there were
very serious considerations given to those who we felt did not
deserve the compliance, even though decisions were made years
past, and we are making this decision today we thought we
would--we did it with thought and care.
Senator Hagerty. So you have got an easy payment plan, so
to speak, when you have come back and denied retroactively?
Mr. Regan. Yes. There is a payment plan that has been built
into those decisions that were made most recently. I can't
speak to the decisions that haven't been made yet.
Senator Hagerty. Sure.
Mr. Regan. But when you look back at the ones that were
denied you can look back at different flexibilities built in
for repayment.
Senator Hagerty. I understand the concept here. I would
just encourage you strongly, given the fact that we are hitting
record high gas prices at the pump every day, families are
having to make decisions between groceries that they buy, or
filling up their tank. And anything that would increase
compliance cost, I think we should look at very carefully right
now.
And having blanket exceptions, you know, retroactive
withdrawals of exemptions, I think you know, obviously, puts
upward pressure on prices, when you have an opportunity right
before you to put downward pressure by granting the exemptions.
So I am going to encourage you, please to consider
reversing course here, in this blanket exemption denial, and
please take into account the impact on, you know, hard-working
families that are trying to make things work at home, at the
pump.
Not doing it, I think it implicates, not only the economics
of an American family, making it harder for them to get by, it
has upward pressure on inflation, it also impacts our national
security. And all of this I think is something that is
extremely challenging, in my mind, to understand why we would
be pursuing a policy like this at this point in time, when we
see the type of inflation and energy costs that we have got.
I am also concerned about the way the policy is being done
in terms of being implemented through guidance, rather than
going through a more formal rule-making process that would
actually subject it to congressional review, because I can tell
you that we would like to have the opportunity to review this.
It feels like a policy change to me, and particularly given
the economic implications on the American consumer, it is
significant. So again, I would encourage you to take a very
strong look at that and reconsider.
Mr. Regan. And I appreciate that, and we are--listen I
understand that people are hurting, the price at the pump is
really putting pressure on all of our fellow citizens, because
of this unprovoked war. And I will say that we are very
thoughtful about that----
Senator Hagerty. Just to clarify, this started well before
the unprovoked war.
Mr. Regan. Well, on the SRE.
Senator Hagerty. The war may be exacerbating it, but these
decisions don't have anything to do with the war in Ukraine.
Mr. Regan. I think that the prices that we are looking at
now, and then some of the pressure that the refineries are
facing, this war doesn't help. And these SRE decisions that,
quite frankly, I don't enjoy making, but have been forced to
make because, during the previous administration the previous
administration gave these exemptions out in a way that the 10th
Circuit Court disagreed with. And so they were remanding it
back.
The decisions that we are making in terms of these SREs, we
are trying to do it in a way where we follow the law. And I am
trying to stay on the right side of the law, while also doing
exactly what you just laid out, which is being sensitive to the
prices that we are facing now, and how we can do that to
alleviate the burdens of just average, everyday----
Senator Hagerty. I appreciate your sensitivity to that,
Administrator. And I would encourage you then to put it through
a formal rulemaking, so we can have proper notice and comment,
and proper review by this body. Thank you.
Mr. Regan. Thank you.
Senator Hagerty. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Senator.
I am going to try to get through a bunch of questions
quickly. And first in terms of water infrastructure for tribes,
and I am particularly concerned about the situation faced by
the Warm Springs in Oregon who have a myriad of problems with
their water system. And the Indian Health Service is using the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill to tackle that to a degree.
But some of the issues are ineligible for funding through
that mechanism, including the water system that supplies
hospital, and schools to the drinking water system. Do you have
a sense of how the funding that comes through your side of the
world might be able to help in that situation?
Mr. Regan. You know, we are very in tune with this issue,
and will absolutely continue to work with the Indian Health
Services, and we will keep you and your staff in the loop. I
would say that, you know, EPA's experts have met with the
Indian Health Service to explore some flexibilities and
innovation here. We don't have the funding or the authority to
directly support operation maintenance and repair, but that
hasn't prevented us from continuing with the conversation to
think about where and how EPA can weigh in on this very
important issue.
Senator Merkley. Well I like the terms ``innovation'' and
``flexibility'', so let us brainstorm on how to get this--how
to get this done.
Mr. Regan. Okay.
Senator Merkley. So that we have a complete water system in
that situation. And in fiscal year 2022, we had a number of
water infrastructure challenges that were addressed through,
what I would call community-initiated projects, here in D.C.
they are called congressionally-directed, which makes no sense
to me.
Mr. Regan. Okay.
Senator Merkley. Because it is all about the communities
initiating ideas, and then we fight for our communities to get
those things funded. And they are very happy when we fight for
them, and are able to assist them with the priorities that they
see on the ground. But when are those grants going to start
actually going out the door?
Mr. Regan. I believe the--let us see--we have about 483
congressionally-directed projects totaling about 841 million.
We are committed to a timely and transparent process, but to be
perfectly honest it is the implementation of what we consider
to be a new program. The magnitude is great, and while the 2022
appropriations gave resources for the projects, it did not
provide dedicated administrative funding to support the
implementation.
So we are trying to stand that up as quickly as possible,
and we are working on that that final process. I believe, if my
information is correct, fall of 2022 I believe is our targeted
timeframe there.
Senator Merkley. Well, let me explain something that you
probably have realized. There is a hundred Senators who have
communities that have received grants, and they are very
excited about the grants in there, but they are very concerned
about costs going up while they are waiting.
They are like: Okay, we submitted a proposal. We were
awarded a grant. Why can't we get the check? I would like you
to brainstorm with your inner circle on, like, realizing that
these communities will be really well served by finding a way
to expedite that process, because I am sure you don't a hundred
senators calling you up and saying: My community just found out
their costs doubled because the grants haven't come yet.
Mr. Regan. I agree with that 100 percent.
Senator Merkley. I am sure you don't want those phone
calls. All right, so I want to turn to the issue of plastics.
You can't hardly pick up any kind of newspaper that doesn't
talk about the expanding problems with microplastics, the
problems with the plastics being swept out to sea. You know, in
the past all the mantra was the three R's, reduce, reuse, and
recycle.
And when I look at those little triangles, and we sit there
and we go, hmm, can this piece of plastic that was on top of my
coffee cup be recycled when it has coffee on it? And there is a
whole lot of wish cycling, where you put things into a
recycling bin, but they are not actually getting recycled. And
a lot of those plastics that have those triangles with those
numbers on them, there is not even a market, there is not
even--nothing is happening with them. We are just deceiving the
American public about it.
In fact recycling has dropped from 8 percent to 6 percent
over this last year. So it is not working. What really happens
with plastics, is not the three R's, but it is the three B's,
they are burned, they are buried, or they are borne out to sea.
And now, because of the microplastics, every American is
consuming, it is estimated, about a credit card worth of
plastic a week.
And, you know, there is a lot of chemicals in those
plastics, hormone disruptors, so on, and so forth. This can't
be good for our children, it can't be good for anybody, and we
need to radically improve plastics. How are you going to make
that happen?
Mr. Regan. Well, I can tell you this was a surprise to me,
but in my conversations, especially with young people in this
country, the very number one issue is climate change, but a
close second is plastics. And this is something that in
recycling, something that EPA is really focused on.
We are in the process of developing a national strategy to
reduce plastics and other waste in waterways and oceans--which
identifies key actions that are needed to reduce and collect
plastic waste material. And these are strategies that are part
of a series of strategies on building a circular economy for
all, that we believe will fulfill the mandate for strategy
under our Save Our Seas Act 2.0.
And so that is where we are focusing most of our time,
efforts, and resources, and we believe that will contribute to
the solution that you are looking for.
Senator Merkley. Yeah. Well, here is my impression. There
is a whole lot of nice sounding language regarding reducing
waste, and improving recycling in a circular economy, but a
whole lot of inaction and actually delivering changes. When we
grab our coffee, and we get a plastic cap on it. Why is that
necessary? Why can't it be done in some other fashion?
I mean, you have got research teams, you have got experts,
we need a dramatically improved plan, not just simply a new
version of a recycling strategy that fails for a whole host of
very understandable reasons. And so I am going to really push
the Agency to say, this is a huge, huge issue. And failure on
this is a massive failure for the American people. So I will
keep pressing for a really dramatic, significant set of
solutions to be proposed and implemented by the Agency.
Mr. Regan. Yes, absolutely.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. Senator Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just to follow up on the Chairman's comments about
plastics. As you well know, we have challenges in Alaska with
recycling efforts, just limited capacity. Most of our recycled
product is shipped outside, probably down to Senator Merkley's
state in Oregon.
Senator Merkley. We are happy for you to keep that up
there.
Senator Murkowski. Well, we are trying to get it out, and
get it to a place where it can be recycled, but the marine
debris that we deal with, that just comes to our shoreline as a
result of the currents, it is just--we may be doing a good job
of keeping our state clean, but it gets delivered on our
beaches, it gets delivered on our coastline.
And so it is costly to remove it, and of course the longer
that it stays there in the title zone, the more the debris
deteriorates into microplastics, the more challenging it is on
a host of different levels. So the Agency, I think, is rightly
looking at what more we need to be doing. I was pleased to see
that a Phase 2 Small Business Innovation Research Grant was
provided to an Alaska constituent who has a pretty innovative
way of recycling plastic ocean waste. So we are encouraged by
levels of innovation like that.
But as you are looking to expand grants for recycling
efforts, I am hoping that you are also going to be considering
in seeking funding for marine debris and plastic ocean waste
collection and recycling efforts, as well as that, as well as
what you have just discussed with the Chairman.
Mr. Regan. Okay.
Senator Murkowski. So I mentioned PFAS, again this is a big
issue for us in Alaska, but I know that it is a priority for
others on the committee, and here in Congress, and in my state
the list of communities that is facing the challenges of PFAS
and PFAS contamination is only growing.
As you know, we had 10 billion in the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law that is going to be helpful, but we have got
to start making meaningful impact on PFAS contamination while
we wait for Federal standards. And I think the Infrastructure
Bill is a good first step on that.
So can you walk the committee through how you envision this
10 billion from that law making a difference on PFAS? And how
the Agency is working with states, working with our local
communities to perhaps provide some best practices on how to
spend these funds on remediation of PFAS?
Mr. Regan. Absolutely. You know, this is a top priority for
the administration, and so we have got a couple of tracks
going, but we do have this PFAS strategy for the $10 billion.
You know, most of these funds are being pushed through to the
states being provided, as fully forgivable loans or grants
without a state match required. So that is going to help us get
the resources to the communities that need them the most, in
terms of putting some protective measures in place.
We are also working on guidance for the proper destruction
and disposal of PFAS, so we want to be able to not only give
these communities resources to handle the products, but we want
to be able to give the right guidance as well.
Senator Murkowski. So are you working with the Department
of Defense on that in terms of the proper destruction of PFAS?
Mr. Regan. We are on track to update our guidance on that.
And yes, we are working with the Department of Defense, we are
working with HHS, we are working in an inner agency capacity to
be sure that we are all focused on solving the same problem.
Senator Murkowski. Okay. All right. Well, sooner is better
than later, but I think you agree with that. And I appreciate
that the administration is placing a priority on it.
PM2.5, we can't have a hearing on EPA's budget without
talking about fine particulate matter. This is an ongoing issue
of course, in primarily the Fairbanks North Star Borough. I
just wanted to check in with you on the current status of the
PM2.5 standards. In June of last year you announced that you
were going to re-examine the previous administration's decision
in 2020 to retain the existing particulate matter on national
ambient air quality standards.
So can you give me an update on the Agency's review, and if
you have made a decision to revise the 2020 Rule? And if so,
what the timeline is for a proposed and then a final rule on
that?
Mr. Regan. Yes. We are working on. We are continuing to
work closely with the Alaska Department of Environmental
Conservation, and the Fairbanks North Star Borough to continue
to provide technical assistance there. I think we have met, or
our team has met with the mayor a number of times this year,
just to talk about PM2.5, more specifically the challenges of
wood stoves.
And we are continuing to coordinate and meet regularly with
Nescon to better understand some of the concerns. And then we
are--we have, you know, since 2016 awarded over $31 million in
grants. So we are continuing to have that conversation, to look
at some of the unique aspects of the Fairbanks community, and
we are just going to continue to push that ball.
Senator Murkowski. Well, if there is a new proposed rule,
we want to make sure that there is going to be plenty of
opportunity for public review and comment on that, and just
making sure that these very unique concerns related to the
issues there, again primarily in Fairbanks North Star Borough
are considered.
Mr. Regan. Absolutely.
Senator Murkowski. So you mentioned wood stove testing, and
again, this is an issue where you have a real genuine,
committed effort by those in the community to address a
problem, and we have got a situation where we don't have the
technology, or the standards to--that are in place to
appropriately address this issue.
So what we have is a situation where people in the
Fairbanks area, in a non-attainment area want to try to address
their own level of emissions. They are being told that if you
buy a new wood stove, then you are going to be able to make
some impact there.
And yet the Agency is letting wood stoves come to market
that don't meet the existing standards. And so we have got a
great program through the Targeted Airshed Grant, but this wood
stove change-out, we are using good Federal money, important
taxpayer dollars, but because of the standards issue it is not
making a difference. And that is not fair to the constituents,
it is not fair to the Agency, it is really not fair to anyone.
So this is something that we have got to do better on.
I had the mayor and his assistant fly out to Washington,
D.C., specifically to have a meeting with folks in the Agency,
and when they got here they were told: Okay fine, your meeting
is on Zoom, and we will meet you--you know, come online at X
o'clock.
They came to my office instead. And I said no, you have
flown all away from Fairbanks, Alaska, to be here, we are going
to get the individuals that you have been talking to, in. This
goes to the point that Senator Capito raised about, you know,
whether or not EPA folks are actually back in office. And they
told me that that was the very first week that they had been
called back in, and weren't quite sure what their protocols
are.
I just share that with you, because it was a real live
instance where you have got a serious issue with constituents,
they have managed to make the effort to come back here, and
their government isn't there. So their Senator has to call the
Agency and demand a meeting.
They came over, it worked out fine, they got good
information back and forth, I think both sides would agree it
was a meeting worth taking. But I just need to know that we are
going to--we are going to see some better efforts in how EPA is
reviewing the current wood stove standards, and how, in the
meantime, you are you are engaging the industry to fix the
current flaws here. So it is it is something that shouldn't be
so hard, and I am hoping that we are making better progress
than we have seen.
I have gone on far longer than I have. But thank you, Mr.
Chairman, for letting me raise that issue before the
Administrator this morning.
Mr. Regan. Thank you for sharing that.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. Senator Hyde-Smith.,
Senator Hyde-Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You know, I keep up with the Mississippi River on my phone,
because of the unnecessary flooding that we just stay under a
threat of. And a few days ago the Corps closed the Steele Bayou
floodgates, because the Mississippi River is on the rise. And
that means the rivers and streams that are inside the levee
system, they have no exit because we have no pumps.
So with any measurable rainfall right now, today, as we sit
here in the next several hours, in the next few days, we could
be looking at another flood. And I just want to invite you that
if that does occur, I would love for you to come down and join
me in a helicopter ride over the river, to see the
significance. And that is all I have.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Senator.
I imagine, Administrator, you are familiar with the term,
``Insect Armageddon''?
Mr. Regan. Yes.
Senator Merkley. We have seen a massive drop in insects in
this country. I am really struck by how being a kid when we
drive north and south in the state; we would always be stopping
to clean all the insects off our windshield, and now that is a
very, very rare moment.
And we see it in things, for example, like the collapse of
the monarch. And California has taken efforts to do things,
such as plant significant amounts of milkweed, but one of the
things, that I took a trip down to California to go to over one
of the overwintering spots along the coast.
And they are noting now some of the challenges include
things like, with climate change, the milkweed rhythm is
changing, and sometimes the milkweed isn't out at the time that
the monarchs need to start leaving the coast to the first kind
of evolution of--because they go through several life--several
life cycles of subsequent groups in a single year.
And also that milkweed that people might plant to help out
monarchs in their home gardens and so forth, they may be
contaminated with neonicotinoids, or other pesticides that will
actually hurt pollinators rather than help them.
Anyway this issue of pollinators is a big deal for the
broader ecosystem, and how is the EPA really tackling this
problem?
Mr. Regan. Well, thank you for that question. And you know,
we recognize, as you do, that pollinators are important to the
environment and the economy. And I think the Endangered Species
Act is one of EPA's best tools to protect endangered
pollinators when we register pesticides.
And so we have invested heavily in strengthening our work
in this area. In the 2023 budget it proposes to include, for
the first time ever, a targeted increase for our ESA pesticide
work. So we have asked for $4.9 million and 10 FTE to focus
specifically on this issue.
We are also working to finish our review of some of the
pesticides that pollinators are vulnerable to, although some of
this work has slipped a little bit behind where we want to be,
we are continuing to forge ahead on this very important issue.
So it is a priority, and it is reflected in our budget.
Senator Merkley. I will give you just one example of the
types of things that might be real facts on the ground changes,
and that is to have a system in which we can make sure that as
we replant pollinators, or the flowers, and appropriate plants
for pollinators, we are making sure that that they are raised
in a fashion, that is that the plants are prepared in the
nurseries in a fashion that doesn't make them damaging to
insects rather than helpful.
And so it is just one of the pieces to look at. And I hope
that there will be a moment 10 years from now when we can say
that that 98 percent collapse in the monarch has been reversed
before we lose the western monarch. But it is just as--it is a
beautiful symbol, but it is representative of the broader
challenge of a whole classes of pollinators, including,
obviously, our bee populations.
I want to turn to your broad effort to rebuild the EPA, and
we have seen a proposal for a really significant expansion, and
you have got a lot going on with toxic chemicals, and water
supplies, and hydrofluorocarbons, you have got a massive set of
responsibilities.
So as you look at your plan to go forward, and your work--
restore your workforce, you are also facing a retirement wave.
And I understand that 43 percent of your workforce have enough
service that they could be retirement eligible within 5 years.
And so not only rebuilding the vacancies you have now, but
preparing for probably a significant wave of retirements.
How will your budget proposal rebuild and modernize EPA's
enforcement and compliance efforts in the context of this
personnel challenge?
Mr. Regan. You know, I think that the enforcement piece is
something that I have indicated we are wanting to build up and
build capacity up very quickly, because we have a lot of laws
and rules on the books that just aren't being enforced, that
protect our most vulnerable.
So our enforcement budget is mostly comprised of many of
those employees--any of the employees that are in our regional
offices. Our 2023 budget request is about $104 million, we are
asking for 122 FTE that will ensure EPA can follow through with
compliance and enforce our Nation's environmental laws.
I would say that, you know, unfortunately, our enforcement
budget has remained flat over time as payroll costs have
increased, in addition to cost of living adjustments. And so as
a result, during the past decade, we have seen about a 22
percent of our enforcement capacity, or resources drop.
We need more boots on the ground. We need to be able to
follow through and do our job to protect our fellow citizens.
And so this fiscal year 2023 budget has that pragmatic, and
practical request in there to get us to that workforce level
that we need to be at.
Senator Merkley. So I did specifically mention enforcement.
But let me turn more broadly to your overall number of staff
that you need to add. And I was glancing back, looking at the
fiscal year 2023 request proposes to fund 16,200 FTE, an
increase of 2,000 above fiscal year 2021 staffing level. So now
let me just kind of zoom out to this broader challenge of
those--how essential are those 2,000 staff members? And I think
you are going--is that in addition to the thousand that you are
you are hoping to hire through the Bipartisan Infrastructure
Bill?
Mr. Regan. We are looking at an addition, yes. We know that
the resources that we are asking for, for the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law, those are resources that look at a five-
year window. We are trying to really rebuild the core EPA
workforce here.
To the point you just made about 25 percent of all EPA
employees are eligible to retire with 19 percent eligible in
the next 5 years. And so we can look at just really basic
examples. If we want to implement the TSCA laws the way
Congress has asked that we do, we need the bodies there to do
that. We have about 200 less staff to focus on processing, and
getting new chemicals to the market, than we did in 1988.
So we need to rebuild capacity at the core, but we also
really need to rebuild capacity in strategic programs that,
quite frankly, are trying to keep pace with the growing
economy.
Senator Merkley. Yeah. Thank you, and thank you for
highlighting the toxic chemicals bill, the TCSA Bill, with the
Lautenberg rewrite of it, the Lautenberg amendments. And
consumers in America, are just kind of really believe that we
are monitoring the chemicals that go into products in a way we
are not. But TCSA makes that possible as rewritten, but you
need the personnel, the 200 FTE that you noted, the additional
200 FTE to make it work. I think that is incredibly important.
On that note, I will turn back to my colleague from Alaska.
Senator Murkowski. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the
Administrator for being here this morning, for the engagement
that you have had with each of us on issues, some very
parochial, some more national in scope, and just would ask that
you continue with a very direct engagement as you have
committed to.
I share the Chairman's desire, and concern, and knowing
what we can anticipate with regards to the guidance, and the
guidelines with the congressionally directed spending. This is
something where I think we know full well, certainly on the
water and wastewater projects that we have in Alaska, a very,
very keen interest in starting to move out on this quickly.
And in many parts of my state we have got issues where
timing is pretty important, as the season is not unlimited as
we work to build out these projects. I wanted to just ask a
question, and based on--based on your response to the Chairman,
you probably have not yet determined, but the staffing set
asides from the infrastructure bill funding, curious to know
whether they could be used to help offset the costs of
administering the congressionally directed spending projects.
That is something that has been raised. So as you are
considering that, perhaps you should just include that as part
of the discussion as you are moving forward in laying down this
particular guidance.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I thank the Administrator. And
thank you for having a good hearing today.
Mr. Regan. Thank you very much.
ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS
Senator Merkley. Thank you, Senator. And if there are no
other statements, the hearing record will be open until the
close of business on May 25th.
Questions Submitted by Senator Dianne Feinstein
california coast dumping cleanup
Question. I continue to be deeply concerned about industrial waste
dumped off the California coast between the 1930s and 1960s that still
remains in our ocean. This toxic waste includes DDT--a chemical so
harmful it was banned in 1972.
We now know that oil and gas-related chemicals are also likely to
have been dumped there as well. Scientific studies point to decades of
detrimental impacts to the marine life, including cancer in dolphins,
sea lions and California Condors.
The survey conducted by NOAA and partners in March 2021 mapped
approximately 36,000 acres at 3000 feet depth of the sea floor. This
area, known as dumpsite #2, revealed around 26,000 dumped barrels of
industrial waste, and over 100,000 other debris objects. We also know
based on historical record, there are a total of 14 known offshore
dumpsites off the California coast. This is alarming.
Both EPA and NOAA have informed my office a number of times that
they have more questions than answers on this problem and a follow-up
survey mission is the best next step to understand the state of the
barrels, as well as the chemicals in them and around them in the water
and on the sea floor. Yet, more than a year later, neither agency has
provided a funding estimate or including funding in the fiscal year
2023 budget proposal despite repeated requests by my staff, nor a plan
of action for next steps. Lastly, EPA has yet to fulfill its commitment
to a public website for the public to learn more and understand the
scope of the issue.
Administrator Regan, I ask, once again, that EPA and its partners
act with urgency and prioritize this issue. Can you describe the next
steps EPA will take to help us better understand the impacts of this
historic ocean dumping?
Answer. This historic toxic dumping is a major problem off the
California coast.
Although the United States outlawed this practice decades ago,
major problems and risks from these lingering chemicals still exist.
Based upon scientific studies, EPA agrees that these deep- water sites
need to be further examined. EPA is collaborating with state and
Federal agencies and key institutions, including the Scripps Institute
of Oceanography and the University of California Santa Barbara, to
identify a strategy to investigate this area and the potential risk to
human health and the marine environment.
Question. Does EPA have the statutory authority it needs to monitor
or conduct testing on the impacts of the DDT and other toxic waste that
was dumped decades ago but remains active in our environment?
Answer. CERCLA provides discretionary authority under Sections
104(a) and 104(b) to undertake monitoring and testing of releases or
threatened releases of hazardous substances, such as DDT and to respond
to releases or threats of release, including releases into United
States territorial waters or ocean waters with natural resources under
the exclusive management authority of the United States. The US Coast
Guard is delegated lead response authority for releases in the coastal
zone, with EPA serving in a support capacity, subject to further
agreement between the Agencies.
bay delta watershed
Question. I appreciate the President's budget proposal investing in
geographic ecosystem restoration programs nationwide including San
Francisco Bay Delta, however, I am disappointed that San Francisco Bay
appears to be the only program--when compared to at least seven
others--not to have received a funding increase despite demonstrated
need of the region and success of the program.
The San Francisco Bay Delta watershed system is one of the largest
in the nation. It covers 75,000 square miles and includes the largest
estuary on the west coasts of North and South America. It also contains
the only inland delta in the world. In addition, the watershed provides
a primary source of drinking water for 25 million Californians,
irrigation for 7000 square miles of agriculture, and includes important
economic resources such as California's water supply infrastructure,
ports, deepwater shipping channels, major highway and railroad
corridors, and energy lines. In the Delta specifically, declining water
quality and increasing demand for limited water resources are the
subject of intense review and planning to protect this valuable
resource for the future.
The watershed includes a diversity of fresh water, brackish water,
and salt water aquatic habitats. Several endangered and threatened
aquatic species are found here including delta smelt, steelhead, spring
run Chinook salmon, winter run Chinook salmon, and others. Two-thirds
of California's salmon pass through these waters, and at least half of
the state's Pacific Flyway migratory water birds rely on the region's
wetlands.
Administrator Regan, can you provide an explanation as to why San
Francisco Bay did not receive an increase from fiscal year 2022 funding
levels in your budget proposal for fiscal year 2023 while at least
seven other programs received double or more, including similar
programs such as Puget Sound and South Florida?
Answer. EPA is committed to continue working with Congress, as well
as our Federal and state partners, to protect human health, support
economic growth, and improve environmental conditions for Americans
that live and work in the San Francisco Bay Delta.
The fiscal year 2023 President's Budget was formulated before
enacted levels were fully available for the San Francisco Bay Program
and, therefore, reflected a $3 million increase when compared to the
fiscal year 2022 Annualized Continuing Resolution Levels as contained
in the request.
south coast air quality district
Question. For over 20 years, the South Coast Air Quality District
has been working to meet Federal Clean Air Act standards. Since these
standards were set in 1997, California has led the nation in taking
action against pollution and climate change.
While I am appreciative of the EPA's action to reinstate
California's waiver so it can set its own fuel emissions standards, as
well as actions to increase standards for heavy-duty trucks and
regulate hydrofluorocarbons, I think we can both agree that the Federal
government must do more to limit emissions, including from ocean-faring
cargo ships, trains, and out-of-state trucks and airplanes--all of
which affect the South Coast's air quality. Until it does so, it is
unreasonable to expect that the state will meet their Federal air
quality goals, and still more unreasonable to penalize air quality
districts for non-attainment. Further, the withholding of highway funds
in pursuit of this penalty will only make it more difficult for the
district to complete projects which would help them reach their
attainment goals.
What is the EPA doing to fast-track emissions standards for
interstate and international travel and commerce, including ships,
trains, trucks, and airplanes?
Answer. EPA recognizes the significance of the public health
challenges that California faces and is acting on a range of fronts to
reduce emissions from the transportation sector. That includes: a March
2022 proposal to reduce oxides of nitrogen from Heavy Duty Vehicles,
for which EPA intends to finalize standards by December 2022;
evaluating whether emissions from piston-engine aircraft operating on
leaded fuel contribute to air pollution that endangers public health
and welfare, then issuing a proposal this year for public review and
comment, and taking final action in 2023; and leveraging the
significant investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law's Clean
School Bus program to achieve air quality improvements in communities
and help drive the market for electric heavy duty vehicles. In
addition, EPA is engaged as an active member of the U.S. Government
delegation at the International Maritime Organization working on
programs to reduce air pollution from ocean-going vessels and at the
International Civil Aviation Organization working on programs to reduce
air pollution from aircraft. Refer to the proposed rule https://
www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/proposed-rule-
control-air-pollution-aircraft-engines.
Question. What plans does the EPA have to help the South Coast Air
Quality District meet their attainment goals, given large sources of
federally preempted sources of pollution in the area?
Answer. EPA appreciates these air quality challenges and shares
your concern about reducing pollution from sources needed to reach
attainment. A coordinated, collaborative Federal- state partnership is
critical to address these long-standing air pollution problems. EPA's
Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) and Region 9 leadership are working
closely with the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD)
and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to address these time-
sensitive issues regarding Clean Air Act obligations and sanctions. OAR
and Region 9 have established a team that began meeting with SCAQMD and
CARB to develop a common understanding of the area's ozone attainment
challenges, potential Federal and state solutions, required timelines
for achieving compliance with ozone air quality standards, and
potential triggers of Federal sanctions. EPA is committed to
determining how EPA, our colleague agencies, and our state and local
counterparts can move forward to ensure attainment and maintenance of
the ozone NAAQS.
Question. What is EPA's long-term enforcement posture to ensure air
quality districts are able to meet their goals and avoid inappropriate
penalties in future situations?
Answer. EPA's desire is always to help air quality planners meet
the requirements and the goals of the Clean Air Act collaboratively,
and we will continue to provide support to state and local compliance
monitoring and enforcement programs with the goal of achieving the
reductions envisioned by the regulatory framework designed to improve
air quality.
renewable fuels
Question. Currently, the EPA allows biomass cleared from areas that
are ``at risk from wildfire'' to be classified as a renewable fuel.
However, that definition relies on outdated information that may not
include many locations in California that are actually areas of high
wildfire risk according to the U.S. Forest Service, as I mentioned in
my December 2021 letter to you. If vegetation cleared from wildfire
hazard areas could be classified as renewable biomass under EPA rules,
it would help reduce wildfire risk in these areas, improve forest
health, and make use of cleared vegetation.
Will you update this guidance with a more recent U.S. Forest
Service Wildfire Hazard Potential map to more accurately reflect
California's wildfire risk?
Answer. It is clear that climate change and extreme weather are
exacerbating wildlands fires across the country. As requested in your
December 2021 letter, EPA has been working with the U.S. Forest Service
and interested stakeholders to evaluate if such a change is permissible
under the Clean Air Act. Any changes to EPA's current approach will
need to go through notice and comment rulemaking to amend the existing
regulations.
As the EPA processes additional pathways for biofuels under the
Renewable Fuel Standard, including from canola and rapeseed oil, I urge
the agency to be as aggressive as possible with other pathways. The
agency's expertise is critical to evaluate new transportation fuels
lifecycle greenhouse gas benefits.
Question. What is the current status for additional pathways that
is EPA considering, such as biomass and biogas for electric or fuel
cell vehicles or those technologies that pair direct air capture and/or
carbon capture and sequestration?
Answer. EPA intends as part of an upcoming rulemaking to propose
new regulations that would allow renewable electricity to participate
in the RFS program, consistent with Congressional intent to expand
renewable fuel use. EPA has met with multiple stakeholders over several
months to gather input on the upcoming proposal, which will provide
details regarding how program implementation would work.
wildfires
Question. Wildfires in California have become increasingly
prevalent and intense in recent years. While the science exploring the
environmental impacts of these fires is ongoing, comparatively little
attention has been paid to the health impacts for Californians
resulting from the resulting poor air quality. Researchers in my state
have attempted to quantify these impacts and found that wildfire smoke
was linked to 11,500 deaths in California between 2008--2018. Another
recent study estimated that the 2020 California wildfires resulted in
an additional 20,000 COVID-19 cases as people were more likely to stay
indoors. As smoke from California wildfires can potentially impacts
states as far away as New York, more funding is needed to study the
impacts of these wildfires across the nation.
Administrator Regan, what is the EPA doing to fund research on the
environmental and health impacts of wildfire smoke? Have you explored
using the EPA STAR program to prioritize this research?
Answer. EPA works to mitigate the public health impacts of both
wildfire and prescribed fire smoke events. EPA provides trusted
information about air quality conditions and health impacts before,
during and after fire and smoke events. EPA also conducts research and
builds the tools needed to understand the impacts of fire on air
quality, water quality, and health.
EPA researchers are working to increase understanding of who is
most at risk for adverse health effects of smoke; what strategies and
approaches are effective in communicating impacts of wildfires on air
quality and health to reduce smoke exposures and protect public health;
how best to measure and model wildfire emissions and related air
quality; and the impacts of wildland fire on surface waters and
drinking water quality. This work will help citizens and local
governments to understand and minimize the impact of wildfire smoke on
public health.
EPA is also working with tribes, states, and other Federal agencies
to address wildfires. EPA is expanding the Wildfire Smoke Air
Monitoring Response Technology (WSMART) program to increase the
capacity of air agencies and air resource advisors affiliated with the
Interagency Wildland Fire Air Quality Response Program to expand air
quality monitoring during wildfire smoke events.
EPA Wildfires Research is expected to be funded at approximately
$3.0M in fiscal year 2022. A $4.8 million increase to address wildfires
research is being requested in fiscal year 2023 for a total investment
of $7.8M.
In 2021, as part of its Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program,
EPA awarded $9 million in grant funding for researchers to address
behavioral, technical, and practical aspects of interventions and
communication strategies to reduce exposures and health risks of
wildland fire smoke. To improve public health, the institutions
receiving these grants are conducting research to understand what
actions might be effective for reducing exposures to wildland fire
smoke and how best to communicate these actions to various groups.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Patrick J. Leahy
lake champlain
Question. I want to thank you and the administration for once again
including $20 million in funding in the President's budget to support
the EPA's Geographic Program for Lake Champlain. The Lake--Vermont's
``Great'' Lake--is critical not only to our state's economy, but to the
entire Champlain Valley. New and ongoing threats, however, from climate
change, invasive species, water contamination, and more, demand
continued investment in restoration and preservation.
You and I have spoken about the success of the EPA's Lake Champlain
Program. It is a model for other geographic area programs across the
country. What future investments do you believe are necessary to ensure
that Lake Champlain remains protected, and with it, the economies that
rely on the Lake?
Answer. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, or Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law (BIL) invests $40 million in Lake Champlain which
will allow us to extend additional support throughout the basin to
support underserved and disadvantaged communities and increase
resiliency in the face of climate change through programs to conserve
important lands and access to them, improve aquatic organism passage,
reduce flooding, and restore the function of floodplains in the basin.
This investment in Lake Champlain and other geographic programs across
the country will help clean up waters and accelerate our work in
special places like Lake Champlain. Support for activities to address
aquatic invasive species through the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act
(VIDA) will also serve to protect the important ecosystem of the Lake
Champlain basin. Potentially detrimental species, such as the round
goby that is currently threatening to enter the basin, could have far-
reaching impacts on the fishery and water quality that the economy of
the basin depends on. On top of their base appropriations, these
expanded and multi-year resources will accelerate the programs' long-
standing work to improve water quality, enhance ecosystem and community
resilience, conduct environmental education and outreach, and more. EPA
is committed to being a strong partner to support their growth and to
working with Congress and key local stakeholders to ensure effective,
efficient, and equitable implementation.
burlington high school contamination
Question. When you last appeared before this Committee, I spoke
with you about the high levels of PCBs found in Burlington High School
shortly before the 2021-2022 school yhttps://www.yahoo.com/
entertainment/scheana-shay-reveals-million-dollar-130827403.htmlear was
set to begin, forcing the school to relocate in order to remediate
these toxic chemicals--and construct a new high school, free of toxins
on the site. The cost of the project is staggering.
Burlington is Vermont's largest and most diverse city, with the
greatest number of disadvantaged students in the State. Congress has
provided billions of dollars through the bipartisan infrastructure to
support projects like this one. What support can the EPA provide,
beyond technical assistance, for dire situations such as the need for
environmental remediation at Burlington High School, which is attended
by over 1,000 Vermont students?
Answer. EPA is committed to improving children's environmental
health in schools and has provided information on and implemented
programs to address PCBs. EPA continues to engage across state, tribal,
and local government partners, and their stakeholders, to reduce or
eliminate PCB contamination, particularly in schools and environments
with children or susceptible sub-populations as well as disadvantaged
and environmental justice communities, so that all Americans are safe
from environmental and health hazards, including exposures to PCB-
containing materials.
The fiscal year 2023 President's Budget includes an increase of
$1.7 million to provide some additional capacity for the Agency to help
assess the risk of PCB exposure at local schools and buildings. EPA
support for capacity building and improved ventilation in schools
serving communities with environmental justice concerns are options for
funding under the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act. In fiscal year 2021,
EPA launched the Healthy Learning Environments in Low- Income and/or
Minority Communities grants program to address children's environmental
health in schools and childcare settings using ARP funds. EPA would
welcome the opportunity to work with you on ways to address
environmental and health hazards in schools. Our staff from Region 1
have been supporting Burlington and will continue to do so.
lake champlain basin program
Question. The Lake Champlain Basin Program was created by the Lake
Champlain Special Designation Act of 1990. It brings together partners
in Vermont, New York, and Quebec to coordinate and fund solutions to
the challenges faced by the Lake Champlain Basin. For over 30 years,
the program has addressed phosphorus pollution, toxic substances,
biodiversity, and aquatic invasive species. Today, these interconnected
issues are exacerbated by the effects of the climate crisis.
Considering the growth of the Lake Champlain Basin Program since its
establishment in 1990, its reauthorization in 2002, in addition to the
increasing complexity of challenges in the Lake Champlain watershed,
would you agree that it is timely to consider reauthorizing the program
expediently?
Answer. Thank you for your leadership on efforts to protect and
restore this resource of national significance. EPA is one of several
agencies that jointly administer the Lake Champlain Basin Program. Lake
Champlain is a precious resource, and as such EPA stands ready to
provide technical assistance to Congress on any effort to reauthorize
the program to account for changes in the 20 years since the last
reauthorization. EPA Region 1 and OGC have provided technical support
to Chairman Leahy's staff on the proposed reauthorization and are
available and willing to respond to any additional requests for
assistance.
Question. I am currently working on legislation to again
reauthorize the Lake Champlain Basin Program. What resources, both
fiscal and technical, is the EPA prepared to bring to the table to
ensure the future protection and preservation of Lake Champlain?
Answer. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) provides $40
million to address climate change mitigation and adaptation, phosphorus
loadings, invasive species, and toxic substances that threaten Lake
Champlain's water quality and ecosystem health. EPA has historically
provided technical support to the Lake Champlain Steering Committee and
its partners through requests for assistance, funding of the New
England Water Pollution Control Commission (NEIWPCC), the Lake
Champlain Basin Program (LCBP), and the states of New York and Vermont,
and provides technical insight and guidance as members of various LCBP
subcommittees, the Executive Committee, the Steering Committee, and the
Lake Champlain Federal partnership. As the program has grown, EPA is
committed to increasing its support of the program through the addition
of technical and support staff in EPA Regions 1 and 2. EPA also
coordinates on aquatic invasive species with the Great Lakes National
Program Office through the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act (VIDA) and
provides technical support as necessary. EPA is committed to continuing
to support the Lake Champlain program and would welcome the opportunity
to work with you on future protection and preservation.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Chris Van Hollen
chesapeake bay
Question. One of the most important roles for the EPA Administrator
and EPA in the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay is to demonstrate
leadership and a commitment to a restored Bay. We are only a short 3
years away from our 2025 commitments under the Chesapeake Bay Agreement
to meet our mutual goal of clean water. The Chesapeake Bay agreement
identifies the pollution reductions necessary to meet water quality
standards in the Bay and EPA's role in achieving those reductions.
Given that 86 percent of the remaining pollutant load reductions must
come from agriculture, it is imperative that the EPA work with USDA to
ensure sufficient financial and technical assistance are provided to
Bay region farmers so that we can get the job done.
Ensuring that we are on the right pathway to meet our rapidly
approaching 2025 clean-up deadline is critical; I appreciate that the
EPA has used a ``most effective basins'' approach to get the most bang
for the buck in critical areas of the watershed. How does the EPA plan
to continue that approach, and how can EPA work with USDA to direct
agricultural conservation funds to where they will be most helpful in
the Bay in order to get the maximum load reduction possible?
Answer. Nutrient pollution is a serious challenge affecting water
quality across the country. Making progress on reducing excess
nutrients and improving water quality will require all the tools
available, including regulatory, non-regulatory and market-based
programs to promote collaboration among urban and agricultural sectors.
EPA uses a host of tools to support our partners, including states,
tribes, and farmers, to reduce excess nutrients in watersheds using
regulatory, non-regulatory, market-based, and other collaborative
approaches. EPA is committed to working with USDA among others.
EPA will continue to focus funding in the ``most effective basins''
(MEB) of the watershed to reach the goals of a restored Bay. At the
same time, EPA will work with our partner agencies to accelerate the
implementation of the most cost-effective best management practices in
reducing nutrient and sediment pollution within the ``most effective
basins.'' This year over $22 million is being targeted through MEB
funding, $15 million of which comes from additional funding provided
through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
EPA, USGS, and the University of Maryland developed the ``Priority
Agricultural Watersheds'' mapping tool to inform where to target
Federal funding to agricultural conservation practices to reduce the
greatest nitrogen and phosphorus loads to the tidal Chesapeake Bay.
Since 2010, this regional screening tool has been used by EPA and USDA
in their funding ranking criteria to target EPA Chesapeake Bay grants
and USDA Farm Bill program funding for the greatest agricultural load
reductions to the tidal Chesapeake Bay. In July 2021, EPA and USGS
updated and enhanced this mapping tool with the most recent USGS
SPARROW model and State agriculture-impaired streams data. More
recently, EPA has updated its Most Effective Basins map, which will
provide complementary information for the Priority Agricultural
Watersheds. EPA and USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service
continue to coordinate Federal funding to support implementation of
priority agricultural practices in priority watersheds to achieve the
greatest nutrient reductions to the Chesapeake Bay. Additionally, EPA,
NRCS, and USGS developed recommendations to enhance monitoring to
document water-quality improvements to conservation practices. In 2021,
EPA, NRCS, and USGS published reports summarizing their coordination
efforts and recommendations:
--Report NRCS EPA Ag Conservation Funding Team (https://
www.chesapeakebay.net/channel_files/41834/
report_nrcs_epa_ag_conservation_fundingteam.pdf) and
--Report NRCS EPA USGS Federal WQ Monitoring Team (https://
www.chesapeakebay.net/channel_files/41834/
report_nrcs_epa_usgs_Federal_wq_monito ring_team_122220.pdf).
An example of how EPA and NRCS are working together to make it
easier for Chesapeake Bay agricultural partners to access Federal
funding for their conservation work is the Decision Memo they signed on
June 21, 2021. This memo allows agricultural partners to use Chesapeake
Bay grants as ``match'' (partner contribution) for the NRCS Regional
Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) projects. RCPP projects can be
as high as $10 million and require an equal amount of match from
applicants. Allowing applicants to use EPA's Chesapeake Bay grants as
match has been a game-changer for applicants and made them more
competitive for these national funds.
Question. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided $238 million
for the Chesapeake Bay Program through 2026 on top of annual
appropriations, this will supercharge our efforts to clean up the Bay.
Earlier this month, EPA announced the allocation of $40 million in
first-year funds with $25 million administered through the NFWF
Chesapeake Stewardship Fund, and $15 million for distributed to the
watershed states and D.C. for Most Effective Basins. Is it the Agency
intent allocate funding at the same ratio in fiscal year 23?
Answer. EPA is grateful to Congress for including the Chesapeake
Bay Program in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) . The Agency is
committed to timely investment of all infrastructure funds, knowing
this will allow the program to accelerate actions to restore and
protect the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed. The Chesapeake Bay
Program will continue to support the Most Effective Basins grants to
jurisdictions and is gathering input this summer to ensure future
allocations are aligned with the highest priority needs. The Bay
Program will continue supporting the competitively awarded Small
Watershed Grants (SWG) and Innovative Nutrient and Sediment Reduction
Grants (INSR) which are up for competition again this year. A request
for proposals is planned for later in 2022.
clean air
Question. For decades, the State of Maryland has worked diligently
to address pollution to meet air quality standards and to protect the
health of our constituents. In Baltimore, the rate of asthma- related
hospitalizations is among the highest in the country--three times
higher than the U.S. average. These pollutants lead to increased
pulmonary and cardiovascular-related illnesses and disproportionately
impact communities of color. Ensuring these communities receive the
resources they need is critical and I thank you for the work the EPA
has done to expand the efforts of air pollution control agencies to
reduce greenhouse gases, yet more is needed to be done. On August 11,
2021, the Center for Biological Diversity filed suit against EPA
Administrator Michael Regan in the District Court for the Northern
District of California Oakland Division. Plaintiffs allege that EPA has
failed to undertake certain non-discretionary duties under the Clean
Air Act in Detroit, Anne Arundel County, and Baltimore County and fails
to meet National Ambient Air Quality Standards for sulfur dioxide
levels.
What efforts has the EPA made to address these urgent issues and
support states like Maryland in meeting our clean air standards? How
will EPA support the Office of Air and Radiation ability to regulate
and reduce pollution from the power generation and transportation
sectors?
Answer. Under the Clean Air Act's ``good neighbor'' provision, EPA
provides a backstop to state actions by promulgating Federal
Implementation Plans (FIPs) when a state fails to submit, or EPA
disapproves, a good neighbor SIP. EPA has promulgated several national-
scale rulemakings to fulfill its FIP obligations to address interstate
pollution for ozone and fine particulate matter NAAQS, including the
Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR); the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule
(CSAPR); the CSAPR Update; and most recently, the Revised CSAPR Update.
Emissions reductions from electric generating units (EGUs) were
achieved through these rules via regional allowance trading programs.
Before these actions, EPA had regulated certain non- power plant
sources (along with power plants) in the 1998 ``NOx SIP Call.'' EPA's
recently proposed transport rule builds upon these prior rulemakings
and extends the proposed emissions reductions to industrial sources
beyond the power sector and to several states not included in prior
national-scale actions.
Regarding areas failing to meet the National Ambient Air Quality
Standards for sulfur dioxide (SO2), EPA, on January 28, 2022, issued a
finding that the Detroit, MI, nonattainment area failed to attain the
SO2 standard by the attainment date. EPA is working to finalize a
Federal implementation plan for this area by the consent decree
deadline of September 30, 2022. Regarding the Anne Arundel/Baltimore
County nonattainment area, EPA has a consent decree deadline of October
31, 2022, to take final action on the state's SO2 attainment plan for
this area and is working with the state to meet this deadline.
EPA is also moving expeditiously to reconsider the 2020 decisions
to retain both the ozone and the particulate matter (PM) National
Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). This approach adheres to
rigorous standards of scientific integrity and provides ample
opportunities for public input and engagement. These reconsideration
decisions reflect EPA's commitment to a rigorous NAAQS review process,
with a focus on protecting scientific integrity. An important part of
that is to ensure the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC)
is fully equipped to provide me the advice needed to make the best
decision possible. EPA moved to reinstate pollutant specific CASAC
panels to assist the CASAC in ongoing reviews, including in these two
reconsiderations.
Power plants remain the largest stationary sources of harmful
pollutants like nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide and are the nation's
second largest source of greenhouse gas pollution. EPA is committed to
using the full scope of its authorities, including its Clean Air Act
authority, to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, to
protect communities, and to reduce the pollution that is driving
climate change. In March, EPA outlined its approach to working with the
power sector to continue to deliver affordable, reliable power while
reducing pollution to protect public health. EPA is working to develop
a set of clean air, clean water, and waste disposal standards. The
approach includes engaging industry and working in a transparent
manner, protecting public health and overburdened communities, and
pursuing an integrated approach that provides a framework for
investment decisions.
EPA is moving forward on critical actions to address pollution from
the power sector. Building on a robust foundation of public engagement,
we plan to finalize the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards Appropriate
and Necessary Finding this year and propose a review of the MATS Risk
and Technology Review in early 2023. We will continue to conduct
outreach in 2022 on greenhouse gas rules for new and existing power
plants and propose Clean Air Act section 111 rules in early 2023. These
steps are an important part of the Administration's commitment to
advance standards to ensure that all Americans are protected from the
power plant pollution that harms public health and our economy. They
also demonstrate our commitment to achieving a cleaner power sector,
and to doing so in a way that provides regulatory certainty and a long-
term planning horizon for companies, state regulators and investors;
that maintains reliable and affordable electricity for families and
businesses; and that creates jobs and economic opportunities. It is
critical to the success of these efforts that EPA receive the fiscal
year 2023 President's Budget request. For example, the President's
Budget requests an increase to support the regulation of stationary
sources of air pollution through developing and implementing emissions
standards, regulations, and guidelines. The fiscal year 2023
President's Budget also includes a request for additional resources for
NAAQS review work and related implementation activities, such as
development of guidance, review of SIPs and permits, and air monitoring
and analyses.
pfas
Question. PFAS contamination in our nation's waterways pose
enormous health risks to communities across the country, and many
private drinking water wells currently don't have any standards. How
does EPA plan to ensure that communities on private wells aren't being
harmed by PFAS? Will there be support for well remediation?
Answer. In October 2021, EPA Administrator Michael Regan released
the PFAS Strategic Roadmap--EPA's whole-of-agency approach to tackling
PFAS. The Roadmap sets timelines by which EPA plans to take specific
actions and commits to bolder new policies to safeguard public health,
protect the environment, and hold polluters accountable. The actions
described in the PFAS Roadmap each represent important and meaningful
steps to safeguard communities from PFAS contamination. Cumulatively,
these actions will build upon one another and lead to more enduring and
protective solutions.
EPA recognizes that PFAS contamination has impacted communities
across the country, including communities and households that rely on
home drinking water wells. The Agency is taking action to use the best-
available science to tackle PFAS pollution, protect public health, and
provide critical information quickly and transparently, while also
providing infrastructure funding to help communities--especially
disadvantaged communities--deliver safe water. In addition to direct
actions to protect drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act
(SDWA), EPA is bringing deeper focus to preventing PFAS from entering
the environment in the first place (through actions under the Toxic
Substances Control Act and the Clean Water Act) and to broadening and
accelerate the cleanup of PFAS contamination to protect human health
and ecological systems.
The SDWA's regulatory and financing programs are generally designed
to assist public water systems, which the law defines as a water system
that has at least 15 service connections or that regularly serves at
least 25 individuals. The SDWA does provide authority to use funds from
key financing programs (including the SRFs and the new BIL Emerging
Contaminants grant program) to connect households on private wells to
public water systems. Funds from these programs may be used to connect
households currently on private wells to create a new public water
system as defined in the SDWA, and to install appropriate treatment
solutions to reduce PFAS in the new public water system. The SDWA
authorities for the SRFs and for the new BIL Emerging Contaminant
Program do not allow for states to fund projects for private well
remediation.
EPA includes information about steps that people who get their
water from a home drinking water well can take to reduce exposure to
PFAS in drinking water on the agency's website at Meaningful and
Achievable Steps You Can Take to Reduce Your Risk (https://www.epa.gov/
pfas/meaningful-and-achievable-steps-you-can-take-reduce-your-risk).
EPA also maintains a website at Private Drinking Water Wells (https://
www.epa.gov/privatewells) that educates well owners more broadly on
topics such as the importance of testing home drinking water wells and
shares information on protecting health, including links to other
Federal and non-profit websites that host additional educational
materials and resources to help these well owners. EPA highlighted
these resources for the public when releasing health advisories for
four PFAS on June 15, 2022.
EPA's Office of Water has committed to setting enforceable limits
in drinking water for PFOA and PFOS, with a proposed rule coming this
fall and a final rule by the end of 2023. It has also committed to
setting binding discharge standards (effluent guidelines) for different
categories of industry that discharge PFAS. EPA issued a final PFBS
assessment in April 2021, after addressing scientific integrity
concerns with a version of the assessment released on January 19, 2021.
EPA finalized a similar assessment for GenX in 2021 and is also moving
ahead to assess the toxicity of additional PFAS. Finally, EPA is taking
action to improve Clean Water Act permitting and to deepen our
understanding of PFAS in fish tissue and working closely with USDA, the
risks of PFAS in biosolids.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Shelley Moore Capito
stakeholder meetings
Question. What is your procedure for handling stakeholder meeting
requests when you are unable to take the meeting? Are the meetings that
you cannot attend delegated to be handled by other US Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) staff?
Answer. Engagement and transparency are important values to me.
That said, when scheduling conflicts or other limits prevent my ability
to accept meeting requests, EPA usually offers a surrogate who has
relevant expertise.
full-time equivalents staffing
Question. How many full-time equivalents (FTEs) are currently
employed by EPA?
What is the average number of EPA FTEs that reported for work in
person in the EPA headquarters buildings daily from April 1, 2022 to
May 31, 2022? What is the average number of EPA FTEs that reported for
work in person in each EPA regional office daily from April 1, 2022 to
May 31, 2022? Please break down by regional office. What is the average
number of EPA FTEs that reported for work in person at any other EPA
facility daily from April 1, 2022 to May 31, 2022? Please break down by
facility.
Answer. As of June 1, 2022, EPA has 14,450 onboard employees. EPA
currently projects utilizing 14,313.8 full time equivalents (FTE)
through the end of fiscal year 2022 across annual appropriations, user
fee, and supplemental appropriation accounts, including the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law.
EPA recently expanded existing workplace flexibilities, such as
telework and flexible schedules, so the EPA workforce will operate in a
hybrid manner. EPA also provides an option for full-time remote work
only if all duties are portable. These flexibilities are implemented
according to policy and adherence to established eligibility criteria
and provide for better work- life balance and prioritize the well-being
of our workforce.
EPA completed its phased re-entry to the workplace in late April,
with all personnel who report to an EPA location returning per their
work schedule. EPA anticipates that a hybrid workforce may lead to
reduced facility lease and utility costs in outyears as EPA works to
right- size our footprint. The fiscal year 2023 President's Budget
request resources to support this rightsizing and enable EPA to expand
the use of collaboration technology to support a hybrid work
environment.
SUBCOMMITTEE RECESS
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Administrator Regan,
I think about the huge set of issues that you are responsible
for I know you are diligently trying to make a difference
through your leadership, and your rebuilding of the Agency. We
support you in that. This matters a great deal for all of us.
So thank you.
No further comments. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., Wednesday, May 18, the hearing
was adjourned, and the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene
at a time subject to the call of the Chair.]
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2023
----------
WEDNESDAY, JULY 13, 2022
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:32 a.m. in
room SD-124, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jeff Merkley
(chairman) presiding.
Present: Senators Merkley, Feinstein, Reed, Tester, Van
Hollen, Heinrich, Murkowski, Blunt, Hyde-Smith, and Hagerty.
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
STATEMENT OF HON. DEB HAALAND, SECRETARY
ACCOMPANIED BY DENISE FLANAGAN, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF BUDGET
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JEFF MERKLEY
Senator Merkley. The hearing on the Interior and the
Subcommittee will come to order.
And welcome, Secretary Haaland, and welcome to Denise
Flanagan, so good to have you with us; and to our colleagues,
and to our constituents.
Today's hearing will review the Department of Interior's
fiscal year 2023 Budget Request.
And before I get started, I just wanted to highlight that
during this session of Congress the subcommittee, after a
conversation that I have had with Senator Murkowski, we have
forgone the plastic water bottles that you see at hearings all
across Capitol Hill. And I mention that simply because plastic
is becoming an issue that the Department is dealing with, that
America is dealing with, that the world is dealing with,
because it is impacting our lands, our oceans, our wildlife,
even our own bodies.
And because, Secretary Haaland, under your leadership, the
Interior Department is taking steps to address the issue of
plastic pollution, and last month you signed a Secretarial
Order to phase out single-use plastics on public lands. And
really want to thank you for that effort; lays out a ten-year
plan.
I encourage you to consider whether there is a way for it
to be a plan that takes less than a decade given the
significance of plastics on public lands. But the fact is that
you have taken very significant action, and I applaud that.
Turning to the American landscape, I want to start with
wildfires, wildfires that are absolutely devastating to many of
our western states. Compared to this time last year, four times
as many acres have burned in this year, 2022. And it is not
just the fires and their impact on the forest, but it is also
the enormous risk to our communities, and to our citizens, the
massive amount of smoke and air pollution that they produce.
I will never forget the 2020 Labor Day Fires in Oregon
where I traveled some 600 miles back and forth across the
state, never getting out of the smoke, and seeing six
communities absolutely burned to the ground. And then meeting
with what were--became thousands of citizens that had lost
their homes, lost everything. And communities that were just
absolutely obliterated, and it is so challenging to restore the
lives, restore the communities.
So fire is a big deal for America. It is a big deal for the
Department of Interior. And I am very pleased that as Chair of
this subcommittee, I was able to work with colleagues on the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill that provided $20 billion of
appropriated funds for the Department of Interior programs, for
programs within this subcommittee's jurisdiction.
And specifically, 2.5 billion over 10 years to invest in
wildfire risk reduction and ecosystem restoration, including
funds for fuel breaks, for hazardous fuels projects, reduce the
amount of fuels in the forest, prescribed fires, and burned
area restoration.
Another effort that we have undertaken is to provide
funding for the training of National Guard members to be able
to assist and become fire crews when we are in desperate need
of additional fire crew members. This has been an important
undertaking, those crews have been very valuable, and it is
something that we are working to continue.
At this point more than a thousand personnel have been
trained, and I know that as we continue to fund this program,
train many more.
I was struck a couple weeks ago in conversations, meetings
about this fire season that there is great difficulty in
filling out the crews that are needed, and that effort to have
the National Guard members provide additional support makes a
lot of sense.
The final fiscal year 2022 Interior Bill funded five forest
collaboratives across Oregon increased the ability to do these
landscape restoration projects that provide trees to the mill,
and jobs in the forest, and healthier forests, and forests that
are more fire resilient.
And for the first time, we created a program to
specifically address public health impacts of wildfire smoke.
It is critical the Department use all its resources and tools
at its disposal, including tribal co-management, interagency
agreements, like the Western Oregon Operating Plan, and Forest
and Rangeland collaboratives to get this funding on the ground,
and put it to work protecting our communities.
While I am pleased with these accomplishments, I recognize
that the fiscal year 2022 Budget deal did not address all the
urgent challenges that your Department faces, urgent challenges
and climate chaos, and loss of biodiversity, significant
staffing shortages, to mention a few.
And I am disappointed that the final deal continued to
include some legacy policy writers that harm the environment,
like the sage grouse writer that prevents U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service from employing the best possible science in
terms of the survival of that species.
But the final fiscal year 2022 Bill included a lot to be
proud of. In addition to wildfire risk reduction, we increased
funding for national monuments planning. We secured 10 million
to construct a voting rights center, the Selma Interpretive
Center, to honor the legacy of civil rights leaders, including
the late Representative John Lewis.
We funded $7 million for the Indian Boarding School
Initiative that I will be asking more about, and really
applauding today. And we stopped the bleeding by halting the
backslide of staffing levels for programs that promote clean
water, protect our public lands, and conduct critical
environmental research.
And I want to thank you, Secretary Haaland, for the
Department's efforts to push completion of a resource
management plan for the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, a
plan that is really needed for the expanded monument. I know
you are making very significant process on that, and I am just
encouraging you to keep that process going forward with all due
momentum. It will be a day to celebrate when we have that final
resource management plan.
And I want to thank you and the Department for the
wonderful success of the Monarch Summit that we held together
last month. I have got my Monarch pin on, and I will be getting
you one as well. And bringing experts together for two days to
really address this enormous collapse of the Monarch population
and all its implications was really--generated so much energy
that you could just sense the excitement in the room that that
effort was highlighting some very significant issues that need
to be highlighted.
We are going to have a set of proposals that come out of
that, but I just wanted to put up this chart for the Decline of
the western monarch, we see that in the year 2020 we had less
than 2,000 monarchs, that is less than five-thousandths of a
percent of the numbers that we had back in the 1990s. This is
catastrophic.
We have had a slight rebound, a very good year, last year,
a slight rebound to where--but we are still less than 1 percent
of the western monarchs. And I have been to Pismo Beach, I have
seen the overwintering grounds in California, that actually it
is a whole several hundred sites along the coast where they
gather to avoid freezing over the winter.
We discovered some very important things in the summit, for
example, that climate change is affecting survival because it
is upsetting the timing of when the overwintering monarchs
leave the coast, and the time that the milkweed comes out of
the ground on which they lay their eggs. And we found out that
the challenge with the milkweed that we might acquire in our
nurseries; is that it is contaminated with pesticides that can
actually kill monarchs, and so we have to have a pesticide-free
milkweed production.
There is a tremendous amount that came out of that. We have
to address this, and this actually isn't just about the
monarchs, it is about pollinators in general, that play such an
essential role in our ecosystem.
So thank you so much for collaborating on that, and I will
look forward to maintaining the momentum on the ideas that come
out of that meeting.
So let me switch to a broader question of climate change. I
know that President Biden has publicly advocated for a paradigm
shift on how we manage our public lands and waters for energy
development, but in practice what we have been seeing is an
all-of-the-above approach; an approach that will not boldly
address our climate challenge, and that involves both
addressing the demand and the supply of fossil fuels.
And we are definitely at a point where business as usual
doesn't work. Now, we have just talked about the fires, but
there is so much more going on in my home state: The loss of
the snowpack, the acidification of the oceans, just everywhere
we look we are being impacted by these changes in a very, very
harmful way. It is affecting our fishing, it is affecting our
farming, it is affecting our forests.
And so I want to encourage the Department to do all in its
power to boldly address climate. And so just to express some of
my concerns, the Department's long-awaited analysis of Federal
oil and gas leasing did not incorporate or address climate
change. The Department has defended environmental impact
statements that do not contemplate climate change, statements
that have been rejected by the courts, subsequently, as
inadequate.
The administration put forward the largest lease of
drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico in U.S. history, a sale
that was also halted by a court challenge, challenging the
environmental impact statement.
The Department may have been legally required to offer a
sale but it wasn't legally required to offer a massive sale.
And I know you and I have spoken about other aspects of where I
think the Department can really, really work to try to boldly
address climate as we look at energy resources. And earlier
this month the Department released a five-year plan for
offshore drilling, it highlights a range of leasing options,
including the no-leasing option. There is nothing in the Outer
Continental Shelf Lands Act that requires offering these
leases, and I urge you to choose the no-lease option in your
final plan.
In Oregon, we are terrified of the impact on our ocean
resources. Our salmon, our crabbing, our shrimp, just a whole
range of critical ocean resources, and we are very, very
concerned about the potential impacts of a disaster on our
shoreline, our coastal communities. Just oil washing up on the
shores would be absolutely devastating, and we simply must
adopt more of a keep-it-in-the-ground perspective since we are
at this tipping point of the devastating impacts of climate
change on our states.
The Intergovernmental Panel on climate change in its 2021
Report used the term--or issued it, they called it A Code Red
for Humanity, and amassing evidence of the catastrophic changes
that we are experiencing. In American lingo we would call this
``a five-alarm fire''.
Record-setting global temperatures year after year,
catastrophic wildfires, increasing frequency and severity of
storms causing devastating impacts on lands and people, large-
scale flooding that heavily damaged Yellowstone National Park
is an example, cost millions to repair, oceans' 30 percent more
acidic impacting our sea life, the fishing industry, and our
fishing communities; droughts devastating the livelihoods of
our farmers and our ranchers.
And we have, in addition to carbon dioxide that is all
talked about, we have the challenge of fossil gas, methane, we
refer to it in public as natural gas. It is methane gas, it is
fossil gas.
And this chart shows what the eye sees when it looks at a
facility which you can't see any visible emissions, and then
when you have I think it is infrared photography you see there
is a massive plume of methane being admitted.
And I will put into the record, if there is no objection a
chart that shows satellite data, massive number of examples
like this from across the country that are being observed.
Senator Merkley. And as we get better satellite data we are
getting a far better understanding of the massive leaks. The
estimate right now in the Permian Basin is 10 percent of the
fossil gases leaked in the atmosphere, making it worse than
coal in terms of the impact on climate.
So thank you for hearing me out on my concerns about the
bold pivot we need to make. The administration can do a lot,
and I encourage bold action.
Now, we may hear something today about the high gas prices
and the need for more drilling. So I just wanted to share a few
comments about that. It is like a heroin addict saying that the
solution to heroin addiction is more heroin.
Let us recognize several basic facts: The prices we
experience are extremely painful to Americans, they are
devastating, they are primarily the result of disruption from
Putin's war on Ukraine, and the resulting embargo on Russian
energy, in combination with the rising demand as the economy
rebounds from COVID. And these prices are also the result of
gouging by the oil companies which have tripled their profit
margins from refining.
Let us also recognized the oil companies' own leases that
would allow them to drill on 20 million additional acres of
Federal land and water that they are not using, if oil
companies want to drill more they already can.
Next, that the timeline for building out new infrastructure
will not have any impact on the current cost of gas because of
that long timeline that it takes, and that the answer in the
long term to the high cost of petroleum at the pump is an end
to our addiction to that petroleum by building, rapidly
building a renewable energy economy.
We want to stop enriching Russia and Iran, if we want to
reduce the price we suffer at the pump then we need to end our
addiction to fossil fuels.
Madam Secretary, you have enormous responsibilities that
are so important to our lands and the future of this country. I
know you are absolutely dedicated to that effort, we will
explore many of that through the questions today. And I really
appreciate your service.
With that, let me turn this over to Senator Murkowski.
STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning
Madam Secretary, welcome back to the committee. I look forward
to the opportunity to discuss the President's budget request
this morning, and a number of specific activities that the
budget proposes to support.
I appreciate my colleague and the chairman leading off with
a discussion about fire. It is pretty tough in Alaska right
now. We are up to about 2.8 million acres burned already. We
had 13 new fires just in the past 24 hours. The smoke issues,
particularly in the Interior, have been a real challenge this
summer that we have seen now in other parts of the state as
well. It is dry. And the good news for us right now is that the
rains are coming, and that is a positive, but we need to make
sure that we are not just praying for rain as the policy here.
To make sure that the fire threat doesn't bring about further
damage.
Obviously, some differing views on the committee here in
terms of our energy resources, and how we utilize them to the
benefit of our country, certainly to the benefit of places like
Alaska which is, of course, a producing state. So I would like
to talk about a few of the issues, and I will be a little
parochial here just to start off.
But on Friday the Bureau of Land Management released a
draft supplemental EIS for the Willow Project within the NPRA,
and I think you saw the press release on that. I welcomed that
step. I can't stress enough the need for the Department to move
forward with final approval for the Willow Project. It is my
very sincere hope that the Department will soon be able to
issue permits so work can begin on this project during the
upcoming winter season '22/'23.
We have had the conversation, Madam Secretary, I have had
the conversation with the President, I have had the
conversation with just about everybody in the administration
that will listen to me on Willow, because I firmly believe that
we need to have a realistic plan for the future of our energy
supply, and I think that Alaska definitely fits within that
plan.
The chairman mentioned the near-record high gas prices that
families are seeing. It is bad all over the country. But if you
are in a community like Yakutat, I follow the weekly gas prices
in various communities around the state Yakutat is paying about
$7.25 a gallon for fuel. It is just tough.
And so they are asking me: What are the tools that are
available? What can the administration be doing? What can
Congress be doing to help dampen these price increases that we
are seeing? And for me it comes down to the basics of
economics, supply and demand.
And I am one who believes very strongly that the
administration, and here in this country, we need to use those
tools at our disposal to increase domestic production, to
improve our energy security, particularly as we are seeing the
global disruptions, and the unrest.
And I have I have said it before, and I will say it again,
Alaska stands ready, willing, and certainly able to be a big
part of that solution, all while we insist on meeting the
highest environmental standards in the world.
The chairman has mentioned the five-year plan for the
offshore oil and gas that the Department recently proposed. And
again, given what we are seeing here at home, over in Europe, I
truly, truly believe that our national security interests
require that we increase our domestic supply of these
resources, including from our offshore areas.
You know, I have heard the reference before that oil is an
addiction. I recognize that we have a reliance on it, but when
I think of an addiction like a heroin addiction, I think about
it as something that there is no--there is no upside to heroin
addiction. Our reality as a country is that we have a resource
that not only we need right now, but the world needs right now,
and it is not just to fuel our vehicles.
I think we are moving to different transportation fuels,
but that is a transition. But everything that we use,
practically, has some aspect of petroleum in it. And so until
we can figure out what that substitute is, this petroleum base
that really powers, and moves, and allows us to function as a
modern society is something--is something that is in demand.
And again, we can choose to look to others to meet that demand
and make ourselves more vulnerable, more reliant on others, and
particularly others that don't even like us, or whose
environmental track record is awful, or whose human rights
track record is awful.
So I have said, as we transition from a fossil-based
society, a transition requires that there be a path forward
that is sensible for your economy, and sensible, really,
technologically. And so we got a lot of work to do there.
I feel strongly when it comes to the five-year plan that
the administration has to move, and move quickly to finalize a
plan that keeps at least the current acreage available for
offshore leasing, including in my state, that your proposed
plan included the option of holding no-lease sale at all, which
I think that that is unacceptable, for the Department to even
consider a five-year plan that would include no-lease sales. I
just don't think makes sense. And I think it is actually
harmful to our economy and our national security.
The national interest demands the administration avoid a
costly gap in leasing, and that it conducts offshore sales. So
I want to see annual sales in Cook Inlet, not one sale every 5
years. Failure to have meaningful oil and gas programs,
including in the 1002 area where the administration is
illegally disregarding the law, will reduce domestic investment
at the worst possible time for our country, and for our global
allies.
I think the President needs to focus on places like Alaska,
not Saudi Arabia, not Venezuela, not Iran, and then work with
us to achieve just that.
So I have said before, Madam Secretary, Alaska is willing,
and able, and ready to increase our Nation's and our allies
energy security. All we really need is permission from the
Federal Government to get moving, get those permits, and we are
there.
Another area where I am hoping to see progress with the
administration is in its commitment to mineral development. I
do appreciate the President's invocation of the Defense
Production Act, and the Department's budget request to support
critical mineral efforts.
I think, again, making sure that we are focusing on supply,
where we have the supply, and we certainly have that in this
country, matters. Domestic supply matters to our energy
security, it also matters to our mineral security. And like oil
and gas one of the keys here to meeting this challenge is for
the Department to actually make mine permit determinations in a
timely manner.
We have heard, not only in this committee, but we have
certainly heard in the Energy Committee, that if we want to be
competitive globally, if we want to be a producer and not just
an importer, we cannot afford for it to take 10 years to permit
a mine on public land.
So I want to work with the Department to ensure that our
vast potential is realized in Alaska, whether it is gold, or
silver, or copper, all of our critical minerals, but it seems
that for every step forward we take on policy, we are taking
two steps backwards on projects. Perfect example of that is the
Ambler Access Road, just kind of stunning that the
administration has openly conflicted its commitment to supply
chain security, and deliberately set back one of its best
options to improve it.
Ambler has a guaranteed right-of-way under a 1980 law,
under ANILCA, that the Federal Government has to abide by. I do
understand, of course, the need for tribal consultation, I
strongly support it, but that can occur even as Access Project
continues.
So telling Ambler to stop all work and lose the field
season I think is a ridiculous approach that undermines any
credibility the administration may be seeking on mineral
security. What we need here is a strategic focus to reduce our
dependence on China and Russia, other adversarial nations, but
not an incoherent approach on minerals.
So Madam Secretary, to an area that I think we have much
more agreement on, and that is working together to provide
resources to our tribal communities, whether we are talking
about public safety, and justice, natural resources,
construction programs, working with our tribes throughout
Alaska, and in Indian Country, I think that this has been one
of those areas where we do have bipartisan support. We do have
bicameral priority.
We know that the appropriations process is never quick, it
is never easy, but as we work through the process I do think it
is important for us to continue this bipartisan approach to
these issues to ensure high priority program areas like PL280
programs are funded.
And then I want to wrap my remarks by thanking you for
coming to Alaska to hear from so many Alaskans. The trip that
you took to not only visit with people who came to Anchorage to
meet with you, the meetings that you had, but also your travels
to see first-hand some of the unique challenges and
opportunities.
I think this is particularly illustrated by our visit to
King Cove, and your opportunity to hear from residents about
the critical need for a life-saving road. So I do appreciate
that, and value the time that you gave us for that.
So as you consider this and other Alaska-specific issues, I
hope you will build upon the experience that you had on the
ground, and consider the views of those most directly impacted
by departmental decisions.
I know that there are many areas where you and I just--we
don't see eye-to-eye on some of these matters related to
Alaska, but I appreciate your willingness to work with me on
areas that we do have agreement. And I am ever hopeful that as
you are continuing to hear from Alaskans, you will come to
understand our state and the potential that it has really as an
economic center, and what we can provide and contribute for
energy and mineral security, while at the same time an equal
priority is to protect and care for our lands and our people.
We need a lot from the Department, more than we are getting
right now, but thank you. Thank you for being here.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate a little indulgence with the
length of time in the opening, but much to be said this
morning.
Thank you, Madam Secretary. Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much to our Ranking Member
Senator Murkowski.
And Madam Secretary, the responsibilities that your
Department has create many challenging decision points, and the
Senate at its best, is a chance for senators to articulate
their visions that come from their personal experience in their
home states. You have heard a little bit of the diversity of
opinion this morning, and I think that is a very--a healthy
thing for a hearing to be able to express those opinions and
thoughts. And the administration now gets to wrestle with them.
With that, we are looking forward to your opening
statement. Thank you.
SUMMARY STATEMENT HON. DEB HAALAND
Secretary Haaland. Thank you, Chairman, and Ranking Member
Murkowski, and members of the subcommittee. It is an honor and
a privilege for me to be here on the ancestral homelands of the
Anacostan and Piscataway people, to speak with you today on
behalf of the President's 2023 Budget for the Department of the
Interior.
Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that you and your
staffs are busy with your markup of the Interior Bill. I
sincerely appreciate all of the work that all of you are doing
to support the critical missions of our Department, and I and
my staff appreciate the opportunity to assist you in any way
that we can throughout this process.
I also want to thank you for your support of Interior's
programs in the 2022 Omnibus Appropriation. I appreciate your
efforts to build capacity within the Department, and to fully
fund our fixed costs which are our must-pay bills. I have had
the honor of being Secretary of the Interior for over a year
now and I recognize the importance of this moment for the
future of the Department and for our country.
Through my travels, and while working in Washington, D.C.,
I have seen firsthand how every single day in every corner of
our country our employees go to work with a focus on results.
They work with their local communities, with states, with
tribal nations, and other partners, to conserve and steward our
Nation's natural resources and cultural heritage for the
benefit of everyone.
Interior's programs are helping generate jobs, grow the
economy, and build resilience to the challenges of our changing
climate. Just last week Assistant Secretary Estenoz and I
viewed the devastating flood damage in Yellowstone National
Park, and we met with Senator Tester, Senator Daines, and
Governor Gianforte, and other local leaders, to discuss ways
Interior can repair the damage and restore access to the park.
I am grateful, over the past year, to have visited many of
you in your states and meet the great people that you
represent. The work we do would not be possible without your
leadership and support. And I look forward to our continued
partnership. Working together, we can make tangible differences
in the lives of families across the country.
With your support we have already made great progress. In
the last year, we took steps to accelerate the development of
renewable energy on public lands and waters, we launched the
Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative to address the
intergenerational impacts of Indian Boarding School policy. We
deployed resources to build resilience to address the drought
crisis, we pursued justice for missing and murdered indigenous
people, and worked to keep tribal communities safe, and help
communities prepare against the threat of wildfire by
strengthening our Federal firefighting workforce and the
resilience of our lands.
We also began implementing the Bipartisan Infrastructure
Law, a once-in-a-generation investment that will help
communities to tackle the climate crisis while creating jobs,
advancing environmental justice, and boosting local economies.
This funding is already at work at Interior kick-starting
ongoing efforts to address intensifying drought, wildfires,
flooding, and legacy pollution.
The President's 2023 Budget complements this with a request
of $18.1 billion for the Interior Department. Of this, $16.6
billion is within the jurisdiction of this subcommittee. Our
total request is a 12 percent increase from the 2022 enacted
appropriation.
Specifically, the President's budget invests in our country
with an unprecedented total of $4.5 billion for Indian Affairs
programs, focused on tribal sovereignty, and stronger tribal
communities. Up to $1.5 billion for wildland fire management to
increase firefighting capacity, continue the transformation to
a more permanent and professional wildland fire workforce, and
ensure Federal firefighters are paid at least $15 an hour.
A total of $4.9 billion across Interior to strengthen
natural resource management, and improve the resilience of
tribal and Interior managed lands, $125 million to advance the
President's ambitious clean energy goals, by increasing
offshore wind energy power generation, and permitting of
onshore renewable energy technologies.
More than $1.4 billion for research and development
programs across the Department to ensure science continues to
underpin Interior's core mission activities, and implementation
of our Department-wide Diversity, Equity Inclusion, And
Accessibility Initiative to proactively advance equity, civil
rights, racial justice, and equal opportunity.
I have great ambitions for the Department of the Interior
and what we can accomplish on behalf of the American people.
Working together we can do more to create good-paying union
jobs, increase the resilience of our lands, expand our ability
to fight wildland fires, and mitigate drought, strengthen
tribal nations, and improve the lives of Americans everywhere.
I look forward to continuing our strong partnership.
In conclusion, we are doing our part to advance priorities
that build a better America. Thank you, again, for having me,
and our budget director, Denise Flanagan. We are happy to
answer any questions that you may have.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Deb Haaland
Chair Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski and Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of
the Interior Department's fiscal year 2023 Budget Request.
It is an honor and privilege for me to be here with you today. When
I testified before this Committee last year I had only been confirmed
for a few months. Now that I have had the opportunity to spend a year
at Interior it is even more of an honor to represent the Department and
our over seventy thousand dedicated professionals. Every day, in every
corner of the country, our workforce shows up with a singular focus on
achieving results. They work with
States, Tribal Nations, and other partners to conserve and steward
the Nation's natural resources and cultural heritage for the benefit,
use, and enjoyment of the American people. Interior's programs are
helping to generate jobs, grow the economy, and build resilience to the
challenges of our changing climate.
I have also enjoyed working with the Members of this Subcommittee
this year. I have had the honor to visit many of you in your States and
to meet the great people you represent. I look forward to continuing
Interior's long tradition of working together with the Interior
Appropriations Subcommittee to accomplish great things for the American
people. This Subcommittee plays a vital role in the success of the
Department of the Interior (DOI) and I look forward to our continued
collaboration.
overview of interior's budget
Interior's budget request totals $18.1 billion in current
authority, of which $16.6 billion is within the jurisdiction of this
Subcommittee. The total budget request is an increase of $1.9 billion,
or 12 percent, from the 2022 enacted appropriation. This request
includes an increase of $269.0 million to cover fixed-cost increases,
such as rent and Federal salary adjustments, needed to maintain
staffing and core operations for the bureaus and offices funded through
the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriation. An
additional $340.0 million is accessible through the budget cap
adjustment for wildfire suppression to ensure funds are available in
the event the annual appropriation is inadequate to meet suppression
needs.
The 2023 President's Budget request complements the landmark 2021
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) investments we are now
implementing. This once in a lifetime investment provides the
significant down payment needed to address longstanding health and
safety risks from abandoned coal mines and oil and gas infrastructure
across the country. These investments are increasing the resilience of
critical ecosystems, Tribal Nations, and communities to meet the
challenges of critical drought and threats of wildland fires, which
pose unprecedented risks across the country.
The 2023 President's Budget for Interior complements this
investment and maintains the Administration's commitments to deliver
jobs and economic growth, build up America's resilience to climate
change, advance a transition to clean energy, strengthen the Nation-to-
Nation relationship with Tribal Nations, and expand work with partners
to conserve lands and increase access to outdoor recreation.
Overarching these, the 2023 budget continues to reflect the importance
of science, diversity and inclusion, and the goal to leverage the power
of collaboration to support Interior's important missions.
The 2023 President's Budget proposes allocations for important
mandatory funding investments available through the Great American
Outdoors Act (GAOA), including $1.6 billion for deferred maintenance
projects through the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration
Fund (LRF) in the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service (FWS), National Park Service (NPS), and the Bureau of
Indian Education (BIE). The 2023 budget allocates $681.9 million in
mandatory funding for Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) programs,
which includes $294.8 million for voluntary land acquisition projects.
The 2023 budget proposes important legislative and technical
adjustments to secure mandatory funding for important funding for
Tribal Nations. In addition, the Administration supports funding the
renewal of our Compacts of Free Association (COFA) relationships with
the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Republic of the Marshall
Islands (RMI), and the Republic of Palau. Financial assistance under
the COFA is scheduled to end after 2023 for the FSM and the RMI and in
2024 for Palau. The Administration will request necessary mandatory
funding to be appropriated to the Department of State, with language
calling for continued implementation by the Department of the Interior.
The United States remains committed to its longstanding partnerships
with the governments and the people of the Freely Associated States as
we work together to promote a free and open Indo-Pacific.
strengthening tribal nations
It is deeply meaningful for me to speak on behalf of the
Administration's 2023 budget for the Department of the Interior which
includes an unprecedented total of $4.5 billion for Indian Affairs
programs. This is an increase of $880 million from the recently enacted
2022 appropriation and the request prioritizes Tribal sovereignty,
strong Tribal communities, and advances equity and opportunity for all
American Indians and Alaska Natives.
The 2023 request reflects the input of Tribal Nations through the
Tribal Interior Budget Council as well as the government-wide Tribal
consultation on the President's fiscal year 2023 Budget held by the
Administration last September. The budget expands many core programs
and goes further to address outstanding gaps to improve environmental
quality and ensure Tribal communities are part of the national
priorities to address climate change and move toward clean energy. The
2023 President's Budget also expands the inclusion of Tribes in
proposed investments across other Federal agencies and across Interior.
The 2023 budget request for Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) programs
totals $2.8 billion, an increase of $583.4 million from the 2022
enacted appropriation. The BIA budget features investments to address
the most critical needs in Indian Country, foremost among these is
upholding the Federal trust relationship with Tribal Nations and
strengthening the government- to-government relationship. Within this
request is $464.5 million to cover the estimated 2023 requirements for
Contract Support Costs and 105(l) Tribal lease requirements which the
Administration proposes to reclassify as mandatory funding in 2023.
This proposal honors the Administration's commitment to ensure
continued full funding to support Tribal operating costs associated
with the self-determination and self-governance of Federal programs. I
look forward to working with Congress to secure this mandatory funding
for Tribal Nations.
The budget also proposes legislation to complement the $2.5 billion
investment in the BIL which will accelerate completion of enacted
Indian Water Rights Settlements. This mandatory investment is reflected
in the 2023 request for BIA Indian Land and Water Rights Claims.
Additionally, the 2023 budget proposes $340.0 million in mandatory
funding over 10 years to support the operations, maintenance, and
repairs associated with enacted Bureau of Reclamation Indian Water
Rights Settlements. The Administration is also interested in working
with Congress on an approach to provide a mandatory funding source for
future settlements.
investing in tribal communities
The 2023 budget for BIA features an investment of $44.7 million to
strengthen Tribal communities by expanding the Tiwahe Initiative to
provide more opportunity for Tribes to manage and integrate programs
which impact their communities. Under Tiwahe, a portion of the funding
assists Tribes at selected sites to implement a Tribal driven approach
to deliver services more effective and efficiently. Tiwahe facilitates
collaboration within Tribal communities-- which can help to leverage
resources, share expertise, reduce duplication, and exchange
information about families' needs--to formulate the most responsive
approaches to provide services. Since 2015, the Tiwahe Initiative has
focused primarily on promoting family stability through several Human
Services programs. The Department's 2023 budget expands Tiwahe in
Social Services, the Indian Child Welfare Act, and establishes new
programs in Tribal Justice Support, and Economic Development programs.
The new Tiwahe program in Tribal Justice Support will assist Tribes
as they work to strengthen Tribal justice practices and protocols to
meet the child, youth, or adult needs within their communities. The new
program features support for Tribal Healing and Wellness Courts as
alternatives to incarceration. The Tiwahe program in Economic
Development will support Tribal development of unique solutions
tailored to their communities to create economic opportunity. Including
an economic development component of Tiwahe was a priority request from
the Tribal Interior Budget Council for the 2023 budget.
The 2023 budget includes $562.1 million for Public Safety and
Justice programs and $70.3 million for Public Safety Construction, for
a total of $632.4 million to address these needs. The combined increase
is $38.3 million above the 2022 enacted appropriation. The 2023 request
includes $282.4 million for boots-on-the-ground police services, $127.0
million for the operation of Detention and Corrections programs, and
$52.7 million to support Tribal Courts. This funding includes $32.0
million to address increased requirements of Tribes impacted by the
McGirt Decision, and $10.0 million to equip BIA funded law enforcement
officers with body- worn cameras as part of a DOI-wide effort. The 2023
budget includes $16.5 million to address the crisis of Missing and
Murdered Indigenous People.
BIA's budget includes additional investments in Tribal communities
in areas such as Tribal climate resilience, clean energy, road
maintenance, environmental quality projects, Tribal broadband grants,
and funding to raise the minimum Small Tribe Supplement payment for
existing eligible Tribes in this program. The budget also proposes key
investments to strengthen Tribal sovereignty of their homelands with
$14.8 million for the acquisition of new Tribal lands and $80 million
for Indian land consolidation to address the ongoing fractionation on
Indian lands. These investments are paired with proposed language to
clarify Federal recognition requirements for land into Trust cases in
light of the Carcieri v. Salazar.
The 2023 budget request includes $7.0 million to continue the
progress made with the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative
launched in June 2021. Interior is uniquely positioned to assist in the
effort to recover this history. Interior has focused initial efforts of
the initiative on Tribal outreach, collection and review of Department
documents and records, and compilation of existing data in the
Department's jurisdiction. Funding in 2023 will support additional
outreach, research, and documentation to locate potential gravesites at
former school locations and to help ensure the remains of those who are
found are identified and protected. Additional resources are included
in the budget to increase funding for Native language grants, which are
essential to revitalizing this critical component of Native culture.
advancing indian education
The 2023 budget includes $1.6 billion for Indian Education
programs, an increase of $294 million above the 2022 enacted level.
Native students face stark inequities in access to education, many of
which were highlighted and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. To
help address this gap, the budget invests a total of $891.5 million, an
increase of $98.3 million above the 2022 enacted level for BIE-funded
elementary and secondary school programs. This includes $500.6 million
for the Indian Student Equalization Program formula funds, which
provide the primary support for academic activities in the classroom,
instructional services, and teacher training, recruitment, and
retention. The budget includes $146.4 million to operate and maintain
BIE-funded schools and fully funds the estimated requirement for Tribal
Grant Support costs to cover administrative costs for Tribes that
choose to operate BIE-funded schools. The 2023 budget also features
specific investments, including $23.0 million to maintain support for
distance learning and enhanced technology at BIE schools and $4.0
million for Native language immersion programs.
The budget includes $185.2 million for postsecondary schools and
programs, an increase of $20.7 million above 2022 enacted. This
includes $131.7 million for Haskell Indian Nations University and
Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, Tribal Colleges,
Universities, and Technical Colleges and $53.5 million for expanded
Tribal scholarships and adult education programs.
Addressing BIE-funded school facilities that are in poor condition
and deferred maintenance backlogs at more than 180 schools in the BIE
school system continues to be a top priority for the Department. The
2023 budget includes $420.1 million in annual funding for Education
Construction, an increase of $155.8 million above the 2022 enacted
appropriation. An additional $95.0 million in mandatory funding through
the GAOA will also be available in 2023. The continued emphasis on BIE
school infrastructure conditions has produced tangible results, with
four new campuses opened to students in 2021 and another three schools
to be completed in 2022. The 2023 requested increase will support
planning, design, and construction for six BIE replacement school
projects.
addressing climate challenges and building resilience
Interior has unique responsibilities on behalf of our country to
steward many of our lands, waters, and natural resources; provide
essential scientific information about those resources; and uphold the
Nation's commitments to American Indians and Alaska Natives. As such,
Interior's programs inherently include a focus on the climate crisis.
Similar to farmers, ranchers, community planners, and disaster
preparedness professionals across the country, Interior land and
resource managers are seeing climate-related changes on the ground and
are working to address them. Worsening drought, increased weather
risks, more extreme wildfires, profound threats to wildlife habitats,
warming water temperatures, and new threats from invasive species are
among the tangible challenges land and resource managers face right
now.
The 2023 budget recognizes that Interior plays a crucial role in
the whole-of-government approach to tackling climate change. The 2023
budget continues funding for the immediate challenges of the changing
climate while laying the foundation to build America's resilience and
promoting economic growth, creating good-paying jobs, and ensuring that
40 percent of the benefits of certain climate and clean energy
investments accrue to disadvantaged communities.
water challenges
The effects of the current drought conditions in the West are
severe and long lasting, and a full recovery will take years. The
challenges these communities are facing now will likely continue
through 2023. Drought analyses, combined with projections of future
hydroclimate conditions, suggest that overall, drought severity and
duration will increase across the West in the coming century. A growing
risk to effective water management in the western United States is
climate change. The BIL provides $8.3 billion for the Bureau of
Reclamation to invest over 5 years to build up America's ability to
address pervasive drought conditions in the West. This work is underway
with States, Tribes, and communities in the most drought-affected
geographic areas to ensure predictable and sustainable water supplies.
Complementing this transformative investment, the 2023 budget
before the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee
includes $1.4 billion for Reclamation programs and projects. This
request supports a suite of water conservation, recycling, and planning
programs to help communities mitigate drought and climate change
impacts. The 2023 budget includes $62.4 million for Reclamation's
WaterSMART (Sustain and Manage America's Resources for Tomorrow)
programs, which work cooperatively with States, Tribes, and local
communities as they plan for and implement actions to increase water
supply.
The Reclamation budget includes additional investments to support
drought-impacted areas of the West. For example, $11.5 million is
requested for the Lower Colorado River Operations Program to implement
drought contingency plans and response actions to maintain elevations
at Lake Mead. Another $2.0 million is requested for water
infrastructure investments along the Texas border, and $5.0 million of
the request within the Central Valley Project in California is specific
to drought planning and resiliency efforts that will be implemented in
coordination with the California Department of Water Resources.
wildland fire management
In the United States, on average, more than 62,000 wildfires burn
7.5 million acres every year. In 2021, Interior's wildfire managers saw
that the intensity of fires increased earlier in the year and required
elevated levels of fire preparedness for longer periods. The Nation
remained at Preparedness Level 4 or 5 for a record 99 consecutive days,
requiring a significant commitment of firefighters and firefighting
resources over an extended period. Communities and wildland
firefighters across the West felt the devastating impacts of these
changing fire patterns.
The 2023 budget request for the Wildland Fire Management (WFM)
account is $1.2 billion, an increase of $173.5 million above the 2022
enacted appropriation. An additional $340.0 million in wildfire
suppression resources is available in the Wildfire Suppression
Operations Reserve Fund, as authorized by the Consolidated
Appropriations Act, 2018 (Public Law 115-141) to ensure the
availability of sufficient funds above the appropriated amount for
suppression in the event of a severe fire season.
The 2023 budget includes $477.2 million for Preparedness, an
increase of $106.6 million above the 2022 enacted appropriation. This
request will enable Interior to increase firefighting capacity,
continue the transformation to a more permanent and professional
wildland fire workforce, and support pay and compensation reforms,
including the President's commitment that Federal firefighters are paid
at least $15 per hour. The budget proposes $304.3 million for Fuels
Management and $20.5 million for Burned Area Rehabilitation. The budget
request for Fuels Management will enable Interior to increase the pace
and scale of fuel treatments by proactively addressing wildfire risk on
Federal and Tribal lands and reducing carbon emissions. This
discretionary request complements the $218.6 million investment in
Fuels Management and Burned Area Rehabilitation available through the
BIL in 2023 to address the significant need for this work. The budget
funds Suppression Operations at $383.7 million, in accordance with
Division O of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018 (Public Law
115-141).
building resilient communities
Communities across the country are considering the changing climate
not only as in the context of disaster preparedness but also as they
plan long-term infrastructure and program investments. Interior
programs support these efforts in a variety of ways. USGS manages the
Groundwater and Streamflow Information Program, which maintains a
nationwide network of streamflow and water-level information from more
than 11,000 sites. The budget includes $117.0 million for this program,
an increase of $6.4 million above the 2022 enacted appropriation. The
information from the network is available online to help natural
resource managers, scientists, and emergency managers across the
country with monitoring for floods and drought and with forecasting
water availability for natural resources and crops. The budget also
includes $60.9 million for the USGS Coastal and Marine Hazards and
Resources Program, an increase of $19.1 million above the 2022 enacted
appropriation, to expand work providing information that informs long-
and short-term planning and mitigation of the impacts of climate change
to the Nation's coastlines.
The budget includes $61.0 million for Interior's Tribal Climate
Resilience program, an increase of $32.0 million above the 2022 enacted
level. This funding supports Tribes in climate resilience planning,
assessment, and adaptation activities and planning and design work for
Tribal communities evaluating the need for or pursuing climate-related
relocation. The budget includes $117.3 million for Assistance to
Territories, which supports the Insular Areas through the provision of
basic services as well as targeted investments related to climate
change, including $3.5 million for work related to coral reef
ecosystems and other natural resource needs and $15.5 million for clean
energy projects and grid infrastructure improvements, an increase of
$4.5 million above the 2022 enacted appropriation.
The 2023 budget for USGS includes $10.0 million to support a
climate information portal. The portal would integrate climate-relevant
Federal data, tools, and information to help Tribal, State, and local
governments; communities; and commercial entities understand potential
climate- related hazards and guide infrastructure investment decisions
and other efforts to build resilience to extreme events equitably and
inclusively. Entities could use this research enterprise portal to
explore the potential impact of climate hazards among human
populations, economies, and built and natural environments; assess
vulnerability and risk and determine which risks require actions;
evaluate and evolve building standards and designs to help ensure that
new infrastructure and capital improvement projects are climate
resilient; and prepare climate impact assessments.
resource stewardship
The 2023 budget includes increases to strengthen natural resource
management across the Department to improve the resilience of Tribal
lands and the lands Interior manages. The 2023 budget includes $4.9
billion across Interior to support the restoration, conservation, and
improvements needed for healthier lands, waters, and ecosystems and
their resident species. Healthier lands are more resilient to the
effects of the changing climate, and investments that are made now will
help ensure the unique and spectacular lands and resources Interior
manages endure for future generations.
The 2023 budget proposes significant increases in the Bureau of
Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs,
and the National Park Service for resource stewardship programs which
are at the heart of Interior's mission. The budget includes $553.0
million for resource stewardship programs in the National Park Service,
an increase of $170.9 million from the 2022 enacted appropriation. This
additional funding will help to build capacity within the national
parks to address natural resource challenges, expand youth and job
program partnerships through the Civilian Climate Corps to restore
national park resources, and invest in inventorying and monitoring to
support proper stewardship of park ecosystems and species.
Across Interior, the 2023 budget includes $174.2 million to address
invasive species, including targeted early detection and rapid response
efforts. Invasive plants and animals outcompete native species, disrupt
ecosystem function and deplete resources, exacerbate hazards such as
fire and landslides, damage infrastructure, and spread wildlife and
human disease. In addition, the Administration supports congressional
efforts to amend Title 18 of the Lacey Act to return the longstanding
authority of FWS to prohibit interstate transport of injurious species.
Recent incidences of injurious species, such as invasive mussels
contaminating commercial products, demonstrate the need to restore this
authority.
the america the beautiful initiative
Interior plays a critical role in helping the Administration's
America the Beautiful initiative meet the President's ambitious goal to
work with States, Tribes, Territories, private landowners, local
communities, and other partners to conserve 30 percent of U.S. lands
and waters by 2030 to help address the climate crisis and its impacts
on nature. This initiative will help strengthen the economy, address
the interconnected climate and biodiversity crises, and advance
environmental justice and people's access to nature.
The America the Beautiful initiative features partnerships like the
recently launched Task Force on Collaborative Conservation which
includes Interior, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Western
Governors Association. The Task Force will work to enhance
collaboration across Federal, State, and local jurisdictions to support
cross-boundary coordination on issues such as wildfire mitigation,
invasive species control, and habitat restoration, and support the
voluntary stewardship effects of ranchers, farmers, and other private
landowners to keep working lands working.
Building on the conservation efforts of the previous
Administration, Interior is working to further the goals of Secretary's
Order 3362 to enhance migration corridors and winter range for elk,
mule deer, and pronghorns in the West; this work includes a grant
program, administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, for
projects that improve big game habitat through voluntary efforts on
private and Tribal lands.
In 2023, America the Beautiful builds on these efforts and other
broadly supported actions to advance land and water conservation in a
manner that is locally led, is guided by science, honors Tribal trust
and sovereignty, and is respectful of landowners. The implementation of
this initiative continues to rely on broad engagement, including that
of hunters, anglers, outdoor enthusiasts, private landowners, Tribal
Nations, States, territories, and local officials. These important
partners and stakeholders drive the strategies that reflect the
priorities of all communities.
In 2023, through the Rivers, Trails, and Conservation Assistance
Program, NPS will provide free, on-location help to communities working
to create and restore parks and conservation areas. Completed projects
have helped restore rivers, wildlife habitat, and impaired resources
and have improved outdoor recreation opportunities to meet changing
demands. Through Tribal Climate Adaptation Grants, BIA supports Tribes
and Tribal organizations with planning, capacity building, and actions
to address climate risks. With climate change disproportionately
affecting the Arctic and northern areas of the United States, the
program's planning and data development awards alone are estimated to
benefit more than 440,000 Alaska Native people.
The 2023 budget invests across the Department to support
partnerships that encourage conservation. For example, FWS includes
funding to broaden support for habitat restoration on private lands
that are located along migration corridors and waterways through
Candidate Conservation Agreements with partners. The budget includes
$20.4 million for the Candidate Conservation program and $67.4 million
for the FWS Partners for Fish and Wildlife program, which assists
private landowners who are interested in restoring and enhancing
wildlife habitat on their lands.
creating jobs to meet environmental and energy challenges
Interior programs supported an estimated 1.9 million jobs in the
U.S. economy in 2019, according to the most recent Department of the
Interior Economic Contributions Report. Those jobs were driven
primarily by Interior's work in the areas of energy and minerals,
recreation and tourism, irrigation and other water-related activities,
and grants and payments. Interior's 2023 budget continues these core
activities and includes additional investments that complement funding
made available through the GAOA and the BIL, which are targeted to
boost economic and job growth. The President's Budget proposes growth
in areas that position the country to be more competitive in the
changing economy and environment.
clean energy jobs of the future
Interior is working hard to meet the President's ambitious goal to
deploy 30 gigawatts (GW; 30,000 megawatts [MW]) of offshore wind energy
by 2030 to fight climate change and create nearly 80,000 jobs. To
provide context for the Administration's ambitious wind energy goal,
earlier this year, I commemorated the groundbreaking of the second
commercial-scale offshore energy project approved for Federal waters,
which will have the capacity to generate 130 MW of wind energy--enough
to power more than 70,000 homes and businesses. The South Fork wind
energy project will be located offshore Rhode Island and New York. In
addition, nine additional project reviews were initiated in the first
year of the Biden-Harris Administration.
As of July 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)
oversees 27 active commercial wind energy leases in the Atlantic Outer
Continental Shelf (OCS), initiated the review of 10 offshore wind
projects on those leases, and approved the Nation's first two
commercial projects off of Massachusetts and New York, which will be
built with union labor. BOEM plans to complete the review of 14
additional projects by 2025, representing 25 GW of new, renewable
energy for the Nation. BOEM held the New York Bight offshore wind sale
on February 23, 2022, offering six lease areas covering more than
488,000 acres for potential wind energy development. The sale resulted
in winning bids from six companies totaling $4.37 billion, which was
the Nation's highest grossing competitive offshore energy lease sale in
history, including oil and gas lease sales. BOEM also held an offshore
wind lease sale in the Carolina Long Bay on May 11 for two lease areas,
which sold for approximately $315 million. To continue progress on the
leasing path I announced last fall, BOEM plans to hold the first
offshore wind lease sale in the Pacific for areas off the central and
northern coast of California before the end of the year.
The Administration is actively working with States, Tribes, ocean
users, and key stakeholders to plan sales in the Gulf of Mexico and
offshore the U.S. Central Atlantic coast in 2023. Additional planning
is underway for potential lease areas offshore Oregon and Hawaii and in
the Gulf of Maine. The 2023 budget includes $51.7 million for BOEM's
Renewable Energy programs and $7.7 million for the Bureau of Safety and
Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) to establish an offshore renewable
energy inspection and regulation program. Compared to the 2022 enacted
appropriation, the 2023 request for these two programs combined is an
increase of $18.6 million.
Onshore, the Administration's clean energy goal is to permit 25 GW
of renewable energy by 2025, as required by the Energy Act of 2020.
Interior plays a central role in achieving this goal by carrying out
environmental reviews for clean energy projects on our Nation's public
lands, conducting meaningful consultations with Tribal Nations, and
assessing potential impacts to species. To help achieve this goal, the
2023 budget includes $49.7 million for BLM's Renewable Energy program,
an increase of $18.7 million above the 2022 enacted appropriation, to
expand the number of Renewable Energy Coordination Offices which
specialize in permitting for renewable energy projects on public lands.
To further improve coordination across the Government, Interior has
signed a memorandum of understanding with the Departments of
Agriculture, Defense, and Energy and the Environmental Protection
Agency to streamline clean energy reviews. The BLM Resource Management
Planning program also includes $11.0 million to support the siting of
renewable energy projects on public lands.
BLM has prioritized and is actively processing dozens of large-
scale renewable energy projects and transmission lines; as of June
2022, the bureau is working to complete the environmental review and
permitting for 64 utility-scale onshore clean energy projects proposed
on public lands. This effort includes 48 solar projects, 3 wind
projects, 9 geothermal projects, and 4 interconnecting gen-tie lines
that are vital to the feasibility of clean energy projects proposed on
non-Federal lands. Combined, the 64 projects have the potential
capacity to add more than 41,000 MW of renewable energy to the western
electric grid. BLM also has approximately 60 applications that are
still under initial or preliminary review, and the bureau has been
receiving additional wind and solar applications weekly.
To facilitate the development of geothermal projects, the request
includes $3.6 million for USGS to characterize and assess domestic
geothermal energy resources and work with partners to advance
technologies to utilize those resources. Geothermal resources are a
significant source of renewable electric power in the western United
States and, with recent advances in technology, are becoming a
potential source of a large fraction of baseload electric power.
To further support the achievement of clean energy goals, the
Administration is working to accelerate the transition of Federal fleet
of vehicles to 100 percent zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs). By leveraging
the buying power of the Federal Government and transforming its fleet
of more than 600,000 cars and trucks to an all-electric fleet, the
Administration aims to accelerate America's industrial capacity to
supply domestically produced ZEVs and electric batteries to create new
good-paying jobs and address the climate crisis.
Interior's fleet includes approximately 30,800 vehicles located
across the country. Interior owns 70 percent of the vehicles, 80
percent of which are light- to medium-duty trucks, vans, and sport
utility vehicles. The 2023 budget includes $61.9 million to accelerate
the transition of Interior's fleet to ZEVs. Funding will support either
acquiring ZEVs within the owned fleet or transitioning to the General
Services Administration's leased fleet, investing in the related
charging infrastructure, and making plans and integrating those plans
to effectively support the initiative.
balancing the nation's energy portfolio
The 2023 budget includes $476.6 million for oil and gas programs in
BSEE, BOEM, and BLM, an increase of $63.7 million above the 2022
enacted appropriation. The budget for BSEE includes $246.1 million for
safety and environmental stewardship programs. The budget for BOEM
provides $63.6 million for conventional energy programs to support OCS
planning, leasing, and oversight, including inventorying oil and gas
reserves, overseeing ongoing activities, ensuring adequate financial
assurances for decommissioning liability and risk management,
developing and implementing the National OCS Oil and Gas Leasing
Program (National OCS Program), reviewing and administering oil and gas
exploration and development plans as well as geological and geophysical
permitting, and conducting economic analyses and resource evaluations.
As required by section 18 of the OCS Lands Act, BOEM prepares the
National OCS Program, which sets the schedule for proposed offshore oil
and gas lease sales over a 5-year period. The National OCS Program is
designed in a manner to best meet the Nation's energy needs while
carefully considering factors to balance the potential for accessing
oil and gas resources with the potential for adverse impacts from such
activities.
The 2023 budget includes $166.8 million for BLM's Oil and Gas
Management program, including $51.0 million for inspection activities
to be offset by an onshore inspection fee. The 2023 budget proposes to
offset the cost of BLM's Oil and Gas Inspection Activities program from
appropriations to revenue from a new inspection fee. In addition to
administering oil and gas leasing and ensuring environmentally
responsible development, the budget request will allow BLM to remediate
legacy well sites in the National Petroleum Reserve--Alaska.
reclamation jobs in energy communities
The BIL provides nearly $16.0 billion, mostly for States and
Tribes, to reclaim abandoned coal mine lands and orphaned oil and gas
wells across the country. Both important investments will support
needed jobs, address environmental hazards and risks, and restore lands
for other uses.
The 2023 budget includes related--but not duplicative--funding to
address reclamation needs not addressed through the BIL. The budget
includes $65.0 million in the Energy Community Revitalization Program
for abandoned hardrock or non-coal mine reclamation, which was
authorized but not funded in the BIL. States and the Interstate Mining
Compact Commission have indicated that abandoned hardrock mines can be
found across the country, and many States do not have good inventories
or strong programs to manage those sites. Interior has identified
thousands of mines and features on its lands that pose safety risks and
generate environmental contaminants. The 2023 program will include
$33.0 million for assistance and support to States, $10.0 million for
reclamation work on Tribal lands, and $17.0 million to address
reclamation and restoration on Interior lands.
BLM has estimated that more than 51,000 abandoned hardrock mines
are on BLM lands, and of that number, 10 percent have environmental
impacts and 95 percent pose physical safety risks. In recognition of
the 150th anniversary of the Mining Law of 1872, the Department has
established an Interagency Working Group to comprehensively review
hardrock mine permitting and oversight on Federal lands to help ensure
that mining operations adhere to strong social, environmental, and
labor standards. As part of this whole-of-government effort, the
Department will host extensive public input and comment sessions on
potential hardrock mining reforms.
To address the volume and complexity of abandoned hardrock mines on
BLM lands, the 2023 budget includes $62.2 million for Abandoned Mine
Lands (AMLs) and Hazardous Materials Management. The budget for the
Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation Enforcement (OSMRE) includes
$115.0 million for AML Economic Revitalization grants. This funding
allows coal communities in States and Tribes with the greatest amount
of unfunded AML problems to leverage mine land reclamation with local
economic development.
infrastructure
Interior manages an infrastructure portfolio valued at more than
$400.0 billion, which captures a variety of structures, including dams,
storage buildings, and national icons. The Department is responsible
for roughly 43,000 buildings, 100,000 miles of road, and 83,000
structures. Interior's funding focuses significantly on the operations,
maintenance, renewal, and modernization of infrastructure, which
directly helps create jobs and benefit local economies.
The 2023 budget includes more than $2.8 billion to address the
Department's infrastructure operations, maintenance, renewal, and
modernization needs. Interior's annual request for infrastructure
funding is in addition to the estimated $1.6 billion in mandatory
funding that is available to Interior each year through 2025 through
the Legacy Restoration Fund included in the GAOA. These funds are
available to address the Department's deferred maintenance backlog in
NPS, FWS, BLM, and BIE schools. The U.S. Forest Service also receives
up to $285 million in LRF funding each year.
At the end of 2022, Interior's LRF program will have initiated 222
projects touching all 50 States; Washington, DC; Puerto Rico; and the
U.S. Virgin Islands. When completed, these projects are estimated to
address $2.2 billion of Interior's deferred maintenance backlog, create
an average of 18,000 jobs each year, and contribute an average of $1.9
billion each year to the overall gross domestic product.
The 2023 budget request reflects a change the National Park Service
began in 2022 to transform its facilities condition assessment process.
This transformation will provide a more streamlined, comprehensive,
consistent, and timely identification of estimated repair needs to
maintain the NPS asset portfolio, including how it reports deferred
maintenance and repair (DM&R). The new approach reduces the burden on
parks and supports a more operationally useful assessment of the
condition of and estimated deferred maintenance requirements for the
NPS asset portfolio. This approach will improve the allocation of NPS
infrastructure investments. NPS will calculate DM&R needs for its
assets using three components: parametric condition assessments, a
commonly used tool, for industry-standard assets; Federal Highway
Administration assessments for transportation assets; and work orders
for most other assets.
As NPS implements its process, Interior's other bureaus are
exploring the lessons learned to improve their infrastructure
investment processes. Historically, attention has focused on Interior's
DM&R backlog as a proxy for infrastructure investment requirements, but
mission fulfillment requirements also include operations, other
maintenance, renewal, and modernization. This shift is part of an
ongoing effort to manage Interior's assets to better direct limited
resources to address more critical maintenance, renewal, or
modernization needs. This approach aligns with Interior's longstanding
investment criteria for asset management programs, which consider
facility condition as merely one factor to ensure that assets can
capably deliver mission requirements or other benefits.
balancing development and conservation
Interior also plays a critical role in balancing conservation and
the development needed for vibrant communities with strong economies.
The 2023 budget includes $152.8 million for the FWS Ecological Services
Planning and Consultation program to support reviews and permitting of
clean energy and other infrastructure and development projects. These
investments will help facilitate consultation and permitting required
under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), including for ESA consultations
required to implement the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. FWS works
collaboratively with industry, agencies, Tribes, and other stakeholders
to provide technical assistance that informs project development to
help avoid, minimize, and mitigate impacts on wildlife and habitats.
The budget also includes $12.3 million for the FWS Migratory Bird
Management program to conduct activities to support development while
protecting migratory birds, notably iconic bald and golden eagles.
These investments in the Migratory Bird Management program will help
modernize Interior's permitting process to access the latest scientific
and energy technology information when evaluating development
proposals.
civilian climate corps
The Civilian Climate Corps (CCC) is an important Administration
initiative that draws on America's strength to work together to
revitalize public lands, waters, infrastructure, and communities--and,
in doing so, create jobs. This initiative expands the Department's
longstanding partnership, apprenticeship, and youth engagement programs
to restore Interior's lands and waters, improve access to outdoor
recreation, increase reforestation, and inventory cultural heritage and
paleontology sites, among other activities. These programs provide job
opportunities and experience, teach skills, provide a pathway to
employment, contribute to the resilience of unique lands and resources,
and reflect the diversity of America. The 2023 budget includes $60.0
million to expand these programs, provide program participants with a
living wage, and put more people to work restoring public lands.
BIA has also established the Indian Youth Service Corps to conserve
and protect Indigenous people's natural and cultural resources through
maintenance, research, resilience, and mitigation. Program activities
align Indigenous traditional cultural values with projects that provide
sustainable benefits for program participants and Tribal communities.
The program expands BIA's Pathways Internship Program, which targets
American Indian and Alaska Native students for internships across seven
BIA programs and complements the BIA CCC program.
advancing and incorporating science across interior
Science is integral to the accomplishment of Interior's core
mission activities. The 2023 budget includes more than $1.4 billion for
research and development programs across the Department, but the
application of science is also essential in carrying out direct mission
activities. FWS has integrated scientific information to help improve
and streamline the environmental review process for Federal projects.
The Consultation Package Builder leads agencies through development of
biological assessments, and plans are in place to expand available data
of species and their locations.
Interior's natural resource managers rely on science every day as
they gather, analyze, and apply inventorying and monitoring data to
inform stewardship decisions. The ability to examine data regarding the
status of lands, waters, ecosystems, and the resident species plays an
increasingly important role in understanding and building resilience to
the effects of climate change. The 2023 budget includes funding to
support adaptative management and applied science within the operating
accounts of BLM, FWS, and NPS.
USGS is Interior's primary science organization, providing science
and actionable information about natural hazards, natural resources,
ecosystems and environmental health, mapping and land imaging, and the
effects of climate change. The 2023 budget includes $147.1 million for
applied science in species management and land management, directly
supporting the work of Interior bureaus. USGS also supports a network
of Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CASCs), which promote scientific
collaboration to tackle regional climate science challenges. The budget
includes $124.7 million for this work, which helps provide resource
managers with the ability to integrate the best available science into
everyday resource management. The newest CASC, hosted at the University
of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment, will pay special attention
to Tribal concerns and build off the unique and robust experience of
Midwest Tribes with adaptation science and practice.
USGS science plays an important role in addressing significant
challenges that have substantial societal and environmental impacts.
Frequently, USGS science is paired with resource management expertise
in Interior bureaus as well as with other Federal and non-Federal
partners. An example of this collaboration is USGS' role in ongoing
governmentwide work to address the problem of invasive carp. USGS
research in this area supports early detection, risk assessment, and
development and assessment of tools to control the number of invasive
carp. Removal efforts using a USGS-developed method in Barkley Lake,
KY, removed tens of thousands of pounds of invasive silver and bighead
carp. Research testing on the effectiveness of an acoustic deterrent
system at Lock and Dam 19 on the Mississippi River will support efforts
to stop the upstream expansion of invasive carp. Research on other
deterrents, such as carbon dioxide, have proven effective against grass
carp in laboratory tests. The 2023 budget includes $47.9 million to
continue research on biological threats and invasive species, an
increase of $7.5 million from the 2022 enacted appropriation.
promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion of underserved communities
The Administration is adopting a whole-of-government approach to
advance equity, civil rights, racial justice, and equal opportunity.
The Interior 2023 budget request supports the actions needed to
recognize and redress inequities and to proactively advance diversity,
equity, inclusion, and accessibility within the Department's workforce.
strengthening interior's commitment to diversity and equity
The 2023 budget includes $16.8 million as part of a Departmentwide
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility initiative. Funding
will be used to increase capacity in the bureaus and in the
Department's Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Civil Rights; Office
of Human Capital; and Office of Collaborative Alternative Dispute
Resolution to:
--Improve Interior's Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) adjudication,
investigations, and processing of final Department decisions
and increase EEO training across the Department;
--Expand capacity for alternative dispute resolution and EEO
complaint mediation;
--Assess hiring programs to eliminate barriers to effective and
inclusive recruitment; and
--Ensure consistent and equal pay for equal work.
In February 2022, I established the first-ever Diversity, Equity,
Inclusion and Accessibility Council to prioritize equity and inclusion
and to incorporate best practices into the Department's work across its
many bureaus, programs, and services. The budget includes additional
specific investments to expand the Office of Diversity within FWS and
to establish an Office of Equity and Inclusion within BOEM.
For far too long, environmental policy decisions have failed to
adequately account for environmental injustice, including the
disproportionate, disparate, and cumulative impacts pollution and
climate change have on low-income communities and communities of color.
To address those inequities, the Administration is working to implement
the Justice40 initiative to ensure that 40 percent of overall benefits
of certain Federal investments in climate and clean energy are directed
to disadvantaged communities. Interior bureaus and offices have been
working as part of governmentwide efforts to refine the criteria and
metrics needed to implement this important initiative. The 2023 budget
includes $4.0 million for dedicated staff and technical support to
provide programmatic expertise, coordination, and outreach support
across the Department. These additional resources will enable the
Department to implement the Justice40 initiative while quantifying the
benefits and positive impacts of Justice40-covered programs on
disadvantaged communities across the country.
building a more inclusive agency
Interior is also working to make our mission programs and services
more inclusive of diverse and underserved communities. The 2023 budget
includes targeted investments to better connect with and be more
responsive to new audiences. Examples of this effort in the budget
include the following:
--The Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration program
includes $8.1 million to better address environmental justice
issues.
--USGS includes $800,000 to enhance scientific capacity partnerships
through technical training internships with Tribes, Alaska
Native communities, and underserved communities.
--FWS includes $4.0 million for an expanded Native American Programs
Coordination Office.
--NPS includes $5.7 million to establish an Office of Native American
Affairs and support Tribal liaisons at national parks to
strengthen partnerships and improve coordination with Tribal
Nations and support the Native American Tourism and Improving
Visitor Experience (NATIVE) Act.
The 2023 budget also expands ongoing programs that are working to
connect new audiences to the outdoors and to Interior's mission
activities. For example, the FWS budget includes $12.5 million for its
Urban Wildlife Conservation program. This program leverages the 101
national wildlife refuges that are within 25 miles of an urban area
through local partnerships. The program helps to connect the refuges to
their local communities through outreach and programming, creating
opportunities for the 80 percent of Americans who are living in urban
areas to benefit from time spent in nature.
The NPS mission includes the preservation of America's cultural and
historical resources. Including the cultural practices and history from
across America in carrying out this mission is an important
responsibility. The 2023 budget includes several important investments
that reflect inclusion and diversity:
--Support for the African American Civil Rights Network to present a
comprehensive narrative of the people, places, and events
associated with the African American Civil Rights movement--
$5.4 million.
--Historic Preservation Fund support for Historically Black Colleges
and Universities--$10.0 million.
--Grants to Indian Tribes to support Tribal historic preservation
offices that preserve the distinct cultural heritage of
American Indian Tribes nationwide--$23.0 million.
--Competitive historic preservation grants to support State and local
efforts to preserve sites that document the struggle for equal
opportunity for African Americans--$21.8 million.
--Transfer of $3.3 million to the 400 Years of African American
History Commission for research and programs throughout the
United States to recognize and highlight the resilience and
cultural contributions of Africans and African Americans over
400 years.
--Expanded capacity at more than 30 national park units that preserve
and tell the story of historically underrepresented and
marginalized groups or conduct programs that reach out to local
underserved communities.
--Assessment and addressing of transportation barriers to National
Park System units from underserved communities--$5.0 million.
--Establishment of the Park Accessibility for Visitors and Employees
Network--$5.0 million.
building agency capacity
Interior is working to strengthen the Department moving forward and
continuously improve the delivery of our mission programs and services
to the American people. Efforts related to improving Interior's
workforce and operations and better leveraging technology and
information are underway across the Department.
workforce and operational improvements
Interior's mission activities rely on a talented and dedicated
workforce, and many bureau operations are labor intensive and complex.
At the end of 2020, however, Interior's staffing was at a 10-year low,
with 60,558 full-time equivalents (FTEs). Despite the pandemic, by the
end of 2021, staffing had increased to 62,027 FTEs. When fully enacted,
the Department's 2023 budget would support 68,133 FTEs.
As the Department rebuilds its workforce, Interior is working to
recruit, hire, and train the next generation of talented people who
will reflect the diversity and strength of the United States.
Complementing our diverse workforce, the Department is committed to
providing the tools critical for success across Interior. DOI will
regularly conduct equity assessments and pursue more meaningful
engagement with underserved communities to make sure they are visible
and considered during outreach and hiring efforts. The budget includes
$2.3 million for Human Capital initiatives, which include the use of
Talent Teams to strengthen recruitment and improve outreach to diverse
candidates.
With regard to the Wildland Fire Management workforce, Interior is
working closely with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest
Service, and the Office of Personnel Management to ensure that Federal
wildland firefighters receive pay that is competitive with the pay
received by other firefighters. The 2023 budget continues to support a
transition to a more permanent wildland fire workforce, with improved
training and career development opportunities to encourage the
retention of experienced and skilled staff members.
To better support Interior's uniformed law enforcement efforts, the
2023 budget includes $21.1 million to ensure that Interior law
enforcement personnel have body-worn cameras and the associated data
storage capability they need. The 2023 budget proposal would provide
coverage for all Interior law enforcement officers.The Department
continues its work to strengthen BLM's workforce, which experienced a
significant loss of expertise during the 2019 reorganization of the
bureau, when the BLM headquarters was moved from the Washington, DC,
area to Grand Junction, CO. At that time, more than 80 percent of the
employees in positions identified for relocation chose not to relocate,
and many employees moved to positions outside BLM and Interior. BLM is
working now with employees to rebuild a headquarters in Washington, DC,
and to fully leverage the strengths of the western headquarters in
Grand Junction, CO, and in BLM field offices across the West.
leveraging technology and information
As part of a governmentwide initiative, the Department is working
to incorporate a stronger analysis process through evidence-based
program evaluations that rely on data. To improve data-management
practices, the budget invests $2.3 million to increase transparency by
establishing a robust data-management program, organizing data through
an enterprise data registry. The budget also includes $4.3 million for
an independent evaluation fund to support efforts to conduct
independent evaluations of programs, initiatives, and processes across
Interior. DOI will also develop and implement a Departmentwide
Enterprise Risk Management program to better identify and address
systemic risks across the agency. The 2023 budget includes an
additional $700,000 to support evidence-based evaluations and risk-
management work across the Department.
To better support this data-driven work, the 2023 budget includes
$54.3 million to continue to modernize and enhance the Department's
enterprise business management system, the Financial and Business
Management System (FBMS). FBMS supports the administrative system's
requirements across the Department for core accounting, budget
execution, acquisition, aspects of financial assistance, real and
personal property management, fleet management, travel integration,
enterprise information management, and reporting.
In 2023, the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) will invest
$17.5 million for the next phase of its ongoing Information Technology
(IT) Modernization effort, which will focus on the design, development,
and implementation of the new system and the eventual decommissioning
of the legacy financial system. ONRR ensures that revenue from Federal
and Indian mineral leases is effectively, efficiently, and accurately
collected, accounted for, analyzed, audited, and disbursed to
recipients in a timely fashion. Revenue distributions, which totaled
$8.8 billion in 2021, benefit States, Tribes, individual Indian mineral
royalty owners, and U.S. Treasury accounts. IT Modernization will
provide the capacity, flexibility, and agility to reduce long-term
operations and maintenance costs, and it will strengthen the
cybersecurity of Federal networks and critical infrastructure.
In the area of law enforcement, the 2023 budget includes $11.0
million to implement a unified Law Enforcement Records Management
System (LERMS). With LERMS, Interior will be able to centralize law
enforcement activities--including criminal investigations, jail
management, and citation tracking--and securely transmit law
enforcement records across the Department and other law enforcement
agencies and courts. At present, data sharing between the two legacy
law enforcement systems is limited, and systems are inaccessible in
rural areas, such as at national parks that do not have cell service or
the Internet and require officers to reenter handwritten paper ticket
and report information at a computing device when a connection becomes
available. The current systems do not have the capability to
electronically transfer ticket information to the U.S. Courts or report
mandatory data to the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI). By transitioning to a unified LERMS, the realized
efficiencies and increased capabilities will allow DOI law enforcement
officers to spend more time protecting people and resources and will
promote accountability.
Interior bureaus and offices use field communications to carry out
critical operations, including law enforcement, wildland firefighting,
land and resource management, scientific studies, and emergency
management. The 2023 request includes $28.6 million to be distributed
across BIA, NPS, FWS, USGS, and the Office of the Chief Information
Officer (OCIO) to modernize field communications. This DOI Field
Communications Modernization investment is part of a strategy to
address needed upgrades in Interior's field communications systems to
ensure more efficient and reliable voice communication and remote
broadband connectivity to provide employees working in the field with
voice, video, and data capabilities for all missions. In many
locations, this deployment will enhance or replace voice-only, mid-
20th-century land mobile radio technology with technology that is
cheaper to operate and maintain. Operations and maintenance costs may
be significantly reduced, and communications capabilities will likely
increase by assessing current capabilities and needs, leveraging
current technological solutions, and seeking to deliver more cost-
effective cellular and satellite services.
Interior is also investing in cybersecurity to ensure that the
security and integrity of our systems are not compromised. In January
2022, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, FBI, and
National Security Agency encouraged all agencies to increase cyber
resilience in light of elevated risk. Interior continues to pivot to
keep pace with a dynamic cybersecurity environment and deploy needed
mitigation tools and upgraded capabilities. The 2023 budget includes
$44.3 million to address high-priority cyber defense requirements,
better detect emerging threats, make needed improvements to Interior's
IT networks, initiate supply chain risk management analysis, and
maintain ongoing operations.
conclusion
The 2023 President's Budget for Interior sets ambitious goals, but
they are achievable. Working together, we have the opportunity to
invest now to strengthen our Nation for all Americans, protect our
environment, and ensure our future generations continue to not only
enjoy, but improve our way of life. I look forward to doing this work
together. Thank you again for having me, and I am pleased to answer any
questions you may have.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much Madam Secretary. And
we, without objection, will put your full testimony, written
testimony into the record.
I will begin rounds of questioning now, seven minutes, I
will stop asking questions when my seven minutes are up, and I
will ask everyone else to do the same so that we can make sure
everyone gets a chance to make inquiries that are important to
these issues across the country.
Let me start with the Klamath Basin. The Klamath Basin in
Oregon has experienced many, many years of drought, a number of
worst-ever drought years, and it puts enormous stress on the
water resources, water resources that have declined both with
the changing weather patterns, and also with the loss of less
water coming out of the Cascade snowpack.
And we have, Congress has provided $162 million in the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and more than 16 million through
the Fish and Wildlife Service for the Klamath Basin, helping to
address those issues. But these funds will be funds that will
not last forever, and the question is kind of, what is the plan
to be able to help the Basin figure out the path for the future
under these difficult circumstances.
I really appreciate that a team, led by Liz Klein, just
recently completed a trip to the Basin, and your Department has
convened a number of roundtables with stakeholders. So just,
what is the status of that 162 million, and how will the
funding be distributed? And what is the timeline?
Secretary Haaland. Chairman, thank you so much for the
question. And first of all I think you know how much we all
care about the Klamath Basin, and we have people in our
Department, Liz is one of those, Tanya Trujillo another, and of
course Camille Touton, who work every single day on this issue.
And there is not enough water, obviously. And that is the
incredibly challenging piece of all this.
I thank you for recognizing that we are doing our best to
work with partners on the ground. I think it is incredibly
important that we are in contact with the people whose lives
are affected by this issue. And I want to assure you that every
single day our team is working with partners in the states to
evaluate the options for renewing discussions about how to
foster the long-term issues moving forward.
I think that we will take our cues from folks on the
ground, and know that our team is dedicated. I wanted to also
recognize that the Tribal communities are important in this
piece as well. You might know that I had a chance to meet with
all those folks, virtually, and just understand that even
though people don't agree on everything they agree that they
care deeply about this place.
So thank you. And we are happy to keep you informed of the
progress on this issue as we move forward.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. I absolutely will follow up,
because how we spend that $162 million is going to be so
important to the future and success of all the stakeholders in
the Basin.
I want to commend you for your leadership on the Indian
Boarding School Initiative.
You have embarked on a mission to document a dark chapter
in American history. Just fully supportive of these efforts,
and well, a lot of those schools, a number of them were in
Oregon, ten of those schools, one of which Chemawa is still
operating under--but unfortunately under very different
circumstances, so from that past.
How will the Department use the fiscal year 2022 funding of
$7 million to further the efforts for this program?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you very much, Chairman. As you
know, we finished our first report on the Boarding School
Initiative. We are working on the second report. We also
started a nationwide listening tour, if you will a healing
journey tour. We had the first piece of that this past weekend
at the Riverside Indian School in Anadarko, Oklahoma. We will
travel to your state likely, as well as to many states across
the country.
The second report in the Boarding School Initiative will
dive deeper into the issues that we raised, and it is largely
driven by what the tribes would like us to do as well. So we
are keeping close contact with all of that. We appreciate your
support. There is more work to do to bring closure and healing
to this issue, and so the $7 million is going to go toward the
healing journey, toward researching and writing the second
report, and any subsequent reports that would come after that.
Senator Merkley. I think we are all going to learn a lot
from this effort. It is an incredibly important effort. Thank
you.
Public Law 280 is a nearly 70-year-old law affecting
criminal jurisdiction in tribal lands in six states, including
Oregon. I know that criminal jurisdiction on tribal lands is
complicated, the situation for each affected tribe is unique,
but essentially there are 32 tribes across the country that
should qualify for funding assistance with their criminal
jurisdiction programs that have not been included in the past.
And this is profoundly unfair.
And I want to draw it to your attention, and I want to
advocate that these are 32 tribes be treated fairly. And just
ask how you might champion appropriate, equal fair treatment of
these tribes that have been excluded, even though they qualify?
Secretary Haaland. Chairman, thank you so much for the
question. Of course justice services and law enforcement in
Indian Country is a priority for all of us, and I recognize
that sometimes it can be difficult given where the tribal
communities are located. But safety all across Indian Country
is a priority for me.
We have focused on increasing capacity in areas where we
have existing law enforcement programs, growing our Missing and
Murdered Unit, and I know you were supportive of that, so thank
you, and improving detention and correction centers. We
recognize the need to turn our attention to the 32 non-PL280
tribes, like the Cow Creek, who have not had the opportunity to
receive direct service law enforcement from the BIA. For tribes
in this situation, we are looking at strategies to provide them
an opportunity to receive law enforcement funding in a manner
that doesn't diminish the level of support for tribes who
receive the law enforcement services for funding.
So it is a good balancing act. But I assure you that we
care deeply, and this is an issue that we will continue to work
on. And of course, we are happy to be in touch with you about
it.
Senator Merkley. Thank you, Madam Secretary. I appreciate
your recognition that those 32 tribes deserve to be included in
the program, and we will work with you in that regard.
And let me turn this over to Ranking Member Senator
Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Madam Secretary, you know very well the issues related to
our legacy wells up north, particularly within the National
Petroleum Reserve. We provided significant resources to the
Department to address these, last year $22 million, but what we
are hearing is the concern, and I know it has been raised with
you, that these wells are not being plugged to the appropriate
standards.
In March, there were releases that came from previously
plugged legacy wells, you know, once they are plugged they
shouldn't be a problem. But what we are facing is the standards
that are used by the state government in Alaska are more
stringent, and they result in better remediation outcomes.
I don't know if this is a staffing issue at BLM. If so, we
can work to address that. But I need you to commit to me to
have BLM review the remediation and plugging standards that are
used by the State of Alaska to see what improvements can be
made to BLM's own standards. And I would hope that after you
get such a review we can sit down and work through this?
Secretary Haaland. Absolutely. We are happy to work with
you on all of that, Senator.
Senator Murkowski. Okay. Thank you. Then what I would ask
again is if you can do this review, and if in 3 months we will
follow up for a meeting to go over that, I would appreciate
that.
Secretary Haaland. Yes, of course.
Senator Murkowski. On the fire as I mentioned what we are
seeing up in the state right now, 512 fires this year, covering
2.8 million acres of land. Interior received $1.5 billion in
the Infrastructure Bill for wildland fire--or wildfire
mitigation and preparedness. I think it goes without saying,
but we certainly need funding to conduct the hazardous fuels
reduction.
Can you tell me how much of the infrastructure money has
been distributed, and how soon you expect to see that funding
get out the door?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you so much. The Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law provided over $1.4 billion for Interior's
fire programs over a five-year period, Wildland Fire Management
Program allocated $407 million in 2022, and the Interior and
U.S. Forest Service recently announced $120 million will be
paid out as a supplemental salary payments to wildland
firefighters. That was so we could ensure firefighters are paid
at least $15 an hour. Some programs will take longer to
implement fully because of upfront planning and other
requirements.
Senator Murkowski. Can I stop you on that?
Secretary Haaland. Yes.
Senator Murkowski. Because when I asked a similar question
in the Energy Committee recently to Chief Moore, he said, you
need to have a plan. This is an issue where, again, I think the
states have plenty of plans that are out there, and so I am not
sure where the issue is in getting these resources directed out
to the states. So I am trying to follow this through with
Forest Service so if there is--if there is still some delay, if
we are waiting for plans, in the meantime places are on fire.
Secretary Haaland. Yes.
Senator Murkowski. So can you help me in understanding what
more we can be doing to get these funds out the door?
Secretary Haaland. As you know we work with the Forest
Service quite a bit with respect to wildland fire. I am happy
to have someone follow up with your staff on this issue.
Senator Murkowski. Good.
Secretary Haaland. And make sure that everything is in
place. And I am willing to do whatever we can to make sure it
happens.
Senator Murkowski. I appreciate that.
I mentioned the five-year plan, and in Cook Inlet, and I
think there was a lot of concern in May when the Department
canceled Lease Sale 258, citing lack of industry interest. And
I can say with real certainty that was not the case. But in the
environmental analysis the Department's experts stated that if
no lease sale occurred the price for gas would increase, as
would emissions due to use of alternative fuels.
So I mean, the problem that we are facing here is, in
Alaska, we are already paying some of the highest gas prices in
the country, and so it was just kind of stunning to people to
actually read the Department's own words that canceling this
sale would actually increase the emissions, increase the cost.
So can you tell me why this particular sale was canceled?
What consultations were done with industry that led to this
claim about lack of industry interest? Because the folks that
are coming to me are saying: We absolutely are interested, were
interested, now there is no opportunity because it has been
taken off the table.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you, It was the fact that actual
oil companies did not show interest in Cook Inlet, I recognize
that the Oil and Gas Association did show interest, but for us
to move that forward we would have had to have interest from
the actual companies who would be bidding on the leases.
Senator Murkowski. Yeah, but there has been nothing that
was laid down they can't indicate what their interest is. It is
kind of a, you know, chicken and for example, or horse before
the cart. I mean, but what happened was there was no ability,
no opportunity to even show an interest because the sale was
entirely cancelled.
Secretary Haaland. Well, I appreciate your perspective on
this, and I am not sure what to say, other than what I have
already said. In any other lease sales we have actual companies
showing the interest and putting forward, ideas for those
opportunities, and we didn't get that with respect to Cook
Inlet.
Senator Murkowski. Madam Secretary, my time has expired. I
will just share that what we face is that 80 percent of the
natural gas that comes to the most populated portion of the
state, comes out of that Cook Inlet. And there is a real
concern that now that this is taken off the table what comes
next.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. Senator Heinrich?
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman.
Secretary, welcome. I have been very glad to see the
funding from the Great American Outdoors Act begin to go to
work over the last couple of years. But I am deeply concerned
about agency process bottlenecks that really frustrate our
ability to get LWCF, Land and Water Conservation Fund projects
done in a reasonable timeframe.
And I certainly recognize the importance of accurate and
professional appraisals, but I don't understand why that
process should take years as it often now does. That was not
the case in the past in these agencies, and it is not the case
in the private real estate market certainly.
So what can we do to ensure that Land and Water
Conservation Fund projects can be completed in a timeframe that
works both for the public, but also for the landowners who
engage in these transactions?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you so much, Senator. It is nice
to see you.
Senator Heinrich. Good to see you.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you for the question. We are
working with our LWCF bureaus and the Appraisal and Valuation
Services Office to set up a comprehensive review that looks at
the root causes of these delays. And that includes internal
processes and external factors as well. We are happy to follow
up with you as that moves forward. And I understand the
frustration.
Senator Heinrich. So my hope is that we can get this to a
place where the appraisal's process can be done in a matter of
months as opposed to years. You are familiar with the L Bar
Project in New Mexico.
Secretary Haaland. Yes.
Senator Heinrich. We specifically avoided working with the
Federal Government in that transaction, other than the Federal
funding that came from Pittman-Robertson. But we didn't use
LWCF dollars in that project because the timeframe just would
not allow for it. So we have to get to a place where we can do
marquee projects that really--the kind of projects that the
public really gets excited about, but on a timeframe that works
for these landowners.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you.
Senator Heinrich. I want to ask you a little bit about
Hardrock Mine Cleanup. As you know, on the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Bill, Congress finally authorized a program
dedicated to abandon Hardrock Mine Reclamation. Something that
has existed for abandoned coal mines for decades. We all know
that bill didn't include funding for that program, but your
Department budget request includes 85 million in new funding
for Hardrock Cleanup, something I very much appreciate.
But it directs it through other existing programs rather
than through the specific program authorized specifically for
this purpose. So I just want to ask: Does the administration
support funding for the dedicated Hardrock Program authorized
in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill?
Secretary Haaland. Yes.
Senator Heinrich. Great. We look forward to working with
you on that. I think it is going to break new ground, and we
are going to be able to do some really good projects that
should have been addressed decades ago. And I look forward to
working with you closely on that.
The number of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers, THPOs,
has grown rapidly over the last couple of decades. Funding from
the Historic Preservation Fund has not kept pace as you know.
More than 200 tribes have a Historic Preservation Office, but
each THPO receives only about $75 thousand right now to support
all the work that they do, to review projects that impact
tribal cultural sites, both on and off tribal land. How can we
get the Tribal Historic Preservation Offices the resources that
they need to fully protect their communities' sacred spaces?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you for the question, Senator. And
of course I fully support the Tribal Historic Preservation
Offices. It may be the only Federal program that helps tribes
to protect and conserve their cultural history and resources,
so they are incredibly important. Our 2023 budget proposes an
$8 million increase for those offices, and of course we are
always available to help support them in any way that we can.
Senator Heinrich. Yeah. I hope this committee will look
closely at this because you know, we are spreading the same
resources over more and more tribal THPO offices.
Secretary Haaland. Yes.
Senator Heinrich. And it is not a sustainable approach
right now. Secretary, as you are all too aware, American
Indians and Alaska Natives who are living on reservations face
violent crime rates, up to 20 times those living off
reservation. More than 80 percent of Native Americans will
experience violence in their lifetime, and there are currently
thousands of missing indigenous people.
So I want to ask you a little bit about BIA and how they
set their law enforcement priorities, and specifically
referencing situation that we have had in New Mexico.
Basically, why instead of focusing on this crisis that is truly
a crisis, are limited BIA resources being used to enforce
Federal cannabis laws on reservations where cannabis has
already been legalized by the sovereign tribe there?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you for the question, Senator. I
believe very strongly that we should respect tribal laws and
work in partnership with tribes on their public safety
priorities, and they know their communities far better than we
ever will. This question also involves the authority and policy
of the Department of Justice, and I respect that we have to
have an Administration approach to this.
So it is absolutely noted. We have been approached by
tribes on this issue as well, and it is something that we are
not ignoring.
Senator Heinrich. I appreciate that. And I think this is a
conversation that I look forward to continuing, because I just
think it is a horrible misappropriation of focus at a time when
we have such pressing needs. And obviously, you know, in my
state, the state has chosen to legalize cannabis, a number of
tribes have followed suit. Whatever you think about that as a
policy matter, we have such more important, pressing criminal
needs in Indian Country right now, that we need to set our
priorities appropriately.
So thank you, Secretary. And my time is expired.
Senator Merkley. Thank you, Senator. And Senator Hyde-Smith
is next.
Senator Hyde-Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and thank you,
Secretary Haaland, for being here today.
Madam Secretary, the draft proposed program issued recently
by the Interior Department, in my opinion, is filled--it is
just full of uncertainty for the oil and gas industry,
ambiguity, and for instance, it indicates the Department will
consider up to ten Gulf of Mexico lease sales, plus the option
for one sale in Alaska's Cook Inlet that we have talked about,
but does not guarantee any.
What are the odds that the Department could break with the
past precedent and exercise the option to hold zero lease sales
as the proposed five-year lease plan is finalized?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you very much for the question,
Senator. First what I will say is that we do have a 90-day
public comment period, and those comments that come in will be
factored into any decisions that we make. I can't prejudge
anything at this time but I absolutely appreciate your
perspective, and know that we will work to have a balanced
approach to this issue; and happy to stay in touch with your
office as we move forward.
Senator Hyde-Smith. So you do think we will have some lease
sales?
Secretary Haaland. I can't prejudge this issue until we
come to a decision. That will be after the 90-day public
comment period.
Senator Hyde-Smith. Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas,
has lower greenhouse gas intensities than fossil fuels used to
substitute for energy not produced in the Gulf. Importing
foreign energy also increases emissions because other countries
sending us these resources have lower emission standards than
we do. Are you aware that a no-sell option could in fact
increase the price of all energy, oil, gas, coal, and
electricity?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you for that comment, Senator. I
appreciate that.
Senator Hyde-Smith. So are you aware that it could increase
the price of the energy, oil, natural gas, coal, and
electricity, is a question?
Secretary Haaland. Well, I appreciate your perspective on
this. When we are talking about our five-year plan, we don't
take cost into consideration in that respect, because we are
focusing on managing our natural resources.
Senator Hyde-Smith. But because their standards are lower,
their emission standards are lower; I mean you don't agree that
that could increase the price?
Secretary Haaland. Senator, I would be happy to follow up
with your office on that if you would like. I appreciate the
question.
Senator Hyde-Smith. And I appreciate the question. But I
would also appreciate an answer.
Secretary Haaland. What I could say is that I know that
there is a lot that goes into the price of fuel, and I know it
is expensive right now. As I have said many times before there
are about 9,000 approved drilling permits across the country
currently that are not being used, 10.4 million acres of
offshore Federal waters already under lease, as of July
approximately three-quarters of active leases on the OCS are
non-producing.
I know that there is a lot that goes into considerations
with the price of fuel, but I want to assure you that at the
Department of the Interior we are doing our jobs and following
the law to move any of these issues forward.
Senator Hyde-Smith. Okay. And talking about those leases,
let us talk about permits. What is your Department doing to
streamline the approval of right-of-way permits so gathering
lines can be installed more quickly on public lands, and to
help make sure companies can use those 9,000 Federal permits
the White House keeps referring to, and capture methane during
production?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you for the question. I would love
to follow up on this question with your staff. I know that is
an issue. We take our job seriously, Senator. I know that it is
important for us to move this issue forward. And BOEM, the
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, continues to advance permits
for these activities, and 49 have been issued since November of
2020.
Senator Hyde-Smith. Has there been the permits for those 49
issued as well?
Secretary Haaland. Forty-nine permits have been issued
since November.
Senator Hyde-Smith. Of the leases you have 49 permits?
Secretary Haaland. Yes, ma'am, as I understand it.
Senator Hyde-Smith. Okay. In your opinion, what is the
earliest we can see a lease sale?
Secretary Haaland. I can't pre-judge that.
Senator Hyde-Smith. Your Department has issued a draft plan
to the public that has yet to file the request for information,
that I am sure you are familiar with, which is the action that
triggers the first 45-day comment period that is necessary. As
you know, pre-leasing activities, such as area identification,
NEPA review, environmental impact statements, and other
activities are allowed so work can begin as quickly as possible
once the lease is finalized.
Since your Department has already well passed deadline for
conducting lease sales, what progress has been made inside your
Department on preparing a request for information on any pre-
leasing documents to ensure the most efficient transaction once
lease is finalized?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you, Senator. I want to just make
sure that I mention the fact that the reason why this five-year
plan has been late to begin with is because it was dropped by
the last administration. They started it and didn't finish it.
We picked it up after that. They took no further action after
releasing the draft proposed plan in 2018.
So we are moving forward expeditiously on the next steps.
We have two steps of five completed. We released the proposed
program on July 1st. On the Environmental Impact Statement, we
began the 90-day public comment period on July 8th, and then we
will incorporate input to develop and publish the proposed
final program which can be approved by the Secretary, and
adopted 60 days later following Presidential and Congressional
consideration.
Senator Hyde-Smith. So it is the last administration's
fault; who by the way, was energy independent?
Senator Merkley. Thank you, Senator Hyde-Smith. Your time
has so expired. But you are welcome to adopt a second round if
you would like.
Senator Hyde-Smith. Thank you.
Senator Merkley. Senator Reed.
Senator Reed. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Madam Secretary, and Ms. Flanagan. There has been
throughout the morning, beginning with the chairman, a
discussion of the Biden administration's policy on gas prices,
oil and gas leasing. And you have mentioned some facts and I
would just like to get them right back on the table, if I
could. And you may answer these questions, as yes or no.
But Madam Secretary, is it true that in the first year the
Biden administration would produce more oil from Federal lands
onshore and offshore than in any year in history?
Secretary Haaland. Yes, Senator.
Senator Reed. Is it true that oil companies have nearly
9,000 approved but unused drilling permits?
Secretary Haaland. Yes, that is correct.
Senator Reed. It is true that there are more than 20
million acres of unused Federal leases, 12 million onshore, and
8 million offshore?
Secretary Haaland. Yes.
Senator Reed. Is it true that the oil companies aren't
using roughly half of their onshore Federal leases?
Secretary Haaland. That is correct.
Senator Reed. And is it true that oil companies aren't
using roughly 75 percent of their offshore Federal leases?
Secretary Haaland. Yes, sir.
Senator Reed. So it seemed one conclusion is that even
though there is an ample capacity to drill, that the companies
for reasons related to the business have decided they are not
going to drill. Or because of the price of oil is so high right
now that they literally can make more money just extracting for
existing wells, and not increasing production which would lower
cost; is that one possible analysis?
Secretary Haaland. Well, I think there is a lot that goes
into what the cost of fuel is. And I think there is a lot
happening around the world that has caused fuel prices to go
up.
Senator Reed. No, I think there is. And I think also too,
we are at a moment where, as the automobile industry announces
that within 10 years or so they will just sell electric cars, I
think there is a lot of discussion among the boardrooms at
hydro carbon companies of: Do we really want to make billion-
dollar investments? But I think these factors are beyond the
administration's control, they are the decisions of the
companies that are making them at the moment.
I want to thank you for joining myself, and all of my
colleagues, and delegations, and the White House, and
Congressmen Langevin and Cicillini. Last summer when you signed
in a ceremony to formally establish the boundaries of the
Blackstone River Valley National Historic Park, and making it
an official into the National Park Service, and thanks to the
tireless work of the Park Service's real state, and local
officials, and volunteers.
We have already received a recovery and revival of dozens
of historic villages and along the river, kayaking, other
sports, hiking. But the park service still has a long way to
go, as you well know. They have to acquire the Old Slater Mill
which is literally the place where the Industrial Revolution
began in the United States, complete its shale management plan,
you know, build out administrative offices.
I am glad to see that the administration put a slight
increase in the budget this year, but I am convinced they are
going to need more resources. So I would ask you to commit to
work with me and my office to increase funding so that we can
really tackle the establishment of this park.
Secretary Haaland. Absolutely. And thank you, Senator. I
was happy to join you for that issue. The 2023 budget includes
$1.9 million for the park, and that would support fixed-cost
increases, and staffing capacity, which I know is important
during these times. We want the park to grow. And so there is a
budget in there for that.
Senator Reed. I would mention it runs into Massachusetts,
so this is a two-state enterprise. And also I must give credit
to my predecessor, John Chafee, who really started this process
many years ago. He would be very happy today. We have talked
about offshore wind. Rhode Island has the only offshore wind
project in the United States, and it was built, and it was
built very efficiently. We are generating power now for the
entire island of Block Island, and actually the excess power is
going into the state grid.
And we are also committed to purchasing another 600
megawatts of offshore wind power. Indeed the New York Bight
Wind Energy area is talking about a $4.4 billion sale of
energy, hydro, and energy power, wind energy power. One of the
players in this whole process is BOEM, and they were very
responsible and very responsive when we were doing our project,
but they have to be very cognizant of other stakeholders,
particularly fishermen. And this is an issue that I would ask
your attention to. The BOEM released the Draft Fisheries
Mitigation Guidance last month, but I think much more should be
done.
And can you indicate what other steps BOEM might take, or
will take to expedite the licensing of these projects?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you for the question, Senator. I
know that BOEM takes this charge incredibly seriously. They do
include the fishing industry in the leasing process, and all
the proposed projects have stakeholder engagement consistently.
Since 2008 BOEM has invested more than $70 million on
environmental studies that address renewable energy issues,
including developing fisheries best management practices.
Under these circumstances I know that moving to clean
energy, or transitioning to a clean energy economy is not
without important issues. So I know that BOEM cares deeply. The
fishing industry is incredibly important, not only to the
economy, but to the health of our country.
We are happy to speak with you about this if there are
other ideas that you have. But I want to assure you that they
are working very hard to make sure that the industry is fully
engaged in the process and the projects that we are doing.
Senator Reed. Thank you very much, Madam Secretary. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. And now, Senator Hagerty.
Senator Hagerty. Thank you, Senator Merkley; Senator
Murkowski, for holding this hearing.
Secretary Haaland, thank you, for appearing here today. We
had some very bad news this morning, the Consumer Price Index,
inflation posted at 9.1 percent. That is a 40-year record high.
If you look at gas prices at the pump, they are at all-time
record highs. American families are suffering tremendously
right now.
Secretary Haaland you are responsible for granting oil and
gas leases on Federal land, Federal lands account for about a
quarter of U.S. oil production. Yet on July 1st, despite the
fact that American families are facing record high prices, your
Department announced that it might not issue any new offshore
oil and gas leases for the next 5 years, and you limited
yourself to a maximum of 11 leases.
And in the process your Department said that this quote,
``Significantly narrowed the 47 leases proposed by the previous
administration,'' and in support of this effort to reduce U.S.
oil and gas production you declared, and I would like to read
the quote, ``From day one President Biden and I have made clear
our commitment to transition to a clean energy economy.''
So Secretary Haaland, I want to ask you, at what point, at
what point is this transition to a green energy economy that
you and President Biden are trying to force, worth making
American families pay $6 a gallon at the pump?
Secretary Haaland. Senator, thank you for the question. And
first of all, I completely understand, I raised my kid as a
single mom. It is difficult right now, and I have had those
experiences. So I want you to know that I care deeply about
American families who are suffering right now.
Of course we are still coming off of a two-year pandemic
that really affected our country in so many ways. I do want you
to know that while the vast majority of U.S. oil and gas
production occurs on private lands, Federal lands have produced
more oil than any time in our history.
Senator Hagerty. So you are telling me that the Biden
administration is a champion of oil production here in America?
Secretary Haaland. I am just saying that because of the way
the leases and permits have gone over the last several years,
oil production from Federal lands and waters right now is at an
all-time high.
Senator Hagerty. Well, I think it is important what you
signal to the marketplace. Chairman Reed brought this up.
American oil and gas companies are not investing right now
because the environment has been terrible for them. You have
created an environment here. You have sent every message since
this administration took office that the Biden administration
will ensure that oil and gas investments do not pay off in
America, killing the Keystone XL Pipeline.
If you think about the message that comes to the industry
when they find out that you are not going to allow new leases
on oil and gas properties, or you are going to limit yourself
to only 11 over the next 5 years, at the maximum, this is
sending a very bad message.
What I need to understand from you, is at what point, at
what point does the pain that American families are feeling,
that you indicate you are appreciative of, is it $6 a barrel
that you say, I am going to give up this attempt to force this
green new energy program, and go back to maximizing oil and gas
production here in America?
At what point will you commit? And I am asking you to
commit, to increase oil and gas production to address the pain
that American families are feeling?
Secretary Haaland. Senator, I would like to also mention to
you, and I have said this many times. There are 9,000 unused
permits currently; permits that oil companies can use to drill
that are not being used. And onshore, more than 12 million
acres are under lease, offshore 8 million acres are under
lease.
Senator Hagerty. So I just want to make this clear, that
you are saying that the Department of Interior under the Biden
administration has championed oil and gas production here in
America?
Secretary Haaland. Well, I can say that because of how
things have gone over the last several years, there are
thousands of permits, and land under lease that could be used
by these companies to drill.
Senator Hagerty. What we need to see to address the pain at
the pump right now is an expansion of supply. You have many
tools at your disposal, and as the Secretary of Interior I am
asking you, will you commit to use every tool at your disposal
to expand oil and gas production at this point given the pain
that we are suffering right.
Secretary Haaland. Senator, my job as Interior Secretary is
to conserve and manage the natural resources and cultural
heritage for every single American. I said from day one that we
would do that using a balanced approach, and I feel very
confident that our team is looking at every issue. And we are
working to make sure that this is a balanced approach.
Senator Hagerty. Madam Secretary, you mentioned the word
``balance'', but balance is precipitating massive pain. If you
think about where gas prices were the day that your
administration took office, $2.30-odd a gallon, we are now
looking at $6 a gallon of oil or gasoline at the pump. American
families are suffering dramatically.
And I will come back and ask you again. At what point do
you back off this attempt to force a transition to green
energy? At what point will you use the tools at your disposal
to expand oil and gas production here in America?
Secretary Haaland. Senator thank you for the question. I
know that nationally, as of July 11th, the gas prices were at
$4.68 a gallon that is still incredibly high. And Senator
Murkowski mentioned that in Alaska they are a lot higher. I
understand this, and I understand exactly what that means,
because I have been in positions like that in the past.
Senator Hagerty. Well, please, I implore you to use that
understanding to feel that pain, and do something about it. You
have the power--you control a quarter of the production lands
here in America, the oil and gas leases that could be
permitted. Please commit to me that you will do everything in
your power to use your authority to expand production now?
Secretary Haaland. Senator, there are 9,000 unused drilling
permits right now today, and millions of acres of land.
Senator Hagerty. I have heard this, but that is less than
10 percent of the total that we are talking about. That is a
distortion. That is a distraction. I am asking you to send the
message to industry to do everything that you can to expand oil
and gas production. You will not commit to doing that,
Secretary?
Secretary Haaland. Senator, again I would just like to say
that gas and oil production as at an all-time high on Federal
lands currently, at this time.
Senator Hagerty. What we need to see is a message to the
marketplace that expands production not constrains it. How do
you explain the record high prices that we are experiencing,
were it not for that? How do you explain the fact that we are
no longer in a position to be a net energy exporter? How do you
explain the transition from $2.30 gas to $6 of gasoline that
has happened in the 18 months this administration has been in
office?
Secretary Haaland. Senator, thank you for the question. We
are more than happy to follow up with your office.
Senator Hagerty. I am very disappointed that you are not
able to commit to the simple notion that you should use the
authority that you have, Madam Secretary, to expand production
now to alleviate the pain for the American public. We are
suffering dramatically, our economy is in tough shape, 9.1
percent inflation right now, and record high prices.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Senator Hagerty.
Senator Feinstein?
Senator Feinstein. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
would say to the Senator, it may just not be this woman's
fault. Let me read you something from the Los Angeles Times,
``Officials recently announced they were unable to fill about
1,000 temporary firefighter positions, and looking to make
emergency hires by shortening the onboarding process. As
California faces what is expected to be a punishing fire season
only 62 percent of Federal firefighter positions here are
filled, according to a source within the agency. Before 2020
nearly all spots, nationwide, typically would be filled at this
time of year, said the source, who requested anonymity to
discuss sensitive internal matters.
''In addition, roughly a third of all Forest Service fire
engines in California are on five-day staffing. Meaning there
aren't enough crew members to operate them seven days a week.
An additional 13 percent of engines are, quote, ``Down staffed,
end quote. Essentially parked because of a lack of
firefighters, the source said.''
So I don't blame this person. Something is wrong in the
system, somewhere somebody is putting a hold on things in the
fact that they are disguised, they take the blame, and fire
rises throughout my state. I am really concerned about it.
The Forest Service has acknowledged challenges in reaching
this year's national target of 11,300 firefighters, especially
in the Pacific Northwest, and Southwest regions which include,
Oregon, Washington, and California. The recruitment and
retention problems are in areas quote, ``Where state and
private firefighter wages are out-competing Federal firefighter
wages, housing costs are not affordable, and positions are in
remote locations.'' The Agency said in a statement. Would you
support that?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you so much for the question,
Senator. I want to commiserate with you on the fires in your
state. New Mexico had the most devastating wildfire in our
state's history recently, and so I understand how devastating
that can be, especially when you love your state so dearly.
We are working every single day to make sure that we are
supportive of the firefighters on the ground, raising the pay
so they can have the personal resources they need to raise
their families. And certainly, yes, filling those positions----
Senator Feinstein. I don't mean to cut you off. But I have
limited time. My understanding is, as far as California is
concerned, there are 1,800 Federal wildland firefighter
vacancies; is that correct?
Secretary Haaland. Senator, I don't have this specific
number, but we are happy to get back with your staff on that.
Senator Feinstein. Yes. I am concerned. We have a lot of
Federal land in California, and a lot is burning, and I need to
put a real emphasis on this. This is important. Large amounts
of land, California has 20 million acres of Federal forest land
in our state, we have to provide the fire services,
particularly with lightning and weather changes.
So I am really concerned. And I am not blaming you. I think
we have to take a look at what future weather conditions are
going to bring about for us, and really see that we have the
people in place to deal with those conditions.
Right now in my state I do not believe we do. So I would
like to ask that you participate in an effort to take a look at
what has happened in fire-prone areas, and see that we have
enough coverage to take care of our people, and our land.
Secretary Haaland. Senator, nationally we expect to reach
our target hiring goals for wildland fire fighters, which is
5,600. I know that we are working every day to fill those
vacant positions.
Senator Feinstein. Well, wait. Are you saying you have
5,600 vacant positions?
Secretary Haaland. We want 5,600 total personnel.
Senator Feinstein. The number I have been given is 1,800
Federal wildland firefighter vacancies. Is that true or false?
Secretary Haaland. We are happy to follow up with you on
the exact number, Senator. We have wildland firefighters both
in the Department of the Interior, and the Forest Service as
you mentioned. We are happy to follow up with you on the exact
number of vacancies. But I want you to know that we are working
every day to fill those vacancies.
Senator Feinstein. Well, this is a big problem, Mr.
Chairman. We have a lot of Federal land in California, and we
also have a lot of fire, the LA Times runs an article,
``Hellish fires, low pay, trauma, California's Forest Service
Firefighters face a morale crisis.'' And that is what is
happening in the state.
And goes on, ``California faces what is expected to be a
punishing fire season, only 62 percent of Federal firefighter
positions are filled, according to a source within the agency.
Before 2020 nearly all spots, nationwide, typically, would be
filled at this time of year, said the source, who requested
anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters.''
You are under oath. Are those figures correct?
Secretary Haaland. Senator I don't have the exact figures,
but we will absolutely reach out to your staff as soon as I get
back to my office and let you know.
Senator Feinstein. Well, Mr. Chairman, this is World War
III for me. I cannot let the state burn and knowing that
positions that we passed are not being filled.
Senator Merkley. Senator, you are you are absolutely right.
There are a tremendous number of vacancies. The recruitment is
very difficult. I do note that the Interior Department is
working towards year-round positions, to try to have wildland
firefighters be able to do hazardous fuel reductions when they
are not fighting fires. They have implemented the $15 minimum
pay, which is helpful, but not competitive with the state
positions in California.
And I just appreciate that you continuously really advocate
for this, because our western states are burning, we need our
firefighters.
Senator Feinstein. Let me go on one more.
In addition, roughly a third of all Forest Service fire
engines in California are on five-day staffing. Meaning,
``There aren't enough crew members to operate them seven days a
week. An additional 13 percent of engines are down-staffed,
essentially parked because of lack of firefighters,'' the
source said.
Senator Merkley. Thank you, Senator. And we can put it into
the record, and do some follow-up questions, and I really
appreciate you bringing attention to this issue.
Senator Feinstein. Yeah. I appreciate it. This is the Los
Angeles Time, June 14th.
Senator Merkley. Without objection, I enter it into the
record.
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Senator Feinstein. Thank you very much.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. Senator Blunt.
Senator Blunt. Thank you, Chairman. And Secretary, good to
have you here today.
Congress, a few years ago, mandated that states would have
a Wildlife Action Plan. In our state, in Missouri, we have
great outdoor recreation, we have great hunting, we have great
fishing. For a long time one of the oldest and most successful
conservation commissions in the country was funded just by
hunting and fishing licenses our state added 40 years ago a
sales tax for conservation and parks. I don't know any state
that has done a better job trying to fund its own efforts for
conservation.
But the Congressionally Mandated State Wildlife Action
Plans, effort to be sure that we don't have things moved to the
endangered species list, for that plan to be successful we need
more than the amount of money that Missourians have been able
to dedicate to that.
Senator Heinrich and I introduced the Recovering America's
Wildlife Act. Under that Act, Secretary, you would be in charge
of implementing the Act, and the Act is designed to help for
the states to be able to mandate their own state wildlife
action plans. How large role do you see for your Department in
trying to tell the states what they need to do, as opposed to
implementing the funding that this Act would provide?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you, Senator, for the question.
And thank you so much for your efforts to conserve our
country's wildlife. And of course I feel very confident and
grateful to my team at Interior because we want to be able to
work with everyone to make sure that we are achieving our
goals.
I could say that the Fish and Wildlife Service would help
prevent the need to list species. We could amplify
partnerships, support conservation on private lands, leverage
money, and so forth.
I feel that one of our strengths at the Department is
working with those local communities, governments, states, and
so forth to make sure that we are all achieving the goals that
we need to achieve.
Senator Blunt. Well, I appreciate that, and I appreciate
the fact that the administration has endorsed the Recovering
America's Wildlife Act, and just want to be sure at this
hearing we have discussed the topic, that the purpose of the
act is to help the states fund their own plans. And certainly
Congress gave the authority to the states to mandate that they
have a Wildlife Action Plan, and this funding would be used
there.
There has been some concern that this legislation would
empower the Fish and Wildlife Service, and increase the
authority of the Endangered Species Act. I don't think it does
either one, but at some point it is very important what you
think it does.
Do you view this bill as a method of increasing fish and
wildlife enforcement activity, or more as an opportunity to
collaborate with the states to prevent states from being listed
were the Endangered Species Act ever has to come into effect
when the states are doing the job they want to do, and they are
trying to do?
Secretary Haaland. I would take it as the opportunity to
assist the states. We feel very strongly that it is the folks
on the ground who know their communities far better than we do,
and so it makes sense that we are working to support the work
that they are already doing on the ground, and give the best
assistance and help that we can.
Senator Blunt. Well, I think at least 49, and at least 49
of the state agencies are in favor of this, the National
Association is in favor of this. I look forward to seeing this
bill on the floor sometime between now and the end of this
year, hopefully even between now and the end of the fiscal
year.
But your effort to help with the successful implementation
of getting the funds to the states, to do what the states have
proposed to do under the mandate that Congress has giving them,
would be a very important part of that, and I am glad to hear
what you had to say today about it.
Secretary Haaland. Absolutely. Thank you.
Senator Blunt. Thank you.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Blunt. Thank you, Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much. Senator Van Hollen?
Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And Madam Secretary, great to see you and your team here.
You won't be surprised I am going to ask you some questions
about the Chesapeake Bay. And specifically, I want to thank you
for your leadership, and support, and assistance from the
National Park Service as we work to establish the Chesapeake
National Recreation Area, which would highlight the cultural,
historic, and ecological significance of what is a national and
natural treasure, the Chesapeake Bay.
I am excited about the ongoing discussions Congressman
Sarbanes and I, and other members of the delegation from
Maryland, and Virginia as well, have been reaching out to
stakeholders. And we appreciate the technical support that we
have received from your team, including Wendy O'Sullivan, of
course the Director of the Chesapeake Bay Office of the
National Park Service. I would just ask you for your continuing
commitment to work with us as we plan on introducing this
legislation.
Secretary Haaland. Absolutely. We support you on this and
thank you for recognizing that our and technical assistance has
been helpful to you.
Senator Van Hollen. It has been. And as you know, you have
testified to it today, it is in your written remarks at least,
that we are all trying to do more with less staffing, so
anything you can do to fully engage your team in this effort.
We are trying to get this introduced in the coming weeks and
months. And again we appreciate all the efforts. I know that
you have got staffing vacancies. In fact, as I understand it
the National Park Service has lost roughly 29 percent of its
staff from 2010 to 2020. We are talking about thousands of
employees. What are your plans to help fill that gap? Let me
just give you one other local example.
Secretary Haaland. Okay.
Senator Van Hollen. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National
Historic Park has seen an 85 percent increase in visitation
over the last 15 years, with a roughly 50 percent decrease in
staff. So that is one example. What are your plans to try to
re-staff the National Park Service?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you, Senator. And we have
absolutely realized that this is an issue. Our budget includes
$148.3 million across the National Park Service to support more
than 1,100 additional full-time equivalents that would
strengthen critical functions. This includes funding to build
park capacity and address critical operating responsibility at
park units in Maryland.
I just came from Yellowstone, and there is always an issue
with housing, too. Well, you probably saw the video of their
staff housing floating into the river after the flood. So I
know that housing is an issue for National Park Service staff
as well, and so we are taking all these things into
consideration, and really trying to find solutions to make sure
that we can have the folks where we need them.
Senator Van Hollen. Well, we look forward to working with
you. I know the chairman and I think the ranking member as well
would like to see the National Park Service, you know,
adequately staffed, and continue to recruit skilled and
talented folks.
Secretary Haaland. Absolutely.
Senator Van Hollen. Let me ask you about the Chesapeake
Gateways and Trails Program. This helps provide technical and
financial assistance to the Bay Watershed, and we work to
engage communities across the Chesapeake Bay regarding
conservation, and important recreational opportunities,
including better access to the Chesapeake Bay.
The program is part of laying the groundwork toward that
larger effort that I mentioned, and which is to make the
Chesapeake Bay a unit of the National Park Service. Right now,
this program, the Gateways Program, we have been successful at
getting the annual appropriations, but it is not yet
authorized. Would you, as the Secretary, support authorizing
that program on an ongoing basis?
Secretary Haaland. For the Gateways Trails Program, our
budget includes $3 million, and of course we support that. We
love all our outdoor spaces, and we will do whatever we can to
help.
Senator Van Hollen. Well, we appreciate that. I will be
working with the chairman, and others. I mean this is the
Appropriations Committee, but we are working with the
authorizers to get that fully authorized. But we appreciate the
fact that that is in your budget.
There is one important item regarding the Bay that is not
included in your budget. It is called the Chesapeake WILD
Program. It was a piece of legislation that I worked on with
Senator Capito on a bipartisan basis. It was included in the
larger piece of legislation a number of years ago.
And it authorizes the Fish and Wildlife Service's ongoing
participation. That was not included in your budget
appropriation request. Can you assure us that you will work
with this committee to make sure the Fish and Wildlife Service
continues to remain engaged? We will be pressing for the
continued appropriation, in fact, an increased appropriation
for that.
Secretary Haaland. Absolutely. It is a wonderful program.
There was $4 million available for these grants that was funded
through the 2022 appropriation. We know that it funds and
supports locally driven conservation, which it is very
important.
So thank you. Yes. I think the goals of this program are
consistent with the Administration's move to ensure that we are
conserving these spaces for Americans.
Senator Van Hollen. Thank you. While I have you here, I
also just want to mention the important role that the U.S.
Geological Service plays within the overall Bay Program. For
example, the USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center has
provided us important information regarding migratory birds,
and other native species as well, at the Patuxent Research
Refuge in Laurel, Maryland.
Do you have any thoughts on how we can increase the
collaborative efforts with respect to the U.S. Geological
Service as part of the Bay effort?
Secretary Haaland. I will make sure that they reach out to
all of you. Thank you for recognizing how important the USGS is
to the work that we do. We are happy to work with you. If you
would like me to have someone reach out to your staff, we can
do that soon.
Senator Van Hollen. That would be great.
Secretary Haaland. Yes.
Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Madam Secretary. And thank
you for all your good work.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you as well.
Senator Van Hollen. And that of your team.
Secretary Haaland. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Van Hollen. Thank you.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Senator Van Hollen.
So we are going to have a second round, but I also think
Senator Tester is going to be here in a few moments. And I just
want to start by noting that the question was raised as to
whether this administration has created a hostile economic
environment for oil and gas companies. And the short answer is
that the oil and gas companies made--just the American
companies--$205 billion in net profits last year, absolutely
record-setting.
The record-setting profits this last quarter, massive stock
buybacks, and they have tripled their margins on refining, so
they are truly gouging the American public. And so if we want
to stop this gouging, the windfall, the big oil windfall
profits tax is the way to do it, and that I invite any
colleagues who are as concerned as I am about the price of the
pump, to join us to stop this gouging, by the oil companies, of
the American consumer.
Switching gears, I recently led my colleagues in urging the
Department to renew its commitment to the Western Oregon
Operating Plan. This plan ensures a coordinated, interagency
approach to wildfire response between the state, the tribes,
the communities, and BLM. This is so important that we put into
the fiscal year 2022 Omnibus direction requiring the BLM to
maintain or expand the scope of that agreement, which means no
shrinking of the agreement. But despite that, we keep hearing
concerns from the Oregon Governor, local officials, emergency
managers, Oregon tribes that BLM is seeking to shrink the scope
of the agreement.
Now, Southern Oregon communities like Ashland, and Medford
have been repeatedly declared high-risk areas from wildfire by
both Federal and state agencies, and a couple of our Southern
Oregon communities, like Talent and Phoenix were absolutely
devastated in the 2020 wildfires, that just devastated those
towns.
So will the Department honor the requirement in 2022 fiscal
year to make sure that this Western Oregon Operating Plan is
maintained in its full scope and functionality?
Secretary Haaland. Chairman, thank you so much for the
question. And of course the BLM remains committed to
maintaining the Mutual Aid Response Agreements for wildland
fire management. The BLM partnered with the Oregon Department
of Forestry for 2022 and 2023, and they are discussing
currently 2024.
Senator Merkley. Absolutely. And that discussion is being
directed by what we put into 2022, that it be maintained in its
scope and functionality. And I want to make sure that I have
your commitment, that will honor that requirement in the 2022
bill to maintain the scope and functionality of that plan?
Secretary Haaland. Yes, Senator.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. Thank you.
Secretary Haaland. Yes, absolutely. Fire is a top priority
for our Department across the board. We understand how
important this is, and I appreciate your concern as well. We
are always happy to work with you.
Senator Merkley. Well, I appreciate the commitment you have
expressed to make sure it sustains its scope and functionality,
incredibly important to my state.
I am going to squeeze in one last question before I turn
this over to Senator Tester. The Department has noted it is
going to be considering a listing for the Monarch and the
Endangered Species Act in the year 2024. That should send a
signal that we have 2 years to do everything possible to
restore the monarch, as I pointed out in the beginning. Even
after a big rebound we have less than 1 percent of the historic
number of monarchs.
Our children are growing up--whose parents saw these
butterflies everywhere have never seen one. And they play an
important role as pollinators. We know that we have to
massively increase the habitat, and we can use public lands, we
can use highways, we can use conservation agreements, but will
we be able to populate those lands with both flowers producing
nectar, and also milkweed for caterpillars?
And those flowers that produce nectar are great for all the
pollinators, so we have to develop a massive effort to restore
flowers and milkweed. And I know that the Department was just
fabulous in partnering on the Monarch Summit. This of course,
pollinator--nectar-producing flowers are so important to a
whole range of pollinators, certainly our bees as well.
And I just want to ask: Will you continue to work over
these 2 years before the--to do everything we possibly can to
massively increase habitat for the monarch and other
pollinators?
Secretary Haaland. Thank you, Senator. I appreciate so much
your dedication to this. So with the $4 million increase
provided in 2022, the Service will inventory and monitor
pollinators, support on-the-ground projects for monarch habitat
restoration, and stand up a new Office of Pollinator
Conservation. Of course that funding also helped with the
Monarch Summit for National Pollinator Week that we hosted
along with you. And then our 2023 budget includes an additional
$5 million increase for this work.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. I look forward to continuing to
press forward on this.
And let us turn to Senator Tester.
Senator Tester. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to thank you, Secretary Haaland.
I apologize for having to get here late. And if you had to
extend this hearing for me, thank you, Mr. Chairman. But we had
to chair the Commerce Committee on the TSA Director.
At any rate, I also want to thank you, Secretary Haaland,
for being in Montana last week, I think it was a week ago
tomorrow, as a matter of fact. I appreciate you being there,
and I appreciate your fast response, and the fast response from
this administration on the disaster that happened in Southern
Montana, a 24-hour disaster that caused a billion dollars worth
of damage.
We got to see it together, and we got to see what the
challenges are, and they are many. One of the challenges is, is
there is a temporary road between Cooke City and Gardiner. Is
there any hope to get that road in a position where it could
provide more than just essential services?
Secretary Haaland. This is the road from Gardiner into the
park?
Senator Tester. Yeah, basically into the park, that is
correct.
Secretary Haaland. Yes, thanks to the $60 million from the
relief fund of the Department of Transportation. They are
working very hard. We drove on that road, in fact, when we were
there.
Senator Tester. Right.
Secretary Haaland. And they are working to expand it now.
Senator Tester. Okay.
Secretary Haaland. So that it is two lanes rather than one.
Senator Tester. So I know that it takes a long time to make
assessments when the damage is this bad. From the folks you
have talked to, and you may not be able to respond to this, if
you can't I understand, is there any hope to getting access to
the northern part of that park open before the season ends?
Secretary Haaland. Senator, both the North and the South
Loop are open now, 93 percent of the park is open to visitors.
We want visitors to visit, we want them to spend time in those
communities right outside the parks, we want them to enjoy
their summer.
Senator Tester. Thank you for clarifying that, but the
ability to get there through the North End is severely limited.
Is there going to be any possibility of getting that North End
open before the season is over?
Secretary Haaland. Well, I am happy to follow up with your
staff, as soon as we get the most super recent update on that
road.
Senator Tester. Okay.
Secretary Haaland. But I know they are working on it, and
as far as I understand, both the North and the South Loops are
accessible.
Senator Tester. Okay.
Secretary Haaland. Encourage folks to go on the website to
figure out which gates are open.
Senator Tester. For sure.
Secretary Haaland. And make sure they don't waste time
driving somewhere they can't.
Senator Tester. Sure. So you are the last person I should
have to talk about this, because you understand the public
safety crisis in Indian Country probably better than anybody
else in the administration. For years, through different
administrations, I have heard from the Northern Cheyenne Tribe
about the BIA's failure to provide adequate law enforcement on
that reservation. I don't think they are the lone example. I
think they have some problems, I think most of it deals with
manpower, and deals with the prison availability. The question
is, in this budget is there adequate dollars to deal with the
law enforcement challenges that occur in Indian Country all
across this country? I bring up Northern Cheyenne because
Northern Cheyenne is probably in the greatest need right now.
But the truth is, I could be talking about any reservation
in Montana, truthfully, any of them have challenges when it
comes to law enforcement. So as you look at this budget, as we
look at this budget, is this budget up to snuff when it comes
to making sure that we have enough law enforcement to keep
folks safe?
I won't even go into Missing and Murdered Indigenous
people. I will leave--I won't go into human trafficking, I
won't go into any of that, I will just go into just basic law
enforcement. Do we have enough folks--money in this budget to
deal with that?
Secretary Haaland. Senator, thank you for your dedication
to this issue, and I really appreciated the opportunity to
speak with tribes directly when I was there with you in Montana
not too long ago. And you are right I do understand the
challenges associated with making sure that we have folks on
the ground in these areas.
The 2023 budget request includes a total increase of $41
million for nationwide detention and corrections programs which
I know are also foundational as well as public safety and
justice facility construction. I know that is half the battle.
I know there are a lot of issues and we are working hard to
make sure that we can get folks on the ground in those areas.
Senator Tester. And you will have to--I was listening but I
didn't hear it, so you will have to repeat it. How much of
those dollars that you just talked about, there is some for
public safety construction, but how much of that is dedicated
toward additional officers?
Secretary Haaland. Let us see. 282 million for criminal
investigation and police support, detention centers.
Senator Tester. Okay.
Secretary Haaland. I will get you that number. You want to
know how much for actual people, for boots on the ground?
Senator Tester. I mean, I think there is a case to be, made
as you well know, for construction of facilities. You got to
have it someplace. I mean in Northern Cheyenne's case, if they
can't get into the facility that holds nine people, they have
to haul them 1,000 miles. Okay?
Secretary Haaland.Yes.
Senator Tester. So there is a case to be made for public
safety construction. There is also a case to be made for
manpower. What I am looking for, and I can have my staff dig
this up, truthfully, because it is not on my written sheet that
they gave me. These questions I want to know. I want to know
how much of that budget is for manpower, over what was put in
the last budget, because I don't think static funding is going
to get it done in Indian Country.
And the same thing on the construction end of things. And I
hate building prisons. I hate it. I just think it is a waste of
money. We ought to be dealing with this long before we get to
this point. But nonetheless it is a necessary evil in my
opinion. And so how much of that money is there for public
safety construction? And I know there is some, but is it
enough?
Secretary Haaland. As I mentioned, for public safety
construction: $41 million.
Senator Tester. Okay.
Secretary Haaland. We will absolutely get you a number for
the actual boots on the ground for people that we hire.
Senator Tester. Yeah.
Secretary Haaland. We will get you that today.
Senator Tester. Thank you. And I know you will. And I
appreciate that. I think that as I look at these large land-
based tribes in particular, and those are the ones I am
familiar with, because those are the ones we have in Montana,
law enforcement is a continual challenge. By the way, water is
a challenge, schools are a challenge, housings are a challenge,
I mean go down the list, and law enforcement is a challenge. So
thank you very, very much.
Secretary Haaland. Yes, thank you, Senator.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Senator Tester. And
one of the issues I raised earlier here in the hearing was that
there are 32 tribes that are not receiving any funding for law
enforcement, though they fall under the same qualifications;
and advocating that we try to start figuring out how to help
those that have none, while sustaining and increasing the
support for the tribes that are receiving some support.
Madam Secretary, thank you for your testimony.
And Ms. Flanagan, appreciate you being here to support
that.
ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS
And the record will remain open for members of the
committee to submit questions for the record, or statements
that they would like, until July 20th. And of course we will
get those questions for the record to you and your team at
Interior.
What a breadth of issues that we consider through the
Department of Interior. Thank you for your hard work, and your
leadership, and your entire team.
And if there are no further comments; and seeing that I am
now alone, there are none.
Questions Submitted by Senator Dianne Feinstein
Question. The global helium supply has been dramatically impacted
by leaks and disasters at several helium production facilities around
the world as well as Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Several scientific
and medical facilities throughout California are now facing critical
shortages of this important resource, and those that can get it are
seeing price increases of more than 1,400 percent.
Secretary Haaland, what steps is your Department taking to ensure
that a stable supply of helium, which is critical for science,
medicine, and national security, is restored?
Answer. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS),
the Federal Helium System (FHS) produced approximately 7.8 percent of
the total helium produced in the United States in 2021. In addition,
the USGS report shows that the U.S. is a net exporter of helium,
exporting five times as much helium in 2021 as it imported. While
foreign supply disruptions impact the global price of helium, these
disruptions do not pose an immediate threat to U.S. national security
or economic interests given the current U.S. status as a net exporter
of helium. Further, the Federal helium supply from the FHS accounts for
a small percentage of total helium produced in the U.S. As a result.
the Department does not anticipate a significant fluctuation in the
supply of helium.
Additionally, the Department has implemented Section 1109 of Public
Law No: 116-9, also known as the ``Dingell Act,'' which amended the
Mineral Leasing Act to allow the extraction of helium from gas produced
from Federal oil and gas wells to maintain the lease as if the
extracted helium were oil and gas. This serves to incentivize companies
to produce helium from Federal wells where natural gas production may
no longer be sufficient by itself to maintain the lease.
Finally, the Department remains committed to meeting the
requirements of the Helium Stewardship Act of 2013 (50 U.S.C. 167a-q;
HSA) to dispose of the FHS. The act is intended to complete the
privatization of the Federal helium reserve in a competitive market
fashion that ensures stability in the helium markets. In preparation
for the sale and conveyance of the FHS and continued delivery of
helium, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has required the purchaser
of the FHS to assume the delivery requirements of the current fiscal
year 22-27 Helium Storage Contracts.
Question. The past several fiscal years have seen significant
increases to the Department's budget for the management of wild horses
and burros, including an 18 percent increase in fiscal year 2022 and a
request for another 12 percent increase this year.
I understand that the humane management of these wild horse herds
nevertheless remains a problem, with the size of these herds impacting
the native landscape and the health of the horses themselves.
Last year, this Committee provided the Department with the
direction and authority to use up to $11 million for fertility control
measures needed to keep these herds at a manageable level.
Secretary Haaland, can you tell me what steps you are taking to
keep these herds of wild horses at a sustainable level? What progress
have you made in implementing more fertility control treatments?
Answer. In response to chronic overpopulation and severe drought
conditions impacting western public lands, the BLM continues to
increase its efforts to reduce overpopulation in wild horse and burro
herds and achieve sustainable population levels. In fiscal year 22 the
BLM removed 19,011 animals from the range and treated 1,558 animals
with fertility control, which is the highest level that has been
achieved. This follows several years of increased removals and
treatments; removals over the past 5 years (fiscal year 18-22) totaled
approximately 43,941 animals, and the BLM and its partners completed
4,815 fertility control treatments in that time period. Thanks in part
to these efforts, the total population has declined for the second year
in a row to an estimated current on-range population of 82,284 as of
March 2022.
Fertility control works best when herds are close to target
population sizes. Moreover, fertility control can help slow population
growth, but it does not immediately address overpopulation. Removing
animals is the only effective way to humanely reduce on-range
populations. As populations reach sustainable levels, the BLM plans to
implement increased fertility control to stabilize herd sizes.
The BLM continues to invest in the research and development of
better, longer-lasting fertility control vaccines for wild horses and
burros. The Bureau published a Wild Horse and Burro Strategic Research
Plan in 2021 that identifies the development of safe, long-lasting
fertility control methods as the top research priority. The BLM plans
to award contracts for three new research projects in the coming
months, pending NEPA analysis.
Question. Secretary Haaland, scientists project that with climate
change, the Colorado River will lose a third of its flow on average
within a generation. That is more than 5 million acre feet, or enough
water for 30 million people.
I have two bills that will help with this problem. The first, the
STREAM Act, would provide more than 1 million additional acre-feet of
water per year on average, in combination with the bipartisan
infrastructure law. That's enough water for more than 6 million people.
The second bill, the Canal Conveyance Capacity Restoration Act,
would allow California to capture water and recharge aquifers during
the few big storms we get.
Secretary Haaland, my staff has worked with your Department while
drafting these bills. Will you commit to reviewing them? I hope we can
count on your support.
Answer. The Department is committed to use every resource available
to ensure that irrigators, Tribes, and adjoining communities in
California and across the West receive adequate support to build
resilient communities and protect our water supplies for people and the
natural environment. Regarding the legislation that you reference, the
Department testified on both of these bills at a hearing before the
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last spring.
The Department supports the goal of S. 1179, to repair storage and
conveyance capacity to critically important components of the Central
Valley Project (CVP), as well as the goal of restoring salmon
populations in the San Joaquin River. We have been working to address
reductions in conveyance capacity due to subsidence and other factors
which have impacted facilities of the CVP in California, including
through funding under the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the
Nation Act. The Bureau of Reclamation is working with the California
Department of Water Resources to develop planning documents and
engineering studies to determine the work required to correct the
subsidence related to the San Luis Joint Use facility.
Regarding S. 4231, we appreciate the bill's ambitious goal of
expanding our Nation's capacity to address the drought crisis through
small-scale storage, water recycling, desalination, and aging
infrastructure investments, as well as to address the critically
important issue of ecosystem health. We would like to continue working
with your office to ensure the authorities within this bill are
implementable, effective, and can be integrated with existing laws
recently passed, including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Question. Secretary Haaland, as you know, the Wildlife Refuge
System is the only system of Federal lands dedicated to the
conservation of wildlife and habitat.
California has 44 wildlife refuges, and many species depend on
these lands for their survival, including sea otters and Californian
condors.
Additionally, millions of Americans visit these lands every year
and have the opportunity to learn about our state's incredible
biodiversity.
I am now working to establish a new wildlife refuge in Riverside
County that will support local wildlife and provide equitable access to
nature for all Californians.
Secretary Haaland, despite having these irreplaceable resources,
California's wildlife refuges are chronically underfunded and
understaffed--and sometimes not staffed at all.
Answer. The fiscal year 2023 President's budget requested an
increase of $82 million over the fiscal year 2022 enacted budget to
address capacity issues on the National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS).
This increase will restore needed capacity for the Refuge System's
basic needs.
Question. How would increases in funding to the National Wildlife
Refuge System improve California's public lands?
Answer. With an increase in appropriated funding, the NWRS will be
able to strategically add capacity by hiring full-time, skilled
professional and seasonal staff as well as field technicians; enhance
Tribal relationships; increase community outreach; increase student
recruitment through the Pathways program; fully implement Civilian
Climate Corps hires; and provide additional financial assistance to
public and private partners.
Increased funding will further enable the NWRS to deliver
programmatic goals including adaptively managing lands, combatting the
spread of invasive species, and providing adequate water management
programs on national wildlife refuges. Due to persistent and long-term
drought in much of the West, it is important for the NWRS to assess
landscape conditions and prioritize areas for conservation and
restoration interventions. The NWRS will be able to utilize increased
funding to build ecological resilience to climate change and enable
landscapes to be more resistant to drought and the effects of fire.
In a typical year, more than 700,000 teachers and students use the
Refuge System as their outdoor classroom. Increased funding will
further enable the Urban Wildlife Conservation Program (UWCP), which
includes urban national wildlife refuges such as San Diego National
Wildlife Refuge, to expand opportunities to bring more youth and
education programs to refuges. This program will help develop the next
generation of environmental stewards. Increased NWRS funding will also
enable the UWCP to expand infrastructure opportunities for urban
populations to better access local national wildlife refuges through
connected trails, bus routes, and roadways.
Lastly, the Refuge System maintains a $40 billion infrastructure
portfolio. The FWS estimates a fully implemented life-cycle management
approach to maintain its portfolio would require about 1.3 percent of
the infrastructure portfolio value annually. The 2022 enacted level for
FWS NWRS programs focused on asset management was $147 million, which
includes $47 million focused on addressing deferred maintenance backlog
that is created when resources are not available to address life cycle
asset management needs at the most appropriate and cost-advantageous
time.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Jon Tester
Question. Prior to fiscal year 1997, the amount of ``New Tribes''
funding received by newly recognized tribes varied greatly. New tribes
would assess their needs, design or propose operational programs to
meet their needs, and submit proposed budgets to implement the proposed
programs. In fiscal year 1996 alone, this led to newly recognized
tribes receiving a low of $127,000 and a high of $1.492 million in
``New Tribes'' funding. In fiscal year 1997, the ``New Tribes'' funding
methodology was simplified by providing $160,000 in base funding for
new tribes with less than 1,500 members and $320,000 to tribes with a
population of 1,501 to 3,000 members. The funding level for new tribes
with more than 3,000 members was to be determined on a case- by-case
basis.
In fiscal year 2011, the population component of the methodology
was slightly changed moving from 1,500 to 1,700 members for the
$160,000 base level funding and 1,701 to 3,000 for the $320,000 funding
level.
The Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians, with a Tribal
membership of approximately 6,100 members, qualifies for the ``case-by-
case'' determination under the BIA's longstanding policy. If the
funding level for Tribes with 1,701 to 3,000 members is $320,000, that
equals to a range of $106.66 to $188.12 per Tribal member. According to
this methodology, the Little Shell Tribe's ``New Tribes'' allocation
should be in the range of $650,000 to $1.14 million annually. It is
critically important to provide the Little Shell Tribe with adequate
``New Tribes'' funding as it is the Tribe's third and final year in the
program. The Bureau of Indian Affairs Budget Justifications and
Performance Information for fiscal year 2023 notes that ``Once a Tribe
has been acknowledged as a federally recognized Tribe, its designated
funding remains in the New Tribes line item for three fiscal years at
which time the funding is then base transferred for the Tribe to the
Aid to Tribal Government line item.''
Failing to right-size ``New Tribes'' funding in fiscal year 2023 to
meet the Little Shell Tribe's population needs creates inequity and
establishes precedent for future funding allocations.
Would you support a higher New Tribes allocation for the Little
Shell Tribe in fiscal year 23 in line with Department of the Interior's
past precedent?
Answer. The New Tribes enrollment criteria was modified in fiscal
year 2011 to align with the enrollment criterion used for Small Tribes
Supplement funding. BIA does not calculate funding at the level of the
individual members served in determining distributions and instead uses
a banded approach that provides a flat amount for Tribes with
enrollment up to 1,700 and double that funding for Tribes with
enrollment from 1,701 up to 3,000. At the time the Little Shell Tribe
received recognition, their estimated enrollment number of 5,300
members was provided to Indian Affairs. BIA determined their enrollment
number was roughly 3 times the amount of 1,700, so Little Shell was
provided $480,000 annually as their New Tribe base, which is 3 times
the level of funding provided to a Tribe with enrollment up to 1,700.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Chris Van Hollen
c&o canal
Question. I appreciate that the National Park Service worked with
us in Maryland to move the C&O Canal National Historic Park
Headquarters in Williamsport last year. This site serves as the
administrative hub for all 184.5 miles of the park. Can you provide an
update on the move and the impact that this new headquarters will have
on the region?
Answer. After 20 years in downtown Hagerstown, approximately 10
miles from the park, the park headquarters officially moved in March
2021, to its new location adjacent to the park in Williamsport, MD. The
relocation to Williamsport brought park management back to the park
grounds. Operationally, the move has led to several efficiencies
including greater integration of operational and administrative staff,
improved communication with the field, and improved resource/knowledge
sharing with local stakeholders and partners. The headquarters move has
become a catalyst for economic development. Visitation to the area has
increased and many new small businesses have opened. In addition, the
park headquarters site includes two historic buildings that will be
rehabilitated and leased to commercial businesses that will provide
much needed amenities to park visitors and create 10-15 jobs.
Due to the pandemic, the official ribbon cutting was delayed until
September 21, 2022. Over 100 attendees from Federal, state, county and
local government who collaborated and supported the project were in
attendance.
glen echo
Question. The National Park Service has owned and operated Glen
Echo Park since 1971, and has entered into multiple cooperative
management agreements with Montgomery County, which partners with the
Glen Echo Park Partnership for Arts and Culture to offer year-round
cultural and recreational activities. This cooperative partnership
allow Marylanders and all park visitors to enjoy all the park has to
offer. However, as Montgomery County works with NPS to pursue vital
upgrades needed for the park grounds, it is critical that the
management plan is updated to support the continued partnership between
the County and NPS. I have heard repeated concerns from constituents
about delays in simple repairs as well as the long-term plans for
maintenance of historic properties.
Will you commit to working with my office and Montgomery County to
improve the turnaround time on maintenance and repairs? What steps will
you take to ensure the management plan is updated to support
recreational access to Glen Echo Park?
Answer. The NPS remains committed to working with your office and
park partners to support recreational access to Glen Echo Park. For
instance, the NPS has moved some park staff to free up space for in-
person partner programming which has returned post-pandemic. More
generally, the NPS continues to work with Montgomery County and is
committed to the top priorities agreed to in July 2021. The NPS and the
County regularly engage in strategic planning related to deferred
maintenance and capital improvements as well as routine planning to
ensure operations are in keeping with environmental and historic
requirements for Federal property.
The park has undertaken several planning efforts in collaboration
with the County and Glen Echo Park Partnership for Arts and Culture
(GEPPAC). In the past year, the park team participated in the GEPPAC
sponsored Urban Landscape Institute effort to inform future master
planning of the site. This three-month effort will aid in amending and
updating the NPS Developmental Concept Plan, implementation of which is
subject to future funding. Additionally, the NPS has awarded a contract
to complete a historic structures report for the Spanish Ballroom; the
park and partner collaborated to create a scope of work for this
contract that considers both deferred maintenance and capital
improvements for the ballroom. Finally, the NPS has engaged throughout
the year in significant and substantive ways to expand the existing
agreement to include the Clara Barton National Historical Site.
Montgomery County has written a letter of interest supporting the
expansion, and the NPS has included County and partner staff in the
design team and as consulting parties.
The County is working to fulfill their obligations to complete
routine and life-cycle maintenance and repair of all facilities used in
the operations of the park at its sole expense. To that end, the NPS is
currently working to provide a permit to the County for repaving the
upper parking lot.
landsat
Question. Last year, I had the opportunity to visit NASA Goddard
Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland with Vice President Harris
to see first-light images from Landsat 9, a partnership between NASA
and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). We know that users around the
county rely on the ongoing measurements taken by Landsat satellites to
monitor and measure the changes in our land, and more locally, its data
has been used to monitor changes in the Chesapeake Bay.
Given how the Landsat program is constantly evolving to continue
its mission of providing remote sensing data for the Earth, what can we
expect to happen with Landsat Next? What is the Department's plan for
this new Landsat mission?
Answer. The Department of the Interior (Interior) is working
closely with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
under a Sustainable Land Imaging (SLI) Interagency Agreement to develop
the next Landsat mission called Landsat Next. The SLI Joint Steering
Group met in February 2022 and agreed to pursue a multi-element SLI
architecture, including a new government-managed Landsat Next mission
and partnerships with the international and commercial remote sensing
sectors.
The Landsat Next mission concept will take advantage of new
technologies like smaller satellites and improved sensors to sustain
the 50-year Landsat data record while delivering greater capability to
meet the ever-increasing demands of the user community. This would
include more frequent, better resolution, and high-quality land imaging
data. The Landsat Next mission concept leverages commercial sector
capabilities under government oversight to build and launch the
satellites; develop the ground segment; operate the on-orbit
satellites; and disseminate the data via the commercial cloud.
Landsat data are used for a wide range of regional and global
applications, including monitoring agriculture crop health and
production; assessing consumptive water use; tracking urban heat
islands; conducting wildfire science; disaster response and
remediation; detecting harmful algal blooms; and documenting forest
extent and health.
land and water conservation fund
Question. Secretary Haaland, thank you for the efforts that the
Department of Interior (DOI) has made on strong implementation of the
Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA), specifically the dedicated funding
provided for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). Conservation
is a key priority of mine, and environmental protection is critical in
the Chesapeake Bay watershed, where land protection and water quality
are inextricably linked and where the health of the Bay directly
impacts our economy and our entire way of life. The need for LWCF in
communities and public land areas all across America has outstripped
the annual LWCF funding available.
GAOA was an important step in the right direction to try to meet
the country's needs, but the $900 million provided annually under that
legislation reflects a figure set more than 40 years ago, which cannot
keep up with current prices, especially in our rapidly growing area of
the country.
How can we best support the diverse and urgent conservation needs
that are funded through the LWCF, particularly in areas such as the
Chesapeake that are interconnected and interdependent on the health of
the watershed?
Answer. Thank you for your support of the Land and Water
Conservation Fund (LWCF). The Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA)
authorized full and permanent funding of $900 million annually from the
LWCF, ensuring the Nation's commitment to conservation and recreation
endures for future generations. The fiscal year 2023 President's
proposal for the Land and Water Conservation Fund would allocate
$807.034 million to the Department of the Interior for LWCF programs,
including $125.175 million from the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act
(GOMESA). Timely enactment of final annual appropriations enables the
Department to allocate this funding earlier in the fiscal year and do
more work to address these diverse and urgent conservation needs.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has several active land
acquisitions at National Wildlife Refuges within the Chesapeake Bay
watershed. In fiscal year 2021, FWS acquired 88 acres at Blackwater
National Wildlife Refuge and 264 acres at Great Dismal Swamp National
Wildlife Refuge. In fiscal year 2022, FWS received a donation of a
conservation easement on 465 acres at Rappahannock River Valley
National Wildlife Refuge. FWS continues to advance its conservation
mission within the watershed and is working with willing sellers on
potential future acquisitions.
The LWCF also authorizes funding for land acquisition under the
Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund, specifically for land
acquisition related to the recovery of species listed under the
Endangered Species Act and to complement Habitat Conservation Plans.
States within the Chesapeake Bay watershed are encouraged to apply for
these grants as a means of protecting habitat for listed species and
restoring the watershed.
monarch butterflies
Question. First, I was heartened to hear that there was real
progress at the recent monarch butterfly summit this summer involving
Federal agencies, research scientists, habitat managers, and volunteer
groups. Recognizing the vital pollinator role of native bees, and the
emerging science and diversity of partnerships developing at the USGS
Eastern Ecological Science Center Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring
Lab in Maryland, how will the DOI and USGS leverage this opportunity to
also advance native bee science and conservation?
Answer. The USGS is pleased to report that the USGS Bee Lab, part
of the USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center (EESC), continues to grow
and provide critically important services to pollinator conservation
efforts led by local, State, and Federal government agencies and non-
profit organizations. The lab is currently the only facility within
Interior whose staff are capable of identifying the 4,000+ native bee
species in the United States. In response to increased partner demands,
in 2023, the USGS will double the size of the lab space, with the
opening of the newly remodeled Annex facility that will provide
research and office space for additional collaborating partners,
support education and training efforts, and house entomological
collections. This year, the Bee Lab will host co-located staff
positions sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, USDA Office
of the Secretary, Northeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies,
and the USGS Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit Program, as
well as over 150 volunteers and interns from local colleges,
universities, and high schools. The USGS also recently signed a
Memorandum of Understanding with the Smithsonian Institution that will
increase opportunities for research and education between the USGS and
Smithsonian's museums and research centers.
The USGS Bee Lab is currently engaged in a broad range of research,
training, and technical assistance activities to help meet increased
demand from partners at local, state, and Federal government agencies,
as well as non-profit organizations and citizens groups. Current areas
of investigation include: the development of planting strategies for
monarch butterflies and native bees; the identification of plant
species that benefit both monarch butterflies and native bees; surveys
of public and private lands for native bees; status assessments for
individual native bee species; documentation of insect pollinators for
native plant species; and the development of broader planting
strategies at larger geographic scales. In addition, lab staff teach a
weekly online course in bee identification that has over 200
participants, and also offer bee identification courses through
Interior's National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West
Virginia.
Moving forward, the USGS is working to expand the expertise
available at the EESC. This would include a Quantitative Methods and
Decision Science Team to assess population trends and habitat use and
restoration strategies, as well as decision science to inform
pollinator conservation decisions. Another area of relevant expertise
to pollinator health is within the Ecological Patterns and Processes
and Animal Health Diagnostics and Surveillance Team. This team could
expand its research capacity to better understand drivers and stressors
influencing trends in pollinator species and associated ecological and
socio-economic impacts.
The USGS welcomes further inquiries regarding its native bee
research and conservation efforts and invites the Senator and his staff
to visit the USGS Bee Lab facility in Laurel, Maryland.
migratory bird treaty act
Question. There has been a documented loss of nearly 3 billion
birds across North America in recent years. This staggering loss of
biodiversity and the impacts of social and economic consequences are of
deep concern. How will the DOI support migratory bird science programs
at USGS such as the North American Bird Banding Laboratory and Breeding
Bird Survey and migratory bird conservation and management programs at
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)?
How will the DOI leverage these efforts with other Federal, state,
Tribal, non-governmental organizations, and the public to reverse these
concerning declines?
Answer. The severe decline in migratory bird populations is a deep
concern of the Department of the Interior. The data are alarming, as
they reveal that the losses are widespread among many species of
grassland birds, seabirds, forest birds, shorebirds, and aerial
insectivores. Time is of the essence to act now due to myriad threats
to birds from habitat loss and degradation, human caused mortality, and
ecosystem impacts due to the changing climate. The Migratory Birds
program leads the FWS response to this crisis, and it has established
and begun implementing a visionary approach to tackle this complex
conservation issue. Working across regional boundaries and programmatic
areas, FWS has established a core team and a national coordinator to
focus on the problem. Together, FWS is implementing a ``5-and-1''
strategy-- named for its focus on five priority bird groups (grassland
birds, forest birds, shorebirds, marine birds, and aerial insectivores)
and one major source of bird mortality (collisions with manmade
structures). Six sub-teams have been established focused on each of the
five priority bird groups and the mortality source. This represents a
holistic path forward for focused conservation.
Currently, the 5-and-1 teams are having varying degrees of success.
The collisions team created a buildings initiative to address light and
glass collisions at FWS facilities and developed a tool to assess
collision risk with buildings. To date, more than 40 percent of FWS
buildings have been surveyed and those identified as a high collision
risk are being modified. FWS now requires all new buildings and major
renovations to include bird-friendly designs, which both protects
wildlife and improves energy efficiency. Additionally, FWS, in its
capacity of serving as Chair of the Council for the Conservation of
Migratory Birds, has shared their success stories on light and glass
collisions with other Federal agencies and is encouraging them to take
similar actions.
Other teams, like the marine bird team, have identified high
priority areas and partnerships where resources should be directed to
slow population declines. Seabirds face many challenges: declining and
shifting prey distributions; warming and rapidly changing ocean
conditions; loss of nesting and roosting habitats due to human
development, disturbance, and sea level rise; bycatch mortality;
plastic ingestion and debris entanglement; offshore energy development;
and pollution. Because of their mostly pelagic existence and wide-
ranging movements, there are many gaps in the knowledge about seabirds
and how to best address the challenges they face.
The fiscal year 2023 President's budget includes nearly $5 million
for the Migratory Birds program that would provide the conservation
capacity needed to allow FWS' 5-and-1 teams to scale up activities and
engage with partners. This investment could be transformational,
permitting targeted investments in partner engagement, monitoring,
technical assistance, conservation planning, and promoting bird-
friendly practices that would greatly leverage the resources of other
FWS programs and other Federal, state, Tribal, and private conservation
partners to dramatically increase the pace and scale bird conservation.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Bill Hagerty
Question. Tennessee is home to the Great Smoky Mountains National
Park, the most visited national park in the country. In 2021 alone,
over 14 million people visited the Smokies. The Park serves has an
important economic driver for Tennessee and the surrounding region, the
impact was even further felt during the COVID pandemic when many small
businesses in the area were forced to stay closed.
Secretary Haaland, how will you prioritize our national parks
operations budget and the park's access to resources now that more
Americans are going outdoors and the number of visitors to our national
parks this summer is expected to continue to increase. Is there a
contingency plan for this expected increase?
Answer. The fiscal year 2023 President's Budget Request makes bold
investments essential for the NPS' continued mission success while
remaining committed to the daily mission of ensuring that the American
public continues to have an enriching experience at every NPS site. In
particular, the budget funds fixed costs to support baseline operating
levels and provides funding to build park capacity throughout the
National Park System in visitor services, park protection, facility
operations and maintenance, and park support.
Question. Secretary Haaland, can you detail the formula the
National Park Service utilizes to determine how much funding each
National Park receives? Additionally, are the numbers of visitors and
utilization of the park services considered as part of this formula?
Answer. The NPS is responsible for safeguarding irreplaceable
magnificent natural wonders and significant historical and cultural
resources. Each unit of the NPS is unique. There are parkways with
hundreds of miles of road; canyons that are miles deep; battlefields,
caves, lakes, and rivers. Due in part to these differences, each park
has its own set of priorities and manages its park operational budget
according to the unique needs of the park, its visitors, partners,
community, and resources. While visitation is often a key driver of
need for additional operating capacity, it must be considered alongside
many other factors during the budget formulation process.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Lisa Murkowski
Question. I appreciate the efforts of the Department and Bureau of
Land Management so far in implementing the Alaska Native Vietnam
Veterans Allotment program as I authorized in the Dingell Act. We have
an obligation to these Alaska Native Veterans to ensure their allotment
applications are completed in a timely and efficient manner. I am
concerned though that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) does not have
the current capacity to meet this task before the program expires in
December 29, 2025. I want to make sure BLM has the resources needed to
contact all eligible veterans and be able to process the 2,900 plus
applications it may potentially receive.
What is BLM's plan to ensure that all applicants will have their
applications processed within the deadline established in the Dingell
Act?
Answer. The BLM developed a streamlined process to review incoming
applications, complete the associated cadastral surveys, and issue the
Allotment Certificates. If complete applications are received without
conflicts, the BLM's streamlined process will support issuing the
Certificate of Allotment within 1 year after receipt of the
application. The last day a veteran or heir of a veteran can file an
application is December 29, 2025. All complete applications should
therefore be processed by December 2026 if the corresponding budgetary
resources are available.
Question. Can you please provide this committee, either now or
after this hearing, an estimate on the total costs required to complete
all potential veteran applications by the deadline established in the
Dingell Act?
Answer. The largest cost associated with completing the application
process is a cadastral survey. Due to the remoteness of selected
allotment locations, helicopter support is typically needed to access
the allotment. The cost for surveying one allotment can range between
$25,000 to $35,000. In fiscal year 23, approximately 65 surveys will be
completed for a total estimated cost of $2.2 million. It is estimated
that up to 2,000 eligible individuals or their heirs may apply during
the open selection period. The BLM estimates it will cost approximately
$50 million to $70 million to complete all 2,000 potential surveys,
however this estimate will fluctuate based on the actual number of
applications received.
You recently had the opportunity to visit Alaska and hear directly
from Alaska Native Vietnam veterans how important it is to them for
their allotments to be near where they live have ties to, as well as to
be accessible. The BLM lands that have thus far been offered up do not
meet that criteria.
Question. Do you support making additional lands available for
selection, including opening up Fish and Wildlife Service lands?
Answer. Current law (the Dingell Act) provides that the BLM can
provide eligible individuals the opportunity to select an allotment of
up to 160 acres from vacant, unappropriated, and unreserved Federal
lands in Alaska. The BLM has made more than 28 million acres of lands
available for selection.
In November 2020, the FWS delivered a report to Congress titled,
Report to Congress: Identification of National Wildlife Refuge System
Lands in Alaska That Should Be Made Available for Allotment Selection
by Eligible Alaska Native Vietnam Era Veterans (Report to Congress
(fws.gov)). FWS developed this report with input from over 160 Alaska
Native Tribes and 100 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA)
Corporations. In the report, FWS identified 3.6 million acres of refuge
lands that could be made available for selection by eligible veterans
with Congressional authorization if the BLM eligible lands are not
adequate.
Question. What is the fiscal year 2023 proposed funding level for
the Public Law 280 states in the President's Budget Request?
Answer. The President's Budget proposes $15.0 million for Tribal
Justice Support funding directed to Public Law 280 Tribes in fiscal
year 2023.
Question. To help address the crisis of Missing and Murdered
Indigenous Persons across the United States, the Secretary announced
the formation of a new Missing & Murdered Unit (MMU) within the BIA in
2021 to better coordinate law enforcement resources and seeks an
additional $5 million for this effort for investigative personnel. It's
my understanding previous funding has been to open new offices so can
you tell us here today what is the base amount of funding being used
for this new law enforcement unit and exactly where are these units
located?
Answer. The additional $5.0 million provided in the fiscal year
2022 appropriation brought total funding for the Missing and Murdered
Indigenous People (MMIP) initiative up to $16.5 million to support the
BIA Missing and Murdered Unit. Of this funding, $2.5 million is used
for advanced training on forensics and other specialized training for
the MMU investigators. The table below identifies existing MMU agent
locations as well as new locations planned for additional agents.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current Agent Locations Additional Agent Locations
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Albuquerque, NM Bemidji, MN
Anchorage, AK Farmington, NM
Billings, MT Gallup, NM
Bismarck, ND Muskogee, OK
Bloomington, MN Riverton, WY
Carson City, NV Sacramento, CA
Fort Apache, AZ Salt Lake City, UT
Nashville, TN Seattle, WA
Oklahoma City, OK Sioux Falls, SD
Phoenix, AZ
Rapid City, SD
Shelby, MT
Vancouver, WA
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question. An issue that I have worked on for several years now is
the Small and Needy Tribe program. This program is vitally important to
the many small tribes in Alaska and for the last several years we have
tried to work with Administration officials to determine the proper
funding levels so that all eligible tribes receive the maximum amount
allowed. Over the years we have struggled to get good information about
what the program level should be in order to fund all currently
eligible tribes at the maximum level, and, not only has the program
level consistently changed there have been challenges in tracking and
obligating funds. As result, the annual appropriations bills has been
carrying report language for the last few years that continues to go
unanswered. Given the historical challenges in determining eligibility,
funding levels, and meeting Committee directives, it's a bit surprising
to see such a dramatic increase of $18 million being proposed in the
fiscal year 2023 budget.
In fiscal year 2018, the Committee was informed that $5 million was
the amount of funding necessary to fund all known, eligible small
tribes up to the established maximum funding level. Yet, the fiscal
year 2023 budget proposal is asking for an additional $18 million. Can
you explain what has changed in the last 3 fiscal years regarding this
program to warrant the increase?
Answer. In fiscal year 2019, Indian Affairs (IA) began to improve
the allocation process for the Small and Needy Tribe programs focusing
on the means by which the tribal base information (location and base
TPA funding) and enrollment tracking were managed and reported. This
improved process allowed IA to automate a base funding report from the
Primary Tribal Priority Allocation (TPA) Base tables used for the Small
and Needy Tribe funding distributions and to integrate the new
enrollment data collected in fiscal year 2021, which has continued to
improve our efforts to ensure we are including all eligible Tribes.
This has resulted in a larger count of eligible Tribes for the funding
under this program. Additionally, at the request of Tribes and the
Tribal/Interior Budget Council (TIBC) our request for additional
funding in fiscal year 2023 includes raising the minimum level of
funding for all Tribes to $300,000.
Question. What tribes are currently eligible to receive this
funding and what is the methodology and data the DOI uses to determine
eligibility?
Answer. Currently, IA determines Tribes to be eligible for the
Small Tribes Supplement program based on location and base TPA funding.
Alaska Tribes are eligible if they receive $200,000 or less in TPA base
funding and Tribes in the lower 48 States are eligible if they receive
$160,000 or less in base TPA funding. In fiscal year 2021, under the
existing criteria, 87 Tribes were deemed eligible and received funding.
IA conducted consultation with Tribes concerning the methodology
and criteria for issuing Small Tribes funding as instructed in the 2022
appropriations report language. The program is undergoing a review of
all feedback from that consultation and based on that, is developing
revised criteria that will enable us to bring all known, eligible small
Tribes up to a newly established, increased minimum base funding level
which may differ from the $300,000 minimum proposed in the fiscal year
2023 Budget. The increase is in line with inflation to ensure a
reasonable level of funding for a Tribal government to operate. The
current base levels were established in 1994 and are no longer
sufficient for small Tribes to run viable Tribal governmental
operations. Raising the threshold for minimum base will result in
additional Tribes qualifying.
Once BIA fully works through the Tribal consultation comments and
updates the parameters of the program, we will be able to determine a
final count on the number of eligible Tribes and what level of funding
would be needed to bring all eligible Tribes up to the minimum
threshold. The amount requested in 2023 was based on an estimate using
the original criteria.
Question. What is the status of the congressional directives
contained in recent appropriations bills?
Answer. The congressional directives are currently being addressed
and will include the results of the above-mentioned Tribal
consultation.
Question. Resource management planning is an expensive and time
consuming exercise. In calendar year 2021, the BLM finalized updates of
the Bering Sea Western Interior and Central Yukon Resource Management
Plans. This was a culmination of effort that began in 2013 and spanned
multiple administrations. In addition to the incredible time invested,
these efforts were expensive and my understanding is that the cost to
finalize these two plans exceeded $20 million.
Unfortunately, the BLM has undertaken a rewrite of these RMPS,
which will result in Alaska's lands being kept in a further state of
limbo and will prevent the State and Alaska Natives from gaining title
to lands that were promised to them over 50 years ago.
Why is the Department rewriting these RMPs that were developed by
career staff across multiple administrations?
Answer. The Central Yukon Resource Management Plan (CYRMP) was
released as draft for public comment in December 2020. The BLM is
focused on identifying the next steps in the ongoing planning process
and will soon be announcing the path forward.
The Bering Sea Western Interior (BSWI) RMP has been finalized, and
the Record of Decision was published in January 2021. That plan remains
fully in effect and is being implemented by the BLM.
Question. How long will the rewrites take and how much do you
anticipate it will cost?
Answer. The BSWI RMP remains in effect and is being implemented,
and the CYRMP is in the planning process between the draft and final
stages. Additional costs are not anticipated.
Question. How much funding is included in the President's Budget
Request for fiscal year 2023 for proposals and related planning efforts
for the lease sale required in the 1002 area by the Tax Cuts and Jobs
Act?
Answer. The President's Budget Request for fiscal year 2023 did not
request any additional funding for the lease sale required in the 1002
area by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The BLM estimates the fiscal year
2023 lease sale preparation costs to be approximately $300,000, which
would be executed with appropriated base funding.
Question. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) filed a in
early June that coincided with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's
publication of its Proposed ``Hunt-Fish'' Rule which would preclude the
use of traditional ammunition and tackle going forward on several
National Wildlife Refuges. The Department entered into closed door
settlement negotiations with CBD even before a court could provide any
merit to their claims. I'm concerned that rather than going through the
land management planning process, the Department is entering into
closed-door settlement negotiations with an advocacy organization where
Tribal consultation and input from the public will be absent.
Has a settlement been reached with the Centers for Biological
Diversity in their lawsuit against the Fish and Wildlife Service?
Answer. FWS develops the annual Hunt-Fish Rule over a 14-month
cycle. This process begins each June and concludes in August of the
following year, with the goal of publishing the final rule in time for
the fall hunting seasons. FWS began developing the packages for the
2022- 2023 Hunt-Fish Rule, which included proposals at several refuges
to require non-lead ammunition or tackle, in June 2021. The final rule
was published in September 2022. This process began prior to receiving
the Center for Biological Diversity's (CBD) lawsuit in December 2021
and their June 2022 petition, and therefore is unrelated to their
actions.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) was authorized by FWS to draft a
tentative settlement agreement with CBD that will be approved by FWS
prior to finalization. The current stay from the Court ends on November
2, 2022. FWS and the Department of the Interior's Office of the
Solicitor expect settlement to be reached in this case.
Question. If so, please provide a copy of the settlement to the
subcommittee. If not, will you commit to providing a copy of the
settlement to the subcommittee within 10 days of the settlement being
reached? If you will not commit to providing the subcommittee with a
copy of the settlement, please explain why.
Answer. As the litigation is ongoing, FWS is not able to share the
draft settlement agreement at this time. FWS commits to sharing a copy
of the settlement agreement within 10 business days after the
conclusion of the case.
Question. Is the Department negotiating with CBD on banning lead
ammunition and tackle as part of the settlement of the CBD petition?
Answer. FWS cannot commit to reaching a particular result in any
future notice-and- comment rulemaking process, which would be
considered pre-decisional. As such, FWS cannot commit to requiring non-
lead ammunition or tackle on the National Wildlife Refuge System as
part of any settlement agreement with CBD or rulemaking petition
submitted by CBD. It is not uncommon for FWS to require non-lead
ammunition or tackle on FWS lands and waters when it determines through
scientific analyses, as part of National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA) analyses, refuge plans, and compatibility determinations, that
lead ammunition and tackle have negative impacts on species. FWS will
respond to CBD's petition for rulemaking as required by the
Administrative Procedure Act. FWS considers all petitions from the
public, non- governmental organizations, States, and other partners, in
order to best serve the American public.
Question. The aforementioned ``Hunt-Fish'' Rule proposes to ban
lead ammunition and tackle on certain public lands by 2026 and I am
concerned that this is a precursor to further regulatory actions. Given
that approximately 95 percent of all ammunition contains lead
components, banning traditional ammunition is certain to price a
significant number of hunters and target shooters who hunt and shoot on
public land out of the market. It would also have a significant impact
on conservation. I my home State of Alaska alone, we would stand to
lose over $12 million in Pittman Robertson funding in the event of a
traditional ammunition ban.
Please share what science was discovered since you became Secretary
that supports the ban that you propose. Is the science sound enough to
warrant decreasing access and opportunity for millions of taxpayers as
well as hurting wildlife conservation efforts?
Answer. The best available science demonstrates that lead
ammunition and tackle have negative impacts on both wildlife and human
health. FWS included many of these studies in National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA) documents and Cumulative Impacts Report, and
incorporated these sources in the 2022-2023 Hunt-Fish Rule. In total,
there are over 90 scientific sources cited, which are available through
the final Cumulative Impacts Report available at the following site:
https://www.regulations.gov/document/FWS-HQ-NWRS-2022-0055-16123. A key
example of the available scientific evidence is the recent study by the
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) which found significant population-level
impacts on eagles nationwide from the use of lead ammunition for
hunting. The study, published in the journal Science (Volume 375, Issue
6582, February 18, 2022), is available at the following site: https://
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj3068.
FWS has received an increasing number of comments from the public,
including a significant number of hunters and anglers themselves, over
the past few years on the annual Hunt-Fish Rules, asking FWS to further
consider requiring non-lead ammunition and tackle on national wildlife
refuges based on the increasing body of scientific literature
illustrating the negative impacts of lead on wildlife.
Some public comments FWS received from those who would prefer it
not regulate lead ammunition and tackle alleged that the scientific
analysis lacked evidence of ``population-level'' impacts to species.
However, from studies like the USGS eagle study, there is significant
evidence of population-level impacts for some species. For other
species that are not impacted at the population-level, the science
illustrates that many individuals are at risk of death or lead
poisoning from ingestion of lead through gut piles, picking up spent
pellets on the ground or lake bottoms, or even in bodies of water
depending on the acidity of the water.
FWS is required by statute to make decisions that support its
conservation mission and to find uses on national wildlife refuges
compatible with the mission and refuge purposes before allowing them.
FWS will regulate when the science illustrates that the use of lead
ammunition and lead tackle presents a risk for any species that are
especially susceptible to lead. FWS prioritizes access for hunters and
anglers when compatible and only pursues restrictions on how the use is
allowed when necessary to support its mission.
Question. Will the Department consider the impact of potential lost
conservation funding when making decisions about whether to finalize a
ban on traditional ammunition?
Answer. FWS considers the socioeconomic impacts of how it manages
hunting and fishing programs before making changes. This includes
considering the impacts of any requirements to use non-lead ammunition
or tackle on hunters and anglers. The viability of alternatives to lead
ammunition and tackle have increased over time, both in terms of price
and availability. In light of recent ammunition shortages and increases
in price of all ammunition, the gap has been closed even further. As
noted in the 2022-2023 Final Hunt-Fish Rule, FWS does not anticipate
significant decreases in hunter participation caused by regulation of
lead use on refuges, and it has not seen significant hunter decreases
at refuges where non-lead requirements have been implemented in past
rules.
FWS also does not anticipate an impact to Pittman-Robertson (PR)
excise tax funds used for conservation funding from any action on FWS
lands and waters. Hunting and fishing on FWS lands and waters is a
small fraction of the overall hunting and fishing that occur in the
United States. FWS' experience is that non-lead requirements have not
resulted in a decrease in hunting on national wildlife refuges.
Therefore, FWS anticipates the impact to conservation funding from non-
lead requirements on national wildlife refuges to be very small.
Question. I was disappointed in your June 17th Secretarial Order
3408 which revoked the previous Secretarial Order 3368 that created a
publicly available repository on the Solicitor's website where
everyone, members of congress and the general public can see settlement
negotiations that the Department has entered into. This is in addition
to the Equal Access to Justice information that is provided in the
annual budget request. Your press release indicated that the
Secretarial Order you rescinded was a waste of taxpayer funds.
Can you elaborate on how much the department spent on the
implementation of SO 3368 and what portions of the disclosures on the
Department's website were responsible for the supposed waste? How did
you determine whether the previous transparency order provided a
``tangible benefit'' to the public?
Answer. The Department's additional expenses included annual
developer costs to create and maintain the website; costs for employee
time in compiling and uploading information; and costs for preparation
of and fees for Federal register notices. The total cost of compliance
with SO 3368 during its effective period is estimated at $94,582. After
review of the limited benefits achieved from these additional expenses,
the Department found that SO 3368's requirements either duplicated
existing rules or policies governing settlements or added requirements
that are not found in law or policy and raised concerns about
consistency with court orders and/or the confidentiality expectations
of parties in litigation. The Department concluded that spending
Departmental resources in this way did not advance the Department's
goals of enhancing transparency or safeguarding the public interest.
Further, information about settlements and attorneys' fees is publicly
available in alternate sources, including the annual reports to
Congress and a Department of Treasury on-line database.
Question. Can you please provide an example of how the previous
order prevented the Department from entering into ``rational and fair''
settlement agreements?
Answer. The Department's approach to settlements is governed by our
internal policies and those of the Department of Justice, which prevent
the Department from entering into settlements that make excessive
commitments of time or resources or compromise the Department's legal
authority. After review of SO 3368, we determined that it reiterated
those substantive constraints but added new and vague procedural
requirements that did not support the substantive criteria.
For example, SO 3368 included a requirement to provide notice to
non-party States or Tribes with ``substantial direct'' interest in all
complaints or petitions filed against the Department, its bureaus or
officers. The Order also established a new notice-and-comment process
for certain settlements. These new bureaucratic requirements are not
found in laws, regulations, or court rules and therefore interfered
with the normal litigation and settlement process. The Department
cannot share specific examples without violating promises of
confidentiality regarding settlement negotiations, which are governed
by Federal Rule of Evidence 408 and ensure frank and open discussions
to reach agreements.
Question. On the same day that President Biden called for a
reliable supply chain of critical minerals during his Securing Critical
Minerals virtual event, the Department of the Interior announced
creation of the Interagency Working Group on Mining Regulations, Laws
and Permitting. The specter of major changes to the regulatory
framework for mining projects is certain to cause investors to rethink
the U.S. a prime jurisdiction for mining investment at a time when the
U.S. is exceedingly over reliant for mineral imports from geopolitical
adversaries. Why would the department seek to initiate these actions,
potentially freeze investor confidence, at a time when mineral demand
is expected to skyrocket?
1. What are the next steps for the Interagency Working Group?
2. What opportunities will there be for continued engagement with
stakeholders moving forward?
3. What engagement has occurred with States?
4. When does the Interagency Working Group expect to complete its
work and provide recommendations?
5. I understand there are roundtable discussions planned with
various stakeholders. Please provide the dates and locations for any
proposed roundtables.
Answer. The Interagency Working Group on Mining Regulations, Laws,
and Permitting (IWG) has conducted extensive outreach throughout the
year and is reviewing tens of thousands of comments received in
response to a Request for Information published in March 2022,
including hundreds of letters with specific recommendations from Tribal
Nations, State governments, the mining industry, environmental and
conservation organizations, academics, and others. The IWG held
meetings with the leadership and members of the Interstate Mining
Compact Commission, Environmental Council of the States, Association of
American State Geologists, and National Association of State Trust
Lands, in addition to discussions with individual state officials upon
request.
The IWG is currently working to complete a report to Congress of
its findings. The report will provide recommendations about any
substantive changes needed to meet the Country's need for mineral
resources, including critical minerals, while respecting our
obligations to Tribal Nations, protecting the environment, supporting
communities, and addressing legacy mining issues.
Question. The Department recently touted its efforts to
reinvigorate renewable energy projects on Federal lands. To accomplish
this, the Department developed organizational enhancements and improved
process efficiencies for optimizing Federal permit coordination for
renewable energy projects.
Why are the same type of efficiencies used to permit renewable
energy projects not used to permit domestic energy and mineral
projects, particularly those that are the front end of the supply chain
for renewable energy technologies?
Answer. Critical minerals are key inputs to manufacturing advanced
technologies including renewable energy generation and storage. In
response to recommendations from the 100-Day reviews directed by E.O.
14017, America's Supply Chains, and Section 40206 of the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law (BIL), the Department has established an Interagency
Working Group to comprehensively review hardrock mineral laws,
regulations, and permitting requirements. As part of this whole-of-
government effort, the Department has hosted extensive public input and
comment sessions on potential hardrock mining reforms and intends to
publish a report with legislative, regulatory, and policy
recommendations in fiscal year 2023. Regarding domestic energy, the BLM
continues to approve oil and gas applications for permits to drill
(APD) and industry currently has in excess of 8,000 approved APDs
available to them for domestic production.
Question. Have there been any new coal leases or lease
modifications approved, either for thermal or met coal, under your
leadership at the Department of the Interior?
Answer. Since 2021, the Department has approved one 630-acre
Emergency Bypass lease issued in North Dakota for lignite thermal coal.
Question. Are there any outstanding coal lease or lease
modification applications currently pending before the Department of
the Interior? If so, how long have those applications been pending?
Answer. Currently there are 16 Lease By Applications (LBAs) and 3
Lease Modification Applications (LMAs) before the BLM. However, eight
of the LBAs are on hold by the applicant's request or the Federal
acreage is part of the land exchange in Section 1255 of the Dingell Act
and will be turned over to the State. In the case of lease applications
for Federal minerals that are part of the Dingell Act, the LBAs are put
on hold until the surface and mineral estate are transferred to the
State (see John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management and Recreation
Act, Public Law 116-9, Section 1255, Exchange of BLM and School
Institutional Trust Lands Administration land), at which time the State
assumes all responsibility for the leasing decision and associated
environmental analysis. The others are in various stages of NEPA
evaluation, cost recovery MOUs, in bankruptcy court, part of legal
action, or the BLM has requested more information from the applicant
and is waiting for a response. BLM is evaluating the impact of the
recent court order reinstating Secretary Jewell's coal leasing
moratorium on the pending applications. All these factors make the
timeline for LBAs and LMAs highly variable and in many cases outside
the control of the Department of the Interior. The table below
summarizes pending coal actions and provides the case number for ease
of reference.
Pending Coal Lease and Lease Modification Applications
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Application
LBA LMA Status Received
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COC-71978 Hold-Applicant Request......... 10/12/2007
COC-78449 Hold-Applicant Request......... 4/6/2017
KYES-55296 On Hold-Mine is on standby..... 7/3/2007
ALES-55797 Met Coal-HQ BLM NEPA Review.... 8/13/2009
ALES-56519 Hold-Applicant Request......... 9/22/2010
ARES-57757 NEPA Ongoing................... 12/21/2012
WVES-59357 Consent-USACE Surface 7/30/2018
Management.
MTM 105485 Cost Recovery.................. 2/13/2013
NDM 111186 NEPA Ongoing................... 5/17/2019
NDM 111489 HQ BLM NEPA Review............. 10/30/2019
MTM 110693 Cost Recovery-RMP Litigation... 6/17/2021
OKNM- 127509 Hold-Applicant Request......... 10/27/2011
OKNM- 91569 Cost Recovery.................. 12/3/2012
UTU-080043 Hold-Dingell Act............... 3/1/2002
UTU-093214 Hold-Dingell Act............... 3/28/2018
UTU-092226 NEPA-Part of Settlement 7/10/2019
Agreement.
UTU-077114 NEPA-Part of Settlement 6/7/2019
Agreement.
WYW164812 Request Status Update from 10/7/2005
Applicant.
WYW184599 Hold-Applicant Request......... 8/24/2015
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question. What the current status is of the ongoing Federal coal
review and what are the anticipated next steps in the review, including
timing of those steps? How is the Department taking into account the
comments and economic needs of Federal coal states and tribes who would
like to develop their natural resources?
Answer. On August 12, 2022, the District Court for the District of
Montana Great Falls Division (Case 4:17-cv-00030-BMM Document 23) ruled
the NEPA analysis used for lifting the coal leasing moratorium enacted
by Secretary Jewell (Secretary Order 3338) was insufficient and the
Court reinstated the coal leasing moratorium until the NEPA
deficiencies are addressed. The BLM is currently working to develop a
path forward for the Federal coal program.
Question. It has been over a year since Executive Order 14008
launched an effort to conserve at least 30 percent of our lands and
waters by 2030. Unfortunately, there is widespread confusion regarding
what Federal agencies will actually count as conservation, what will
account for local and state conservation programs, and how land use
designations that overlap with management plans for various activities
will be factored. Compounding these uncertainties is the issue of
multiple use and how industries that rely upon Federal lands will be
treated, many of which have been fully engaged in conservation
partnerships and effective voluntary conservation activities for
decades, demonstrating that development and conservation are not
mutually exclusive.
When will the Department of the Interior be able to provide the
Committee with a definition for what is considered ``conservation''
under the initiative?
Answer. The principles of the initiative and initial general steps,
including development of the American Conservation and Stewardship
Atlas, were outlined in our report, issued last May, titled Conserving
and Restoring America the Beautiful. That report also outlined our
recommendations for early focus of the initiative. We are coordinating
with the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce, and the Council on
Environmental Quality, on development of the Atlas. We have undertaken
broad public engagement as we move through the process, including a
public comment period that closed in early March. We expect to be able
to release a ``beta'' version of that Atlas by the end of the year and
will continue to update the Committee from there.
Question. How will the Department quantify how much existing U.S.
lands and waters under Federal stewardship count as currently being
``conserved''?
Answer. Under the initiative we expect a flexible, inclusive
definition given the many uses of land and waters that can be
consistent with the long-term health of ecosystems and many types of
conservation that exist on Federal, Tribal, State, and private land and
waters. It will also help to address to the impacts of climate change
and environmental injustices. We have undertaken broad public
engagement, including a public comment period that closed in early
March and are coordinating with the Departments of Agriculture and
Commerce, and the Council on Environmental Quality, on development of
the Atlas.
Question. Will lands currently subject to multiple use be
considered ``conserved''?
Answer. As noted in the previous response, the Atlas will reflect
the many uses of land and waters that can be consistent with the long-
term health of ecosystems and help address the impacts of climate
change and environmental injustices.
Question. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced a notice of
intent on the Federal Register in November 2021 to solicit comments to
inform the BLM's preparation of Environmental Impact Statements (EIS)
to address the management of Greater Sage-grouse and sagebrush habitat
on BLM-managed land in the States of California, Colorado, Idaho,
Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming
through a land use planning initiative. Comments closed in February
2022.
What other opportunities will BLM provide the public to maintain
involvement with the NEPA and land use planning processes?
Answer. After the BLM and its cooperating agencies prepare the
Draft EIS, the BLM will seek public input on the document during a 90-
day comment period. After the comment period, the BLM will review all
the public input and adjust the EIS, as necessary. The resulting Final
EIS will then be provided for public review during a 30-day protest
period.
Question. Will there be a Governor's consistency review on any
proposed land use plan amendment/final EIS?
Answer. Yes, the BLM will provide the Proposed RMP Amendment/Final
EIS to all the affected Governor's offices for a 60-day consistency
review.
Question. What is the timeline of activities related to the
finalizing activities under the November 2021 solicitation?
Answer. The current schedule has the BLM working with its
cooperating agency partners to prepare the Draft RMP Amendment/Draft
EIS and anticipates providing the document for public review and input
in July 2023. Following the 90-day comment period and time for
reviewing received comments, preparing responses, and updating the EIS,
we expect to publish the Proposed RMP Amendment/Final EIS in February
2024, making it available for a 30-day protest period and 60-day
governor's consistency review. Pending resolution of any potential
protests or issues raised by governors, we expect to publish the
decisions in June 2024. As with similar planning efforts, these dates
are our best current estimates, but could be subject to change to adapt
to changing conditions.
Question. The BLM announced in August 2021 and published a notice
of intent stating it will begin re-initiation of consideration of
whether a proposed 10-million-acre mineral withdrawal of Federal land
from location and entry under the Mining Law to conserve priority
greater sage- grouse habitat is necessary.
What is the current status is of the consideration of a mineral
withdrawal?
Answer. In 2021, the U.S. District Court in Idaho vacated the BLM's
2017 cancellation of its NEPA efforts to consider a mineral withdrawal
providing additional conservation in some priority greater sage-grouse
habitats. To comply with the court order, the BLM has reinitiated the
NEPA process, beginning by reviewing the 2016 Draft EIS and
updating the information and analysis to reflect new science and
results from monitoring.
To ensure the BLM is considering the most current information, we
have contracted with the USGS to update the 2016 Mineral Potential
Report, in particular to consider the potential for critical minerals
within the proposed withdrawal areas. A draft report has been
completed, which the BLM is currently reviewing to provide comments
back to the USGS. Once those comments have been addressed, the USGS
will issue the updated report as final.
The BLM is concurrently reviewing new science on greater sage-
grouse that has been published since 2015 to assess whether the
proposed areas for withdrawal are providing the conservation benefit
anticipated in 2015.
Question. What are the anticipated next steps in the review?
Answer. When the mineral potential report is final, that
information will be combined with the biological analyses to update the
alternatives from the 2016 Draft EIS. The BLM will then conduct an
analysis of the refined range of alternatives to consider the impacts
of a proposed withdrawal of some, none, or all of the sagebrush focal
areas that were initially recommended for withdrawal. In coordination
with cooperating agencies, including State, local, and Tribal
governments, the BLM will prepare a Draft EIS that includes the updated
alternatives and associated impact analyses. The Draft EIS will be
provided for public review and comment in 2023.
Question. How are you taking into account the comments and economic
needs of states and tribes who would like to develop their natural
resources?
Answer. The BLM has renewed cooperating agency agreements with
State, local, and Tribal governments to assist in preparing the
Sagebrush Focal Area Potential Mineral Withdrawal EIS. Those
cooperating agencies will be able to provide valuable input on local,
social, and economic conditions and the associated effects of the
alternatives on local economies. The BLM will use their input to
analyze the impact of the various alternatives on social and economic
conditions. This will be informed by the mineral potential report,
which will form the basis for preparing a reasonably foreseeable
development scenario based on mineral availability, mining sector
trends, and economic conditions and will include the economic potential
for development of any recoverable material. The data will be presented
in the NEPA documents and will be considered before any final decisions
are made by the agency.
Question. The Federal government relies on private parties to
explore Federal lands to locate and develop minerals that are essential
to our quality of life, national security, and economic
competitiveness. Access to exploration activities for these minerals is
essential to the development and production of minerals. Put simply, we
need more mines on public lands to demand for domestic critical mineral
production.
How will the Department promote access to mineralized lands for
development?
Answer. Under the Mining Law of 1872, hundreds of millions of acres
of public lands may be accessed freely and without prior authorization
for the purpose of entry and location, allowing exploration and the
staking of claims for valuable mineral deposits. The Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) processes new claim filings and annual claim
maintenance fees, ensuring that those claims are available for
exploration and development under applicable laws. The BLM also reviews
mining notices for exploration work and reviews and approves plans of
operation for larger-scale exploration and commercial mineral
development. The BLM continues to expeditiously review and approve new
mineral exploration and development work to provide access to mineral
deposits and allow for development in a way that prevents unnecessary
and undue degradation of public lands.
Question. Does the Department consider the anticipated mineral
demand for clean energy technologies as a determining factor before
taking administrative action that would preemptively block or
negatively impact development of a mine project?
Answer. The BLM processes all mine plan applications in accordance
with applicable laws and ensures that any exploration or mining
operations do not cause unnecessary and undue degradation of the public
lands. The Mining Law of 1872 does not require operators to report the
quantity or type of minerals that are produced by their operations to
the BLM.
Question. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)
provided over $11 billion for coal abandoned mine land funding and the
Department released draft guidance in May of 2022 for select states and
Tribes on how to apply for 2022 grants pursuant to this funding. Given
that the guidance expands the scope of eligibility to non-coal AML
projects, how will DOI ensure adequate oversight of states and Tribes
with these new funds while increasing the efficient use of taxpayer
dollars? Also, please provide an update on the timing of the rulemaking
that would establish requirements and obligations for states and Tribes
to receive this funding.
Answer. The Draft Guidance published in May 2022, by the Department
of Interior's (DOI) Office of Surface Mining and Enforcement (OSMRE)
did not expand nor propose to expand the scope of eligibility for use
of the IIJA funds to non-coal AML projects. Title VII, Section 40701 of
the IIJA states the following:
This section appropriates $11,293,000,000 billion in funds for
deposit in the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund . . . Grants
under this section must only be used for activities described
in subsections (a) and (b) of section 403 and section 410 of
SMCRA.
Thus, this new funding source may only be spent on eligible
abandoned coal mine projects as set forth under the referenced
provisions of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA).
The Final Guidance published on July 21, 2022, provides, consistent
with the requirement of Section 40701, for the use of IIJA grant funds
on priorities resulting from legacy coal mining that pose a threat to
public health, safety, and the environment (including acid mine
drainage projects), water supply restoration projects and coal AML
emergency projects.
DOI-OSMRE has put a series of measures in place to ensure adequate
oversight of State and Tribal implementation of the IIJA with this new
funding. Actions taken and anticipated include, recruiting and hiring
additional staff with the relevant skill sets across OSMRE's
headquarters and regional offices to ensure effective execution of the
program. OSMRE, among other things, is developing a training program
for State and OSMRE employees engaged in IIJA implementation, reviewing
state and Tribal Reclamation Plans to ensure consistency with the IIJA
provisions, developing performance metrics to ensure the objectives of
the IIJA are met, and requiring information in grant applications on
specific projects, beginning in fiscal year 2023. The Final Guidance
document is available to assist States and Tribes in meeting the IIJA
objectives with detailed requirements and expectations for successful
implementation of the IIJA AML program.
Further, DOI-OSMRE has built in efficiencies to ensure the proper
use of these taxpayer funds by basing the design of the IIJA program on
the existing AML-fee based program in several respects. Examples
include, directing IIJA funds only to eligible States and Tribes with
approved Reclamation Plans, requiring separate grant applications for
the IIJA grants and the traditional AML-fee based grants, ensuring
enhanced reporting transparency to enable the tracking of IIJA fund
expenditures, and leveraging existing internal control measures such as
periodic drawdown reviews and Single Audit Compliance reviews to
minimize the potential for waste, fraud and abuse.
OSMRE continues to evaluate the need and the timing for IIJA
rulemaking.
Question. In February 2022, the Department submitted a request to
the Court to remand the ROD/EIS for the Ambler Access Project. In that
request, the Department expressed a commitment to completing the
necessary consultation, analysis, and supplemental work in a timely
manner. It is now August 2022 and it appears that no significant
progress has been made in this process.
1. When does the department intend to initiate the necessary work?
2. And will there be a schedule for work to be completed?
3. Does BLM Alaska intend to select a third-party contractor to
conduct the necessary work on the Ambler Access Road Project
supplemental EIS? If so, when will that contractor be selected?
4. BLM Alaska has delayed approvals for scientific, cultural
surveys, and non-ground disturbing field activities this summer. With a
very short window during the summer months in Alaska to conduct this
work, the project could be set back an entire year. Additionally, the
delays have already caused significant financial damage to the project.
Does the BLM intend to provide approval for any of this important work?
If so, when will these approvals or denials be conveyed to the project
proponents?
Answer. The Ambler Access project was remanded to the BLM by the
U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, based on the Department
of the Interior's request for a voluntary remand to address certain
procedural and legal defects. Following a period of intensive review
and planning among the BLM, the project proponent, stakeholders, and
Tribes, the Bureau began the supplemental environmental impact
statement (SEIS) process by publishing a notice of intent in the
Federal Register on September 20, 2022. The notice kicked off a 45-day
scoping period, ending November 4, 2022. In parallel with the scoping
period, BLM is pursuing the necessary procurement steps to engage the
services of a third-party contractor to prepare the SEIS. We expect to
release the solicitation early in fiscal year 2023.
Since the court required that the BLM maintain the ``environmental
status quo'' until the obligations outlined in the voluntary remand
were met, the BLM was unable to approve ground- disturbing field work
for this project in 2022. However, limited ground disturbing activities
were approved contingent upon completion of a 28-day notice to the
Plaintiffs; this requirement was met on September 19, 2022. We will
continue to work closely with the proponent, Tribes, cooperators, and
all other interested parties as the 2023 field season approaches.
SUBCOMMITTEE RECESS
Senator Merkley. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:29 a.m., Wednesday, July 31, the hearing
was adjourned, and the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene
at a time subject to the call of the Chair.]
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2023
----------
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
NONDEPARTMENTAL WITNESSES
[Clerk's note.--The subcommittee was unable to hold
hearings on nondepartmental witnesses. The statements and
letters of those submitting written testimony are as follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Alliance for the Great Lakes
The Alliance for the Great Lakes is a nonpartisan nonprofit working
across the Great Lakes region to protect and restore the Great Lakes.
Founded in 1970, we have worked for 50 years on programs to ensure
public access to clean, safe and affordable drinking water; protect
water quality; stop the establishment and spread of harmful invasive
aquatic species, including invasive carp; reduce plastic pollution; and
advocate for increased drinking and wastewater infrastructure funding
and programs to ensure that water remains affordable for all Americans.
Our membership and supporters are located throughout the eight States
in the Great Lakes region and each year we mobilize more than 15,000
volunteers to take action to ensure that our shorelines and beaches are
healthy, safe and clean.
The Great Lakes are not only a national treasure but are a globally
significant resource containing 20 percent of the world's available
freshwater supply. The Lakes provide some 30 million Americans with
drinking water and are vital to communities in Illinois, Indiana,
Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The
Great Lakes not only provide water, but they also support jobs,
commerce, agriculture, transportation, and tourism for millions of
Americans. Protecting the health of the Great Lakes is integral to the
environmental and economic health of the region.
But the Great Lakes face continued threats from the harmful legacy
of decades of pollution that threaten our communities with cancer-
causing contaminants, drinking water restrictions, and fish consumption
advisories. Action is needed at all levels of government to address
these threats, as well as emerging issues associated with climate
change. The fiscal Year 2023 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies
Appropriations bill under this subcommittee's jurisdiction funds an
array of programs and projects in the Environmental Protection Agency
that are critical to the restoration and protection of the Great Lakes.
This written testimony highlights just three of the programs under your
consideration: the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and water
infrastructure funding for the Clean Water and Drinking Water State
Revolving Funds. Although all of these programs received significant
investment in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021,
continued funding at increased and authorized levels is necessary to
deal with the significant challenges each program faces and additional
detail is provided below.
great lakes restoration initiative
The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) is an Environmental
Protection Agency funded grant program that supports State, Federal,
Tribal and local efforts to protect and restore the Great Lakes. GLRI
funding is allocated by a 16-member Federal interagency task force and
regional working group to address water quality issues associated with
pollution and legacy contaminants; habitat loss/degradation and
invasive species consistent with a 5-year action plan containing
measurable goals and objectives. Since its inception in 2010, nearly $3
billion has been provided to fund more approximately 6,000 projects
throughout the Great Lakes region.
For every $1 the GLRI invested, it is estimated that the investment
will produce more than $3 in additional economic activity regionwide
through 2036. Accordingly, the GLRI is revitalizing our waterfronts and
leading a resurgence in water-based outdoor recreation and increasing
tourism across the region. For fiscal Year 2023, we recommend that the
Committee fund this program at $400 million. This funding level is
consistent with the congressional project reauthorization in the Great
Lakes Restoration Initiative Act (Public Law 116-294, Jan. 5, 2021)
which authorizes $400 million in funding for fiscal Year 2023. In
addition to supporting States, Tribes and local communities, GLRI
funding also supports US Treaty obligations under the Boundary Waters
Treaty of 1909 between the US and Canada and its Great Lakes Water
Quality Agreement.
investing in water infrastructure
Another important area under the subcommittee's jurisdiction is
funding for water infrastructure. We greatly appreciate the $48 billion
in funding provided for water infrastructure in the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (IIJA). In addition, IIJA increased the
authorized levels of funding for key water infrastructure programs,
including the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds.
Despite the significant investment in water infrastructure funding last
year, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that nationwide
approximately $743 billion is needed over the next 20 years to repair,
replace and upgrade water infrastructure. In the Great Lakes alone it
is estimated that the eight States need $188 billion to upgrade aging
water infrastructure. Furthermore, the Congressional Budget Office
estimates that Federal funding for water and wastewater utilities has
decreased fourfold since 1980, leaving State and local governments to
pick up the tab.
Although the need for water infrastructure funding far outstrips
available annual funding levels, we are encouraged and pleased that the
IIJA authorized higher levels of funding for key water infrastructure
programs which is a necessary step toward addressing the myriad of
issues plaguing water infrastructure utilities and local communities.
Accordingly, we encourage you to appropriate funds for these programs
at the authorized level for fiscal Year 2023 which means $3.87 billion
for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund and $4.38 billion for the
Clean Water State Revolving Fund. These funding levels are a
significant increase over funds appropriated in fiscal Year 2022 and
are necessary to allow for continued progress to address water
infrastructure funding needs and to ensure that families nationwide
have access to safe drinking water and healthy waste water services.
We appreciate the subcommittee's consideration of our views and its
work and funding support over many years for programs that protect and
restore the Great Lakes. As the source of drinking water for 30 million
Americans and as a significant driver in the regional economy of eight
States, investments in programs that protect and restore the Great
Lakes are critical to ensure the economic and environmental health of
this important resource.
[This statement was submitted by Don Jodrey, Director of Federal
Relations, The Alliance for the Great Lakes.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Alliance to Save Energy and Partners
We the undersigned coalition of businesses, trade associations, and
environmental, and energy efficiency advocates, write in support of
increasing the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Energy Star
budget for fiscal Year 2023 to $80 million. Energy Star is a highly
successful public-private partnership program that delivers tremendous
impact in addressing climate change and generating consumer energy
savings on what can only be described as a less than minimal budget of
$33.9 million. Despite its bipartisan reputation as a cost-effective
and high-impact program, Energy Star has nonetheless been subject to
declining funding in recent years.
Our request to effectively double Energy Star's budget to $80
million reflects the urgency to address climate change to avoid far
larger public costs and to help mitigate the exorbitant prices
consumers and businesses pay for energy today. According to the EPA's
fiscal Year 2023 budget justification, in 2019 alone, Energy Star
helped American families and businesses save nearly 500 billion
kilowatt-hours of electricity and avoid $39 billion in energy costs.\1\
This resulted in emission reductions of nearly 390 million metric tons
of GHGs- equivalent to roughly 5 percent of U.S. GHG emissions. This
reduction is additionally estimated to result in $7 billion to $17
billion in public health benefits.\2\ Since the program began in 1992,
it has accounted for more than 4 billion metric tons of GHG reductions
and avoided over $500 billion in energy costs.\3\ Additionally, the
production of Energy Star products supports 700,000 jobs in our
economy- roughly 35 percent of an estimated 2.1 million U.S. energy
efficiency jobs in 2020, aligning with President Biden's American Jobs
Plan.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ fy-2023-congressional-justification-all-tabs.pdf (epa.gov) (see
Energy Star impact report 2020 for updated numbers: 520 billion
kilowatt-hours of electricity and avoid $42 billion in energy costs).
\2\ Id.
\3\ https://www.energystar.gov/about.
\4\ https://www.energystar.gov/about/origins_mission/impacts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite the program's success, Energy Star has seen its funding
steadily decline from a high of nearly $54 million over a decade ago to
$33.9 million today. If we were to simply adjust for inflation, Energy
Star would have a budget of approximately $68 million in today's
dollars versus a decade ago. Moreover, as the program's budget has
decreased, the expenses necessary to effectively carryout Energy Star's
function have increased, including but not limited to personnel costs;
IT and data to meet program growth in addition to needed cybersecurity
requirements; program integrity and certifications; maintaining and
upgrading the Energy Star Portfolio Manager which plays an increasingly
important role for benchmarking and building performance standards; and
product expansion in response to the climate urgency. The steady
decrease in funding priority has greatly restricted Energy Star's
ability to keep up with fast-changing markets and to expand the
program's reach in sectors where large untapped energy savings are
achievable, including low-to-moderate income, disadvantaged, and Tribal
communities.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), getting to
``net zero by 2050 hinges on a global push to increase energy
efficiency.'' \5\ Together with broad bipartisan support and nationwide
brand recognition above 90 percent, Energy Star is an important and
impactful tool to address climate change.\6\ If we are to meet the
current challenges before us and increase our efforts to mitigate
climate change, increasing the Energy Star budget is necessary.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ https://www.iea.org/articles/net-zero-by-2050-hinges-on-a-
global-push-to-increase-energy-efficiency.
\6\ https://www.energystar.gov/about/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for your leadership on these important issues, and we
look forward to working together to strengthen the Energy Star program.
If you have any questions or need additional information, please
contact Vincent Barnes ([email protected]) or Olivia Leos ([email protected])
with the Alliance to Save Energy.
A. O. Smith Corporation
Acuity Brands
Alliance to Save Energy
American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy
American Institute of Architects
Association of Energy Engineers
Building Performance Coalition
Business Council for Sustainable Energy
California Energy Commission
Carrier Global Corporation
DuPont
E4TheFuture
Federal Performance Contracting Coalition
Google
Illuminating Engineering Society
Institute for Market Transformation
International Copper Association
Knauf Insulation
Large Public Power Council
Lutron Electronics
Metrus Energy
Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance
National Association of Energy Service Companies
Natural Resource Defense Council
Polyisocyanurate Insulation Manufacturers Association
Sacramento Municipal Utility District
Seattle City Light
Signify North America Corporation
Snohomish PUD
Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance
U.S. Green Building Council
Uplight
Watsco, Inc
[This statement was submitted by Alliance to Save Energy and
Partners.]
______
Prepared Statement of the American Alliance of Museums
Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski, and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to submit this testimony.
My name is Laura L. Lott and I am the President and CEO of the American
Alliance of Museums (AAM). We urge your support for Fiscal Year 2023
funding of at least $203.55 million for each the National Endowment for
the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). We
also urge robust funding for the Smithsonian Institution. In addition,
we request your support for the Historic Preservation Fund, including
at least $65 million for State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPOs)
and $34 million for Tribal Historic Preservation Offices (THPOs). We
support $24 million for African American Civil Rights Grants, $12
million for Historically Black Colleges/Universities, $5 million for
Equal Rights Grants, and $3 million for Underrepresented Community
Grants. We request funding of $35 million for the Save America's
Treasures program and $12 million for Paul Bruhn Historic
Revitalization grants. We support at least $10 million in funding for
U.S. Semiquincentennial celebration grants for the country's 250th
commemoration.
Before detailing these funding priorities for the museum field, I
want to express my appreciation for the increases enacted in fiscal
Year 2022. The additional funds for the NEH, NEA, and historic
preservation activities will enhance museums' work to enrich their
communities and preserve our many heritages. The subcommittee's choice
to make these investments in fiscal Year 2022 speaks volumes about its
commitment to our Nation's cultural institutions. We also are grateful
for last year's supplemental grant funding of $135 million (American
Rescue Plan) for each endowment to help cultural organizations,
including museums, cope with and respond to the devastating impact of
the COVID-19 pandemic. Early in the pandemic, essentially all museums
were closed to the public. 33 percent of museums were at some risk of
permanent closure without immediate support-a threatened loss of 12,000
museums and 124,000 jobs. While Federal relief funding has provided
critical lifelines, a survey shows attendance remains down 38 percent
on average from pre-pandemic levels, and 17 percent of directors still
feel there is some risk of closing permanently without additional
relief. The need, like the pandemic, is still with us.
Representing more than 35,000 museum professionals and volunteers,
institutions-including aquariums, art museums, botanic gardens,
children's museums, cultural museums, historic sites, history museums,
maritime museums, military museums, natural history museums,
planetariums, presidential libraries, railway museums, science and
technology centers, and zoos-and corporate partners serving the field,
AAM stands for the broad range of the museum community.
Museums are essential community infrastructure for many reasons:
--Museums are economic engines and job creators. According to Museums
as Economic Engines: A National Report, U.S. museums (pre-
pandemic) support more than 726,000 jobs and contribute $50
billion to the U.S. economy per year. The economic activity of
museums generates more than $12 billion in tax revenue, one-
third of it going to State and local governments. For example,
the total financial impact that museums have on the economy in
the State of Maine is $195 million, including supporting 3,405
jobs. For Ohio it is a $1.54 billion impact supporting 25,973
jobs. This impact is not limited to cities: more than 25
percent of museums are in rural areas. The import of these data
is not the numbers alone-but the larger point that museums give
back tremendously to their communities in numerous ways,
including economically. The Federal funding for NEA, NEH, and
the other programs does not stay in Washington, DC-it goes back
to communities across the Nation. And it is leveraged many
times over by private philanthropy, and State and local
investments.
--Museums are key education providers. Museums spend more than $2
billion yearly on education activities; the typical museum
devotes 75 percent of its education budget to K-12 students,
and museums receive approximately 55 million visits each year
from students in school groups. Museums also answered the call
and significantly ramped up online educational programs and
resources for students and families throughout the pandemic.
Museums help teach the State and local curriculum in subjects
ranging from art and science to history, civics, and
government. Museums have long served as a vital resource to
homeschool learners. It is not surprising that in a public
opinion survey, 97 percent of respondents agreed that museums
were educational assets in their communities. The results were
statistically identical regardless of political persuasion or
community size.
--Museums will be essential to rebuilding communities as we emerge
from the pandemic. During the COVID-19 pandemic, museums across
the country have continued contributing to the ongoing
education of our country's children by providing lesson plans,
online learning opportunities, and drop-off learning kits to
teachers and families. They are using their outdoor spaces to
grow and donate produce to area food banks, as well as
maintaining these spaces for individuals to safely relax, enjoy
nature, and recover from the mental health impacts of social
isolation. They provided access to childcare and meals to
families of health care workers and first responders, have
donated their PPE and scientific equipment to fight COVID-19,
and are serving as vaccination centers. Despite the financial
and psychological stress caused by the pandemic, museum
professionals are filling the gaps to meet the needs of their
communities and will be vital to their recovery. Museums are
demonstrating the critical role they play in our country's
infrastructure and deepening their social impact in their
communities, addressing learning loss, and fostering intra-
community trust and dialogue.
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent
Federal agency created by Congress in 1965. Grants are awarded to
nonprofit educational institutions, including museums, for educational
programming, infrastructure and the care of collections. NEH supports
museums as institutions of lifelong learning and exploration, and as
keepers of our cultural, historical, and scientific heritages that can
foster critical dialogues on challenging issues.
In October 2021, NEH awarded $87.8 million in American Rescue Plan
(ARP) funding to nearly 300 cultural and educational institutions,
including museums, to help them recover from the economic impact of the
pandemic, retain and rehire workers, and reopen sites, facilities, and
programs. Grant awards were made in all 50 U.S. States.
In fiscal Year 2021, in addition to the money distributed through
ARP grants, the NEH awarded 677 grants totaling more than $85.4 million
to institutions across the U.S., including museums. All of NEH's
divisions and offices support museums, including the Office of
Challenge Grants which offers matching grants to support much needed
capacity building and infrastructure projects at museums. Humanities
councils in every State and U.S. territory sponsor family literacy
programs, speakers' bureaus, cultural heritage tourism, exhibitions,
and live performances. Many councils also offer grants to local
cultural organizations, including museums.
In preparation for the U.S. Semiquincentennial in 2026, NEH's new
``A More Perfect Union'' initiative provides funding opportunities
across the agency's seven grantmaking divisions for humanities projects
that promote a deeper understanding of American history and culture and
that advance civic education and knowledge of our core principles of
government.
Here are just two examples of how NEH funding was used to support
museums' work in your communities:
--The Portland Art Museum, OR, received a $750,000 Challenge grant
(2020-2024) for construction of a pavilion to connect the
museum's primary buildings, providing expanded and enhanced art
and public spaces, increasing accessibility, and furthering
physical and intellectual connections between the collections
and programs. A community commons will become one of Oregon's
grand free public spaces. The grant will leverage $3 million
over the 4-year grant period, with funds coming from individual
donors and foundations.
--The Baranov Museum in Kodiak, AK, received a $49,740 ARP grant to
support sustaining and enhancing the museum's temporary
exhibits program. The museum co-curates two exhibits per year
with members of the Kodiak community and develops a series of
programs/events that pair with each temporary exhibit to create
community-centered, mission-driven programming to advance
cultural and educational opportunities directly connecting with
its mission and values.
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) makes art accessible to
all and provides leadership in arts education. Established in 1965, NEA
supports great art in every congressional district. Its grants to
museums help them exhibit, preserve, and interpret visual material
through exhibitions, residencies, publications, commissions, public art
works, conservation, documentation, services to the field, and public
programs.
In January 2022, the NEA announced it had recommended ARP awards
totaling $57.7 million to 567 arts organizations, including museums, to
help the arts and cultural sector recover from the pandemic.
Organizations are using this funding to save jobs and to fund
operations and facilities, health and safety supplies, and marketing
and promotional efforts to encourage attendance and participation.
Grants were recommended to organizations in both rural and urban
communities in all 50 States. Among the recommended organizations, 27
percent were first-time NEA grantees and 78 percent were small- or
medium-sized organizations with budgets of less than $2 million.
Since 2010, the NEA has collaborated with Blue Star Families and
the U.S. Department of Defense on Blue Star Museums, which provides
free museum admission to active duty military and their families all
summer long. In 2019, more than 2,000 museums in all 50 States
participated, reaching on average more than 900,000 military members
and their families.
The Federal role of the NEA is uniquely valuable; receiving a grant
from the NEA confers prestige on supported projects, strengthening
museums' ability to attract matching funds from other public and
private funders. On average, each dollar awarded by the NEA leverages
up to nine dollars from other sources. No other funder-public or
private-funds the arts in every State and the U.S. territories. Forty
percent of NEA's grant funds are distributed to state arts agencies for
re-granting.
Here are two examples of how NEA funding was used to support
museums' work in your communities:
--The High Desert Museum in Bend, OR, received a $35,000 grant to
support an exhibition of commissioned artwork by Plateau Indian
artists that demonstrate the resiliency of Indigenous cultures.
The exhibition will feature artwork alongside narratives and
images from their respective communities, which will be
exhibited alongside stories and videos of Tribal youth learning
about cultural traditions.
--The Anchorage Museum, AK, received a $70,000 grant to commission
artists to create work that focuses on sound, the environment,
and wellness. Artwork from emerging and professional artists
will be presented, with a focus on artists from the Circumpolar
North and Indigenous artists who work on issues connected to
climate change and climate justice, as well as musicians whose
work is derived from sound ecology.
In addition to these direct grants, NEA's Arts and Artifacts
Indemnity program also allows museums to apply for Federal indemnity on
major exhibitions, saving them as much as $30 million in insurance
costs every year and making many more exhibitions available to the
public-all at virtually no cost to the American taxpayer.
The Smithsonian Institution comprises some of the most visited
museums in the world. The National Museum of African American History
and Culture has captivated audiences from around the globe,
underscoring the power of our National museums to educate and inspire.
We support funding increases that would allow these world-class museums
to undertake critical collections care, make needed technology
upgrades, conduct cutting-edge research of every type, and increase
access for all. And we applaud the establishment of the Smithsonian
American Women's History Museum and the National Museum of the American
Latino.
The Historic Preservation Fund is the funding source of
preservation awards to States, Tribes, local governments, and
nonprofits. State and Tribal Historic Preservation Offices carry out
the historic preservation work of the Federal Government on State and
Tribal lands. Historic preservation programs are not only essential to
protecting our many heritages; they also serve as economic development
engines and job creators, and provide vital funding to help museums
serve their communities.
I hope that my testimony helped make it clear why these priorities
are of critical importance to the Nation and how they provide a
worthwhile return on investment to the American taxpayer.
[This statement was submitted by Laura L. Lott, President, CEO of
the American Alliance of Museums.]
______
Prepared Statement of American Bird Conservancy
To help bolster programs needed to reverse bird declines and the
loss of three billion birds since 1970, American Bird Conservancy
respectfully requests continued funding increases for bird conservation
programs in the fiscal Year 2023 Interior Appropriations bill. These
include the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act (NMBCA),
Migratory Bird Joint Ventures, State of the Birds Activities, ESA
recovery, and mosquito control in Hawai'i.
Congress and the Biden Administration must take bolder action to
fight climate change by protecting carbon-dense old growth forests, re-
establishing Obama administration mitigation policies, and emphasizing
development of low-impact distributed solar energy. Funds are needed to
research solar energy producing glass products that reduce bird
collisions, and to mitigate wildlife impacts from renewable energy
development. Thank you for considering these requests.
Fiscal Year 23 Bird Conservation Recommendations
(all figures in millions)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FY 21 FY 22 FY 22 FY 22 FY 22 FY 23 FY 23 to Bring
Program Final Budget House Senate Final Budget Birds Back
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neotropical $4.9 $7.9 $6.5 $6.0 $5.0 $7.9 $20
Migratory Bird
Conservation Act
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Migratory Bird $15.1 $17.6 $18.8 ......... $15.56 $18.09 $20
Joint Ventures
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State of the Birds $3.5 $3.5 $4 $4.25 $3.75 ......... $12 FWS +$6 NPS
+ Mosquito +$2 USGS +
Control Project
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Migratory Birds--NMBCA: Please increase funding for migratory bird
conservation including wintering grounds in Latin America and the
Caribbean by providing $20 million for the Neotropical Migratory Bird
Conservation Act. This program is essential to the conservation of
wintering habitats, building capacity of our Latin American and
Caribbean partners, and providing greater access to conservation
resources in a region where it is urgently needed. Senators Ben Cardin
and Rob Portman have introduced S. 4187 to update and reauthorize the
program at $20 million for fiscal Year 2023 and ramping up to $25
million by 2027.
Migratory Bird Joint Ventures (JVs) are essential to address the
conservation needs of migratory birds, and they leverage significant
matching contributions from partner organizations and foundations. We
recommend that to help reverse bird declines the Joint Ventures be
allocated $20 million.
Hawai'i and Mosquito Control: We greatly appreciate the $3.75
million in funding provided in the fiscal Year 2022 spending agreement
for State of the Birds Activities dedicated to arresting the bird
extinction crisis in Hawai'i. For fiscal Year 23, please allocate $12
million for State of the Birds activities and the mosquito control
project in Hawaii needed to save endangered forest birds and prevent
multiple imminent climate-induced extinctions. An additional $6 million
for the National Park Service and $2 million for the US Geological
Survey is requested to support the mosquito control project.
Reducing Window Collisions: Provide $10 million to continue work by
the National Park Service and other agencies to retrofit Department of
the Interior buildings and visitor centers to make them bird-safe. To
build on the significant progress underway to retrofit National Park
Service structures to reduce bird collisions, we recommend $10 million
in funding, and we greatly appreciate the following commendable fiscal
Year 22 House Interior bill report language:
Bird-Safe Solar Glass--A Win-Win for Climate and Wildlife: Provide
$10 million in annual funding to research and develop bird-safe solar-
collecting windows. Research on both bird-safe and solar collecting
glass products can be combined to create a valuable and desirable
product for both commercial buildings and homes that can generate
renewable energy while also greatly reducing bird deaths from window
collisions.
Endangered Species Recovery: Increase funding for avian recovery
programs, particularly in Hawaii as mentioned above, and for critically
endangered birds such as the California Condor, Spectacled Eider, and
Florida Grasshopper Sparrow. An additional $5 million for recovery
activities is needed for these and other listed birds with declining
populations such as the Marbled Murrelet which was recently listed as
endangered by the State of Oregon. Funding is needed to enable FWS to
conduct at-sea surveys in all Marbled Murrelet conservation zones in
the same year providing decision makers with a complete and accurate
population status assessment.
fair and equitable migratory bird conservation
We ask the Committee to please:
Continue expressing support for a Biden administration rulemaking
to clarify protections for birds under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act,
and to further conserve birds by establishing an incidental take
permitting system and general sector permits to reduce preventable
mortality as outlined in the Migratory Bird Protection Act.
Support an expansion of the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation
Act. The administration is proposing $7.9 million for fiscal Year 23,
and legislation is soon to be introduced authorizing a $20 million
appropriation ramping up to $25 million by fiscal Year 2027. This
program is essential for making bird conservation accessible to Latin
American partners working to conserve wintering grounds for the
migratory birds that flock to and breed in the U.S.
greater sage-grouse conservation
We remain deeply concerned by the Greater Sage-Grouse ESA listing
rider given a recent US Geological Survey report indicating the species
is in severe decline, and that that trend is anticipated to continue.
Therefore, we urge that bill language be added directing Federal
agencies to manage for the grouse as though it were an endangered
species under the Endangered Species Act.
The remaining grouse strongholds need immediate protection. To
protect both grouse and climate, we request a spending limitation
precluding oil and gas drilling and leasing in priority sagebrush
habitat. In addition, we recommend the Committee add bill language
directing the Bureau to protect identified priority sagebrush habitat
as Areas of Critical Environmental Concern to be managed for
conservation and restoration purposes.
climate change and energy development
We appreciate the report language included in the fiscal Year 22
Senate bill encouraging reduction of wind energy development impacts
and application of available best practices, and urge that this
thoughtful guidance be continued as the pace of renewable development
increases. Please include language emphasizing environmentally
appropriate siting and minimizing wildlife impacts of renewable energy
facility development by encouraging Federal agencies to avoid
ecologically important areas on public lands and in Federal waters.
We urge you to encourage Federal agencies to aggressively
incentivize and subsidize energy efficiency measures, and deployment of
solar in the already-developed landscape (i.e., distributed solar). A
recent study by The Nature Conservancy and Defenders of Wildlife found
that distributed solar energy could power all of Long Island, New York,
with capacity to spare. Distributed solar has a much greater role to
play in combating climate changes, and is a powerful job creator with
no substantial impacts to wildlife.
public lands protection and forest carbon
We are encouraged by the Executive Order to map and conserve Old
Growth and Mature Forests which could make a major contribution to
address climate change. Most carbon (80 percent+) is released into the
atmosphere soon after logging. This makes the cutting of mature and old
growth forests particularly harmful because of the decades or
centuries-long carbon debt that is then incurred. This policy is long
overdue: ABC and conservation partners have been asking for sound
science-based policies to enlist forests into the fight against climate
change by conserving mature and old growth forests in the Pacific
Northwest since 2009.
Addressing the duel climate and biodiversity crises will require
land use changes to protect existing carbon stores held in standing
forests, as well as adoption of new conservation measures to maintain
or restore biodiversity hotspots. Please include language recommending:
1. The protection of existing carbon stores in mature and old
growth forests that provide habitat for the threatened Marbled Murrelet
and Northern Spotted Owl.
2. Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce Departments initiate a joint
study to identify and map lands and waters of highest priority for
maintaining biodiversity and climate resilience. Please see our comment
regarding the America the Beautiful Atlas.
pesticides
We are concerned by the slow response to scientific studies
indicating organophosphate and neonicotinoid pesticides are causing
significant environmental harm including insect population declines,
bird population declines, waterway contamination, and soil
contamination. Please include report language encouraging EPA to:
1. Restrict the pre-emptive use such as seed-treatments of all
currently registered neonicotinoid products; and 2. Conduct a
scientific review of their impacts to birds, insects, and the overall
environment and report these findings to Congress; and, 3. Clarify the
Treated Article Exemption, FIFRA Sec. 152.25 so as to not include
pesticide coated seeds; and 4. Uphold the tolerance revocation on
chlorpyrifos while banning all uses of it; and 5. Request that FWS ban
the use of agricultural pesticides on National Wildlife Refuges and
other important bird habitats similar to the manner in which it was
previously requested neonicotinoids be phased out via Memorandum in
2014.
lead ammunition and fishing tackle
As many as 16 million birds die each year from ingesting lead, with
population level impacts to Bald and Golden Eagles. In addition,
recovery of the endangered California Condor is currently being
prevented by ongoing lead poisonings. To address this threat, we ask
FWS to:
1. Move to phase out lead ammunition and fishing tackle within a
reasonable time period.
2. Provide interim protection from lead within the range of the
California Condor, on National Wildlife Refuges, and on other important
bird areas.
3. Provide funds for hunter education, outreach, and acquisition of
nontoxic products to facilitate a smooth transition away from lead.
[This statement was submitted by Steve Holmer, Vice President of
Policy, American Bird Conservancy.]
______
Prepared Statement of the American Hiking Society
With the full support of American Trails, American Motorcyclist
Association, Back Country Horsemen of America, Equine Land Conservation
Resource, International Mountain Bicycling Association, National
Wilderness Stewardship Alliance, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy.
Chair Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski, and members of the
subcommittee, on behalf of American Hiking Society and the millions of
trail users our collective organizations represent who spend their
time, money and energy to get out on trails for recreation, health and
wellness, and to volunteer, I thank the Committee for the opportunity
to provide testimony on the importance of adequately funding our
Nation's trails and public lands to ensure access for all. We ask the
Committee to adopt the following funding requests so the Federal
Government can continue to leverage private contributions and benefit
from volunteer labor as well as provide inexpensive, healthy outdoor
recreation options for your constituents and all Americans.
Appropriations for Federal land management agencies requested herein,
coupled with the significant resources provided by non-profit partners,
serve to accelerate collective stewardship of our Nation's public lands
and waters and enhance climate adaptability.
summary of requests
Forest Service:
--Capital Improvement and Maintenance (CMTL), Trails at $30.51M,
including $11.957M for National Scenic and Historic Trails, and
funding for the National Forest System Trail Stewardship Trail
Partner Funding;
--$72M to fund Recreation, Heritage & Wilderness;
--$100M to fund Legacy Roads & Trails as a separate line item
Bureau of Land Management:
--Trails Line Item
--National Conservation Lands at $87.145M;
--$9.644M to fund National Conservation Lands- National Scenic
Historic Trails, sub-activity Recreation Resources Management,
$1.5M for deferred maintenance projects on the Iditarod and
Pacific Crest Trails, and $10k for an Indigenous Places Names
project on the Arizona Trail
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:
--Refuge Visitor Services at least $93M
National Park Service:
--Rivers, Trails, & Conservation Assistance (RTCA) program at $15M;
--Park Service Operations for the National Trails System maintained
at a minimum of $22.18M;
--Volunteers in Parks programs at a minimum of $8M, including
dedicated funding to the National Trails System;
--Visitor Services sub-activity, Youth Partnership Programs at a
minimum of $10.95M, including an acknowledgment of the benefits
for trails;
--Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership (ORLP) Program, at a min
$125M
US Geological Survey:
--$1.5M to fully fund the National Digital Trail Project (NDTP)
(Across Agencies) Restore Staffing for Federal Land Managers
forest service recommendation
National Forest trails benefit everyone and receive increasing
public use each year. Collectively, the National Forests provide
159,000 miles of trails for activities ranging from hiking, biking,
horseback riding, off-highway vehicle usage, groomed winter trails for
cross-country skiing and snowmobiling, and access points for ``river
trails.'' Roughly 120,000 of the 159,000 miles of trails are in need of
some form of maintenance or repair.
Program: Capital Improvement and Maintenance, Trails
FY23 Funding Level Requested: $30.51M
FY22 Level: $18.5M
Department: US Department of Agriculture
Agency/Account: Forest Service, Capital Improvement and Maintenance,
Trails
Report Language requested: ``Volunteer groups, Tribal organizations,
and non-profit partners are integral to the trail building and
maintenance required for the 159,000 miles of trails on National Forest
System lands, including more than 10,000 miles of nationally designated
scenic, historic, and recreation trails. The Committee supports the
Forest Service's 10-Year Trail Shared Stewardship Challenge and
continuing the Trail Stewardship Partner Funding Program to facilitate
these efforts. The Committee is aware of the growing need to sustain
and increase the capacity for resilient trail building within the
outdoor recreation community.''
``National Scenic and Historic Trails.--The Committee directs the
Forest Service to continue to provide specific trail operation,
maintenance, and construction funding and accomplishment data for the
National scenic and historic trails in future budget justifications.''
Program: National Forest System Trail Stewardship Trail Partner Funding
Program
Department: US Department of Agriculture
Agency/Account: Forest Service, Capital Improvement and Maintenance,
Trails
Report Language requested: Within Capital Improvement and Maintenance,
Trails the committee supports continued funding for the National Forest
System Trail Stewardship Trail Partner Funding Program. Much of the
Forest Service's trail work is accomplished today by volunteer groups
and non-profit partners. The Forest Service has a successful Trail
Stewardship Partner Funding challenge cost share program that leverages
Federal funding by 3 to 5:1.
Program: Recreation, Heritage & Wilderness
FY23 Funding Level Requested: $72
FY22 Level: $38M
Department: US Department of Agriculture
Agency/Account: Forest Service, Recreation, Heritage & Wilderness
Program: Legacy Roads & Trails
FY23 Funding Level Requested: $100M
FY22 Level: $5M & restored line item.
Department: US Department of Agriculture
Agency/Account: Forest Service, Legacy Roads & Trails
blm recommendation
The BLM manages 13,468 miles of trails over 245 million acres -more
land than any other Federal land management agency and contains a
diversity of landscapes that often provide the public less structured
but nonetheless diverse recreational opportunities. BLM recreation
resources and visitor services support strong local economies. More
than 120 urban centers and thousands of rural towns (comprising 64
million people) are located within 25 miles of BLM lands.
Program: Bureau of Land Management Trails Funding
FY23 Funding Level Requested: See Report Language Below
FY22 Level: Report Language Included
Department: Bureau of Land Management
Agency/Account: Trails
Report Language requested: ``The committee directs the Bureau of Land
Management to create a trails line item in the BLM budget, including
$9.63M for National Scenic and Historic Trails.''
Program: National Conservation Lands
FY23 Funding Level Requested: $87.145M
FY22 Level: $49.274M
Department: Bureau of Land Management
Agency/Account: Bureau of Land Management, National Conservation Lands
Program: National Conservation Lands-National Scenic Historic Trails,
sub-activity Recreation Resources Management
FY23 Funding Level Requested: $9.63M
FY22 Level: $6.547M
Department: Bureau of Land Management
Agency/Account: Bureau of Land Management, National Conservation Lands
Report Language requested: Within National Conservation Lands, unit-
level allocations for each of the National scenic and historic trails
shall be provided.
fws recommendation
Refuge Visitor Services provides funding for trail maintenance
across FWS-managed land. Located in every U.S. state and territory, and
within an hour's drive of nearly every major U.S. city, National
Wildlife Refuges provide incredible opportunities for outdoor
recreation, including hiking, hunting, fishing, birding, boating and
nature photography across 2,500 miles of trails. More than 37,000 jobs
are reliant on refugees. Funding at a level of $93M will provide for
trail maintenance across the land and water trails, refuges, wetlands,
and hatcheries, including 11 National Scenic and Historic Trails and
forty-four National Recreation Trails.
Program: Visitor Services
FY23 Funding Level Requested: $93M
FY22 Level: $77.237M
Department: Department of Interior
Agency/Account: Fish and Wildlife Service, Visitor Services
nps recommendation
National Parks, and the world-class experiences their 18,844 miles
of trails provide, are one of the most unifying forces in America.
Well-maintained trails improve the quality of visitor experiences and
enhance visitor safety.
Program: Rivers, Trails, & Conservation Assistance (RTCA)
FY23 Funding Level Requested: $15M
FY22 Level: Unknown
Department: Department of Interior
Agency/Account: National Park Service, National Recreation and
Preservation
Report Language requested: Within, National Recreation and
Preservation, $15M for the Rivers, Trails, & Conservation Assistance
program.
Program: National Trails System
FY23 Funding Level Requested: $22.18M
FY22 Level: $16.856M
Department: Department of Interior
Agency/Account: National Park Service, Park Service Operations
Report Language requested: Within, Park Service Operations, $22.18M for
administration of the National Trails System.
``National Trails System.--The Committee understands the importance
of providing adequate funding to develop and maintain the National
Trails System for future generations to enjoy. The Committee urges the
Service to continue its efforts to support construction and maintenance
projects and volunteer coordination efforts, including activities in
support of non-unit National Scenic Trails.''
Program: Volunteers in Parks
FY23 Funding Level Requested: $8M
FY22 Level: Unknown
Department: Department of Interior
Agency/Account: National Park Service, Park Partnership Support
Functions
Report Language requested: The committee recommends funding through
Volunteers in Parks be provided for volunteer support of the National
Trails System, National Rivers, and National Park Service trails.
Program: Youth Partnership Programs
FY23 Funding Level Requested: $10.95M
FY22 Level: Unknown
Department: Department of Interior
Agency/Account: National Park Service, Visitor Services
Bill Language requested:
Report Language requested: The committee recommends funding through the
Youth Partnership Programs be provided for support of the National
Trails System, National Rivers, and National Park Service trails.
Program: Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership
FY23 Funding Level Requested: At least $125M
FY22 Level: Unknown
Department: Department of Interior
Agency/Account: National Park Service, State Conservation Grants
Report Language requested: The committee recommends funding through the
Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership Program be provided for support
of trails, including the National Trails System.
us geological survey recommendation
Program: National Digital Trail Project
FY23 Funding Level Requested: $1.
FY22 Level: $0.85M
Department: U.S. Geological Survey
Agency/Account: U.S. Geological Survey, Core Science Systems
(across agencies) restore staffing for federal land managers
recommendation
Federal land managers, including those overseeing recreation and trails
programs across NPS, USFS, BLM, and FWS sites, continue to face
staffing shortages impacting the ability to adequately manage,
maintain, and conserve the Nation's trails. Across the board land
management agency staffing needs to be increased in order to support
all aspects of trail management and maintenance, including volunteer
engagement and partnerships, land acquisition, on the ground
maintenance of trails systems that are desperately in need of attention
to reduce maintenance backlogs, ensure that trails are safe and
accessible, and address current and anticipated high levels of public
use.
[This statement was submitted by Kathryn Van Waes, PhD., Executive
Director, American Hiking Society.]
______
Prepared Statement of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium
(AIHEC)
request summary
On behalf of the Nation's Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs),
which are the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), we
are pleased to present our Fiscal Year 2023 (FY 2023) appropriations
recommendations for the 29 colleges funded under Titles I and II of the
Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities Assistance Act (TCU Act);
the two tribally chartered career and technical postsecondary
institutions funded under Title V of the TCU Act; the two Bureau of
Indian Education (BIE) postsecondary institutions; and the Institute of
American Indian Arts (IAIA). The BIE administers these programs, with
the exception of IAIA, which is funded in its own account. We
respectfully recommend the following funding levels:
department of the interior
--$93,257,409 to fund institutional operations under Title I
($75,447,409) and Title II ($17,000,000), along with TCU
Endowments ($109,000) and technical assistance ($701,000), of
the TCU Act. This funding would provide the Congressionally
authorized amount of $9,937*/Indian student for first time
since the enactment of the TCU Act more than 40 years ago
(*$8,000 per Indian student adjusted for inflation). This
request also provides an additional $100,000 for needed
technical assistance, which has been level-funded for 15 years
despite growing numbers of developing TCUs and increased
demands for accountability and student success.
--$15,000,000 for Title V of the TCU Act, which provides partial
institutional operations funding for two tribally chartered
postsecondary career and technical institutions.
--$11,772,000 for the Institute of American Indian Arts.
--$30,000,000 for Haskell Indian Nations University and Southwestern
Indian Polytechnic Institute, the BIE's two postsecondary
institutions.
--$35,000,000 for TCU Infrastructure Improvement, authorized under
section 113 of the TCU Act.
opportunity and innovation in indian country
The nation's 35 accredited TCUs operate more than 75 campuses and
sites in 15 States. TCU geographic boundaries encompass 80 percent of
American Indian reservations and Federal Indian trust lands. American
Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) TCU students represent more than 230
federally recognized Tribes and hail from more than 30 States. Nearly
80 percent of these students receive Federal financial aid and nearly
half are first generation students. In total, TCUs serve more than
160,000 AI/ANs and other rural residents each year through a wide
variety of academic and community-based programs. TCUs are public
institutions, chartered by federally recognized Indian Tribes or the
Federal Government. No TCU is chartered by any other entity, and
although several financially challenged institutions may desire to be a
Tribal Colleges or University, the criteria and standards are
unambiguous, with Tribal control being the central pillar. Further, all
TCUs receiving Federal funding have full and sustained accreditation by
independent regional accreditation agencies and, like all U.S.
institutions of higher education, must regularly undergo stringent
performance reviews to retain their accreditation status. Each TCU is
directly accountable to its Tribal community/communities, and each one
is committed to improving the lives of its students through higher
education and to moving AI/ANs to self-sufficiency. Our collective
vision is strong sovereign Tribal Nations through excellence in Tribal
higher education. To achieve this vision, TCUs have become workforce
and job creation engines, public libraries, Tribal archives, small
business incubators, and community computer labs. They operate Native
language learning centers and immersion programs, community gardens,
economic development centers, childcare centers, and applied research
hubs for everything from natural resources to food sovereignty and
community behavioral health.
Despite the hope and opportunity that higher education brings to
Tribal communities, as well as the trust responsibility and binding
treaty obligations, the Federal Government has never fully funded TCU
institutional operations authorized under the TCU Act (*$9,937 per
Indian student = $8,000 per Indian student adjusted for inflation). But
TCUs are resilient and resourceful, and we are proud to be leading the
Nation in many areas, including preparing an AI/AN workforce of nurses,
land managers, and teachers for tribal-serving schools. For example,
half of all AI/AN special education teachers in Montana are graduates
of Salish Kootenai College. TCUs prepare professionals in high-demand
fields, including agriculture and natural resources management,
information technology, and building trades. By teaching the job skills
most in demand on our reservations, TCUs are laying a foundation for
Tribal economic growth, which is the only way to move Tribes and Tribal
members to self-sufficiency. Yet, we know that workforce development is
not enough. We must do more to accelerate the move to self-
sufficiency--we must move beyond simple workforce training. We must
create new industries and new businesses and build a new culture of
innovation. Our job creation initiative is focusing initially on
advanced manufacturing through a partnership with the U.S. Department
of Energy, National Laboratories, TCUs, and industry. Already, we are
seeing results with new TCU-Tribal-Industry partnerships, new
contracting opportunities, and new jobs for our students and graduates.
Tribal Colleges and Universities continually seek to instill a
sense of hope and identity within AI/AN youth, who will one day lead
our Tribal nations. Unacceptably, the high school dropout rate for AI/
AN students remains around 50 percent. TCUs work with local schools to
create a bridge for AI/AN students as early as elementary school,
encouraging them to stay focused on achievable goals, finish high
school, and go on to the local TCU. TCUs offer dual credit courses for
high school students, provide math teachers for local high schools to
improve course delivery, and host weekend academies, after school
programs, and summer camps for middle and high school students. At the
other end of the spectrum, TCUs offer GED/HiSET training and testing
and have 2+2 partnerships to bridge programs with regional
universities. All are solid steps to bolster future prospects for AI/AN
youth and break the cycle of generational poverty.
covid-19 pandemic impact on tcus
Despite facing serious financial, Internet connectivity and
equipment, and faculty professional development challenges that are far
worse than other schools and colleges in the U.S. and having student
(and faculty) populations at greater health risk than other groups in
the U.S., the Nation's 35 accredited TCUs have worked diligently to
respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in a comprehensive manner, addressing
both the needs of students and community. As place-based, community-
anchoring institutions, TCUs had no choice but to continue to serve
Tribal nations to the best of their abilities. Most TCUs have not
closed at any point during the pandemic, and those that ceased
operations did so only for a few weeks. As TCUs work to mitigate the
devasting impacts of the pandemic in Tribal communities, TCUs are also
facing drastic changes in enrollment with a future impact on Federal
funding formulas.
Academic Year (AY) 2022-23 Challenges: As the economic decline
resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic extends into the foreseeable
future, the losses facing TCUs are growing. Most TCUs start their
fiscal year on July 1. As TCUs plan for fiscal Year 2023 (AY 2022-23),
they face:
--Reduction in support from chartering Tribal governments due to
Tribal enterprise revenue losses, and the need for Tribes to
divert scarce resources to address critical COVID-19 response
issues (e.g. Tribal health budget increases, growing Tribal
member safety net expenses). Past Tribal TCU support in 2018-
19: $33,331,078; support in 2017-18: $31,049,542.
--Declines in enrollment as students drop out or fail to return
because they lack Internet connectivity and cannot participate
in online classes or because they need to increase work hours
(if jobs are available) to help support families in economic
crisis. TCU Fall 2019 Enrollment: 15,114; TCU Fall 2020
Enrollment: 14,844.
--Students facing growing financial challenges are unable to fully
pay tuition and fees. This results in TCUs providing tuition
waivers and writing off more tuition payments than in previous
years. TCUs--as place-based, open door institutions--write off
a significant amount of tuition each year because they want
students to benefit from the opportunity of higher education.
Annual TCU tuition write-off: 2019-20: $4,405,422; 2018-19:
$4,000,595; 2017-18: $2,906,650.
tcu infrastructure needs: broadband, facilities, and operations &
maintenance neglected for 40 years
For TCUs to realize our goals of strengthening our Tribes as
sovereign nations and building a 21st century Native workforce, TCUs
must have the facilities and infrastructure capable of educating and
training students in a safe environment. It simply cannot be done on
the scale needed in classrooms with leaking roofs and exposed and
substandard electrical wiring; outdated computer labs; students
sleeping in cars and trucks because there are no dorms; and the
slowest--yet most expensive--Internet access of any institution of
higher education in the country. Yet, that is what TCUs are asked to
do.
We thank the House and Senate Interior Appropriations Committees
for working together in fiscal Year 2021 to provide $15 million to
create the new BIE ``Tribal Colleges and Universities Facilities
Improvement and Repair Fund''. In July 2021, each TCU received $428,571
to begin to address urgent facilities and maintenance needs. In order
to build on the committee's initial investment, we recommend further
investments in the following areas:
TCU Facilities Study: We recommend the subcommittee provide funding
for a comprehensive and unbiased TCU Facilities Study, to include all
35 accredited TCUs. to survey the condition of existing facilities,
examine facilities-related health and safety concerns, and identify
current and long-term infrastructure needs (25 U.S.C. 1812). Originally
authorized over 40 years ago in the TCU Act, an in-depth study will
provide a thorough inventory of facilities-related needs.
TCU Infrastructure Construction: The results of the proposed TCU
facilities study will likely expand on the needs identified in a July
2021 AIHEC survey, which revealed many chronic unmet facilities and
infrastructure needs, including lack of student and faculty housing,
inadequate classroom space, insufficient libraries, and outdated
laboratories. The self-reported survey resulted with the following
estimates: $400 million (total) in deferred maintenance and
rehabilitation costs and $2.7 billion (total) to complete existing
master plans. We respectfully request $35 million be allocated in
fiscal Year 2023 to begin addressing TCU infrastructure needs.
TCU Operations and Maintenance Account: In order to properly
manage, fully use, and extend the lifespan of TCU facilities, AIHEC
recommends the subcommittee provide funding for a TCU Facilities
Operations and Maintenance Account. Currently, BIE K-12 schools receive
operations and maintenance funding to address safety and health
concerns, perform routine maintenance to optimize the lifecycle of
facility-related systems, and protect land and property value. As
outlined throughout this document, TCUs are creatively addressing a
myriad list of needs with limited, thinly stretched budgets. The
creation of a dedicated TCU Operations and Maintenance Account would
allow TCUs to fully use current BIE TCU operational funding for
``academic, educational, and administrative purposes'' as outlined in
the TCU Act, while building more parity within the BIE K-20 system.
challenges: indian student count and growth isc formula and non-
beneficiaries
As noted earlier, TCU operations funding remains insufficient, and
our budgets are further disadvantaged; because, unlike other
institutions of higher education, most TCUs receive operations funding
based on the number of Indian students served, with ``Indian student''
defined as a member of a federally recognized Tribe or a biological
child of an enrolled Tribal member. Yet, approximately 15 percent of
TCU enrollments are non-Indian students. Many TCUs seek operating funds
from their respective state legislatures for non-Indian state-resident
students (``non-beneficiary students''), but success has been
inconsistent. Given their locations, often hundreds of miles from
another postsecondary institution, TCUs are open to all students,
Indian and non-Indian, because we know that postsecondary education is
the catalyst to a better economic future in rural America.
growth of tcus
Since the enactment of the TCU Act more than 40 years ago, TCUs
have never received the modest Congressionally authorized funding level
($9,937 per Indian student, $8,000 adjusted for inflation). Yet, we are
so close: an increase of $17 million over the fiscal Year 2021 level is
all that we need to fully fund TCUs for the first time ever. In the
context of other Federal programs, our request is quite modest. For
example, the only other minority serving institution that receives
operating funding from the Federal Government, Howard University,
received $205,788,000 for undergraduate programs in fiscal Year 2019,
or about $23,000 student, along with $3 million for its endowment. We
ask only for $9,937 per student for the Title I TCUs.
Over the past 10 years, this subcommittee has worked diligently to
provide the extra resources needed to enable all TCUs to be funded on
an academic year schedule. We are extremely grateful for this. The
benefit to TCUs of being able to plan an annual budget and start the
academic year with operating funding has been tremendous. Yet, during
the time it took to provide this funding, four new TCUs became eligible
to receive funding under Title I of the TCU Act: College of the
Muscogee Nation (Okmulgee, OK), Red Lake Nation College (Red Lake, MN),
Tohono O'odham Community College (Sells, AZ), and White Earth Tribal
and Community College (Mahnomen, MN). Unfortunately, Title I funding
has not kept pace with inflation, much less received increases
sufficient to support new TCUs. For example, between fiscal Year 2014-
2018, funding for the 28 Title I TCUs was flat despite the growing need
for higher education across Indian Country. As we move forward, we are
worried about TCU operating funding: at least three new TCUs could join
the pool soon (Alaska Pacific University, California Tribal College,
and San Carlos Apache College). The addition of these TCUs is important
for Indian Country, but only if support is available to ensure that
they can operate effectively.
conclusion
TCUs provide quality higher education to thousands of AI/ANs and
other rural residents and provide essential community programs and
services to those who might otherwise not have access to such
opportunities. The modest Federal investment in TCUs has paid great
dividends in terms of employment, education, and economic development
and has significantly reduced social, health care, and law enforcement
costs. The global pandemic has exacerbated existing challenges and
created new challenges for TCUs as they plan for an uncertain future.
More than even, TCUs need your ongoing support. We appreciate the
subcommittee's past support of the Nation's TCUs and your thoughtful
consideration of our fiscal Year 2023 appropriations requests.
[This statement was submitted by Carrie L. Billy, President & CEO.]
______
Prepared Statement of the American Institute of Biological Sciences
The American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) appreciates
the opportunity to provide testimony in support of appropriations for
the Smithsonian Institution, United States Geological Survey (USGS),
United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) for fiscal year 2023. We encourage Congress to
provide additional funding to the Smithsonian Institution in fiscal
Year 2023, including at least $60 million to the National Museum of
Natural History with new funding to support scientific and curatorial
work. We urge Congress to provide the USGS with $1.85 billion in fiscal
Year 2023, with at least $360 million for its Ecosystems Mission Area.
We further request that Science Support within USFWS be provided at
least $36 million in fiscal Year 2023. Lastly, we request that Congress
provide EPA Science and Technology with at least $850 million in fiscal
Year 2023.
The unprecedented loss of biological diversity and the associated
negative impacts on human health and well-being are of significant
concern. As human population grows and people increasingly come into
contact with new environments and species migrating into new habitats,
the risk of new diseases, such as zoonotic pandemics, is of growing
concern. Biological diversity, however, offers a buffer against the
spread of pathogens and contributes to environmental sustainability and
increases our resilience to natural disasters. Robust Federal
investments in scientific research and monitoring that improves our
understanding of biological diversity and ecosystem function must be a
priority as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. The agencies funded
by this appropriations bill are centrally involved in conducting,
supporting, and using this scientific research for public benefit.
AIBS is a scientific association dedicated to promoting the use of
science to inform decision-making that advances the biological sciences
for the benefit of science and society. AIBS works to ensure that the
public, legislators, funders, and the community of biologists have
access to information to guide informed decision-making.
smithsonian institution
Scientific collections and the professionals and scientists who
collect, care for, and study these resources are a vital component of
our Nation's research infrastructure and bioeconomy. Collections are a
critical resource for advancing the knowledge needed to address current
global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and
pandemics.
The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History
(NMNH) is a valuable Federal partner in the curation of and research on
scientific specimens. Scientists at the NMNH care for 146 million
scientific specimens and ensure the strategic growth of this
internationally recognized scientific research institution. To increase
the availability of these scientific resources to researchers,
educators, other Federal agencies, and the public, NMNH is working on a
multi-year effort to digitize its collections and make the data
available online. That effort will substantially increase the use of
these collections by researchers, educators and students, and
policymakers. NMNH is also working to strengthen curatorial and
research staffing and to backfill positions left open by retirements
and budget constraints. The current staffing level is insufficient to
provide optimal care for the collections. Future curatorial and
collections management staffing levels may be further jeopardized given
prior funding cuts at science agencies, such as the USGS that, until
recently, supported staff positions at NMNH.
The budget for NMNH has not seen adequate increases in recent
years. We urge Congress to provide NMNH with at least $60 million in
fiscal Year 2023 to allow the museum to undertake critical collections
care, make needed technology upgrades, and conduct cutting edge
research.
u.s. geological survey
The USGS provides unbiased, independent research, data, and
assessments that are needed by public and private sector decision-
makers. Data generated by the USGS save taxpayers money by enabling
more effective management of water and biological resources and
providing essential geospatial information that is needed for
commercial activity and natural resource management. The data collected
by the USGS are simply not available from other sources.
The Ecosystems Mission Area is the biological research arm of USGS
and is integral to the agency's other science mission areas. It
provides the science needed to achieve sustainable management and
conservation of natural resources and inform land and water
stewardship. The USGS conducts research on and monitors fish, wildlife,
and vegetation-data that informs management decisions by other Interior
bureaus. Biological science programs collect and analyze long-term data
not available from other agencies, universities, or the private sector.
The knowledge generated by the USGS are used by Federal and State
natural resource managers to maintain healthy and diverse ecosystems
while balancing the needs of public use.
Examples of successful USGS Ecosystem initiatives include:
--Development of comprehensive geospatial data products that
characterize the risk of wildfires on all lands in the United
States. These products are used to allocate firefighting
resources and to plan wildfire fuel reduction projects.
--Development and evaluation of control measures and other management
interventions for invasive species, such as Asian carp and sea
lamprey, that cause billions of dollars in economic losses to
fisheries, hydropower, recreation, and many other industries.
--Development of the scientific understanding needed to combat the
spread of avian flu, white-nose syndrome, and other diseases
spread by wildlife in North America, including diseases that
can jump from wild populations to livestock, agricultural
systems, and humans.
The USGS also supports critical science needed to respond to a
number of national and global challenges. Examples of the important
work conducted by the USGS include:
--The National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers. This
program is responsible for developing the science and tools to
address the effects of climate change on land, water, wildlife,
fish, ecosystems, and communities. These centers play a vital
role in addressing the impacts of unique weather patterns on
ecosystem health across the country.
--The National Wildlife Health Center. This USGS-wide program
investigates national and international wildlife health issues,
including the spread of zoonotic pathogens, such as the virus
that causes COVID-19. Zoonoses-diseases that spread from
wildlife to humans-can pose serious threats to human health and
cause significant disruptions to the economy.
--Cooperative Research Units (CRUs). CRUs are located on 40
university campuses in 38 States. These research centers are a
cost-effective way for USGS to leverage research and technical
expertise affiliated with these universities to conduct
actionable research, provide technical assistance, and develop
scientific workforces through graduate education and mentoring
programs.
--Environmental Health Research. The Toxic Substances Hydrology and
Contaminant Biology programs work collaboratively with other
USGS Mission Areas, and with many external collaborators to
study environmental contaminants and pathogens in the
environment and provide the critical science needed to help
Federal, State, and local government agencies, the private
sector, non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholder
groups protect fish and wildlife health.
--Research on ecosystems of concern. This research is a critical
component of efforts to restore and manage important national
resources, such as the Everglades and the Chesapeake Bay. The
Changing Arctic Ecosystems initiative conducts research on
wildlife and habitat responses to ecosystem change in the
Arctic to inform land and species management decisions and
address the needs of Arctic residents, including Native
communities.
In summary, the USGS is uniquely positioned to provide a scientific
context for many of the Nation's biological and environmental
challenges, including pandemics, water quality and use, energy
independence, and conservation of biodiversity. This array of research
expertise not only serves the core missions of the Department of the
Interior, but also contributes to management decisions made by other
agencies and private sector organizations. USGS science also enables
cost-effective decisions, as the agency's activities help to identify
the most efficient management actions. Increased investments in these
important research activities will yield dividends.
We urge Congress to provide significant funding increases to the
Ecosystems Mission Area. In recent years, the budget for USGS has
stagnated. Failure to make critical investments in the research
conducted by the agency will hamper long-term data collection
initiatives, lead to critical data loss, and undermine the Nation's
ability to address national challenges.
We request that Congress fund USGS at $1.85 billion in fiscal Year
2023, with at least $360 million for the Ecosystems mission area.
u.s. fish and wildlife service
Funding for the Science Support program within USFWS has remained
essentially flat at $17.3 million since fiscal Year 2018. The program
is slated to receive $23 million in fiscal Year 2022, $13 million below
the level requested by President Biden. The Science Support program
provides scientific information needed by USFWS, such as research on
conservation of priority species prior to Endangered Species Act
listing, the impacts of energy production on wildlife, and best
management practices for combating invasive species, and needs to be
robustly funded.
We request that Science Support be provided at least $36 million in
fiscal Year 2023.
environmental protection agency
Funding for EPA Science and Technology supports valuable research
that identifies and mitigates environmental problems. EPA research
informs decisions made by public health and safety managers, natural
resource managers, businesses, and other stakeholders concerned about
air and water pollution, human health, and land management and
restoration. This program provides the scientific basis upon which EPA
monitoring and enforcement programs are built.
Despite the important role of EPA Science and Technology in the
Federal Government's ability to ensure that people have clean air and
water, funding for its programs in recent years has remained
significantly lower than the level enacted in fiscal Year 2010.
Although President Biden proposed to increase EPA's overall budget by
21 percent in fiscal Year 2022, Congress provided only a 3 percent
increase to the agency. Strong increases in funding are needed for
programs such as the Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Research Grants
Program, which supports extramural research that advances EPA's mission
to protect human health and the environment, and the Global Change
Research program, which develops scientific information that allows
policy makers, stakeholders, and society to respond to climate change.
Please provide at least $850 million in fiscal Year 2023 to support
scientific research at the EPA. This much needed increase will allow
the agency to provide resources for efforts to protect and restore our
Nation's natural resources.
conclusion
We urge Congress to sustain its bipartisan support for science by
investing in our Nation's scientific capacity. Thank you for your
thoughtful consideration of this request.
[This statement was submitted by Jyotsna Pandey, Ph.D., Public
Policy Director.]
______
Prepared Statement of American Lung Association
Summary of FY 2023 Appropriations Recommendations:
--EPA topline--$11.9 billion
--Clean Air Program overall--$705.57 million
--Climate Protection Program--$135.38 million
--Federal Support for Air Quality Management--$299.4 million
--Federal Vehicle Fuels Standards and Certifications Programs--$152.2
million
--Categorical Grants: State and Local Air Quality Management--$500
million
--Categorical Grants: Tribal Air Quality Management--$33 million
--Compliance Monitoring--$144.77 million
--Enforcement--$291.3 million
--Environmental Justice Enforcement--$294.93
--Diesel Emissions Reduction Grant Program--$150 million
--EPA Radon Program--$5 million
--Categorical Grant: Radon--$16 million
--New Wildfire Smoke Protection Program--$15 million
Thank you for the opportunity to provide written testimony to
highlight the funding priorities of the American Lung Association
within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for fiscal year 2023
(FY23). The American Lung Association is the leading organization
working to save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung
disease through education, advocacy and research. Between the toll of
lung cancer, the prevalence of asthma, the harms of unhealthy air and
the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, investments in the
Nation's lung health are critical. We urge the Committee to support
$11.9 billion in funding for the Environmental Protection Agency.
EPA programs save lives and improve lung health. The Agency is
responsible for setting and enforcing national air pollution standards;
supporting State, local and Tribal air quality monitoring and pollution
reduction efforts; educating the public about air toxics and air
pollution; issuing grants to retrofit dirty diesel buses and more. Air
pollution poses a threat to the health of all Americans, but there is
someone in every family at heightened risk of health harms from
breathing polluted air. There are nearly 37 million Americans living
with a chronic lung disease like asthma or chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease (COPD). Children, seniors, pregnant people and those
who work and play outside are also more likely to suffer health harms.
Additionally, people of color and those with low incomes face a greater
risk of exposure to air pollution due to communities being overlooked
for investment and enforcement in addition to longstanding racist
practices like redlining.
The President's FY23 budget includes a 25 percent increase for EPA.
We strongly support the budget request to ensure increased funding for
programs that promote clean air and enforce pollution cleanup. Funds
under EPA's Clean Air Program are used in part to assist States, Tribes
and local air pollution control agencies with implementing
comprehensive air quality management programs to meet the National air
quality standards. This program also includes testing and oversight to
ensure vehicles are emitting lawful amounts of pollution into the air
as well as efforts to reduce carbon pollution, methane, and other
climate pollutants to protect public health from the impacts of climate
change. Please provide $523.97 million for Environmental Programs and
Management and $181.6 million for Science and Technology. Within this
program area, the Lung Association specifically requests $135.38
million for the Climate Protection Program; $299.4 million for Federal
Support for Air Quality Management; and $152.2 million for Federal
Vehicle Fuels Standards and Certifications Programs.
Accurately monitoring the air we breathe is the first step to
addressing air pollution. Unfortunately, State, local and Tribal air
agencies--who run most of the Nation's air quality monitoring system--
have been perennially underfunded, and many areas are operating with
out-of-date monitors. The Government Accountability Office release a
report in 2020 showing that there has been a 20 percent decrease in
funds, adjusted for inflation, since 2004.\1\ Grant dollars provided
under Section 103 and 105 of the Clean Air Act help fund air quality
monitoring work, which informs the public of risks to their health and
identifies areas in need of cleanup. We appreciated additional funds
that were provided in the American Rescue Plan, but we know that more,
regular and consistent funding is needed so that State, local and
Tribal air agencies can add, upgrade and maintain air monitors and
improve engagement with the public to protect health, as part of a
multi-year, sustained investment in these critical programs. The
National Association of Clean Air Agencies, an organization that
represents many of the Section 103 and 105 recipients, surveyed its
members to determine what they will need to successfully implement
their programs under current and anticipated Federal requirements. The
results showed that air agencies need large increases if they are to
adequately protect health by monitoring air pollution levels.\2\ Please
provide $500 million for State and Local Air Quality Management
Categorical Grants and $33 million for Tribal Air Quality Management
Categorical Grants.
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\1\ Government Accountability Office. (2020). Air Pollution:
Opportunities to Better Sustain and Modernize the National Air Quality
Monitoring System (GAO-21-38)
\2\ National Association of Clean Air Agencies fiscal Year 2023
Funding One Pager February 2022 https://www.4cleanair.org/wp-content/
uploads/NACAA-FY-2023-Funding-One-Pager-February-2022-2.pdf
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Compliance with EPA's air quality rules must be enforced if these
safeguards are to truly achieve their intended health benefits.
Investment in EPA's enforcement work is critical to ensure the public
is protected from dangerous air pollution as the law requires. EPA must
have the ability and funding needed to reduce non-compliance, as well
as enforce penalties for violations. EPA must also be prepared to
respond to civil enforcement actions authorized by the Clean Air Act.
Additionally, air pollution does not impact everyone equally. The
Administration has tasked EPA with prioritizing righting environmental
injustices. To do so effectively, EPA needs dedicated funding for
environmental justice. Please provide $144.77 million for compliance
monitoring, $291.3 million for enforcement and $294.93 dedicated for
enforcing environmental justice commitments.
One of the programs within EPA that continues to receive bipartisan
support is the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) Program. Millions
of old, dirty diesel engines are in use today that pollute communities,
threaten workers and cause lung cancer. According to a 2019 EPA report,
the Committee's continued investments in this program have yielded up
to $30 in health benefits for every $1 spent.\3\ Immense opportunities
remain to reduce diesel emissions through the DERA program, and we urge
the Committee to appropriate $150 million in FY23. Additionally, we
urge the Committee to continue supporting the rapid transition to
electric school buses through the Clean School Bus Program provided by
the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Millions of children ride a
bus to school, exposing them to pollution from these dirty diesel
engines. Investing in the transition to electric school buses will
provide a safer, healthier environment for children, who are among
those most at risk of health harm from breathing in pollution.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Environmental Protection Agency (2019) DERA Fourth Report to
Congress (EPA-420-R-19-005) https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/
2019-07/documents/420r19005.pdf
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Radon is an odorless, colorless gas that seeps through the ground
as it shifts and is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the
United States. EPA's radon program and its State Indoor Radon Grants
are the only nationwide tools that help prevent exposure to radon.
States and Tribes depend on these programs to educate the public and
fight this deadly carcinogen. We recommend $5 million for EPA's Radon
Program and $16 million for the State Indoor Radon Grants.
Additionally, we recommend that the Agency move away from the use of
the EPA zone map to indicate areas of concern. Radon is a dangerous
substance that should be tested for and abated regularly. The EPA radon
zone map is outdated and could falsely lead families to thinking their
zone 1 community is safe, when in reality, every home has the potential
to have unsafe levels of radon.
We are also renewing our request for a new program to be housed
with EPA and note that the President's Budget Request includes a new
program at the agency to address the health impacts of wildfires and
wildfire smoke. Wildfires are no longer a rare occurrence, making
wildfire smoke an urgent and increasing threat to health. Currently
there are knowledge gaps, particularly on how wildfires affect the
health of those living in downwind States, and there is a lack of a
focused Federal response to health impacts. EPA would be well equipped
to provide that Federal response with additional resources. The Lung
Association requests a total of $15 million in funding to address these
impacts, including $5 million to establish Wildfire Smoke Health
Centers in Collaboration with US Forest Service Missoula Fire Sciences
Laboratory; $7 million for targeted research on wildfire smoke exposure
and policy; and $3 million for EPA to coordinate interagency science,
management and communication strategies for addressing wildfires.
Lastly, the American Lung Association also asks for your leadership
in opposing all policy riders that would weaken key lung health
protections, including those in the Clean Air Act. Policy riders have
no place in appropriations bills, and the Lung Association strongly
opposes attempts to include them, especially riders that would make it
harder to protect Americans from air pollution.
Investments in EPA programs are critical to protecting public
health. On behalf of the Lung Association, I thank you for your
consideration of these requests.
[This statement was submitted by Harold P. Wimmer, National
President and CEO, American Lung Association.]
______
Prepared Statement of Animal Welfare Institute
The Animal Welfare Institute, a nonprofit national animal welfare
advocacy organization, asks the subcommittee to provide adequate
funding levels for crucial wildlife programs and to include measures to
protect at-risk species.
wild horses and burros (blm & fs)
The BLM, which oversees the vast majority of America's wild horses
and burros, continues to mismanage herds, relying on an endless cycle
of costly removals from public lands instead of implementing
immunocontraceptive vaccines to control fertility rates and manage
these federally protected animals on the range. Under its current plan
(based on the BLM's May 2020 report to Congress), the BLM has called
for accelerated removals at a cost of roughly $900 million in the first
5 years alone. For FY22, the BLM plans to gather and remove at least
19,000 wild horses. But while the agency spends upwards of $70 million
annually on removals and holding, it has spent less than 1 percent of
its WHB program budget on fertility control in recent years. We ask the
subcommittee to again include a directive for a minimum of $11 million
within the BLM's existing WHB program budget to go towards the
administration of proven and safe immunocontraceptive vaccines--
specifically the widely supported porcine zona pellucida (PZP) vaccine,
as per the National Academy of Sciences recommendation. Moreover, we
strongly support the continued inclusion of provisions to ensure that
both BLM- and U.S. Forest Service-managed wild equines cannot be
destroyed for commercial purposes in order to protect these animals
from slaughter, as well as language preventing the destruction of
healthy, unadopted wild horses and burros.
Lastly, in recent years, the BLM has pursued attempts to manage
wild horses via a risky and invasive surgical procedure known as
``ovariectomy via colpotomy,'' which involves blindly locating the
ovaries and severing them using a rod-like tool while the animal
remains conscious. In its report on wild horse management, the NAS
explicitly warned the BLM against using this procedure due to the risks
of serious complications. Numerous lawmakers in the House and Senate
have criticized the BLM's plans to ovariectomize horses and national
polling shows overwhelming opposition to this procedure. We ask the
subcommittee to include language barring the use of Federal funds to
conduct ovariectomies on wild horses and burros so that taxpayer
dollars can be directed towards cost-effective, safe, and humane
fertility control methods such as PZP.
endangered species act implementation (fws)
We ask the subcommittee to appropriate $693.4 million across five
programs to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for the purpose of
Endangered Species Act (ESA) implementation:
--$78.71 million for Listing
--$287.0 million for Recovery
--$162.1 million for Planning and Consultation
--$15.7 million for Candidate Conservation in Conservation and
Restoration
--$149.9 million for the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation
Fund (CESCF)
Implementation of the Endangered Species Act, our Nation's most
effective law for species conservation, has been severely underfunded
for years. The FWS requires a budget of $693.4 million across five
programs to begin to make up for lost ground and put species on the
path to recovery. Critically, this includes ensuring every listed
species receives a minimum of $50,000 per year for recovery. This
funding package will allow the Endangered Species Act to be implemented
in the way Congress intended when it dedicated our country to
protecting the species and the habitats that need it most.
The funding levels requested above would help the FWS process the
backlog of 430 species that still need to be reviewed for protection
under the act; if current trends hold, one species will be declared
extinct every year in the U.S. while waiting for protection. The above
funding levels would also put adequate resources toward recovery
planning and actions for every listed species; maximizing the efficacy
and efficiency of working with other Federal agencies and with States,
counties, and private landowners; and implementing early conservation
actions that keep species from ever reaching the brink of extinction.
Additionally, CESCF serves as an essential source of funding for States
and private landowners, making it a crucial tool for cooperative
conservation.
trophy hunting (fws)
We urge the subcommittee to include language prohibiting the use of
funds by the FWS for the issuance of any permit authorizing the
importation of a sport-hunted elephant or lion trophy until the
Secretary (a) withdraws the memo issued March 1, 2018 establishing the
current policy that enhancement findings for such imports will be made
on a case-by-case basis, and (b) establishes a policy to make
enhancement findings for such imports on a country-wide basis,
including public notice and comment for enhancement findings pursuant
to section 553 of title 5, United States Code. Under this policy,
positive enhancement findings must determine whether the country where
the animal was killed adequately provides for the conservation and
monitoring for that species, including a fully funded and implemented
management plan for that species: that is based on the best available
science that addresses existing threats to the species; provides a
significant conservation benefit to the species; formally coordinates
with adjacent countries to protect transboundary populations; and
ensures that any take is sustainable and does not contribute to the
species' decline in either the short-term or long-term according to
current population estimates derived through use of the best available
science.
African elephant and lion populations in many nations have
undergone steep declines in the last decade. African elephants and
lions are both listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA),
demonstrating a scientific need for heightened protections. Between the
early 20th century and 2016, the number of elephants in Africa
plummeted from 3-5 million to approximately 400,000. In 2021, the IUCN
Red List reassessed the African savanna elephant as endangered, meaning
it faces a very high risk of extinction in the wild. African lion
populations declined by 43 percent from 1993 to 2014. The subspecies
Panthera leo melanochaita, comprising the lions of east and southern
Africa, is listed as threatened under the ESA, with only 17,000-19,000
remaining.
The FWS has responded with a series of vacillating trophy-import
policies, calling into question the degree to which the agency had
evaluated whether lion and elephant trophy imports enhanced the
survival of the species, as required under the ESA. Presently, FWS
policy is to issue permits for lion and elephant trophy imports based
on a case-by-case review of each application's enhancement finding
requirements, rather than the former approach of having rules that
applied to each species within each country of origin. Congress in its
FY20-22 appropriations packages directed FWS to reevaluate the current
policy and analyze how targeted investments and technical assistance to
these countries would impact elephant and lion survival, improve local
communities, and sustain species populations. FWS has failed to report
back to Congress.
In light of these conservation concerns, as well as of the lack of
assurance that FWS is adhering to the ESA's legal requirements, no
funds must be provided for the issuance of permits for import of
elephant and lion trophies until a thorough, scientific analysis has
been completed.
trapping (fws)
We urge the subcommittee to include the same language that was in
the FY22 House report (but not the FY22 conference report) allocating
$300,000 to the FWS to institute a 3-year pilot program that replaces
the use of body-gripping traps (Conibears, legholds, and snares) on
National Wildlife Refuge Service land by agency personnel with non-
lethal methods and equipment, with the following exceptions:
--When the body-gripping trap is used to (i) control documented
invasive species to achieve resource management objectives
where alternative methods have failed; or (ii) protect a
species that is listed as endangered or threatened under the
Endangered Species Act of 1973 (16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.) or
treated by the Forest Service as a sensitive species;
--Exception only applies when (i) such use of a body-gripping trap is
in accordance with applicable State and Federal law; (ii) prior
to use of a body-gripping trap, all available and viable
nonlethal methods for such control or protection, respectively,
are attempted; and (iii) such attempts are documented in
writing, and such documentation is maintained at the
headquarters of the department that employs the individual
engaging in such attempt.
Furthermore, we hope the subcommittee will encourage the FWS to
continue reviewing and updating both physical trapping signage and
trapping information posted on the website, and continue providing
trapping information to the subcommittee on an annual basis. In
addition, it would be highly valuable if, for each refuge listed online
as allowing trapping, the FWS specified whether the trapping is
conducted by private trappers for recreational/commercial purposes and/
or by government personnel for management purposes.
Body-gripping traps, such as snares, Conibear traps, and steel-jaw
leghold traps, are inhumane and inherently nonselective. The nontarget
animals caught in these traps include threatened and endangered
species, as well as family pets. These traps do not belong on national
wildlife refuges where families enjoy spending time outdoors, and where
anyone who trips a trap can become a victim. Refuges are a very popular
destination; the National Wildlife Refuge System attracts more than 61
million visits every year. Additionally, many wildlife refuges are
either close to or are located in urban areas.
Nonlethal methods are often highly effective and FWS personnel
would be serving both wildlife and outdoor recreation interests-such as
hiking and nature photography, which account for approximately 86
percent of total recreation-related expenditures on refuges-by
prioritizing their use.
beaver conflict mitigation (fws)
Across the country, thousands of beavers are trapped, snared, and
shot each year in an effort to prevent damage caused to property by
beaver activity. However, this killing is often unnecessary due to the
availability of cost-effective, nonlethal devices that can successfully
prevent such damage. For example, trees can be shielded by encircling
them with wire mesh fencing or coating their trunks with a mixture of
paint and sand that deters beavers from chewing. Roads, agricultural
resources, and other property can be protected from flooding by
installing water flow control devices, which allow enough water to pass
through a beaver dam to avoid flooding while ensuring sufficient pond
depth for beaver use, thus maintaining acceptable water levels.
Restraining traps and snares used to capture and kill beavers can
cause prolonged pain and unintentionally injure and kill nontarget
animals. They are also rarely, if ever, a long term-solution; beavers
dispersing in search of suitable habitat can quickly recolonize trapped
areas. By contrast, flow devices can provide long-term relief and
typically last 10 years before they need to be replaced. Nonlethal
measures to mitigate beaver conflicts are effective, cost-efficient,
long-lasting, and ecologically beneficial. These devices can protect
transportation infrastructure, buildings, agricultural lands, and other
property. Despite these benefits, no Federal programs currently exist
to promote or facilitate the use of these techniques.
We urge the subcommittee to recognize the ecological benefits
beavers provide to landscapes and ecosystems across the country by
providing $3,000,000 to the Fish and Wildlife Service to institute a 3-
year pilot program to provide grants to eligible entities for projects
that seek to use nonlethal measures to achieve a reduction in damage to
roads, railroads, bridges, buildings, airports, levees, dams,
agricultural resources, trees, or other public or private property
caused by beavers. Eligible entities would include States; Tribes;
State, Federal, and Tribal agencies; landowners; local governments; and
nongovernmental organizations. Nonlethal measures are those that are
not designed to grip, trap, relocate, injure, or kill beavers.
Nonlethal measures include, but are not limited to, fencing and paint-
sand mixtures used to protect trees, and water flow control devices
used to prevent flooding and maintain beaver ponds at acceptable
levels. To document the progress of this program, FWS should be
encouraged to submit a report to the subcommittee describing activities
under the pilot program each fiscal year.
prescott grant program (fws)
We urge the subcommittee to provide no less than $2,000,000 for the
John H. Prescott Marine Mammal Rescue Assistance grant program. The
Prescott Program, led by the FWS, provides funding to eligible
stranding network participants assisting stranded sea otters, manatees,
Pacific walruses, and polar bears. Congress began to allocate funds to
the FWS in fiscal year 2019 to implement the program. To date, the FWS
has awarded $3.1 million in funding to conservation organizations and
State agencies through the Prescott Grant Program. In fiscal year 2022,
$1,300,000 was allocated towards this program. Given the rising number
of strandings and the importance of marine mammals to the health of
ocean ecosystems, at least $2,000,000 in funding is requested.
[This statement was submitted by Nancy Blaney, Director, Government
Affairs, Animal Welfare Institute.]
______
Prepared Statement of Appalachian Trail Conservancy
operation of the national park system allocation for the appalachian
national scenic trail
On behalf of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC or
``Conservancy''), I submit this request to increase the annual
Operation of the National Park Service (ONPS) appropriation for the
Appalachian National Scenic Trail (ANST, A.T., or Trail), a unit of the
National Park Service (NPS) within the Interior, EPA, and Related
Agencies appropriations bill. The current level of ONPS appropriations
for the Trail, $1.79 million for fiscal year 2021 (enacted FY22 funding
not yet administratively allocated between units), is insufficient to
fulfil the NPS obligations under the National Trails System Act (NTSA),
relevant NPS-related statutes, and the cooperative agreement with ATC.
We believe a budget of $3.5 million is necessary to meet the needs of
the Trail. Particularly as our Nation responds to the mounting impacts
of anthropogenic climate change, Congress must invest heavily in
habitat restoration, combating invasive species/the loss of
biodiversity, and maintaining the functionality and ecological services
of our public lands. In the A.T., continued underinvestment could be
catastrophic. We have been advocating within the NPS for a further
increase request, but recognize the central role the Congress serves in
determining funding for the Federal Government.
The Conservancy is the Sec. 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
responsible for developing the Appalachian Trail and leading its
Cooperative Management System, which joins the Federal Government, the
governments of 14 States, 31 Maintaining Clubs, and local and non-
profit partners in caring for our iconic long trail. ATC's position
with the Trail, which began over 100 years ago outlining the vision of
a continent-spanning footpath, remains formalized under a cooperative
agreement with the NPS. Recognizing the needs of the Trail, President
Trump's last budget increased its requested ONPS allocation from $1.52
million in FY20 to $1.65 million in FY21-NPS ultimately went even
further and allocated the current $1.79 million funding level.
Likewise, President Biden's first two budgets have requested ANST ONPS
allocations of $1.95 million (FY22) and $2.06 million (FY23).
Recognizing the unit is struggling to meet obligations, the Committees
on Appropriations--via the explanatory statements for both the fiscal
year 2021 and FY22 Omnibus bills--''encourages'' the NPS to submit an
increased allocation.
The ANST runs 2,194 miles with approximately 4,500 miles of
boundaries encasing an approximately 300,000-acre conserved
``Corridor.'' The A.T. Corridor includes lands within the National Park
and National Forest Systems, as well as State and local units, with the
NPS directly responsible for approximately half of the acreage. The
Trail is the centerline of the largest contiguous stretch of public
land in the eastern United States. It is the longest park unit in the
National Park System. In terms of size, the ANST has more NPS-
administered acreage than Biscayne, Voyageurs, or Zion National Parks.
In terms of boundary mileage, it is second in the National Park System
only to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. The Trail's normal visitation
is an estimated 4 million or more annually, placing it 18th in
visitation within the System-higher than Grand Teton or Yosemite
National Parks.
The ANST's length (spanning 12 of latitude in the temperate zone),
north-south alignment, changes of over 6,500 feet in elevation and the
numerous peaks and ridges it crosses along the Appalachian Mountain
chain creates its topographically diverse landscape, protecting very
high habitat diversity and connectivity while providing for a unique
recreation experience. It is an important landscape in the eastern U.S.
that offers large-scale continuity and important climate refugia,
increasingly vital attributes in the highly developed and increasingly
taxed eastern public land network. The ANST is one of (if not the most)
biodiverse units of the National Park System. While the ANST does not
have the physical infrastructure such as paved roads and water systems
that rank costly in terms of facility maintenance, the natural resource
management needs of the Trail are legion. Unlike facility assets,
opportunities within the NPS to fund natural resource programmatic work
are rare to materialize.
Currently, the NPS office that administers the Trail has 9.3
fulltime-equivalent employees (FTEs), approximately 40 Conservation-
related staffers at ATC, and 6,000 volunteers contributing annually a
total of 245,000 labor hours (equivalent to 118 employees). The $1.79
million ONPS allocation is, for the most part, consumed by staff salary
and benefits. The allocation is insufficient to allow for much project
work or to enable NPS staff to visit locations along the Trail. Under
the current park operations funding model, there are certain things
that are very difficult to fund except through a unit's ONPS
allocation, specifically: providing law enforcement (maintaining and
asserting the Federal Government's property rights as well as providing
public safety); processing environmental compliance documents (such as
required by NEPA) and; overseeing (if not funding) natural resource
protection work.
Between 2005 and 2020, the ANST Park Office ONPS base allocation
has grown at an average annual rate of 3.3 percent. When adjusted for
the effects of inflation, ONPS funding has grown at an annualized rate
of 1.4 percent. Among the 42 NPS units with annual visitation in the
one to three million range, the average ONPS allocation is $3.93 per
visitor, while the ANST is currently at 54 per visitor. Few units are
funded by their ONPS allocation alone; most, if not all, rely on
allocations distributed subsequent to Service-wide ``calls'' to
disburse non-unit specific funds Congress appropriates. By and large,
successive administrations have requested, and Congress has granted,
flat increases to the funding streams within the NPS that allow for
facility asset maintenance (i.e. Cyclic Maintenance, Repair-Rehab). The
same cannot be said for the Natural Resource Projects call (which, it
must be noted, funds projects, but not programs, meaning it cannot fund
FTE) and there is no call for law enforcement or for compliance, which,
like natural resource programmatic staff, must be funded through an
ONPS allocation.
The current, and reasonable needs of the unit are more than the
current cooperative management partners can support given the legal
division of responsibilities. Comparatively, NPS units with far smaller
acreage to manage and far less complex obligations and programs receive
relatively much larger base budgets, including the 16-acre Springfield
Armory with a base budget of $1.56 million; the 968-acre Appomattox
Court House with a base budget of $1.96 million; and the 16-acre Fort
Stanwix with base budget of $1.68 million.
Law Enforcement--.The law enforcement needs of the Trail are
significant considering the ANST spans 14 States and 88 counties. These
responsibilities can be broken down roughly into two categories:
individuals threatening safety (criminal) and encroachments (civil).
Both are commonly referred to as ``incidents'' and ``incident
response'' is the general term used to mean ``responding to potential
harm to the legal rights of the Trail and its users.'' Criminal
incidents on the Trail posing a significant threat to public safety
are, thankfully, rare. Much more common are civil incidents/
encroachments. ANST owns 2,083 fee tracts, containing 108,000 acres of
lands with over 1,200 miles of exterior boundary line which is
maintained and monitored by ATC staff and staff-coordinated volunteers.
Roughly 50 new encroachment violations are discovered each year, with
10 percent of those being severe in nature. Approximately 430 known
(ATC-identified) ANST boundary violations have occurred over the past
decade, many of which still remain unresolved. Examples of severe and
ongoing encroachment issues include large-scale timber and resource
theft, widespread ATV use, construction of building, homes, pools and
patios, and waste dumping. It is the legal responsibility of the NPS to
address these encroachments, something unpracticable with its current
ANST law enforcement (LE) staffing of two FTEs.
ATC staff and volunteers routinely assist in responding to Trail
incidents. The current-and preferred-management of the Trail places the
Chief Ranger duty stationed at the Trail's administrative headquarters
in Harper's Ferry, WV and the one FTE split between the ANST and BLRI
(Blue Ridge Parkway NPS unit) in southern Virginia, serving that
region, and one FTE split between the ANST and GETT (Gettysburg
National Military Park) serving that immediate region. For the NPS-
managed Trail miles north of Harrisburg, the ANST relies on less formal
staff sharing. ATC advocates for replicating the staff-sharing model
across the mid-Atlantic and northern stretches of the Trail, stationing
six individuals, working 50 percent time on the ANST in Maine, New
Hampshire/Vermont/Massachusetts, Connecticut/New York, New Jersey/
Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania/Maryland, and West Virginia/Virginia.
Increasing LE staffing on the Trail will increase the NPS' ability to
connect to rural communities and to safeguard not only the increasingly
manifest desire of the public to recreate on our public lands, but the
narrow ribbon of conserved land providing critical species habitat and
providing for migration and climate adaptations in the densely
populated eastern U.S. More funding is also needed to train ATC staff
and volunteers as they support incident management as needed.
Resources Management--.The majority of the management of any
National Park System unit is the proper administration of natural and
cultural resources and minimizing impacts from visitors. The ANST
currently splits coordination for both these buckets between one FTE
when at least two, and preferably three FTE, are warranted. There is no
biologist on the NPS staff for the ANST. Regarding natural resources,
ATC staff and volunteers are responsible for all Trail-related
maintenance as well as the stewardship and restoration of the Trail
corridor lands as quality habitat for flora and fauna. Except for the
aforementioned FTE at the ANST, the majority of the funding for natural
resources management is provided by individual and charitable
foundation giving. Some of the natural resource work is funded through
competitive grants awarded by DOI Region One, but funding is extremely
limited and project-focused. Funding for natural resource work
supported by ONPS funding has diminished steadily in recent years.
Natural resources management for the ANST is multi-faceted.
Management of ``endangered plants and animals, invasive species,
climate change mitigation, and scientific research projects'' are all
Cooperative Agreement-identified responsibilities for the NPS to
``provide overall leadership'' for. ATC staff and volunteers are
required to ``coordinate [the] on-the-ground management activities
needed to protect occurrences of rare, threatened, and endangered
species, exemplary natural communities, historic properties, and other
natural, cultural, and aesthetic resources.'' In recent years, ATC has
led several natural resource management projects within the ANST
corridor, including Ash treatments to halt the spread of the invasive
Emerald Ash Borer in Massachusetts, Georgia, North Carolina and
Tennessee, red spruce restoration in North Carolina, Tennessee and
Virginia, habitat creation for the globally imperiled Northern
Metalmark Butterfly in Connecticut, and restoration of Atlantic Salmon
habitat in Maine. ATC staff hold professional licenses and degrees in
areas such as ecological restoration, pesticide application and hazard
tree arboriculture, serving as the primary experts for these services
on the ANST.
Compliance--.ANST staff depend on ATC staff to collect information
required for the completion of National Environmental Policy Act
compliance for all treadway and corridor related work. ATC staff are
generally responsible for the completion of impact assessments, field
monitoring and coordination with state Natural Heritage and wildlife
offices. Yet NEPA compliance is a process that can not be delegated in
full and ANST capacity is required to facilitate and oversee this
process as well as research permit evaluations and approvals.
The A.T. is uniquely situated to serve as a barometer for the air,
water, climate and biological diversity of the Appalachian Mountains
and much of the eastern United States, which is what makes it an
attractive place to explore scientific questions. The ANST has clearly
identified the need for sound scientific baselines and trend
information on environmental and resource conditions to inform adaptive
management and stewardship activities, however current capacity does
not allow the ANST to even entertain proposals from educational
institutions and research entities seeking permission to use the ANST
as a study area. Each year, requests for scientific analysis,
evaluation and monitoring within the A.T. corridor, submitted through
the NPS Research Permit and Reporting System, go unanswered and un-
permitted. Each of these unfilled research requests is a missed
opportunity for stronger science and informed A.T. management.
For compliance under section 106 of the NHPA, ANST NPS staff cannot
delegate its obligations to ATC. Additionally, closer coordination with
State and Tribal offices of historic preservation will further the
ability of the ANST to address extant compliance demands as well as
build the capacity to perform government-to-government consultations
with the 34 identified Native nations with ancestral and/or reservation
lands along the Trail. NPS staff cannot delegate to ATC government-to-
government consultation responsibilities.
Thank you for considering our request.
[This statement was submitted by Brendan Mysliwiec, Director of
Federal Policy and Legislation, Appalachian Trail Conservancy.]
______
Prepared Statement of Assiniboine and Sioux Rural Water Supply System
fort peck reservation rural water system ($3,370,000)
The Assiniboine and Sioux Rural Water Supply System (ASRWSS)
submits this testimony in support of $3,370,000 in funding for
continued Operations, Maintenance, and Replacement (OMR) of part of the
Fort Peck Reservation Rural Water System as authorized by PL 106-382.
ASRWSS is the tribally chartered entity charged with the planning,
design, construction, operation, maintenance and replacement (OMR) of
the Assiniboine and Sioux Rural Water Supply System, which is the part
of the Fort Peck Reservation Rural Water System on the Fort Peck Indian
Reservation. We are strong partners with Dry Prairie Rural Water System
(DPRWS), which operates the part of the Project that is off the
Reservation.
The most basic of governmental function is the delivery of clean,
safe, and reliable drinking water. We are honored to provide water and
service in northeastern Montana to an area of 7,750 square miles
connected by 3,200 miles of pipeline when completed in 2023. Completion
of all construction funding is expected in fiscal Year 2022. The
project provides safe, adequate, and reliable drinking water to an area
larger than New Jersey and just smaller than Massachusetts.
ASRWSS wants to thank the subcommittee for the full funding of OMR
costs of the Water Project at $3.358 million in fiscal Year 2022.
As the Project works toward completion of construction, OMR needs
continue to increase. Thus, for fiscal Year 2023 we will need an
additional $12,000 for total level of funding at $3.370 million in
appropriations for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Construction
account.
The funding increase of $12,000 is necessary to:
i) safely operate, maintain, repair and replace system
features,
ii) employ the necessary level of qualified and certified staff
iii) purchase chemicals for treatment
iv) purchase power for pumping and treatment facilities.
v) address inflation, which is now more of a factor than in
earlier years
The Congress (Energy and Water subcommittee) will have appropriated
over $354 million to complete the project through fiscal Year 2023. The
ASRWSS/DPRWS projects are 95 percent complete and full funding will be
available to complete the project in fiscal Year 2022 and 2023. It is
imperative, through Interior appropriations (and a DPRWS non-federal
cost share), that ASRWSS maintain, and replace the investment of
Congress in the ASRWSS infrastructure valued at $226 million and held
in trust by the United States.
The DPRWS cost share covers the OMR cost of their use common
facilities as agreed upon between ASRWSS, DPRWS and the Secretary in a
Water Service Agreement. DPRWS makes monthly payments on a timely
basis. DPRWS will provide an estimated $669,000 in fiscal Year 2023 to
supplement appropriations.
ASRWSS provided drinking water to more than 21,500 residents in
Northeast Montana in 2020. In 2023 over 24,000 residents will be
served. Ultimately, 31,000 residents will be served as the population
of the region continues to grow over the next several decades. The
population served at the end of 2016 was less than 10,000, and OMR
funding needs have been increasing accordingly. The project also serves
social and governmental agencies, including the BIA Agency Office,
schools, clinics, hospitals, Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge,
Fort Union Trading Post National Historic site, U.S.- Canadian border
stations, and the towns of Poplar, Wolf Point, Frazer, Culbertson,
Medicine Lake, Scobey, Nashua, St. Marie, Fort Kipp, and Brockton.
Opheim and will be served in 2022. The small communities of Reserve and
Lustre will also be added in 2022.
The Fort Peck Reservation Rural Water System was authorized by the
Fort Peck Reservation Rural Water System Act of 2000, Pub. L. 106-382.
The enactment ensured a safe, adequate, and reliable municipal, rural
and industrial water supply for the residents of the Fort Peck Indian
Reservation and the residents of Roosevelt, Sheridan, Daniels, and
Valley Counties outside the Reservation. As noted in the President's
previous budget requests: ``Groundwater from shallow alluvial aquifers
... for the municipal systems . . . is generally poor with
concentrations of iron, manganese, sodium, sulfates, bicarbonates and
total dissolved solids above recommended standards.'' This project
provides a perpetual remedy to historic water quality issues that
impaired health and stunted economic growth.
The Project called for the construction of a single treatment plant
on the Missouri River near Wolf Point, Montana, that will distribute
water through 3,200 miles of pipeline to both the Reservation Tribal
system and through three completed and operational interconnections to
DPRWS. A single water source on the Missouri River replaced nearly two
dozen individual community water sources and ensured a clean,
plentiful, and safe water supply.
The Federal legislation authorizing the Fort Peck Reservation Rural
Water System requires that the OMR costs of ASRWSS, held in trust by
the United States, are fully funded. Interior appropriations to BIA are
the Federal source of OMR funding. This is consistent with the Federal
trust responsibility to the Tribes who were promised a permanent home
when the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes agreed to move to the
Reservation. A permanent home requires safe drinking water. The funding
request enables ASRWSS to deliver superior drinking water, meeting all
Federal and State standards, to all the people, towns, and federal,
Tribal, State, public and private agencies, and businesses.
Thus, the $3.370 million requested in fiscal Year 2023 for the OMR
of this vital infrastructure project is critical. The increased funding
of $12,000 over the fiscal Year 2022 level for the OMR of the Project
is needed as the Project buildout increases the service population and
requires additional personnel, power, chemicals, repairs, replacements
and improvements to operate the water treatment plant and other
facilities.
Again, we thank the subcommittee for the continued support of OMR
funding for ASRWSS as authorized by Public Law106-382.
[This statement was submitted by Ashleigh Weeks, Executive
Director, Assiniboine and Sioux Rural Water Supply System.]
______
Prepared Statement of Association of the Air Pollution Control Agencies
(AAPCA)
The Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies (AAPCA)\1\
appreciates the opportunity to provide written testimony regarding the
development of Fiscal Year 2023 appropriations for the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). AAPCA's members are State and
local air agencies that serve as co-regulators with U.S. EPA under the
Federal Clean Air Act and are responsible for designing, implementing,
and enforcing air pollution control regulations that protect public
health and the environment. As highlighted in a recent annual report
from AAPCA,\2\ State, local, and Tribal air agencies, in coordination
with U.S. EPA, have overseen remarkable progress in the Nation's air
quality, underscoring the Clean Air Act's core principle of cooperative
federalism as a proven framework for approaching emerging environmental
priorities.
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\1\ AAPCA is a national, non-profit, consensus-driven organization
focused on assisting State and local air quality agencies and personnel
with implementation and technical issues associated with the Federal
Clean Air Act. Created in 2012, AAPCA represents 48 State and local air
pollution control agencies, and senior officials from 21 state
environmental agencies currently sit on the AAPCA Board of Directors.
AAPCA is housed in Lexington, Kentucky as an affiliate of The Council
of State Governments. You can find more information about AAPCA at:
www.cleanairact.org.
\2\ AAPCA, State Air Trends & Successes: The StATS Report, April
19, 2022.
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As your subcommittee undertakes the appropriations process for U.S.
EPA, AAPCA specifically asks for State and local air quality management
grants under the State and Tribal Assistance Grant (STAG) program to be
funded at levels that meet new and historic Clean Air Act requirements
and allow maximum flexibility to agencies to determine the best use for
addressing air pollution control needs in their jurisdiction. AAPCA
also continues to reaffirm the importance of maintaining the granting
authority for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) monitoring under Section
103 of the Clean Air Act, rather than the proposal by U.S. EPA's Office
of Air and Radiation to transition to Section 105,\3\ which would
necessitate that agencies match funds.
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\3\ See page 31 of the Draft fiscal Year 2023-2024 Office of Air
and Radiation (OAR) National Program Guidance, open for comment through
July 14, 2022.
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Congress funded the STAG program at $4.352 billion under the
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 (H.R. 2471), which was signed
into law on March 11, 2022.\4\ STAG funding in fiscal Year 2022
included $231.391 million for State and local air quality management
grants--nearly $2 million above the fiscal Year 2021 enacted level--as
well as $92 million for diesel emission reduction grants and $61.927
million for targeted airshed grants. Providing adequate funding and
flexibility for grants under Sections 103 and 105 of the Clean Air Act
is critical for State and local agencies that are technical, planning,
and jurisdictional experts and deeply engaged with their communities
and stakeholders.
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\4\ H.R. 2471--Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 (Public Law
No: 117-103). Funding levels prior to rescissions.
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While STAG funds are a key budgetary component for State and local
agencies, Clean Air Act mandates are ultimately met through strict
budgeting, attentive programming, best practice development, and
dedicated leadership and staff. Air agencies are responsible for a
broad range of complex and technical efforts that support the National
Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), air toxics, regional haze, and
other Clean Air Act programs. These obligations span air quality
planning and rule development, monitoring and modeling, emissions
inventory management, permitting, inspections and enforcement, and
hiring, training, and staff development. These frontline agencies must
also undertake extensive efforts around public outreach and
involvement, risk communication, exceptional events demonstrations,
Federal policy evaluation, and stakeholder engagement.
Further, State and local air agencies must also be responsive to
increasing requirements from U.S. EPA and other fiscal challenges,
often with ever-more-finite resources. A few abbreviated examples
include:
--Crafting state implementation plans (SIPs) to meet current NAAQS
and regional haze requirements as well as SIPs that will be
required for more stringent NAAQS that are expected to follow
the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, or CASAC, review
of the standards for particulate matter (PM) and ozone.\5\
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\5\ For a detailed example, please see AAPCA's request to U.S. EPA
to extend the comment period on the proposed ``Federal Implementation
Plan Addressing Regional Ozone Transport for the 2015 Ozone National
Ambient Air Quality Standard,'' (May 3, 2022).
--Recognizing, evaluating, and communicating emerging environmental
concerns, such as ethylene oxide (EtO), and integrating
national priorities like environmental justice and equity into
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planning, permitting, and outreach efforts.
--Administering and maintaining the Nation's monitoring network,
critical infrastructure that is central to ensuring that an
area meets the NAAQS and community concerns are appropriately
addressed.\6\
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\6\ U.S. Government Accountability Office, Air Pollution:
Opportunities to Better Sustain and Modernize the National Air Quality
Monitoring System, November 12, 2020 (publicly released December 7,
2020).
--Making sure that staff are well-trained to understand technically
and socially complex issues, a necessity that is complicated by
turnover and hiring challenges that can create expertise
gaps.\7\
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\7\ See AAPCA comments on the draft fiscal Year 2022-2024 content
development plan for the National Air Quality Training Program (October
14, 2021).
Federal grant flexibility is necessary as resource priorities
evolve to meet these challenges. Air agency budgets, to an extent
reliant on emissions fees from permitted sources, have been impacted by
the successes that characterize air pollution control work. This
includes revenue decreases from the Clean Air Act Title V Operating
Permit program,\8\ which have declined due to the program's pollutant
fee structure and the program's success in achieving its primary goal
of reducing emissions to create better air quality.
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\8\ U.S. EPA Office of Inspector General, EPA's Title V Program
Needs to Address Ongoing Fee Issues and Improve Oversight, January 12,
2022.
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Providing adequate funding for State and local air quality
management grants and other STAG programs should also take into
consideration the state of the current economy. Inflation, compounded
by a slowed supply chain, has introduced new difficulties for air
agencies in their on-the-ground work to protect the environment. This
ranges from making tough fiscal decisions around programming to finding
alternative solutions for unavailable monitoring equipment and parts.
Thank you for your attention to this testimony. AAPCA's members
look forward to working with your subcommittee as Congress develops its
priorities for fiscal Year 2023 appropriations for U.S. EPA. If you
have any questions, please contact Mr. Jason Sloan, Executive Director,
at [email protected] or (859) 244-8043.
[This statement was submitted by Bryce Bird, Director, Division of
Air Quality, Utah Department of Environmental Quality, 2022 President,
AAPCA.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Association of Clean Water Administrators
The Association of Clean Water Administrators (ACWA) appreciates
the opportunity to submit written testimony to the U.S. House of
Representatives Committee on Appropriations, subcommittee on Interior,
Environment, and Related Agencies. As the National voice of state,
interstate, and territorial officials responsible for the
implementation of programs that protect surface waters across the
Nation, ACWA supports the President's FY23 Discretionary Budget
Request's suggested increase to the Environmental Protection Agency's
(EPA) budget.
The President's discretionary request funds EPA at $11.8 billion,
which represents a $2.3 billion or 25 percent increase from the FY22
enacted level. The request outlines many key areas this additional
funding will be used, including fighting climate change; promoting
environmental justice; gathering data on polluters and holding them
accountable; and investing in water infrastructure projects and
contaminated site clean-ups. These functions are all essential to
carrying out the EPA's mission of protecting human health and the
environment.
This proposed increase comes with many benefits, especially as
States begin to prepare to handle the historic infrastructure
investment from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Our nation's water
and wastewater systems are critical for promoting economic growth and
protecting public health. In this sense, it is vital that we address
these and other issues by providing strategic and consistently robust
financing for water infrastructure, programs, workforce development,
and more. While the FY22 funding was a critical step forward in funding
these programs, increasing these levels will ensure that they are
equipped to handle future crises and ongoing infrastructure challenges.
State surface water programs play an integral role in building
water infrastructure, from planning to design permitting to
construction to compliance and robust section 106 funding is critical.
State agencies are responsible for a myriad of infrastructure-related
tasks including providing technical assistance to small, rural,
disadvantaged, and underserved communities; marketing investments in
green infrastructure; processing loan and grant applications;
prioritizing projects to meet the greatest need; conducting
environmental reviews; performing engineering analyses; permitting
projects; monitoring compliance; and preventing fraud and waste. Any
upcoming gaps in funding would undercut the proven success of these
programs and jeopardize the essential assistance they provide to
States. The case against funding cuts is only strengthened when
considering that increases in Federal investment could help reverse
declines in water quality, create hundreds to thousands of construction
jobs, boost the National economy, and benefit private-sector
development. With this in mind, ACWA asks for your support in
delivering States the resources they need to carry out these critical
programs as you consider the President's budget request.
The States welcome the focus on injecting resources into the system
to spur infrastructure development and repair. This money is certainly
needed. However, the States also need increased resources to support
States in meeting their obligations to the Clean Water Act (CWA)
through, Clean Water Act (CWA) Sec. 106 grants, 319 grants, and funding
to regional programs like the Chesapeake Bay or the Mississippi River/
Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force. States are also being asked to
address PFAS and other emerging contaminants and to support
environmental justice priorities and screening initiatives. Much of the
Federal funding has focused on specific outcomes and projects without
much attention to the crucial seasoned state staff that execute vital
support and analytic functions. Robust funding for CWA programs is
necessary to ensure States have the capacity to handle an increase in
funding for water infrastructure, manage permitting programs, and
provide technical assistance to disadvantaged communities. Fully
funding section 106 and similar programs will ensure that insufficient
staffing and administrative resources do not cause delays or
bottlenecks with projects moving to construction with the appropriate
public health safeguards and environmental permits.
Federal funding of the 106 and 319 programs comprises approximately
33 percent of the funds States and interStates rely on to carry out the
CWA's mandates. Section 319 funding has been on the decline since 2005,
and the States currently absorb over two thirds of the cost of mandated
state and delegated Federal water quality programs. Additional Federal
funding would enable States to build upon the successes of the 319
program and work to improve the States' water quality protection
activities and ability to carry out the basic requirements of the CWA.
Congress has acknowledged its support of administrative costs of
the historic BIL funding by providing U.S. EPA with such funding. For
instance, in Section 6002 of the American Rescue Plan Act, Congress
directed the EPA Administrator to reserve 2 percent or 5 percent for
necessary administrative costs linked to specific subsections. In
another example, in the fiscal year 2021 appropriations under the State
and Tribal Assistance Grants, Congress directs the EPA Administrator to
report on the amounts and sources used to administer and provide
oversight of these grant programs. States agree with Congress that it
is important to acknowledge and support administrative needs and asks
that it similarly consider funding for States who work most directly
with communities to both develop proposals and seek their input when
determining state priorities.
While appropriation increases have occurred over time since the
inception of these programs, a more comprehensive analysis shows
Federal funding has remained nearly flat throughout the past decade,
and its purchasing power has diminished when taking inflation into
account. For example, CWA sec. 106 funding in 2010 was $229 million;
after a rise in funding in 2011 and 2012, funding levels settled to
$231 million over 2014--2019. Section 106 funding in 2020 fell to $223
million. If you look at a more recent time horizon, the Section 106
enacted level was $230,806,000 in FY2016 and $230,000,000 in fiscal
year 2021, a reduction of $806,000. This funding is especially critical
as CWA programs have grown much larger. The NPDES permitting program
now covers 900,000 municipal, industrial, stormwater and construction
facilities today. Additionally, the water quality issues facing the
States and interStates are more complex and more challenging. Nutrient
reduction in surface waters, stormwater management, alterations in
hydrology, in part due to climate change, considerations of ground
water, e-reporting requirements, emerging contaminants such as PFAS,
and now social considerations of environmental justice are
complications not envisioned when the CWA became law 50 years ago.
In conclusion, we ask that the subcommittee use the President's
discretionary budget request as a starting point and robustly fund the
above noted CWA programs. Similarly, we ask that the proposed FY23
budget provides States with robust section 106 funding to invest in
critical water programs and ensure that BIL money is used efficiently
and effectively. These investments will have tangible benefits for
States, interStates, territories, and Americans across the country by
making progress toward our Nation's water quality goals, not to mention
the other benefits of stimulating economic growth, supporting tourism,
providing recreation, and promoting nationwide health with a clean
water supply. The States cannot do it alone, so we ask for a strong
federal-state partnership through the FY23 appropriations process.
Federal Government support for ACWA's work--and States' work--is
essential.
[This statement was submitted by Andrew Gavin, Deputy Executive
Director, Susquehanna River Basin Commission, ACWA President.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums
Thank you Chair Merkley and Ranking Member Murkowski for the
opportunity to submit testimony about the priorities of the Association
of Zoos and Aquariums for Fiscal Year 2023. Specifically, we urge the
subcommittee's support to continue and expand funding for Endangered
Species Recovery Challenge Grants ($15,000,000) and the Multinational
Species Conservation Funds ($30,000,000) administered by the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service (USFWS). These grants have proven successful in
supporting cooperative recovery efforts. Given the documented global
extinction crisis, it is crucially important to expand funding for the
USFWS to grow capacity and carry out its work to implement and enforce
the Endangered Species Act (ESA). I also am providing an update about
the funding included in the ``American Rescue Plan Act'' (Public Law
117-2) for the care of captive species listed under the ESA and rescued
and confiscated wildlife in facilities experiencing lost revenues due
to COVID-19.
My name is Dan Ashe, and I am the President and CEO of the
Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). Founded in 1924, the AZA is a
501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that our 253
accredited zoos, aquariums, nature and science centers, and related
facilities reflect the global standard of excellence in animal care and
welfare, conservation, education, science, and guest experience. AZA's
member facilities are examples of how economic and environmental
prosperity can work hand-in-hand. Our members welcome nearly 200
million visitors annually, generating more than $22 billion in economic
activity, and supporting more than 198,000 jobs across the country.
They also contribute well over $200 million in direct support for field
conservation each year. They support work in 115 countries benefiting
more than 942 species and subspecies, of which 223 are listed under the
ESA.
At the heart of AZA is its mandatory accreditation requirement,
which assures that only those zoos and aquariums that meet the highest
standards can become members. The independent and objective AZA
accreditation process includes self-evaluation, rigorous on-site
inspection, and critical peer review. Our standards are publicly
available and are continuously evolving and improving as we learn more
about the needs of the animals in our care. Once earned, AZA
accreditation confers best-in-class status, an important message for
local, State, and Federal Government and the visiting public. AZA
accreditation is the global gold standard for modern zoological
facilities.
AZA and its members are leaders, partners, and participants in
species conservation. We work in concert with Congress, Federal
agencies, conservation organizations, State governments, the private
sector, and the general public to conserve our wildlife heritage. AZA's
Wildlife Trafficking Alliance is a coalition of private companies, non-
profit organizations, and AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums working
closely with U.S. government agencies to combat wildlife trafficking
worldwide. AZA and its member facilities have long-standing
partnerships with the USFWS, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Our collaborative efforts have focused on:
--Engaging in endangered species recovery and reintroduction,
including some of the most successful and heralded recovery
efforts, like California condor. In fact, two of the condors
recently released as part of the partnership with the Yurok
Tribe were from the Oregon Zoo.
--Carrying out rescue, rehabilitation, and confiscation activities in
collaboration with Federal and State agencies, including USFWS,
to the benefit of many threatened and endangered species.
--Supporting conservation domestically and internationally through
multinational species conservation funds and state wildlife
grants.
--Collaborating on partnership opportunities involving national parks
and wildlife refuges, migratory birds, freshwater and saltwater
fisheries, national marine sanctuaries, illegal wildlife trade,
amphibians, and invasive species.
I am submitting testimony in support of the following key programs
funded through the annual Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
appropriations bill.
u.s. fish and wildlife service budget
Much of the important conservation work at AZA-accredited
facilities depends on a robust and fully staffed USFWS. Acknowledging
the budget challenges facing Congress and the agencies, we encourage
you to assure that the USFWS has sufficient resources to employ
qualified professionals, particularly for the programs handling
permits, which support AZA's science-based conservation breeding and
wildlife education programs that require animals to be moved in an
efficient, humane, and timely manner: International Affairs (Management
and Scientific Authorities), Endangered Species, Law Enforcement, and
Migratory Birds. In particular, AZA is keenly interested in expanding
our critical work in support of treating and placing live confiscated
wildlife seized at the ports/borders and on scientific and conservation
research on polar bears in AZA facilities. The success of these
important initiatives depends on the effective assistance of the USFWS.
For this reason, we request that the subcommittee specifically
increase the budgets for the Management and Scientific Authorities by
$250,000 to hire and support a dedicated and qualified employee to
facilitate zoo and aquarium permitting. Our members contribute $22
billion annually to the U.S. economy so this is a small investment to
support that economic engine. During the past several years, lengthy
permitting delays and communication gaps have become the rule rather
than the exception. Our members are increasingly frustrated at
permitting delays that stretch from months to years. Increasingly, our
members are finding that international partners, as well as our members
in Canada, Mexico, and other countries, are reluctant to work with our
U.S. members due to the uncertainties surrounding permitting. These
unnecessary delays undermine conservation efforts and jeopardize the
welfare of animals.
We also request dedicated funding of $1 million for the Office of
Law Enforcement to support the design and implementation of a
nationwide ``confiscations network.'' As we battle the global epidemic
of wildlife trafficking, and as we improve detection and interruption
of trafficking routes and syndicates, confiscated animals are the
casualties. They need to be placed, and often held for lengthy periods,
as evidence. The USFWS often comes to AZA and its members for
assistance, typically at a substantial cost to our members who readily
and willingly provide this service. We need a national and
international confiscations network. We have had very fruitful
discussions with the USFWS and have designed a pilot for the Pacific
Southwest. Expanding this pilot to other regions and, ultimately, the
entire United States, will unburden the agency's law enforcement
officers, so they can focus their time on catching and prosecuting
criminals; our members can focus on placing and caring for the animals.
To put this latter request in context, and as you are aware, the
USFWS has an entire facility--the National Wildlife Property Repository
in Denver--that holds all of the wildlife products confiscated from
illegal trade. If you will, all the ``dead stuff.'' The agency has no
facility, expertise, or capacity to hold and maintain the living
evidence of criminal trafficking. Our members posses these capabilities
and are anxious to build a partnership with USFWS. This funding would
help make this reality.
endangered species recovery and recovery challenge grants
We express our gratitude for the subcommittee's continued support
for increasing funding for endangered species through the Recovery
account and working with our partners at the USFWS to create the
Endangered Species Recovery Challenge Grant program in fiscal year
2018. This program recognizes the critically important role of
nonprofit partners to the Service's endangered species recovery
efforts, and it is a mechanism, through merit-based matching grants, to
provide funding in a more commensurate manner to support and enhance
these efforts. Recovery Challenge Grants are limited to nonprofit
organizations implementing the highest priority recovery actions
identified in recovery plans, such as for genetically sound breeding,
rearing, and reintroduction programs.
We urge you to continue to provide robust funding for endangered
species recovery and prioritize longstanding recovery efforts in which
existing resources and partner expertise can be most effectively
leveraged. Specifically, we are requesting an increase in funding for
the Recovery Challenge Grant program to $15 million in fiscal year
2023. This funding will power recovery partnerships and inspire their
work to better recover critically endangered species.
multinational species conservation funds
We support the inclusion of $30 million for the Multinational
Species Conservation Funds (MSCF) administered by USFWS. These programs
support public-private partnerships that conserve wild tigers, Asian
and African elephants, rhinos, great apes, freshwater turtles,
tortoises, and marine turtles in their native habitats. Through the
MSCF programs, the United States supplements the efforts of developing
countries that are struggling to balance the needs of their human
populations and endemic wildlife. These programs help to sustain
wildlife populations, address threats such as poaching and illegal
trade, reduce human-wildlife conflict, and protect essential habitat.
The USFWS is seen as a global conservation leader in large part due to
its commitment to international conservation efforts. This Federal
program supports AZA-accredited facilities in their field conservation
efforts and partnerships with the USFWS.
endangered species act
AZA and its members enthusiastically support the ESA, which has
saved hundreds of listed species from extinction. Like AZA
accreditation, the ESA is the global ``gold standard.'' It reflects our
National commitment to species and ecosystem conservation, and it is
working. Since its inception in 1973, it has prevented the extinction
of 99 percent of the species it protects. However, we know that the
challenges facing our planet in the 21st century are as complex as they
are urgent. Scientists estimate that the total number of mammals,
birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish has declined by more than 50
percent since 1970, and many believe, including me, that we are living
amidst the planet's sixth mass extinction. Climate change is
accelerating this crisis. Without critical intervention today, we are
facing the very real possibility of losing some of our planet's most
magnificent creatures such as lions, cheetahs, elephants, gorillas, sea
turtles, and sharks.
AZA-accredited facilities have a unique opportunity and
responsibility to help others understand this crisis. It is our
obligation--to these animals and to all life on earth--to take bold
action now to protect our planet's biodiversity. One achievement that
has gone unnoticed by most people is that zoos and aquariums have
played a significant role in bringing over 25 species, including
California condor, Florida manatee, and black-footed ferret, back from
the brink of extinction.
Although we have made significant progress in saving endangered
species, this work is far from done. Species protection and
conservation requires long-term commitment by all of us. It is through
the ongoing work related to species recovery plans that we will
conserve these species for future generations. The AZA and its members
support the ESA, and we encourage you to assure that the agencies
responsible for carrying out the mandates of the act receive the
necessary funding and human resource capacity to succeed.
american rescue plan act funding
Finally, we appreciate the subcommittee's support for $30 million
in the ``American Rescue Plan Act'' (Public Law 117-2) for the care of
captive species listed under the ESA and rescued and confiscated
wildlife in facilities experiencing lost revenues due to COVID-19.
Under a cooperative agreement with USFWS to implement this provision,
AZA is providing reimbursements to eligible facilities that cared for
endangered and threatened species and rescued and confiscated wildlife
and that experienced earned revenue losses as a result of the COVID-19
pandemic. Funds have been directed toward reimbursing eligible
facilities for the following three captive care categories: 1) U.S.
native plant and animal species listed under the ESA); 2) U.S. native
wildlife listed under the ESA rescued from the wild; and/or 3) wildlife
confiscated by the U.S. government at U.S. ports and borders or
otherwise involved in international trade and held in animal care
facilities. AZA is in the final phase of reviewing eligible
reimbursement applications and making funding recommendations to USFWS
and NOAA Fisheries for ultimate funding decisions. We expect to
complete this process by the end of June 2022. With the success of this
effort to fund some of the critical conservation work of facilities
like those accredited by AZA, we hope to work with the subcommittee and
USFWS to develop similar future funding opportunities that address
these essential ongoing wildlife conservation efforts.
AZA and its members look forward to continuing to work with this
subcommittee and Congress to assure that as a nation we are devoting
the necessary resources to conserve wildlife at home and globally.
[This statement was submitted by Dan Ashe, President and CEO,
Association of Zoos and Aquariums.]
______
Prepared Statement of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers
On behalf of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA), the voice for our
wild public lands, waters and wildlife, I write in support of stable
funding levels and critical funding increases for many key programs
within the fiscal year 2023 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
Appropriations bill. Programs within your subcommittee directly drive
important economies related to our Nation's hunting, fishing and
outdoor recreation industries with millions of Americans annually
generating $689 billion.
As we enter the fiscal year 2023 budget cycle BHA encourages this
subcommittee to invest in the natural resource programs within the U.S.
Department of Interior, the U.S. Forest Service and the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) that sustain fish and wildlife habitat, drive
hunting and fishing opportunities, enhance sportsmen's access, and
create economic stability in America. BHA is motivated to work with you
and the authorizing committees on identifying key funding solutions
that benefit future generations of sportsmen and women.
land and water conservation fund
BHA strongly supported the Great American Outdoors Act which
permanently and fully funded the Land and Water Conservation Fund
(LWCF). The $900 million floor for LWCF doesn't burden taxpayers and in
fact expands economic support to rural communities, enhances public
recreational access, and conserves quality fish and wildlife habitats.
BHA encourages the allocation of discretionary funding to take
advantage of the tremendous opportunities to leverage funding and
prioritize projects with partners in the land trust community that
would eliminate landlocked public lands currently closed to hunters and
anglers. Additionally, we support the use of funds to address projects
that consolidate fragmented ownership of Federal public lands, connect
wildlife corridors, enhance recreational access in addition to
complementing State-based investments in natural resource management.
blm land resources
BHA supports maintaining stable funding levels similar to those in
FY22 for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Land Resources subaccount
within the BLM Management of Lands and Resources section. This
subaccount includes funding for BLM's high priority planning efforts
across more than 247 million acres of land the agency manages,
including the initiation of new resource management plans, address the
need for planning updates and amendments, and implementation
strategies. It's essential to ensure that BLM has the resources
necessary to integrate the most recent State and Federal fish and
wildlife science, outdoor recreation needs, and balancing energy
development and resource extraction uses within the planning process.
blm wildlife and fish habitat management
BHA supports maintaining stable funding levels similar to those in
FY22 for the BLM Wildlife and Fish Habitat Management account. The work
conducted through this account supports the maintenance, restoration,
and enhancement of fish, wildlife, and their habitats on BLM
administered public lands. Important BLM activities such as conducting
inventories of fish and wildlife resources and developing cooperative
management plans while providing for responsible recreation and
commercial uses are critically important for BLM's ongoing work with
state fish and wildlife agencies and local communities across the West.
greater sage-grouse conservation
Greater sage-grouse habitat has experienced concerning degrees of
fragmentation and degradation across the West and historic
collaboration efforts have created powerful conservation plans tailored
to 11 States across nearly 70 million acres of sagebrush steppe.
Unfortunately, the previous administration finalized changes that will
weaken these conservation plans. Eliminating thoughtful policies that
balanced other uses like energy development with the need for improving
habitat across sagebrush country undermines our ability to keep the
bird off the endangered species list but also threatens our hunting
heritage. BHA supports the inclusion of funding for sage-grouse
conservation efforts at levels similar to those in FY22 provided to the
BLM Wildlife Habitat Management and Resource Protection and Maintenance
subaccounts to ensure the weakened plans don't compromise population
recovery for the bird. We also encourage the inclusion of report
language that asks BLM to address significant gaps in staffing and
hiring capacity to update sage-grouse and sagebrush management plans.
BHA also supports the removal of the harmful sage-grouse rider that
compromises the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (USFWS) ability to
utilize important conservation tools within the Endangered Species Act
should populations continue to decline. This rider ties the hands of
wildlife managers across the country and threatens the livelihood rural
communities that depend on sagebrush country for economic stability.
BHA encourages you to oppose efforts to include any limiting sage-
grouse rider language in FY23 appropriations bills.
abandoned hardrock mine reclamation funding
BHA supports funding levels of at least $287 million to be provided
for the abandoned hardrock mine reclamation program created by Sec.
40704 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. It is critical
that this new program receive funding to address the estimated 500,000
abandoned hardrock mines in the West. According to the Government
Accountability Office, Federal agencies spent, on average, about $287
million annually from 2008 through 2017 identifying, cleaning up, and
monitoring abandoned hardrock mine sites. However, at this rate it
would still take nearly two centuries to clean up all of our Nation's
abandoned mines which represent the largest single source of pollution
with 40 percent of watersheds in the West contaminated by mine tailings
and runoff.
usfws north american wetlands conservation act
BHA supports an increase in funding levels for the North American
Wetlands Conservation Fund from the FY22 enacted levels to $60 million.
This one-of-a-kind program leverages 1:4 ratio in contributions from
nonfederal partners to restore migratory birds and other wildlife
habitat within FWS allocations. To date NAWCA has already conserved
more than 30 million acres.
usfws national fish habitat action plan & partnerships
This USFWS account funds the National Fish Habitat Partnership, a
coalition of outdoor, hunting, angling, industry, and other
conservation organizations, that work together to address the loss and
depletion of fish habitat in critical waterways throughout America. BHA
supports funding this partnership to further water restoration efforts
across our country.
usfws national wildlife refuge system
BHA supports an increase in funding for the FWS National Wildlife
Refuge System's (NWRS) Operations and Maintenance account from the FY22
enacted levels to $712 million. The NWRS currently allows hunting on
434 and fishing in 378 wildlife refuges, generating more than $2.4
billion annually in economic revenue from hunting, fishing and other
outdoor recreation activities. The Refuge System also supports more
than 35,000 jobs across our Nation.
usfws partners for fish and wildlife program
The Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program has been reauthorized
through fiscal year 2023. BHA supports maintaining the FY22 funding
levels. This program that provides technical and financial assistance
to private landowners and help implement critical projects that restore
grasslands, wetlands and other habitats important to our critters,
including pheasant, canvasbacks, mule deer and other game species.
usfws neotropical migratory bird conservation fund
BHA supports an increase in funding levels for the Neotropical
Migratory Bird Conservation Fund from the FY22 enacted levels to $8
million. This will help protect more than 368 bird species throughout
their migratory life cycles across North and South America. The program
is a competitive grant program that benefits more than 3.7 million
acres of habitat, promoting long-term conservation of neotropical
migratory birds through partner- based conservation and energizing
local, on-the-ground conservation efforts.
usfws state & tribal wildlife grants
BHA supports an increase in funding for FWS State and Tribal
Wildlife Grants from the FY22 enacted levels to $82 million. This will
provide state fish and wildlife management agencies the resources they
need to continue managing and restoring critical habitats for species
at risk of becoming endangered. In doing so the program facilitates
collaboration between state, Tribal and Federal interests to invest in
conservation efforts that prevent more expensive management costs in
the future.
usfs non-fire programs
With the issue of borrowing funds from non-fire programs addressed,
like the Vegetation and Watershed Management and Wildlife, Fisheries
Habitat Management programs and many others, which were consumed by
suppressing wildfires, BHA encourages the reinvestment in non-fire
programs to find innovative ways that promote active management, forest
health and resiliency, sustainable fish and wildlife habitat and
quality opportunities for outdoor recreation.
usfs roads and trails
BHA supports robust funding for the U.S. Forest Service (USFS)
Roads and Trails on National Forest System lands to help alleviate
millions in maintenance backlogs. Many hunters, anglers and other
outdoor recreationalists depend on roads and trails to gain access to
our public lands and waters. Without proper funding and management,
public access can become eliminated or reduced significantly.
Addressing USFS's maintenance backlog account is an important priority
BHA would like to see addressed by Congress.
epa geographic programs
BHA supports maintaining stable funding levels similar to those in
FY22 for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Geographic Programs.
The Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay programs provide necessary Federal
investments that leverage State and local dollars to improve water
quality and fish and wildlife habitat for Canada geese, speckled trout
and other game species.
While we understand the need to be fiscally responsible with
taxpayer dollars, we believe that conservation programs are key
economic drivers, providing large returns on investment in addition to
ensuring that America has clean drinking water. Therefore, we ask you
to support stable, annual funding for our Nation's public lands and
waters to support healthy communities and habitats for fish and
wildlife. Thank you for your consideration of Backcountry Hunters &
Anglers' fiscal year 2023 recommendations for the Interior,
Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill.
[This statement was submitted by John Gale, Conservation Director,
Backcountry Hunters & Anglers.]
______
Prepared Statement of Black Mesa Community School Board
Black Mesa Community School is located in a remote mountainous area
of the Navajo Nation Reservation, 26 miles North of Pinon, Arizona. Our
community is small, but the Black Mesa Community School lies at the
center of it, providing a space not only for children to learn, but for
parent involvement. We have an enrollment of nearly 70 students in
grades K-8th and host a ``Growing in Beauty Home Visitation Program'',
serving prenatal to 3 year old children. We are a community grant
school, funded by the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) and operated
pursuant to the Tribally Controlled Schools Act (Public Law 100-297).
Black Mesa Community School is also a Member of the Dine Bi Olta School
Board Association (DBOSBA), which represents all of the locally-elected
school boards within the Navajo Nation. We would like to associate
ourselves with DBOSBA's fiscal Year 2023 appropriations testimony and
tell our school's story to provide context for these priorities.
Our testimony highlights the following fiscal Year 2023 priorities:
--Increases for ISEP Formula Funds;
--Full Funding for Teacher and Counselor Pay Parity;
--Expanding Eligibility for Tribally Controlled Schools to
Participate in the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS);
--Continued Support for Early Childhood and Family Development
Programs;
--Formula Funds for the Native Language and Culture Immersion Program
Instead of Competitive Grants;
--Increased Funding and Flexibility for Education IT;
--Increases for Road Maintenance for School Bus Routes and Student
Transportation;
--Increases for School Facilities Operations and Maintenance;
--Increases for School Facility Construction and School Replacement
Construction; and
--Reduce Unnecessary and Burdensome Reporting.
ISEP Formula Funds is the core BIE account, which funds our
school's operations. This account funds everything from classroom
instruction materials to teacher salaries. Increases for ISEP directly
benefit our students. For example, increases for ISEP could provide the
resources we need to hire tutors to help our students make up the
progress they lost during the worst months of the pandemic. ISEP
increases could also pay for things like transportation subsidies to
assist our teachers who often travel great distances to teach at our
school. We also need the resources to retain teachers with the capacity
to provide culturally appropriate, bilingual education consistent with
requirements of the Navajo Department of Education. We have seen
important student performance successes thanks to bilingual and
cultural education programs, but have no additional funding sources for
training, curriculum development, teacher certification and
professional development. ISEP funding increases are vital to enhancing
learning opportunities for all of our students through the training,
development, and retention of excellent teachers. Schools across the
Nation are facing a significant teacher shortage but that shortage is
particularly acute here in remote communities like ours on the Navajo
Nation. Further compounding this problem is the fact that surrounding
public schools in Arizona and neighboring New Mexico have responded to
the Nationwide teacher shortage by substantially increasing teacher pay
by tens of thousands of dollars. We wholeheartedly believe teachers
should be compensated in a way that reflects the important work they do
every day, but we do not have the budget to compete with these salaries
being offered by neighboring public schools. This is one of our biggest
challenges, which has become increasingly difficult. In order to
effectively address this problem, we need ISEP increases paired with
Full Funding for Teacher and Counselor Pay Parity, and opportunities to
expand the benefits package we can offer our teachers and staff that is
comparable to State Public Schools or Department of Defense Schools.
Full Funding for Teacher and Counselor Pay Parity is a critical
tool for attracting and retaining quality teachers. Federal law
requires the BIE provide funding so that teachers and counselors in the
BIE-funded school system may be paid equivalent salaries to their
counterparts in the Department of Defense Education Activity. Federal
law also provides that, at the discretion of the local school board, a
BIE-operated school may pay salaries consistent with those paid by
public schools in the state where the BIE school is located. We would
like to thank the subcommittees for the fiscal Year 2021 House Report
116-448 and the Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying the 2021
Consolidated Appropriations Act which direct the BIE to ``clearly
display funding amounts required to comply with Defense Department-
equivalent pay rates as part of future budget justifications and to
include sufficient funding in its budget request to fully fund these
requirements''. We ask the subcommittees to continue to hold the BIE
accountable for ensuring that the amounts requested for pay parity are
sufficient to either match the increases provided by the Defense
Department schools or are consistent with the rate of pay of nearby
public schools, whichever of these rates are higher. Given our acute
teacher shortage, these requested increases to provide pay parity are
essential.
Expanding Eligibility for Tribally Controlled Schools to
Participate in the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) would not
create any new costs for the Federal Government but it could
significantly bolster the efforts of tribally controlled schools like
ours to attract and retain quality teachers. Congress recently extended
eligibility for tribally controlled schools to participate in the
Federal Employee Health Benefits (FEHB) and Federal Employee Group Life
Insurance (FEGLI) programs. Extending the option of FERS participation
to us and other tribally controlled schools would strengthen this
effort.
Early Childhood and Family Development funding plays a critical
role preparing our children for school and supporting and empowering
their parents. We currently operate a Navajo Nation ``Growing in Beauty
Home Visitation'' program to meet the needs of Navajo children with
delays or disabilities from birth to 3 years of age. The Growing in
Beauty program is founded on the concept that any family, given needed
supports and resources, can help their child learn. As Congress
separately considers a nation-wide expansion of access to high-quality
pre-school and early learning opportunities, it is absolutely critical
that schools in the BIE system are included and receive dedicated,
sufficient, and flexible funding to support current early learning
programs and to help those schools without a program to start one.
Providing Formula Funds to all Schools for Native Language and
Culture Immersion would significantly help our school and others.
Because this program is currently a competitive grant program,
participation is limited. We believe that all Native students in BIE
system schools could benefit from these resources without burdening our
school administrators with yet another grant application for short-term
funds.
Education IT, specifically, funding to increase connectivity for
schools, students, and teachers and to pay the salaries of technical
staff is absolutely critical. The funding increases proposed for fiscal
Year 2022 are welcomed and can be built upon for fiscal Year 2023. We
also ask that the subcommittees ensure that these funds reliably make
it out to schools and are not micromanaged or endlessly tied up in the
BIE's bureaucracy. One specific example is that we would like to use
this funding to wire teacher housing for internet access-something that
the (separate) E-Rate program we use for other connectivity priorities
cannot cover.
Student Transportation in the BIE Budget and Road Maintenance for
School Bus Routes in the BIA Budget are of particular importance for
us. In the area Black Mesa Community School serves, very few roads are
paved or ``improved.'' A strong rain or snowstorm can render our school
bus routes impassible and disrupt learning for days. Maintenance costs
for our vehicles are higher than average for this reason and because
maintaining our buses requires long transport trips to garages in
Flagstaff and Gallup which are 150 and 170 miles away, respectively.
However, we are concerned that the General Services Administration's
planned conversation to an electric vehicle fleet could further
complicate this situation, given the current state of our roads and
electric grid. To be effectively implemented, either our infrastructure
would need to be significantly updated or these buses would need to be
specifically designed to handle our remote, challenging terrain and
unreliable electric grid. Currently, the fuel cost is increasing
outrageously and this will cause shortfalls in our transportation
budget.
School Facilities Operations and Maintenance funds play a pivotal
role in the health and safety of our students and staff. Proper
functioning of our HVAC system is key. More funding is needed to
address the BIE system-wide maintenance backlog and to ensure all of
our schools have enough funding to adequately heat and cool our
buildings, and to achieve adequate clean air circulation to reduce the
risk of coronavirus transmission as we return to in-person classes.
Each year, we receive the lengthy results of our safety inspections but
insufficient funding to address these findings. Congress should ensure
that Facilities funding is timely distributed to schools and not held
up by the BIE or the BIA Division of Facilities Management and
Construction. We also ask that Congress to shift these two accounts to
the forward funded portion of the BIE's budget to help further insulate
our schools from the disruptive uncertainties of continuing resolutions
and government shutdowns.
School Facilities Improvement & Repair and School Replacement
Construction in the BIE's Education Construction budget also
significantly impact the health and safety of our students and staff.
Our school was built in 1985 and since then, we have far outgrown it:
many of our classes take place in portable/modular buildings and our
small cafeteria doubles as our gymnasium. We also have so many
piecemeal fixes and repairs needed that it would likely be more cost
effective to simply replace our school. Unfortunately, we are not alone
in this respect: many schools throughout the BIE school system have
reached far past the end of their safe and useful life and must be
replaced. Many of these schools are located across the Navajo Nation.
The BIE's fiscal Year 2022 budget justification reports that only one
of the 10 schools on the 2016 School Replacement List is complete. It
is critical for Congress to continue robust levels of funding for
School Replacement Construction so the remaining schools on the list
can be completed expeditiously and a new list created. We thank
Congress for enacting the Great American Outdoors Act, and call on the
subcommittees to ensure that the act's 5 years of supplemental funding
to help address the repair and replacement backlogs across the BIE
school system is just that: supplemental to the robust funding Congress
is already providing.
Reduce Unnecessary and Burdensome Reporting to ensure the effective
implementation of these vital programs and the efficient use of these
valuable Federal resources. We call the subcommittee's attention to
several immediate and urgent oversight concerns regarding the BIE's
noncompliance and disregard for statutory mandates that Congress
enacted in order to ``facilitate Indian control of Indian affairs in
all matters relating to education'' as enshrined in the Indian
Education Title of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
Amendments of 1978 (Public Law 95-561) and the TCSA (Public Law 100-
297). The BIE's actions undermine self-determination in Indian
education and distract our teachers and administrators from focusing on
providing quality educational services to our students. The BIE has not
met the standards set by Congress and does not deserve a passing grade
for its performance. Significant improvement by the BIE is needed to
ensure effective program implementation and efficient use of Federal
resources. Our concerns are reflected in the separate letter DBOSBA is
providing to the subcommittees which details the need for greater
accountability at the BIE and less unnecessary paperwork and reporting
requirements for tribally controlled schools. We respectfully ask that
the subcommittees express awareness of our oversight concerns in the
appropriations instructions that will be provided to the BIE and that
those instructions request a report or response from the BIE.
Thank you. We would like to thank the subcommittees for your
support and partnership throughout the pandemic. The resources you
allocated for BIE system schools helped keep our students and teachers
safe and connected. We also deeply the appreciate the recent increases
provided to the key BIE accounts we depend on and your ongoing
oversight of the BIE. We consider you our partners in this important
endeavor of preparing our students for a bright future. Thank you for
the opportunity to provide this testimony. Please consider us a
resource if you have any questions.
[This statement was submitted by Carolyn Ben, Secretary, Black Mesa
Community School Board.]
______
Prepared Statement of Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation
Recommendations:
1. Provide full funding and advance appropriations for the
Indian Health Service
2. Ensure mandatory funding for Contract Support Costs and
105(l) lease payments
3. Amend Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act
to Clarify CSC provisions
4. Fund Critical Infrastructure investments for the Indian
health system
5. Increase funding and authorize a self-governance funding
mechanism option for the Special Diabetes Program for Indians
6. Increase funding for Preventive Health programs.
7. Reduce dependence on competitive grants for Indian Country
Introduction.-- Thank you Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member
Murkowski, and Members of the subcommittee for the opportunity to share
our funding priorities for the fiscal Year 2023 Federal budget. My name
is Robert Clark and I am the President/CEO of the Bristol Bay Area
Health Corporation. The Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation was created
in 1973 to provide health care services to Alaska Natives of Southwest
Alaska. We began operating and managing the Kanakanak Hospital and the
Bristol Bay Service Unit for the IHS in 1980, and was the first Tribal
organization to do so under the Indian Self-Determination and Education
Assistance Act (ISDEAA). BBAHC is a co-signer to the Alaska Tribal
Health Compact with the Indian Health Service (IHS) under the ISDEAA
and is now responsible for providing and promoting health care to the
people of 28 Alaska Native Villages.
We are grateful that IHS received over $9 billion supplementary
appropriations to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Those resources have
been critical to ensuring that we had the means to serve our patients
and fight this terrible disease. The pandemic also gives us an
opportunity to make real, sustained investments in the Indian health
system. As we have seen with the remarkable distribution of the COVID-
19 vaccine in Alaska and throughout Indian Country, when given adequate
resources and when Tribal sovereignty is honored, Tribal communities
demonstrate remarkable success. We believe now time to take the lessons
learned from the COVID-19 pandemic--both positive and negative--to
renew the Indian health system. Annual appropriations are essential to
fulfilling the Federal Government's trust and treaty obligations by
ensuring critical programs and services receive adequate funding to
fulfill their intended purpose. Therefore, I offer the following
recommendations for your consideration for fiscal Year 2023
appropriations for the IHS:
Provide Full Funding for the Indian Health Service.-- With support
from the IHS, we strive to provide Alaska Natives and American Indians
(AI/AN) with access to high quality and comprehensive medical services,
no more so than during the ongoing pandemic. The Indian health system
has navigated unimaginable hardships related to supplies, staffing
levels, infrastructure and facilities, and high rates of underlying
conditions in serving our people at this time. We sincerely appreciate
the work that this committee has undertaken--on a bipartisan basis--to
provide funding increases for IHS year after year. However, more must
be done for the United States to honor its trust and treaty obligations
to Tribal Nations.
The IHS Tribal Budget Formulation Workgroup has calculated the need
at $49.8 billion for full funding. The Workgroup supports fully funding
this amount in fiscal Year 2023. The top priorities for program
expansion from the fiscal Year 2022 National Tribal Budget
Recommendation Planning base of $12.8 billion as follows:\1\
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\1\ Full recommendations are available here: https://www.nihb.org/
docs/02072022/FY percent202023 percent20Tribal percent20Budget
percent20Formulation percent20Workgroup percent20Recommendations
percent20Vol percent201.pdf
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1) Hospitals and Clinics: +$8.65 billion
2) Purchased/Referred Care: +$5.22 billion
3) Mental Health: +$3.59 million
4) Alcohol and substance Abuse: +$2.31 million
5) Maintenance and Improvement: +$2.27 billion
Mandatory and Advance Appropriations for IHS.--We appreciate the
Biden Administration's proposal to provide mandatory funding for IHS
and increase funding over 10 years. Reclassifying the IHS budget as
mandatory spending not only reflects the nature of the trust and treaty
obligations to Tribal Nations, but also will allow IHS to be funded at
a level that is necessary for providing health care to AI/ANs. As noted
in the President's budget request, ``Mandatory funding for the IHS
provides the opportunity for significant funding increases that could
not be achieved under discretionary funding caps.'' \2\ The proposal
outlined in the President's Budget request is a good start, but must be
developed in partnership with Tribal Nations. We stand ready to work
with you and IHS to fully develop this proposal so that it provides
adequate funding for IHS and fully honors Tribal self-determination and
self-governance.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Department of Health and Human Services, Fiscal Year 2023,
Indian Health Service, Justification of Estimates for Appropriations
Committees, p. CJ-3.
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However, if fully mandatory appropriations cannot be achieved for
fiscal Year 2023, we continue to support IHS advance appropriations for
the short term. It has unfortunately become the norm that IHS does not
receive its full yearly appropriation until several months (sometimes
longer) after the start of the fiscal year. In the recent past, IHS,
Tribal and Urban health programs have even had to deal with government
shutdowns, when no funding was provided for weeks on end putting the
lives of our patients in jeopardy. These funding delays make it
impossible for IHS and Tribal health programs to plan and manage their
annual budgets. Congress recognized these challenges when it provided
the Veterans Administration with advance appropriations over a decade
ago. Yet, IHS still waits for parity. In fiscal Year 2022, we did not
receive our full funding amount until almost halfway through the fiscal
year. The practical implication of this is that our health systems do
not have the ability to plan our finances even weeks ahead, as we do
not know what our funding level will be. At a time when we are
desperate for medical professionals and when the health system is in
crisis due to the global pandemic, this is just unacceptable. Full
advance appropriations for the IHS would lead to better stability for
our health system, improve provider recruitment and retention, and
improve practices over all. We appreciate President Biden's support for
IHS advance appropriations in his fiscal Year 2022 budget request to
Congress and the support of many members of this subcommittee on IHS
advance appropriations. We urge the Committee to take the necessary
steps in the fiscal Year 2023 appropriations bill to move/continue IHS
to an advance appropriation for fiscal Year 2023 and beyond. The time
is now to end the delay of health care for AI/ANs.
Mandatory Funding for Contract Support Costs and 105(l) lease
payments.--If Congress is not able to enact full mandatory funding for
IHS this year, we continue to support mandatory funding for Contract
Support Costs (CSC) and 105(l) leases. We appreciate the subcommittee's
commitment to ensuring that CSC and 105(l) lease costs are fully funded
by including an indefinite discretionary appropriation in recent years
for both of these accounts. However, changing these accounts to
mandatory appropriations in fiscal Year 2023 would bring appropriations
process into line with the clear legal requirements of the authorizing
statute. CSC and 105(l) lease funds are already an entitlement under
substantive law for the ISDEAA to function as intended by Congress. It
is contradictory and problematic to appropriate funding for CSC on a
discretionary basis. A simple amendment to a permanent appropriations
statute could solve this challenge.
Amend Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act to
Clarify CSC provisions.--We also request that the committee consider
amending the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act
(ISDEAA) to clarify that when agency funding paid to a Tribe for
program operations is insufficient for contract and compact
administration, contract support costs will remain available to cover
the difference. In the recent court decision Cook Inlet Tribal Council,
Inc. v. Dotomain,\3\ a Federal appeals court held that costs for
activities normally carried out by IHS are ineligible for payment as
CSC-even if IHS transfers insufficient, or even no, funding for these
activities in the Secretarial amount. Under this new ruling, if
facility costs are higher for a Tribe than for IHS, the Tribe is forced
to cover the difference by diverting scarce program dollars. Recently,
this serious misinterpretation of the ISDEAA that has been applied to
one Tribal organization resulting in a 90 percent reduction of contract
support costs reimbursement threatens Tribal self-governance and self-
determination. Therefore, we call upon Congress to provide a
legislative fix to clarify the intent on Congress for this matter, and
ensure consistency with precedent.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Inc. v. Dotomain, 10 F.4th 892 (D.C.
Cir. 2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fully fund critical infrastructure investments.--As Congress
considers making dramatic investments in the country's infrastructure,
it is critical that the Indian health system not be left behind.
Therefore, we request that the subcommittee allocate funding for full
implementation of interoperable Electronic Health Records (EHR) and
tele-health. This will ensure that IHS can provide services that are
similar to other health providers. Last year, IHS said before the
Senate Committee on Indian Affairs that the current EHR ``created
significant barriers to the rapid response needed for COVID-19.'' For
Tribes and Tribal health organizations who have committed their own
resources to move away from RPMS and make their systems functional, IHS
should take this into consideration with any new resources and ensure
these programs are not only interoperable, but compensated accordingly.
We were thrilled to see that the Sanitation Facilities Construction
program received $3.5 billion in appropriations in the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law 117-58). These funds will be
especially critical in Alaska, which has a deficit of almost $2 billion
in unmet sanitation needs in Alaska Native communities. That said, it
is critical that Congress make still significant investments in Tribal
health facilities construction. IHS and Tribal facilities are some of
the oldest in the Nation, meaning that facilities are out of date, or
not appropriate for the size of the patient populations they serve.
Therefore, consistent with the Budget Formulation Workgroup's request,
we recommend $10.6 billion for facilities in fiscal Year 2023.
Staff Housing Quarters.--We continue to experience challenges
finding adequate housing for staffing for health and other
professionals to serve our community. As you know, health staffing
shortages across the Indian health system are dire, and providing
adequate living spaces for professionals are directly linked with our
ability to recruit and retain staff.
Extend Self-Governance Funding Options to the Special Diabetes
Program for Indians (SDPI) and increase funding to $250 million/year.--
While we understand that SDPI is not under the jurisdiction of the
subcommittee, we appreciate that Congress included a 3-year
reauthorization of SDPI in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021
(Public Law 116-260). Communities like ours across Indian Country rely
on SDPI resources to address the alarming rates of diabetes and
diabetes-related health complications among our people. SDPI's success
rests in the flexibility of its program structure that allows for the
incorporation of culture and local needs into its services. Consistent
with this model, Congress should authorize SDPI participants the option
of receiving their Federal funds through either a grant (as currently
used) or self-governance funding mechanisms under the Indian Self-
Determination and Education Assistance Act. This would be a natural and
just extension of SDPI in respecting Tribal sovereignty. Additionally,
SDPI has not had an increase in funding since fiscal Year 2004. Short
term reauthorizations also destabilize this health program and make
staffing and program continuity difficult. For this reason, we
recommend permanent reauthorization for SDPI at a minimum base of $250
million per year with annual adjustments for inflationary increases. We
urge you to work with your Congressional colleagues to ensure that SDPI
receives a funding increase of at least $250 million per year.
Plan for the Future with Dedicated Funding for Preventative Health
Services.--Among the many things we have learned from the COVID-19
pandemic is that basic public health functions are critical to
preserving life and overall health of Americans, yet public health
systems in most Tribal communities lag far behind systems in other
jurisdictions. Without robust public health systems in place,
responding to public health threats means that Tribal communities will
continue to be a challenge. Like other governments, Tribes have the
responsibility to provide public health services for their people. Yet
the Federal Government provides few resources to Tribal communities for
this purpose. AI/ANs experience health disparities for a variety of
health conditions such as such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease,
cancer and other largely preventable chronic conditions. Treating these
chronic health conditions imposes unnecessary challenges on Tribal
health systems and IHS. We support long-term, sustained, full
investment in Tribal public health infrastructure so that Tribal
communities have the resources available to respond quickly when the
next crisis hits.
Reduce Dependence on Federal Grants.--In addition to the critical
funding needs outlined above, we also support moving away from
competitive grants for Federal funding mechanisms. The Federal trust
responsibility does not require that we jump through a myriad of hoops
and onerous applications to see that services are provided to our
people. Grants also unfairly pit Tribes against Tribes, when all are
deserving of critical resources. Therefore, we agree with other Tribal
leaders and continue to support broad based funding for our health
systems across all Federal agencies. Too often, Tribes are under
resourced to apply for Federal grants, and to comply with the
associated burdensome reporting requirements which vary from grant to
grant. Applications and reporting requirements force our health system
to divert staff time to apply and report thereby diluting the
usefulness of the resources. Instead, we request wide-spread, formula-
based funding across all programs and the flexibility needed to respond
to the specific needs of their own communities, not those prescribed by
Federal grants. A Tribal workgroup has developed draft legislation to
reduce dependence on Federal grants by enacting Title VI of ISDEAA,
which would allow for self-governance to be extended to non-IHS
programs within the Department of Health and Human Services. We would
appreciate the subcommittee's support of this legislation.
[This statement was submitted by Robert J. Clark, President/CEO,
Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation.]
______
Prepared Statement of Business Council for Sustainable Energy
The Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) appreciates the
opportunity to submit testimony for the record regarding programs
impacting clean energy at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and
the Department of Interior (DOI) in the Fiscal Year 2023 Interior,
Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill.
The BCSE is a coalition of companies and trade associations from
the energy efficiency, energy storage, natural gas, renewable energy,
sustainable transportation and emerging decarbonization technology
sectors. It includes independent electric power producers, investor-
owned utilities, public utilities, equipment manufacturers, commercial
end users and service providers in energy and environmental markets.
Founded in 1992, the coalition's diverse business membership is united
around the revitalization of the U.S. economy and the creation of a
clean, secure, and reliable energy future in America.
The BCSE is pleased to have an independent small- and medium-size
businesses initiative under its banner, the Clean Energy Business
Network (CEBN). Together, the BCSE and CEBN represent a broad range of
the clean energy economy, from Fortune 100 companies to small
businesses working in all 50 States and over 350 Congressional
districts. On a national basis, these industries support over 3 million
U.S. jobs.
environmental protection agency clean energy programs
As a business group working to advance clean energy policies, BCSE
has seen first-hand the importance of the Federal role EPA fills in
sharing information about new technologies and practices to help speed
adoption of clean energy, and to allow consumers to make more informed
decisions about energy usage. EPA initiatives help businesses manage
environmental issues, foster transparency and best practices in
emissions and water management, and leadership in environmental
stewardship and sustainability. EPA also provides transparent,
standardized, and independent data and expertise that cannot be
replicated with the same credibility by private sector or non-
governmental organizations.
BCSE requests funding for Environmental Agency programs including
the CHP Partnership, Green Power Partnership, Natural Gas Star, Methane
Challenge, AgStar, Center for Corporate Climate Leadership, SmartWay
Transport Partnership, and others, which embody longstanding public-
private endeavors that benefit American businesses and help them
continue to compete on a global scale. These EPA initiatives provide
market transparency, encourage voluntary action, and identify companies
that are leaders in businesses and in environmental protection.
Additionally, EPA's laboratories lead the world in capabilities that
make the United States preeminent in research and analysis which
supports private sector capabilities to enhance economic growth and
emissions reductions simultaneously.
The Energy Star program has a proven track record of success.
Through brand recognition, information and positive publicity, the
Energy Star program has provided the catalyst for many consumers,
homeowners, businesses, and State and local governments to invest in
energy efficiency. BCSE requests a doubling of funding for the Energy
Star program in fiscal year 2023.
The Renewable Fuel Standard, which is implemented by the Office of
Transportation and Air Quality, has enabled the biomass and biogas
industry to help meet lower carbon energy needs. The Council encourages
funding for EPA for the processing of pathways and applications to
enable biomass, biogas, renewable natural gas (RNG), and waste-to-
energy projects to produce RINs for electricity. Electricity derived
from biogas, RNG, renewable biomass, and solid forms of biomass, is
currently being used as a transportation fuel and should be credited
accordingly under the RFS program. Congress should appropriate $1
million in funding for EPA to take final action within 90 days, on any
registration application or pathway petition to participate in the
Renewable Fuels Pathway II Rule which has been pending for more than 1
year.
EPA's State and Local Climate and Energy Program offers expertise
about energy efficiency, renewable energy, and climate change policies
and programs to interested State, local, and Tribal governments. By
providing these resources, EPA removes barriers that would otherwise
prohibit action at the local level due to resource constraints or lack
of information on best practices. Through its programs on renewable
energy, renewable natural gas (RNG), natural gas, combined heat and
power and energy efficiency, EPA encourages the use of clean,
efficient, and market ready technologies that can lower costs and
improve resilience in addition to lowering emissions.
EPA is also engaged in a variety of international activities to
advance climate change science, monitor our environment, and promote
activities that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. EPA establishes
partnerships, provides leadership, and shares technical expertise to
support these activities.
department of interior clean energy programs
The Department of Interior has a critical role in renewable energy
production on public lands and waters and BCSE requests funding to
facilitate this transition to clean energy.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's (BOEM) Office of Renewable
Energy Programs (OREP) and Environmental Studies Program (ESP) play
crucial roles in the development of offshore wind energy. Providing
additional resources to these offices will help the processing of
permits for an unprecedented number of offshore wind projects while
allowing the Department to conduct additional lease sales and identify
new lease areas on the Outer Continental Shelf. A doubling of funding
is needed for the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE)
to ensure safety while deploying offshore wind projects. BCSE also
supports funding for the Bureau of Land Management renewable energy
program and for an increase in funding for planning and consultation
services and staff at the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) needed for
Endangered Species Act evaluations.
The Council welcomes the opportunity to share information from the
2022 edition of the Sustainable Energy in America Factbook which shows
that despite the lingering pandemic, global supply chain bottlenecks,
rising inflation, and considerable uncertainty in 2021, the clean
energy and energy efficiency transition continued, with a record-
breaking year for deployment of renewable power, battery storage and
sustainable transportation, and an unprecedented injection of new
capital into companies, technologies and projects. We encourage you to
build upon this momentum with sustained support for clean energy
programs in fiscal year 2023.
BCSE looks forward to working with you throughout the fiscal year
2022 budget cycle. Please feel free to reach out to Ruth McCormick at
[email protected] with any questions.
[This statement was submitted by Lisa Jacobson, President, Business
Council for Sustainable Energy.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Center for Invasive Species Prevention
We write to ask you to support funding for two programs of the USDA
Forest Service. Each is essential for protecting the resilience of the
Nation's forests in the face of invasive pests.
Specifically, we ask that the subcommittee appropriate to the
Forest Health Management Program (FHP) $51 million for the Cooperative
Lands subprogram and at least $32 million for the Federal Lands
subprogram. Both subprograms must be funded in order to ensure
continuity of protection efforts--which is the only way they can be
effective.
We ask further that the subcommittee adopt report language
requiring that five percent of the Forest and Rangeland Research
Program's $318 million budget be allocated to research on invasive
species. The $16 million would fund research necessary to improving
managers' understanding of invasive forest insects' and pathogens'
invasion pathways and impacts, as well as to developing effective
management strategies.
urban, rural, and wildland forests: indispensable and threatened
About one-third of America's land area supports forests or
woodlands. These provide many benefits, including wood and non-wood
forest products; jobs for rural economies; wildlife habitat; carbon
sequestration; clean water and air; and recreation and aesthetic
enjoyment. About 60 percent of these forests are owned by States or
private entities.
While the ecosystem benefits provided by rural and wildland forests
are well understood, the contributions of urban forests are sometimes
not recognized. Urban forests moderate temperatures and winds, thus
reducing energy expenditures and related emissions of carbon dioxide
and other pollutants. They curb stormwater runoff and its management
costs. Urban trees filter air and water pollutants. And they improve
the health and wellbeing of city residents.
the need for a continuum of pest management
A growing number of non-native insects and pathogens threaten our
forests. Already, an estimated 41 percent of forest biomass in the
``lower 48'' States is at risk to mortality caused by the 15 species
causing the greatest damage. Unique plant communities and critical
watersheds are being destroyed. These include the black ash swamps of
the upper Midwest, riparian forests in the far West, stream canyons of
the Appalachian range, and high-elevation forests of the Rocky Mountain
States. [A thorough discussion of these pests' impacts is in Invasive
Species in Forests and Grasslands of the United States: A Comprehensive
Science Synthesis for the United States Forest Sector, available here
https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/61982]
Meantime, newly-discovered pests cause threats to which the FHP
must respond. Examples include rapid `ohi'a death threatening the
unique forest ecosystems of Hawai`i; beech leaf disease, which is
killing beech trees from Ohio to Maine and south to Virginia; and the
spotted lanternfly, now spread across Pennsylvania and down the
Appalachians to the middle of Virginia, as well as on the Indiana/
Kentucky border.
These introduced pests usually first appear in cities or suburbs
because they arrive on imported goods destined to population centers.
The immediate result is enormous damage to urban forests.
However, the pests don't stay in cities. Instead, they proliferate
and spread to rural and wildland forests, including National forests.
Some spread on their own. Others are carried far and wide on firewood,
plants, or even storage pods holding household furnishings. Thus they
quickly grow from a local outbreak to a national problem that hop-
scotches across state boundaries.
In this way, the pests introduced to our cities threaten forests
across the continent, demanding a Federal response. Examples of tree-
killing pests that have spread from urban areas to our National forests
include the hemlock woolly adelgid, emerald ash borer, polyphagous and
Kuroshio shot hole borers, sudden oak death, laurel wilt disease, and
spotted lanternfly.
As this history demonstrates, protecting our National forests must
begin by addressing pests where they are first found--usually in urban
or semi-rural forests. The Cooperative Lands subprogram of the Forest
Health Management program does this by providing technical and
financial assistance to the States and other forest-management
partners.
Our request for $51 million for work on non-federal cooperative
lands would partially restore capacity lost over the last decade. Since
Fiscal Year 2010, spending to combat 11 specified non-native insects
and pathogens fell by about 50 percent. Meanwhile, the pests have
spread.
Of course, management of the many non-native and native pests
threatening our National forests constitutes an essential element of
the pest-management continuum. For this reason, CISP supports a $32
million appropriation for the Federal Lands subprogram for FY23.
I will highlight a less-known but vital aspect of the FHP program:
its leadership on breeding pest-resistant trees to restore forests
decimated by pests. One component, the Dorena Genetic Resource Center,
in Cottage Grove, Oregon, has long provided genetic services to the 19
National forests plus cooperators in Oregon and Washington. One of the
Center's projects has developed Port-Orford cedar seedlings resistant
to the fatal root. These seedlings are now being planted by National
forests, the Bureau of Land Management, and others. In addition, pines
with some resistance to white pine blister rust are also under
development. Both conifers are important timber species and essential
to restoring the region's biodiversity, so these resistant trees are
good news! Also, the Dorena Center offers expert advice to partners in
the Forest Service and other federal, state, and academic institutions
engaged in resistance-breeding for Oregon's ash trees and two tree
species in Hawai`i, koa and `ohi`a.
usda forest service forest and rangeland research program
Effective programs to prevent, suppress, and eradicate non-native
insects, diseases, and plants can be developed only after scientists
understand the pest-host relationship. Often, when pests are first
detected, little to nothing is known about them. This crucial knowledge
can be gained only through research.
Unfortunately, only a tiny percentage of the Forest Service's $300
million research budget has been allocated to improving managers'
understanding of specific invasive species and, more generally, of the
factors contributing to bioinvasions.
Funding for research conducted by the Research stations on 10 non-
native pests decreased from $10 million in Fiscal Year 2010 to just
$2.5 million in Fiscal Year 2020--less than one percent of the total
research budget. This cut of more than 70 percent has crippled the
USFS' ability to develop effective tools to manage the growing number
of pests.
We thank the Committee for not accepting the proposal--last year--
to close the Pacific Southwest Research Station. We are glad that the
Station remains operational since it leads research on sudden oak
death; multiple threats to Hawaiian forests (rapid `ohi`a death, `ohi`a
rust, koa wilt, Erythrina gall wasp on wiliwili tree; and Myoporum
thrips on naio); and the growing number of introduced wood-borers in
California.
The USFS Research and Development program must also continue
leading efforts to breed hemlocks resistant to hemlock woolly adelgid;
ashes resistant to emerald ash borer; beech resistant to both beech
bark disease and beech leaf disease; and elms resistant to Dutch elm
disease. The Research program also continues studies to understand the
epidemiology of laurel wilt disease, which has spread to sassafras
trees in Kentucky and Virginia.
To ensure the future health of America's forests, we ask the
subcommittee to enhance funding for vitally important research into
invasive species by including in its report language an instruction
that the Service increase the funding for this vital research area to
five percent of the total research budget.
Thank you for addressing these matters. I would be pleased to
provide additional information.
[This statement was submitted by Faith T. Campbell, President,
Center for Invasive Species Prevention.]
______
Prepared Statement of Central Arizona Water Conservation District
On behalf of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District
(CAWCD), I encourage you to direct the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
to again expend at least $2.0 million from its Aquatic Habitat
Management Program sub-activity (formerly known as the Soil, Water and
Air Program) for Colorado River specific salinity control activities in
Fiscal Year 2023. The funding will help protect the water quality of
the Colorado River that is used by approximately 40 million people for
municipal and industrial purposes and used to irrigate approximately
5.5 million acres in the United States.
CAWCD manages the Central Arizona Project (CAP), a multi-purpose
water resource development and management project that delivers
Colorado River water into central and southern Arizona. The largest
supplier of renewable water in Arizona, CAP diverts an average of over
1.5 million acre-feet of Arizona's 2.8-million-acre-foot Colorado River
entitlement each year to municipal and industrial users, agricultural
irrigation districts, and Tribal communities.
Our goal at CAP is to provide an affordable, reliable and
sustainable supply of Colorado River water to a service area that
includes more than 80 percent of Arizona's population.
These renewable water supplies are critical to Arizona's economy
and to the economies of Native American communities throughout the
state. Nearly 90 percent of economic activity in the State of Arizona
occurs within CAP's service area. The canal provides an economic
benefit of $100 billion annually, accounting for one-third of the
entire Arizona gross state product. CAP also helps the State of Arizona
meet its water management and regulatory objectives of reducing
groundwater use and ensuring availability of groundwater as a
supplemental water supply during future droughts. Achieving and
maintaining these water management objectives is critical to the long-
term sustainability of a State as arid as Arizona.
negative impacts of concentrated salts
Natural and man-induced salt loading to the Colorado River creates
environmental and economic damages. EPA has identified that more than
60 percent of the salt load of the Colorado River comes from natural
sources. The majority of land within the Colorado River Basin is
federally owned, much of which is administered by BLM. Human activity,
principally irrigation, adds to salt load of the Colorado River.
Further, natural and human activities concentrate the dissolved salts
in the River.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) has estimated the
current quantifiable damages at about $354 million per year to U.S.
users with projections that damages would increase to approximately
$671 million per year by 2040 if the program were not to continue.
These damages include:
--A reduction in the ability to reclaim and reuse water for
beneficial uses, including drinking water and irrigation water
supplies, due to high salinities in the water delivered to
water treatment and reclamation facilities;
--A reduction in the yield of salt sensitive crops and increased
water use to meet the leaching requirements in the agricultural
sector;
--Increased use of imported water and cost of desalination and brine
disposal for recycling water in the municipal sector;
--A reduction in the useful life of galvanized water pipe systems,
water heaters, faucets, garbage disposals, clothes washers, and
dishwashers, and increased use of bottled water and water
softeners in the household sector;
--An increase in the cost of cooling operations and the cost of water
softening, and a decrease in equipment service life in the
commercial sector;
--An increase in the use of water and the cost of water treatment,
and an increase in sewer fees in the industrial sector;
--A decrease in the life of treatment facilities and pipelines in the
utility sector; and
--Difficulty in meeting wastewater discharge requirements to comply
with National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit
terms and conditions, and an increase in desalination and brine
disposal costs due to accumulation of salts in groundwater
basins.
The threat of salinity continues to be a concern between the United
States and Mexico. Since the agreement of Minute 242 in 1973 to the
1944 Water Treaty, the United States has taken several actions to
improve the quality of water delivered to Mexico, including operating
and maintaining the Main Outlet Drain Extension (MODE). More recently,
on November 20, 2012, a 5-year agreement, known as Minute 319, was
signed between the U.S. and Mexico to guide future management of the
Colorado River. Among the key issues addressed in Minute 319 included
an agreement to maintain current salinity management and existing
salinity standards. The United States, Mexico, and key water users,
including CAWCD, worked since 2015 to develop a successor agreement,
Minute 323, which was finalized on September 27, 2017. Minute 323
continues collaboration and cooperation among the United States and
Mexico with respect to salinity control in the Colorado River system.
The CAWCD and other key water providers are committed to meeting these
goals.
Adequate funding for salinity control will prevent the water
quality of the Colorado River from further degradation and avoid
significant increases in economic damages to municipal, industrial and
irrigation users.
conclusion
Implementation of salinity control practices through the BLM
Program has proven to be a very cost-effective method of controlling
the salinity of the Colorado River and is an essential component of the
overall Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program.
The continuation of funding will prevent further degradation of the
water quality of the Colorado River and further degradation and
economic damages experienced by municipal, industrial and irrigation
users. A modest investment in source control pays huge dividends in
improved drinking water quality for nearly 40 million Americans. CAWCD
requests that this committee direct that BLM again expend in Fiscal
Year 2023 at least $2.0 million from its Aquatic Habitat Management
Program sub-activity for Colorado River specific salinity control
activities.
[This statement was submitted by Theodore C. Cooke, General
Manager.]
______
Prepared Statement of Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe
On November 15, 2021, President Biden signed the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) Public Law 117-58, also known as the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), into law. The Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law is the largest long-term investment in our
infrastructure and economy in our Nation's history. As you know, it
provides $550 billion over fiscal years 2022 through 2026 in new
Federal investment in infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and
mass transit, water infrastructure, resilience,
and broadband. In section 14005 of the law, the Bureau of Indian
Affairs Road Maintenance Program was authorized for appropriations of
$50,000,000 in 2022 with $2,000,000 stepped increases each year of the
law, through FY2026. If fully funded at the authorized levels, this
would mark the highest increase that the Road Maintenance Program has
ever seen. The program has been severely underfunded and mostly
forgotten about over the last 30 years with funding levels hovering
around $24 million in the 1990's, a jump to about $40 million in the
early 2000's, and then a fall back down in the 2010's with small
increases over the last 7 years.
In March of 2022, Congress funded the BIA Road Maintenance Program
at $37 million for fiscal year 2022, underfunding the program by $13
million from what was authorized in the bipartisan law. Hundreds of
billions of dollars will be invested in infrastructure over the next
several years through the new Surface Transportation Reauthorization
Act of 2021 (STRA-21) in BIL, and so we find it makes no sense to short
the Road Maintenance Program $13 million when the need is so great and
such large investments are being made in other areas. Currently, BIA
has a deferred maintenance backlog in excess of $300 million to
maintain BIA-owned roads and bridges to an adequate standard. As part
of a 2018 survey conducted by the BIA, the deferred maintenance backlog
for all Tribal and BIA respondents was estimated at $498 million.
The BIA Road Maintenance Program is currently operating with only
13 percent of its miles in good to excellent condition while the other
87 percent remain fair to failing. The American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 infused an historic amount of
additional funding into the program and allowed Tribes across the
country to complete thousands of road maintenance projects. Through
ARRA, $141 million in supplemental road maintenance spending was pumped
into the program. As a result, the amount of road miles in good to
excellent condition saw a marked increase. Each year following the
percentages have slowly dropped as roads in Indian Country deteriorate.
The data is there and the proof is there to show what increased funding
can do for the Road Maintenance Program.
We strongly ask that you fully fund the program at the $52 million
authorized in fiscal year 2023 and also fully fund the program each
year of the remaining authorization in the law. Give us the chance to
show once again what Indian Country can and will do to prove that
better funding is what makes this program operate at a higher level.
The data and proof will be there once again to show that this increased
investment in Road Maintenance will not only make the roadways safer
but make the level of service of these routes rise to that good to
excellent condition. This will also help to improve economic
development opportunities across our lands.
Thank you for your cooperation. If you would like to discuss this
further you can reach me at (605) 964-4155.
[This statement was submitted by Harold C. Frazier, Chairman
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Conservation Fund
Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowksi, and Members of the
Appropriations subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related
Agencies, thank you for this opportunity to submit outside witness
testimony on behalf of The Conservation Fund (TCF). TCF supports the
mandatory funding request of $900 million and additional discretionary
funding in fiscal year 2023 for the Land and Water Conservation Fund
(LWCF), which includes the Federal land acquisition programs of the
Bureau of Land Management ($75 million), National Park Service ($105
million), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ($125 million), U.S. Forest
Service ($135 million), as well as three State grant programs: the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service's Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation
Fund ($31 million); National Park Service's State Assistance Grants
program ($270 million); and the U.S. Forest Service's Forest Legacy
Program ($110 million). TCF also supports a funding request for the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's North American Wetlands Conservation
Fund ($60 million); U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's State and Tribal
Wildlife Grant Programs ($100 million); U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service's Chesapeake Watershed Investments for Landscape Defense
Program ($15 million); National Park Service's Chesapeake Bay Gateways
and Watertrails Program ($3 million); and the U.S. Forest Service's
Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program ($10 million); and
the Department of Interior's (DOI) Natural Resource Damage Assessment
and Restoration Program ($10 million). TCF requests funding for the
Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Great Lakes Restoration
Initiative ($400 million) and Chesapeake Bay Program ($91 million).
TCF is a national, non-profit conservation organization dedicated
to conserving America's land and water legacy for future generations.
Established in 1985, TCF works with landowners; federal, State and
local agencies; and other partners to conserve our Nation's important
lands for people, wildlife and communities. To date, TCF has helped our
partners to conserve over 8.5 million acres. These accomplishments are
due, in large measure, to the leadership of this subcommittee over many
years to appropriate funds to acquire lands for future generations,
working forests, recreational opportunities, wildlife habitat, and many
other benefits.
Below are highlights of some benefits of the LWCF and land
acquisition programs. While these projects show the tremendous
diversity of benefits of land acquisition for the public, they have one
thing in common: each of these projects is driven by landowners. Many
farmers, ranchers and forestland owners have significant financial
equity in their land. By enabling a landowner to sell a conservation
easement or fee title, the LWCF program provides landowners with funds
to stay in business, reinvest in businesses, or meet other financial
goals.
As the subcommittee crafts its Interior, Environment and Related
Agencies Appropriations bill, there are several key points we
respectfully request you to consider, listed below.
Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) at $900 million in
mandatory and additional discretionary funding: The enactment of the
Great American Outdoors Act is a generational land conservation
victory. The Conservation Fund applauds Congress for passing the
bipartisan, bicameral legislation that provides full and mandatory
funding (at $900 million) for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. We
also encourage Congress to provide discretionary funding to address
emerging needs and opportunities. Funding the Nation's premier
conservation program with both mandatory and discretionary funding in
fiscal year 2023 will ensure LWCF continues to fulfill its mission to
safeguard natural areas, water resources, and our cultural heritage,
and to provide recreation opportunities to all Americans.
The Conservation Fund urges the Senate and House to end the
practice in recent years to rescind prior years' appropriated dollars
from the LWCF, which undermines this critical conservation program. It
is common for Federal land acquisition funds to remain ``unobligated''
until the last step in an acquisition project-this can reasonably take
up to 5 years. Unobligated balances are not a problem in and of
themselves, but funding should be moved to other acquisition projects
if it is no longer needed for acquisitions within the Federal unit
originally receiving the LWCF funding. To this end, Congress should
continue to encourage the agencies to use a tool they already have-
reprogramming-rather than rescissions to ensure LWCF funds are spent on
critical conservation needs, fulfilling the purpose of the LWCF and the
intent of the Great American Outdoors Act.
LWCF-Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Land Acquisition at $75
million. The BLM and its National Conservation Lands provide
some of our Nation's best recreation and historic areas, from
opening new recreational access to sportsmen along with North
Platte River SRMA in Wyoming to protecting riverside lands of
the Upper Snake/South Fork ACEC SRMA in Idaho. We request $75
million to fund BLM's land acquisition program and projects.
LWCF-National Park Service (NPS) Federal Land Acquisition at
$105 million. Hosting more than 237 million visitors in 2020,
the 423 National Park units provide an economic boost to their
local communities and those employed directly and indirectly.
Funding for NPS LWCF will help protect key access points for
recreation, historic areas, trails and more. We respectfully
request $105 million to fund NPS's land acquisition program and
projects.
LWCF-U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Land Acquisition at
$125 million. National Wildlife Refuges (NWR) are our Nation's
protectors of clean water, clean air, abundant wildlife and
world-class recreation. Funding for fiscal year 2023 FWS LWCF
will help protect critical wildlife habitat, provide public
access and recreation, and improve water quality at Refuges,
including Maryland's Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and
Texas' Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge; as well as
preserving our Nation's working lands, such as at Montana's
Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Area. We respectfully request
$125 million to fund FWS's land acquisition program and
projects.
LWCF-U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Land Acquisition at $135
million. USFS LWCF funds help with forest management by
protecting key inholdings and reducing fire threats. From
Colorado's Pike-San Isabel National Forest to Minnesota's
Superior National Forest-Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness
to the Appalachian Mountain's White Mountain (NH/ME), George
Washington-Jefferson (VA), Cherokee (TN), Pisgah (NC), and
Chattahoochee (GA) National Forests, we are working with
willing landowners at priority project areas and respectfully
request $135 million to fund USFS's land acquisition program
and projects.
LWCF State Grant Programs: FWS-Cooperative Endangered Species Fund,
NPS- State Conservation Grants, and USFS-Forest Legacy: We encourage
the subcommittee to fund:
--FWS-Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund: $31 million
(for the LWCF-funded portion)
--NPS-State Assistance Grants program: $270 million
--USFS-Forest Legacy Program: $110 million
DOI and USFS Conservation and Land Acquisition Programs: TCF
encourages the Committee to fund:
--FWS-North American Wetlands Conservation Fund at $60 million
--FWS-State and Tribal Wildlife Grant Program at $100 million. The
State and Tribal Wildlife Grant Program is the only Federal
funding source available to States that leverages non-federal
funds to help protect critical habitat for over 12,000 species
in greatest conservation need identified in state wildlife
action plans. To build upon the State and Tribal Wildlife
Program, TCF urges Congress to enact the Recovering America's
Wildlife Act. This legislation aims to provide critical
resources to conduct proactive, non-regulatory fish and
wildlife conservation efforts nationwide.
--FWS-Chesapeake Watershed Investments for Landscape Defense Program
at $15 million
--NPS-Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Program at $3 million
--USFS-Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program at $10
million
Department of the Interior-Natural Resource Damage Assessment and
Restoration Program at $10 million. The Restoration Program leads the
National response for recovery of natural resources that have been
injured or destroyed because of oil spills or releases of other
hazardous substances. Recoveries from responsible parties can only be
spent to implement restoration plans developed by the Trustee Council
for each incident. These funds are one hundred percent private and
represent the amount needed to restore environmental resources or
compensate for lost public use since the damage in question. The fiscal
year 2023 funds would allow the Program to add carefully targeted staff
allocated to Interior bureaus and offices through its Restoration
Support Unit to accelerate restoration activities.
Environmental Protection Agency Programs: TCF encourages the
Committee to fund:
--Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GRLI) at $400 million. TCF
urges funding of GLRI at $400 million. The Initiative provides
critical support for on-the-ground restoration programs and
projects targeted at the most significant environmental
problems in the Great Lakes ecosystem.
--Chesapeake Bay Program at $91 million: TCF urges funding of the
Chesapeake Bay program at $91 million. This program brings
together a diverse partnership to support the Bay's
restoration.
The Conservation Fund stands ready to work with you to secure full
and consistent funding for the LWCF and the other critically important
programs that help protect the environment, economies, forests, and
community values across our Nation. Thank you for the opportunity to
provide this testimony and your consideration of our request.
[This statement was submitted by Kelly Reed, Senior Vice President
of Government Relations, The Conservation Fund.]
______
Prepared Statement of Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma
On behalf of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (Choctaw Nation or the
Nation), I am writing to urge the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on
Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies to include the following
recommendations in its Fiscal Year 2023 appropriations package:
--$246 million for increased public safety costs incurred by the
Choctaw Nation and other Oklahoma Tribes following the Supreme
Court's Ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma, 591 U. S. (2020).
--$300,000 to the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma to hire two Tribal
Mining Remediation Compliance Officers to account for the mines
in Oklahoma.
--$150 per student for the Johnson O'Malley (JOM) Program.
--Fund all current commitments for the Joint Venture Construction
Program (JVCP).
--Direct the Indian Health Service (IHS) to solicit JVCP applications
on a regular cycle.
--Provide recurring direct funding and support for IHS and Tribal
Graduate Medical Education (GME) Program.
Additionally, the Choctaw Nation urges the subcommittee to consider
report language that:
--Directs the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) to make publicly
available a report on its efforts to implement the JOM
Modernization Act as it relates to updating student counts.
--Directs funding to the Federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation
and Enforcement to work with the Oklahoma Department of Mines
to conduct an assessment of mines in the State of Oklahoma,
with a particular emphasis on mines or reclamation projects
located within the boundaries of Indian Reservations.
These priorities are discussed in further detail below.
indian health service
Fund All Current Commitments for JVCP Projects; Require IHS to
Solicit JVCP Applications on a Regular Cycle, Not Less Than Every Two
Years; and Require the IHS to Move All Eligible JVCP Applications
Forward in Each Competition. The Choctaw Nation appreciates that
Congress continues to appropriate funding for the Joint Venture
Construction Program (JVCP), a proven, successful model for leveraging
Federal resources to improve access to care in Indian country. Choctaw
has utilized the JVCP to expand health care services to our citizens
and created jobs throughout our reservation, which consists of 13
counties in Southeast Oklahoma. One of the great benefits of the JVCP
to the Choctaw Nation Health Services is that it leverages scarce
resources with a tribal/federal partnership. This allows Tribes to
address lack of access to healthcare in our Tribal communities. Our
most recent JVCP is the Choctaw Nation Durant Regional Medical Clinic,
a 143,000 square foot clinic, opened in 2017 and contains the first
Tribal outpatient ambulatory surgery clinic. The JVCP allows Tribes or
Tribal organizations to construct and equip a healthcare facility at
their cost with a Federal commitment for staffing. Participants in this
competitive program are selected from among eligible applicants who
agree to provide an appropriate facility to IHS that rank highest with
relative need. Because the historic IHS Health Care Facilities
Construction list has been frozen without adding any additional
projects since the 1990s, the JVCP is the only means that many Tribes
across most IHS Areas must address extremely outdated health facilities
and underserved populations. The IHS has been opening JVCP competition
sporadically and not moving all eligible projects forward in each
competition.
--Provide Recurring Direct Funding and Support for IHS and Tribal GME
Programs; Direct IHS to Waive the Scores for Their Loan
Repayment and Make Tribes Automatically Eligible Like the
National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Did; and Increase funding
for IHS and Tribal Provider Housing Construction and
Renovation. Indian health programs and facilities face long
standing challenges in recruiting and retaining essential
staff, which are attributable to a variety of factors that
include, but are not limited to, the remoteness of some IHS
facilities, rural communities, aging IHS facilities and medical
equipment, housing shortages, limited access to high quality
schools and basic amenities, limited spousal employment
opportunities, and competition with higher paying public and
private health care systems. The Choctaw Nation has operated a
highly successful Graduate Medical Education (GME) program
since 2012 which has taught us that GME improves quality of
care by providing teaching/learning environments and raising
the performance of all personnel to an exceptional level, which
in turn becomes its own means of recruitment. Since the Choctaw
GME program's inception, about 80 percent of our residents
continue to work in rural settings, and about 70 percent of our
residents accept employment in the Choctaw Nation health
system. The Choctaw Nation, with our hospital located in
Talihina, a community with a population of l , 100, has had to
construct and maintain provider housing as the IHS formerly did
in the same location prior to 1995. The COVID-19 pandemic has
exacerbated provider shortages and revealed unmet needs for
housing where no appropriate housing exists, not only for
doctors, but also nursing personnel.
bureau of indian affairs
public safety
Allocate $246 million to Cover the Increased Public Safety Costs
Incurred by the Choctaw Nation and Other Oklahoma Tribes Following the
Supreme Court's Ruling in McGirt.
Following the Supreme Court decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, the
Choctaw Nation's jurisdiction now amounts to approximately 45 percent
of the state of Oklahoma. As such, the responsibility for Tribal
governments has increased tremendously, so too have caseloads. The
Choctaw Nation has seen a 3,000 percent increase in criminal cases, and
approximately a 6,000 percent increase in traffic cases. It has been
nearly 19 months since our Nation's highest court handed down this
ruling, and we have yet to receive the necessary funding from Congress
to cope with the situation. We are being forced to divert nearly $19
million of our own Tribal resources to maintain public safety on our
Reservation. The United States is failing to uphold its treaty and
trust responsibility to the Choctaw Nation and is forcing us to execute
our 638-contract agreement for law enforcement on only $650,000, or 1
percent of the formula-based need. Since McGirt, BIA has not provided
parity funding for Oklahoma Tribes that now have newfound reservation
status. This is unacceptable. Thus, while we are very appreciative of
your subcommittee's efforts to provide $62 million in the fiscal Year
2022 consolidated appropriations package, it is still well below what
the Choctaw Nation and other Oklahoma Tribes require to ensure public
safety on reservation land. The United States has a responsibility to
provide adequate public safety funding for the more than 1.5 million
people who reside on the reservations of the Five Civilized Tribes and
the Quapaw.
environment
--Allocate $300,000 to the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma to Hire Two
Tribal Mining Remediation Compliance Officers to Conduct an
Inventory of the Status of Mines in Oklahoma. The Choctaw
Nation's responsibilities following the Supreme Court ruling in
McGirt are not limited to public safety. It also extends to the
environmental protection of our lands and resources within the
boundaries of our Reservation. In 2021, the Federal Office of
Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) notified
State officials that the Federal Government would resume
control of surface coal mining and reclamation operations
within the boundaries of the Choctaw Nation.\1\ With prior or
existing mines in more than 16 counties in the State of
Oklahoma, the Choctaw Nation needs resources to hire at least
two new staff and purchase equipment to begin conducting an
inventory of the status of the mines within its Reservation
boundaries. Without these resources, we remain woefully
unprepared to undertake such a large task.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Federal Register, OSMRE Jurisdiction To Administer the Surface
Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 Within the Exterior
Boundaries of the Cherokee Nation Reservation and the Choctaw Nation
Reservation in the State of Oklahoma, 86 FR 57854 (Oct. 19, 2021),
available at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/10/19/2021-
22720/osmre-j urisdiction-to-adm in ister-the-surfaceminin o-control-
and-reclamation-act-of- 1977-with in-the.
--Direct the Federal OSMRE to Work with the Oklahoma Department of
Mines to Conduct an Inventory of Mines in the State of
Oklahoma, with a Particular Emphasis on Mines Located Within
the Boundaries of Indian Reservations. Additionally, while the
Tribe welcomes the decision in McGirt, we would be remiss to
acknowledge the role that the state of Oklahoma Department of
Mines has played in monitoring and documenting the existence
and status of reclamation projects in the State. For this
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
reason, we urge this
Subcommittee to direct the Federal OSMRE to undertake a thorough
inventory of mines in Oklahoma to ensure that first, the Choctaw Nation
is aware of the status of mines with the borders of its Reservation,
and second, that we can protect the quality of our waters, lands, and
more importantly, Native people residing within our Reservation.
bureau of indian education
Johnson O'Malley
--Increase JOM Funding to $150 Per Student. Through the JOM Program,
the Choctaw Nation serves an estimated 13,000 students in 75
schools throughout the Nation's 11,000 square mile Reservation.
Since the early 1990s, our numbers have never increased. As a
result, we support each Choctaw Nation student at an average of
$65 per student. While this is more per student than most
Tribes, it is woefully inadequate and an insult to our
children--the future of our Tribe. The subcommittee must
increase JOM funding to a minimum of $ 150 per student.
--Direct the BIE to Make Publicly Available a Report on its Efforts
to Implement the JOM Modernization Act as it Relates to
Updating Student Counts. In 2017, Congress enacted the JOM
Supplemental Indian Education Program Modernization Act (Public
Law 115-404) directing the BIE to take initial steps in
ensuring full participation of all qualified and eligible
Native students in the JOM program, clarifying the current
contracting and reporting practices, and obtaining accurate
student counts. While the BIE submitted its preliminary report
and subsequent final rule, they have failed to meet their
obligations under the report.\2\ In an April 2020 report, the
Government Accountability Office stated that ``BIE does not
maintain a complete and accurate list of all its JOM
contractors, who provide services including targeted academic
support, Native language classes, and cultural activities.''
\3\ The subcommittee should direct the BIE to make publicly
available a report on the BIE's efforts to implement the JOM
Modernization Act, including obtaining accurate student counts.
\2\ Federal Register, available at https://www.federalregister.gov/
documents/2019/10/29/2019-23617/johnsonomalley-program-preliminary-
report; Federal Register, available at https://www.federalregister.gov/
documents/2020/02/25/2020-02883/educationcontracts-under-johnson-
omalley-act
\3\ Gov't Accountability Office, available at https://www.gao.gov/
assets/710/706797 .pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yakoke for taking the time to consider the fiscal Year 2023
appropriations priorities of the Choctaw Nation.
[This statement was submitted by Gary Batton, Chief, Choctaw Nation
of Oklahoma.]
______
Prepared Statement of Chugach Regional Resources Commission
The Chugach Regional Resources Commission (CRRC) requests increases
to the fiscal Year 2023 appropriation that would permit us to establish
a Federal base program award of $1.18 million for our services under
the following three Interior subaccounts: 1) BIA's TM/DP subaccount, 2)
BIA's Fish, Wildlife & Parks subaccount, and 3) the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service's Migratory Bird Management subaccount. This figure
would represent 50 percent of our targeted fiscal Year 2023 operating
budget of $2.36 million. The BIA Alaska Regional Office denied our
fiscal Year 2022 contract submission for $2.36 million due to
insufficient Federal funds.
CRRC is a Tribal Organization whose primary mission is to develop
the natural resource capability and capacity for each of our seven
member Tribes located within Alaska's Chugach Region in southcentral
Alaska. CRRC is overseen by a Board of Commissioners with
representation from each of our villages. We depend on Federal
appropriations to the BIA's Tribal Management/Development Program (TM/
DP) and Fish, Wildlife & Parks accounts within BIA's Natural Resources,
together with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) funds to perform
such programs as habitat protection and enhancement, conservation of
fish, wildlife and plant resources, subsistence management, technical
capacity building at the local level for natural resource management,
support the use of traditional Alaska Native ecological knowledge, and
operate and maintain one of the only Tribally-operated shellfish
hatcheries in Alaska, the Alutiiq Pride Marine Institute (former
Alutiiq Pride Shellfish Hatchery). We perform all these duties working
with our Federal, State, and local partners.
CRRC greatly appreciates the bipartisan work of the subcommittee to
redress chronic funding disparities faced by Alaska Natives and
American Indians. With your support, CRRC is assisting Alaska Natives
to live healthier and longer lives, learn, and implement sustainable
mariculture farming techniques that improve marine and plant habitats,
promote jobs, food security, and educate Alaska Native youth in STEM
programs.
CRRC is primarily dependent upon appropriations by this
subcommittee for BIA's TM/DP and Fish, Wildlife & Parks programs within
the Bureau's Trust-Natural Resources account. We urge the subcommittee
to build upon any fiscal Year 2022 increases it includes for the BIA's
TM/DP and Fish, Wildlife & Parks program, and U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service's Migratory Bird Management Program. We submit our testimony
concerning fiscal Year 2023 appropriation needs without knowing the
final fiscal Year 2022 appropriation for Interior.
If CRRC is to play the active role we seek to educate, motivate,
and inspire the next generation of Alaska Native marine biologists,
mariculture directors, and scientists, and assist in the creation of
sustainable mariculture jobs our Alaska Native villages, we need
increased and recurring resources within the Interior Department's
appropriation to staff critical positions, travel to our seven Alaska
Native villages, and educate Alaska Native youth by sharing our passion
for science, sustainable fishing, mariculture farming, and hunting.
Please help us achieve our mission. Through our programs, services, and
educational outreach programs, CRRC contributes significantly to the
health and economic stability of our member villages. This was
especially important while the pandemic and supply chain challenges
persist which contribute to food and economic insecurity in Alaska
Native villages.
Our work sustains full-time and seasonal employment for up to 20
Alaska Native people and helps surrounding businesses, all of which
contributes to the health of the more than 1,200 Alaska Natives we
serve. Our employees are able to earn a living and support their
families and reinvest their wages in the community. This supports the
employment of other Alaska Native and non-Native families, thereby
removing families from Alaska State and Federal assistance rolls. This
contributes to family and community stability and serves as a bulwark
against depression, substance abuse, suicide, and other social ills
that plague remote Alaska Native communities.
CRRC sustained arbitrary reductions by the BIA in prior years to
our TM/DP base funding level that undermined our services, reduced our
natural resource and marine research and development, stretched our
limited resources, and made it difficult to retain staff. Our work is
important for the future of the mariculture industry in Alaska and to
our Tribes and their members who depend on CRRC's programs and
services. We require a stable Federal budget, together with the timely
payment of contract support cost funds, to help us perform our
programs, pay staff, and operate and maintain the hatchery.
During the pandemic, we developed innovative ways using webinars
and teleconferencing and posting information to our webpage to reach
our villages and continue our work in these communities. With the
pandemic peaking in Alaska in late January of 2022, and average daily
infections dropping below 300 the first week of March, we are hopeful
that we will be able to return to our pre-pandemic travel and routines.
Our programs also support future economic and commercial
opportunities for the Prince William Sound and Lower Cook Inlet regions
through the protection and development of the Alaskan shellfish
industry and other natural resources. Federal investment in CRRC
translates into economic opportunities and community investments that
have a great impact on the Chugach Region of Southcentral Alaska. When
BIA appropriations for CRRC fall below our expectations, we do our best
to seek other funding sources. This is essential if we are to retain
the loyal staff we depend on. It is they who ensure the success of our
programs and outreach through their dedication and passion.
For fiscal Year 2021, we received $615,000 in TM/DP funds from the
BIA. This figure represents a combination of recurring TM/DP funds,
contract support costs, and discretionary grants within TM/DP and the
BIA's Fish, Wildlife & Parks account. This amount represented about
one-third of our actual operating budget of $1.8 million for fiscal
Year 2021.
For fiscal Year 2023, our goal is to increase TM/DP, BIA Fish,
Wildlife and Parks, and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Migratory Bird
Management Program funding to a level that will permit us to cover 50
percent, or $1.18 million, of our targeted operating budget of $2.36
million with these program funds. A $2.36 million operating budget
includes $1.375 million to cover the salary and fringe benefits of our
14-person staff, including a Mariculture Director, Science Director,
Marine Mammal Program Coordinator, Fish and Wildlife Coordinator,
Environmental Coordinator, Shellfish Technician, Ocean Acidification
Lab Manager, Nanwalek Salmon Technicians, Inter-Tribal Liaison, Climate
Specialist, Executive Director, and Alaska Migratory Bird Co-Management
Council Director.
Another $400,000 is required for salary and fringe benefits for six
(6) additional positions, including two additional Hatchery Technicians
(totals $71,500 with fringe benefits), a Research Scientist position
and Tribal Conservation District (TCD) Program Coordinator (totals
$177,320 with fringe benefits), and an Executive Assistant and
Maintenance Supervisor (totals $150,150 with fringe benefits). CRRC
must also cover Tribal special projects in our villages, travel costs
to villages, program costs for our annual ``Subsistence Memorial
Gathering,'' utilities, repair and maintenance, insurance, accounting
and audit, grant writing costs, training, and related expenses.
Last year, we renewed our lease with the City of Seward for the
10,000 sq. ft. Alutiiq Pride Marine Institute and adjoining land with a
lease term through 2069. This long-term lease (nearly 50 years) will
allow us to confidently secure funds from Federal, State, and other
grant sources to finance the renovation and expansion of our existing
hatchery and research space. In addition to our APMI facility in
Seward, we lease space in Anchorage for our administrative offices.
Despite our repeated requests to BIA officials in the Alaska
Regional Office and BIA headquarters in Washington, D.C., we have not
received written confirmation of our true recurring base award of TM/DP
funds in advance of annual negotiations with the BIA. This makes
planning and budgeting difficult. Tribal organizations deserve this
information. To date, in March 2022, we have not yet received our
fiscal Year 2022 TM/DP or contract support costs. This is not how
Tribal organizations should have to operate. Delays by the BIA in the
payment of our recurring funding and contract support cost dollars and
uncertainty over what our true ``Secretarial amount'' is under our BIA
``638'' contract undermine our program goals and our ability to
efficiently carry out services and activities to our member Tribes.
CRRC was organized in 1987 to address environmental and natural
resource issue for our Tribes and develop culturally sensitive economic
projects at the community level. For the last 35 years, CRRC has
received anywhere from $380,000 to $409,500 in TM/DP funds. However,
since 1987, costs to operate an organization that strives to provide
competitive salaries and serve a growing Tribal member base, have
increased.
CRRC respectfully asks the subcommittee to include report language
directing the BIA to include in future budget submissions to Congress
its requested TM/DP funding amount for each of the nearly three dozen
programs financed within TM/DP. Without such detailed information in
the President's budget submission to Congress, Tribal organizations
like CRRC are left to guess what our recurring funding level is when
Interior officials do not disclose it.
If Congress enacts an appropriation for TM/DP at the
Administration's requested budget level, the BIA should award each TM/
DP program no less than the amount reflected in the Administration
budget tables submitted to Congress. Funding increases should be shared
across the board among all the TM/DP recipients absent express
direction by Congress in your reports. Doing so would permit Tribal
organizations like CRRC to ascertain what our fiscal year base award
amount is, plan, budget, and negotiate our upcoming Annual Funding
Agreement with the BIA.
Congress has grown the TM/DP base funding level by over forty-two
percent (42 percent) over the last 8 years, from $9.22 million in
fiscal Year 2013 to $13.146 million in fiscal Year 2021. But during
that same period, we have seen our funding arbitrarily and unilaterally
reduced in the President's Budget Justification from $410,000 to as low
as $348,000. Among the 35 TM/DP Programs funded in fiscal Year 2018,
our program was the only program (of 35) singled out by the
Administration for a 15 percent cut. CRRC simply asks for equity with
other TM/DP-funded programs. CRRC has not received recurring budget
increases equal to the percentage growth of the TM/DP account, while
carrying out similar subsistence fish management services, habitat
restoration, and mariculture activities for our member villages. In
fact, CRRC's TM/DP-funded amount has remained essentially the same
since the early 1990's despite our services and Tribal member base
expanding exponentially.
The annual increases to the TM/DP account that appropriators have
included in annual spending measures is a great accomplishment and a
testament to all the Tribal recipients of TM/DP funds. It reflects the
commitment of Congress to support these important programs. CRRC wishes
to expand the programs and services we provide. Increased funding to
this account that our program shares with other TM/DP recipients will
enable us to do more for our member Tribes.
An annual recurring Federal budget for CRRC of at least $1.18
million will allow CRRC to:
--Expand the Alutiiq Pride Marine Institute's production of oyster
and littleneck clam seeds, geoducks, cockles, and razor clams;
--Sustain the shellfish sanctuary in Port Graham and Resurrection
Bay;
--Expand our study of ocean acidification as part of the Alaska Ocean
Acidification Network and the impact of acidification on fish
and shellfish stocks.
--Expand Nanwalek Salmon Enhancement Project, a subsistence fishery,
to rejuvenate the availability of fish for direct consumption;
--Expand natural resource efforts on behalf of our Tribes, including
wetlands monitoring and planning, traditional foods advocacy
and protection, climate change vulnerability and adaptation
planning, subsistence resource advocacy, and the development
and management of a Tribal Conservation District;
--Expand our leadership as statewide manager and member of the Alaska
Migratory Bird Co-Management Council (AMBCC) work with the
State and USF&WS; and
--Enhance the monitoring and refinement of our Natural Resource
Management Program objectives for each of our Alaska Native
villages.
Thank you for giving CRRC the opportunity to share our fiscal Year
2023 budget needs.
[This statement was submitted by Willow Hetrick-Price, Executive
Director, Chugach Regional Resources Commission.]
______
Prepared Statement of Chugach Regional Resources Commission
The Chugach Regional Resources Commission (CRRC) requests increases
to the fiscal Year 2023 appropriation that would permit us to establish
a Federal base program award of $1.18 million for our services under
the following three Interior subaccounts: 1) BIA's TMDP subaccount, 2)
BIA's Fish, Wildlife & Parks subaccount, and 3) the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service's Migratory Bird Management subaccount. This figure
would represent 50 percent of our targeted fiscal Year 2023 operating
budget of $2.36 million.
CRRC is a Tribal organization whose primary mission is to develop
the natural resource capability and capacity for each of our seven
member Tribes located within Alaska's Chugach Region in southcentral
Alaska. CRRC is overseen by a Board of Commissioners who are appointed
by each of our seven Native villages. We depend on Federal
appropriations to the BIA's Tribal Management/Development Program
(TMDP) and Fish, Wildlife & Parks accounts within BIA's Natural
Resources, together with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) funds
to perform such programs as habitat protection and enhancement,
conservation of fish, wildlife and plant resources, subsistence
management, conservation and co-management of migratory birds,
technical capacity building at the local level for natural resource
management, support the use of traditional Alaska Native ecological
knowledge, and operate and maintain the only Tribally-operated
shellfish hatchery in Alaska, the Alutiiq Pride Marine Institute
(former Alutiiq Pride Shellfish Hatchery). We perform all of these
duties working with our Federal, State, and local partners.
CRRC advocates for co-management, fills in gaps in data from
wildlife management agencies with limited budgets, monitors the
ecosystem to ensure access to traditional foods, and assists in the
creation of sustainable mariculture jobs for our Alaska Native
villages. To do so, we need increased and recurring resources within
the Interior Department's appropriation to staff critical positions,
travel to our seven Alaska Native villages, enhance and reinvigorate
our traditional food sources, and educate Alaska Native youth by
sharing our passion for science, sustainable fishing, mariculture
farming, and hunting. Please help us achieve our mission. Through our
programs, services, and educational outreach programs, CRRC contributes
significantly to the health, economic stability, and food security of
our member villages. This is a vital lifeline for our communities while
continuing pandemic and supply chain challenges contribute to food and
economic insecurity in Alaska Native villages.
CRRC was organized in 1987 to address environmental and natural
resource issue for our Tribes and develop culturally sensitive economic
projects at the community level. For the last 35 years, CRRC has
received anywhere from $348,000 to $409,500 annually in TMDP funds.
However, since 1987, costs to operate have increased significantly. Our
ability to pay competitive salaries and serve a growing Tribal member
base is an annual challenge.
Our work sustains full-time and seasonal employment for up to 20
Alaska Native people and helps surrounding businesses, all of which
contributes to the health of the more than 1,200 Alaska Natives we
serve. Our employees are able to earn a living and support their
families and reinvest their wages in the community. This supports the
employment of other Alaska Native and non-Native families, thereby
removing families from Alaska State and Federal assistance rolls. This
contributes to family and community stability and serves as a bulwark
against depression, substance abuse, suicide, and other social ills
that plague remote Alaska Native communities.
During the pandemic, we developed innovative ways using webinars
and teleconferencing and posting information to our webpage to reach
our villages and continue our work in these communities. With the
pandemic peaking in Alaska in late January of 2022, and 7-day average
infections dropping to around 208 in May, we are hopeful that we will
be able to return to our pre-pandemic routines.
Our programs also support future economic and commercial
opportunities for the Prince William Sound and Lower Cook Inlet regions
through the protection and development of the Alaskan shellfish
industry and other natural resources. Federal investment in CRRC
translates into economic opportunities and community investments that
have a great impact on the Chugach Region of Southcentral Alaska. When
BIA appropriations for CRRC fall below our expectations, we vigorously
seek out other funding sources. This is essential if we are to retain
the loyal staff we depend on. It is they who ensure the success of our
programs and outreach through their dedication and passion.
CRRC was shocked that the President's fiscal Year 2023 Budget
Justification for BIA flatlines CRRC's recommended TMDP base recurring
award at the fiscal Year 2021 enacted level, while all 34 other TMDP
Tribal recipients are recommended for an increase to their base TMDP
recurring funding level. Meanwhile, the BIA Alaska Regional Office
denied our request--submitted in November 2021--for an increase in
funds in our fiscal Year 2023 contract due to ``insufficient Federal
funds.'' We are at a loss to understand how every TMDP recipient except
for CRRC could receive a proposed budget increase.
Congress has grown the TMDP base funding 56.8 percent from fiscal
Year 2013 to fiscal Year 2022, from $9.22 million in fiscal Year 2013
to $14.459 million in fiscal Year 2022. The annual increases to the
TMDP account that appropriators have included in annual spending
measures is a great accomplishment and a testament to all the Tribal
recipients of TMDP funds. It reflects the commitment of Congress to
support these important programs.
But during that same period, we have seen our funding arbitrarily
and unilaterally reduced in the President's Budget Justification from
$410,000 to as low as $348,000. Among the 35 TMDP Programs funded in
fiscal Year 2018, our program was the only program (of 35) singled out
by the Administration for a 15 percent cut. In fact, CRRC's TMDP-funded
amount has remained essentially the same since the early 1990's despite
our services and Tribal member base expanding exponentially. Over the
years, CRRC has not received critical recurring budget increases equal
to the percentage growth of the TMDP account, while carrying out
similar subsistence fish management services, habitat restoration, and
mariculture activities for our member villages.
In prior years, arbitrary reductions by the BIA to CRRC's TMDP base
recurring funding level undermined our services, reduced our natural
resource and marine research and development, stretched our limited
resources, and made it difficult to retain staff. In 2020, we prevailed
in a Contract Disputes Act (CDA) claim against BIA regarding these
reductions. Our work is important for the future of the mariculture
industry in Alaska and to our Tribes and members who depend on CRRC's
programs. We require a stable Federal budget, together with the timely
payment of contract support cost funds, to help us perform our
programs, pay staff, and operate and maintain the hatchery.
For fiscal Year 2021, we received $507,783 in TMDP funds from the
BIA. This figure represents a combination of recurring TMDP funds and
discretionary grants from the BIA. To receive discretionary funds, we
must expend administrative resources to write grant proposals and
report on activities. While we welcome discretionary awards by the BIA,
the fiscal Year 2021 funds represent a fraction of our budget
requirement. We need budget certainty, without extraneous
administrative burden.
For fiscal Year 2023, our goal is to increase TMDP, BIA Fish,
Wildlife and Parks, and USFWS Migratory Bird Management Program funding
to a level that will permit us to cover 50 percent, or $1.18 million,
of our targeted operating budget of $2.36 million with these program
funds. A $2.36 million operating budget includes $1.375 million to
cover the salary and fringe benefits of 14 full-time staff, including a
Mariculture Director, Science Director, Marine Mammal Program
Coordinator, Fish and Wildlife Coordinator, Environmental Coordinator,
Shellfish Technician, Ocean Acidification Lab Manager, Nanwalek Salmon
Technicians, Inter-Tribal Liaison, Climate Specialist, Executive
Director, and Alaska Migratory Bird Co-Management Council Director.
Another $400,000 is required for salary and fringe benefits for six
(6) additional positions, including two additional Hatchery Technicians
(totals $71,500 with fringe benefits), a Research Scientist position
and Tribal Conservation District (TCD) Program Coordinator (totals
$177,320 with fringe benefits), and an Executive Assistant and
Maintenance Supervisor (totals $150,150 with fringe benefits). CRRC
must also cover Tribal special projects in our villages, travel costs
to villages, program costs for our annual Subsistence Memorial
Gathering, utilities, repair and maintenance, insurance, accounting and
audit, grant writing costs, training, and related expenses.
This year, we renewed our lease with the City of Seward for the
10,000 sq. ft. Alutiiq Pride Marine Institute facility and adjoining
land with a lease term through 2069. This long-term lease (nearly 50
years) will allow us to confidently secure funds from Federal, State,
and other grant sources to finance a badly-needed renovation and
expansion of our existing hatchery and research space.
An annual recurring Federal budget for CRRC of at least $1.18
million will allow CRRC to:
--Expand the Alutiiq Pride Marine Institute's production of oyster
and littleneck clam seeds, geoducks, cockles, and razor clams;
--Sustain shellfish sanctuaries at Tribal beaches throughout the
region
--Expand our study of ocean acidification as part of the Alaska Ocean
Acidification Network and the impact of acidification on fish
and shellfish stocks;
--Expand the Nanwalek Salmon Enhancement Project, a subsistence
fishery, to rejuvenate the availability of fish for direct
consumption;
--Expand natural resource efforts on behalf of our Tribes, including
wetlands monitoring and planning, traditional foods advocacy
and protection, climate change vulnerability and adaptation
planning, subsistence resource advocacy, and the development
and management of a Tribal Conservation District;
--Expand our leadership as statewide manager and member of the Alaska
Migratory Bird Co-Management Council (AMBCC) work with the
State and USFWS; and
--Enhance the monitoring and refinement of our Natural Resource
Management Program objectives for each of our Alaska Native
villages.
Despite our repeated requests to BIA officials in the Alaska
Regional Office and BIA headquarters in Washington, D.C., we have not
received written confirmation of our true recurring base award of TMDP
funds in advance of annual negotiations with the BIA. This makes
planning and budgeting difficult. Tribal organizations deserve this
information. To date, we have not yet received our fiscal Year 2022
TMDP funds or contract support costs. This is not how Tribal
organizations should have to operate. Delays by the BIA in the payment
of our recurring funding and contract support cost dollars and
uncertainty over what our true ``Secretarial amount'' is under our BIA
``638'' contract undermine our program goals and our ability to
efficiently carry out services and activities to our member Tribes.
CRRC respectfully asks the subcommittee to include report language
directing the BIA to include in future budget submissions to Congress
its requested recurring TMDP funding amount for each of the nearly
three dozen programs financed within TMDP. Without such detailed
information in the President's budget submission to Congress, Tribal
organizations like CRRC are left to guess what our recurring funding
level is when Interior officials do not disclose it. Doing so would
permit Tribal Organizations like CRRC to know what our fiscal year base
award amount is, plan, budget, and negotiate our upcoming Annual
Funding Agreement with the BIA with certainty.
If Congress enacts an appropriation for TMDP above the
Administration's requested budget level, the BIA should allocate the
increase across the board among all the TMDP recipients absent express
direction by Congress in legislation or conference reports. We
respectfully request that the subcommittee include report language
advising the BIA to allocate increases among all TMDP recipients.
CRRC greatly appreciates the bipartisan work of the subcommittee to
redress chronic funding disparities faced by Alaska Natives and
American Indians. With your support, many Tribal Organizations are
assisting Alaska Natives to live healthier and longer lives, learn, and
implement sustainable mariculture farming techniques that improve
marine and plant habitats, promote jobs, food security, and educate
Alaska Native youth in STEM programs.
CRRC is primarily dependent upon appropriations by this
subcommittee for BIA's TMDP and Fish, Wildlife & Parks programs within
the Bureau's Trust-Natural Resources account. We urge the subcommittee
to build upon any fiscal Year 2022 increases it includes for the BIA's
TMDP and Fish, Wildlife & Parks program, and USFWS's Migratory Bird
Management Program, and to include CRRC in those increases. Thank you
for giving CRRC the opportunity to share our fiscal Year 2023 budget
needs.
[This statement was submitted by Willow Hetrick-Price, Executive
Director, Chugach Regional Resources Commission.]
______
Prepared Statement of Coalition for American Heritage
Thank you for the opportunity to offer the Coalition for American
Heritage's recommendations for Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) Interior,
Environment and Related Agencies appropriations for the Department of
the Interior.
The Coalition for American Heritage (``the Coalition'') is an
organization comprised of heritage professionals, scholars, small
businesses, non-profits and history-lovers across the country. Our
350,000 members work together to promote our Nation's commitment to
historic preservation. Preserving historic resources helps stabilize
neighborhoods, attract investment, create jobs, generate tax revenues,
support small businesses, and power America's heritage tourism
industry.
We appreciate the strong funding provided to historic preservation
programs in recent Interior Appropriations legislation. Investing in
these programs will help ensure the continuance of our country's proud
tradition of preservation. As you work to address funding levels for
FY22, the Coalition requests robust funding for all of the U.S.
Department of the Interior's historic preservation and cultural
management programs, and for the National Endowment for the Arts and
the National Endowment for the Humanities. Respectfully, the Coalition
urges the Committee to approve the following funding levels for FY23:
--NPS Historic Preservation Fund: $200 million
--NPS Office of International Affairs: $2.25 million
--NPS National Heritage Areas and Heritage Partnership Program: $32
million
--Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Cultural Resources Management: $1
million above enacted
--BLM National Conservation Lands: $78.145 million
--Department of Interior Land and Conservation Fund (LWCF): continued
increase toward the full $900 million in dedicated funding from
offshore mineral leasing revenues, including $20 million for
the American Battlefield Protection Program
--Advisory Council on Historic Preservation: $10.5 million
--National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment
for the Humanities (NEH): at least $201 million for each one
national park service
The popularity of our National parks is at an all-time high. Our
country cannot afford unwarranted reductions to visitor services and
cuts to the responsible stewardship of our historic and cultural
resources. The NPS is responsible for 418 National Park System units.
Over the past 20 years, more than 40 new parks have been added to the
park system. Many recent additions preserve historic places and themes
that have traditionally been underrepresented within the system.
Within the requested funds, we recommend robust funding for
Resource Stewardship, including the National Underground Railroad
Network to Freedom, the African American Civil Rights Network, and the
Reconstruction Era National Historic Network. Funding for these popular
initiatives provides the public with valuable educational resources
that honor and preserve our country's rich African-American heritage
and history for future generations.
We also urge the Committee to address the deferred maintenance
backlog at America's national parks. Almost half of the current backlog
concern historic assets. Robust investments in this area will
contribute to the successful preservation of historic sites and
structures and other NPS cultural resources. Without critically needed
funding for repair and rehabilitation, these critical sites, buildings
and artifacts that draw visitors to our National parks' assets risk
further deterioration and potential loss.
nps historic preservation fund
We urge the Committee to appropriate $200 million in FY23 for the
Historic Preservation Fund (HPF), a vital program that, in partnership
with States, local governments and Tribes, is the cornerstone of our
country's historic preservation initiatives.
Within the $200 million request, we recommend the following funding
breakdown:
--$65 million for State Historic Preservation Officers (SHPOs) for
heritage preservation and protection programs.
--$34 million for Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPOs).
--$24 million for competitive grants to document, interpret, and
preserve historic sites associated with the Civil Rights
Movement.
--$5 million for the competitive grants program to preserve the sites
and stories associated with securing civil rights for all
Americans, including women, Latinos, Native Americans, Native
Hawaiians, Alaska Natives, and LGBTQ Americans.
--$35 million for Save America's Treasures grants for the
preservation of nationally significant sites, structures, and
artifacts.
--$12 million for grants to Historically Black Colleges and
Universities to preserve and repair historic buildings.
--$12 million for Paul Bruhn preservation grants to revitalize
historic properties of national, State, and local significance.
--$3 million for competitive grants for the survey and nomination of
properties associated with communities currently
underrepresented on the National Register of Historic Places
and National Historic Landmarks.
national park service: office of international affairs
We urge a $2.25 million FY23 appropriation for the NPS Office of
International Affairs. This funding would ensure that the United States
can robustly engage in and support the World Heritage Program.
Communities throughout the country are pursuing nominations of sites in
their area to the World Heritage List, including Hopewell Ceremonial
Earthworks in Ohio and Mount Vernon in Virginia. The Office of
International Affairs is critical to shepherding advocates through the
nominations process.
nps national heritage areas
We recommend $32 million in funding for the Heritage Partnership
Program and our National Heritage Areas (NHAs). Through the use of
public-private partnerships, NHAs support historic preservation,
heritage tourism, and recreation. These programs collaborate with
communities to make heritage relevant to local interests and needs.
blm cultural resources management
We appreciate the Committee's ongoing oversight of the BLM
reorganization and the impacts of the move on BLM's ability to oversee
the largest, most diverse collection of historic and cultural resources
on America's public lands. We remain very concerned about the staff
reductions in the Cultural Resources Division. It is vital that BLM has
sufficient staff to support Section 106 reviews, monitor compliance
with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and
consult with Tribes.
To assist staff with providing these key services, we respectfully
request that the committee provide $1 million above the enacted level
for BLM Cultural Resources Management. We ask that the Committee
support BLM efforts to fill key staff vacancies, especially those
cultural resources positions stipulated in the BLM Tribal Relations
Manual, including: National Curator/NAGPRA Coordinator, National Tribal
Coordinator, and 10 of the 12 State office Tribal Coordinator
positions.
This funding would also support ongoing collaboration with state
historic preservation offices to standardize and integrate cultural
resources data for BLM lands through the National Cultural Resources
Information Management System. Strengthening BLM's ability to update
predictive modeling and data analysis will enhance the agency's ability
to address large-scale, cross-jurisdictional land-use projects.
blm national conservation lands
We urge a $78.145 million FY23 appropriation for the National
Conservation Lands. An increase in base funding will prevent critical
damage to 36 million acres of congressionally and presidentially
designated National Monuments, National Conservation Areas, Wilderness,
Wilderness Study Areas, National Scenic and Historic Trails, and Wild
Scenic Rivers managed by BLM. Increased funding will help achieve
President Biden's goal of conserving at least 30 percent of our lands
and waters by 2030.
blm land water conservation fund
Many of our country's most significant historic and cultural
landscapes have been permanently protected through LWCF investments,
including Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Park, Canyons of the
Ancients National Monument, and Hopewell Culture National Historic
Park. In total, more than $550 million has been invested to acquire
historic sites and 137,000 acres in 162 NPS units.
Within LWCF funding, we urge the Committee to fund the American
Battlefield Protection Program (ABPP) at $20 million in FY23. Through
public-private partnerships, the ABPP has helped communities to
preserve more than 100 historic battlefields in 42 States and
territories. In protecting the hallowed ground upon which so many
Americans fought and died, the ABPP preserves a valuable part of our
shared history.
independent agencies: advisory council on historic preservation
We request $10.5 million for the Advisory Council on Historic
Preservation (ACHP), to fund its work to administer the rulemaking
process for historic preservation law, assist in resolving conflicts
from historic resource reviews, and provide advice on historic
preservation.
national endowments for the arts and the humanities
The Coalition urges the Committee to fund the NEA and the NEH at a
minimum of $201 million each in FY23. Robust funding for the NEA and
NEH is critical to communities across America. NEH Preservation
Assistance Grants help small and mid-sized institutions--such as
libraries, museums, historical societies, archival repositories,
cultural organizations, town and county records offices, and colleges
and universities--improve their ability to preserve and care for their
significant humanities collections, which may include books and
journals, archives and manuscripts, prints and photographs,
architectural and cartographic records, decorative and fine art
objects, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, furniture,
historical objects, and digital materials.
The Coalition is grateful to the Committee for the opportunity to
offer its perspective on FY23 appropriations for the Interior,
Environment and Related Agencies appropriations bill. The Coalition
stands ready to work with the Committee on finding common ground to
achieve the FY23 funding levels that will support and enhance historic
preservation.
[This statement was submitted by Marion Werkheiser, Policy Director
for the Coalition for American Heritage.]
______
Prepared Statement of Coalition to Protect America's National Parks
Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski, and members of the
subcommittee, I am Michael B. (Mike) Murray, Chair of the Executive
Council of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks
(Coalition). The Coalition is a non-profit organization composed of
more than 2,200 retired, former and current employees of the National
Park Service (NPS) who collectively have over 40,000 years of
experience managing and protecting our National parks. The Coalition
studies, educates, speaks, and acts for the preservation of America's
National Park System. We are pleased to have the opportunity to present
this statement for the record on the fiscal Year 2023 Appropriations
for the National Park Service.
The Coalition to Protect America's National Parks (Coalition) was
pleased to see the overall fiscal Year 2023 discretionary budget
request for the NPS of $3.6 billion from the Biden administration.
However, this request is short of what is needed in some key areas
because of the significant amount of its former capacity the NPS has
lost over the last decade. As Director Sams recently testified before
the House Interior Appropriations subcommittee, the NPS' operational
capacity has been reduced by more than 15 percent since fiscal Year
2010 while over the same time Congress has added 33 units to the
National park system and visitation has grown by over 40 million
visits. This growth has overwhelmed NPS staff and has led to low
morale, reduced visitor experiences, and visitor safety concerns. In
turn, during the Covid 19 pandemic, parks became an even more treasured
refuge for the American public further dramatically increasing
visitation pressure in many urban park units. Additionally, inflation
of over seven percent during the last year is further challenging parks
in meeting their budget needs.
The Coalition believes there are three specific areas where NPS
funding needs to be enhanced in the fiscal Year 2023 Interior
Appropriations bill.
1) Enhancing and Building Operational Capacity. The most
important priority is to address the need to replace the lost
staff capacity the NPS has seen over the last decade. The Biden
administration has included funding to address a part of this
shortfall through some specific initiatives for underserved
communities, new parks, additions to other parks, and new
Tribal liaisons, to name a few. The Coalition is strongly
supportive of these initiatives; however, we believe the
proposed increases miss parks and programs that are still
suffering their loss of staff.
Last year, the Coalition recommended that Congress commit to adding
an additional 500 new staff for each of five fiscal years to make
headway in resolving the lost capacity. Unfortunately, funding
constraints did not allow this recommendation to be fulfilled in the
final appropriations bill adopted in March.
As a result, the Coalition respectfully requests a recommitment to
the goal of providing the needed staff across the board in parks,
program offices, and central offices of the NPS. We note that the
program offices and central offices have seen their own lost capacity
over the past decade and these offices remain critically important,
especially to the small- and medium-sized parks that do not have their
own specialists on staff. The Coalition recommends an additional $70
million to the operations budget of the NPS (ONPS) to deal with this
service-wide staffing issue and we urge the subcommittee to direct that
this additional amount be spread as equitably as possible among parks,
program offices, and central offices to meet their unmet staffing
needs.
It is critical to restore and increase operational capacity to
ensure NPS meets its responsibilities because of increasing visitation
and major threats to cultural and natural resources. This staff funding
is also important to help address the low morale among many park
employees who feel that they are being asked to do more with fewer
resources while trying to maintain a consistent level of service to the
thousands of visitors they experience each year.
Additionally, the Coalition notes its continued support for the NPS
proposal to extend the period of availability of funding in the ONPS
account to 2 years, which will allow more efficient management of
resources and permit adjustment for disruptions that occur within the
fiscal year. This request is consistent with that provided to other
bureaus within the Department of the Interior.
2) Natural and Cultural Resource Conservation. The Biden
administration's budget includes a $179.8 million request for
the Natural Resources Conservation Initiative in fiscal Year
2023. This request takes an important step forward to address
the critical challenges of our time by increasing scientific
capacity and improving strategic thinking and resource planning
to leave lands and waters preserved for future generations to
use and enjoy. The Conservation initiative directly supports
several priorities that would conserve 30 percent of the
Nation's lands and waters by 2030 (the ``America the
Beautiful'' Initiative), would establish a Civilian Climate
Corps, and would support climate resilience and adaptation. NPS
is a vital component of the government-wide approach to address
the impacts of climate change.
Stewardship of our natural resources is a mission critical task for
NPS and, as such, the task is ingrained in NPS units, programs, budget
activities and appropriations. For natural resource conservation, the
fiscal Year 2023 budget seeks to bolster existing successful programs
protecting wildlife and landscape, fund climate change science and
resiliency, and increase resources supporting climate and natural
resource decision-making.
The requested increase also includes $29.6 million to engage in
high-priority natural resource projects on a range of issues, such as
wildlife migration corridors, wildland fire fuels management, climate
resilience, and responding to natural resource threats. The Coalition
is supportive of both of these natural resource funding requests.
Equally important for the subcommittee is doing something to
replace the loss of almost 30 percent of cultural resource management
positions in our National parks, and program or regional offices. Many
cultural resources, including historic buildings, museum objects, and
archeological sites, are unmaintained, severely threatened, or
degraded. The Cultural Resource Challenge (Challenge), launched in
2013, provided a strategic framework for NPS stewardship and completing
partnership responsibilities for America's cultural heritage.
Last year, the Coalition recommended additional appropriations over
four fiscal years to help complete this Challenge that has only been
partially funded since 2013. The president's budget request for fiscal
Year 2023 recommends some small increases in cultural resources
capacity. We urge an additional $22.5 million be added to the ONPS
budget for fiscal Year 2023 to make progress toward this effort with
$11 million of this amount to increase the number of parks that have at
least one cultural resource expert on staff and to ensure the parks
have ready access to all basic cultural resource disciplines at the
regional level. An additional $9 million of the total would help
improve the baseline cultural resource documentation information
available to management at a number of parks and the remaining $2.5
million would help stabilize archeological sites, cultural landscapes,
and historic and prehistoric structures per year, or conduct preventive
conservation on museum objects, or support scientific research on new
threats to resources.
We recognize there are issues involved with how park, program and
regional offices budgets are constructed and maintained from 1 year to
the next when Congress directs funding to specific areas such as
cultural resource protection. We understand the subcommittee has had
discussions with the NPS about this and we urge those discussions to
continue to find ways that funding can be maintained for cultural
resource preservation activities over the longer term to help minimize
inconsistent funding year-over-year to ensure adequate cultural
resource conservation in our parks and program offices.
3) National Recreation and Preservation (NR&P). Within the
president's budget, various programs such as the National
Register of Historic Places, the Rivers, Trails, and
Conservation Assistance, and several grant programs including
the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation,
Japanese American Confinement Sites, and National Heritage
Areas, are funded under this account.
The Coalition notes that these programs are critical to the
partnership work of the National Park Service and they need adequate
staff to fulfill their partnership responsibilities in a timely manner.
Last year the Coalition noted specifically the need for increases in
this account for managing the National historic preservation program
for administration of their related grant programs, documentation of
nationally significant threatened resources, increased grants to
support new preservation technology, and development of guidance to
assist public and private owners in meeting the threats of a changing
climate, as just one example. The Rivers, Trails, and Conservation
Assistance program, which provides technical support to local
conservation and outdoor recreation projects, is also in need of
additional funding to keep up with the increasing demands upon its
program related to increased LWCF State grants and the 30 30
initiative.
Additional funding is required to ensure each of these programs can
maintain the level of service provided by NPS and to meet the
increasing demands for NPS assistance from their State and local
partners. The Coalition recommends an additional $3 million to this
account in order for the NPS to fulfill its historic and cultural
resource responsibilities as well as its partnership assistance duties.
We end our statement by noting our support for the administration's
request to improve coordination with Tribal nations by supporting
additional Tribal liaisons, for its request for the continuing work of
the Historic Preservation Fund to preserve historically and culturally
significant sites and provide competitive grants to other, non-Federal
entities, and for the NPS Construction budget request, which
complements the funding provided by the Great American Outdoors Act. We
particularly support the recommendation of $7.9 million for new
construction or rehabilitation of existing employee housing, which is
needed throughout the park system where affordable housing for purchase
or rent is limited. Providing affordable housing will help parks in
recruiting and retaining qualified employees and assist in improving
employee morale by providing modernized and decent living quarters.
Thank you for consideration of our request. We look forward to
continuing to work with you during the consideration of the fiscal Year
2023 Interior Appropriations bill.
[This statement was submitted by Michael B. Murray, Chair of the
Executive Council, Coalition to Protect America's National Parks.]
______
Prepared Statement of Coalition of Refuge Friends and Advocates
I appreciate the opportunity to provide written testimony on behalf
of the Coalition of Refuge Friends and Advocates. Coalition of Refuge
Friends and Advocates (CORFA) is a non-stock corporation in the
Commonwealth of Virginia whose mission is to be a national peer support
group for members of Friends organizations and community partners, who
are working to promote the understanding and conservation of natural,
cultural, and historical resources associated with the National
Wildlife Refuge and Hatchery Systems. Our organization has
approximately 800 participants. I am Vice President of the Board of
this organization. We thank you for your support for the National
Wildlife Refuge System and for the opportunity to offer comments on the
fiscal year 2023 Interior Appropriations bill, most importantly
regarding funding for the Refuge System Operations and Maintenance
Fund, which we respectfully request you fund at $712 million for fiscal
year 2023.
CORFA is an all-volunteer organization aiding the nonprofit groups
that support National Wildlife Refuges and Hatcheries. These groups
turn to CORFA to build relationships through conversations that answer
questions and share information, insights, and experiences concerning
nonprofit governance and management. Members of these nonprofits can
receive and give advice on the various challenges our incredible
organizations face such as building capacity, marketing and
communications, fund-raising, and coalition building. I am a member of
the Board of this organization and serve as Vice President.
When the pandemic quickly shutdown most federal, State, and local
parks, and other public lands, there were few places visitors could go
to safely enjoy and appreciate nature, while masked and socially
distanced. One of those places was often a National Wildlife Refuge.
Although Visitor Centers, restrooms, and even the parking lots might be
closed, people flocked to National Wildlife Refuges by the millions to
soak up a much-needed ration of the outdoors.
In 2019 over 59 million people visited National Wildlife Refuges.
As more and more people ``discovered'' refuges as a respite in the very
stressful time of Pandemic, there has been a heightened awareness of
these public lands as a valuable resource to local communities. Refuges
pumped $3.2 Billion into local economies in 2019. But, with increased
awareness and usage came increased need for upkeep and protection. The
Fish and Wildlife Staff has done a stellar job of preserving the
habitat of our refuges, but they are working at a great handicap. The
completely inadequate budgets continue to fail to cover the cost of
maintaining the incredibly rich and diverse wildlife habitats that make
up the Refuge System. Our refuges are being loved to death.
A 2020 National Audubon article stated, ``A lack of resources
throughout the refuge system is limiting its capacity to provide
healthy habitat for birds and other wildlife. Essential infrastructure
is crumbling. Managers oversee growing groups of refuges that are
lumped together even when they're hundreds of miles apart. And staff
can't provide the community outreach and visitor services they want to
offer.
Fixing these problems would take at least $900 million a year,
advocates say. That's a far cry from the refuge system's budget of
$502.4 million for the 2021 fiscal year.''
This funding gap that has arisen due to low budget allocations over
the last decade has degraded critical wildlife habitat and imperiled
important species. The Refuge System cannot fulfill its obligation to
the American public and our wildlife without increases in maintenance
and operation funds. Even with the gains in fiscal Year 2020, overall
funding for the Refuge System has declined substantially over the last
12 years. Funding in FY2010 was $503 million--$598 million in today's
dollars with inflation and salary increases. This difference of $95
million has forced the Service to cut back on programs and create
efficiencies whenever possible--efficiencies that are sometimes harmful
or even dangerous. For example, many refuges have been placed into
complexes, where staff travel sometimes large distances to juggle
duties on multiple refuges. We must change this trajectory.
National Wildlife Refuges are currently funded at 59 per acre per
year. Compare that to funding for National Park Service at $30 per acre
per year.
The number of annual Refuge System visitors jumped by 13 million
over the last few years and is likely to take another jump for 2021
visitors, due to lack of access to many other nature areas as mentioned
above. More people are looking to recreate on wildlife refuges, yet
understaffed refuges struggle to provide those opportunities.
Reductions in visitor services can be extremely limiting for
constituencies who want to visit.
Equally troubling is a 15 percent drop in the number of volunteers
since FY2011. At a time when record numbers of Americans are retiring
and have the capability and desire to give back, the Service's ability
to oversee volunteer efforts has been curtailed. Volunteers provide an
additional 20 percent of work on our National wildlife refuges, yet
they are being turned away when the System needs them the most. We hear
every day from Friends groups about the frustration their members are
experiencing because they cannot perform the volunteer work for their
refuge that they would ordinarily be doing. Outdoor areas will continue
to be a safer and popular choice for Americans looking to escape the
seclusion of pandemic restrictions but without adequate staffing,
refuges cannot provide the volunteer supervision that makes many of
their visitor services possible.
The Refuge System is bare bones right now and increased growth in
urban spaces and outdoor recreation, and the impacts of climate change,
place additional stress on the System. Every year, more and more
refuges are closed to the public, habitat degrades, and visitors are
turned away. Current funding is nowhere near the at least $900 million
needed for full funding. Our goal is to reach that figure in the next 3
years. Funding the Refuge System Operations and Maintenance Fund at
$712 million is a step to reaching that goal.
CORFA appreciates the subcommittee's consideration of our request
of $712 mil for the refuge system operations and maintenance budget for
fiscal year 2023 We look forward to working with Congress to accomplish
this goal and appreciate your consideration of our requests. Please let
me know if you have any questions.
[This statement was submitted by Cheryl Turoczy Hart, Board Vice
President of Coalition of Refuge Friends and Advocates.]
______
Prepared Statement of Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program
Thank you for the opportunity to provide written testimony in
support of fiscal year 2023 (FY23) funding for the Colorado River Basin
Salinity Control Program (Program) in the amounts listed in the table
below. Congress authorized the Program in the Colorado River Basin
Salinity Control Act (Public Law 93-320) to enhance and protect the
quality of water available for Colorado River water users in the United
Sates and the Republic of Mexico. This FY23 funding request will help
fulfill obligations of this act and prevent further water quality
degradation and related economic damages in our region.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FY22 Appropriation FY23 Appropriation Salinity Control
Subcommittee Request Request Federal Agency Program
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interior, Environment, and $2.0 Million...... $2.0 Million...... Bureau of Land Aquatic Habitat
Related Agencies. Management (BLM). Management Sub-
Activity
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Energy and Water Development, $10.7 Million..... $10.7 Million..... U.S. Bureau of Title II--
and Related Agencies. Reclamation Basinwide Program
(Reclamation).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Agriculture, Rural Development, $12.4 Million..... $15.6 Million..... Natural Resources Environmental
Food and Drug Administration, Conservation Quality
and Related Agencies. Service (NRCS). Incentives
Program (EQIP)
===============================================================================
Total....................... $25.1 Million..... $28.3 Million.....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As a regional water wholesaler, The Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California (Metropolitan) provides supplemental water for 26
public member agencies to deliver-either directly or through their sub-
agencies-to nearly 19 million people living in Los Angeles, Orange,
Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties. Metropolitan
imports about one fifth of Southern California's water supply from the
Colorado River.
The Program has successfully reduced the salinity of the Colorado
River by over 90 milligrams per liter (mg/l) at Lake Havasu. Despite
the Program's success, salt in the Colorado River continues to cause an
estimated $354 million in damages to water users each year, including
damages to consumer and commercial equipment, water supply treatment
processes, agriculture, groundwater replenishment activities, and
wastewater recycling. Many of these damages occur within Metropolitan's
service area as water imported via the Colorado River Aqueduct has the
highest salinity of all of Metropolitan's supplies, averaging around
630 mg/L since 1976. The continuing severe drought in the western
United States threatens to exacerbate these damages as low river flows
and record-low reservoir volumes provide less water to dilute saline
inflows.
Without the Program, damages to Colorado River water users would be
much higher. Modeling by Reclamation indicates that economic damages
would rise to approximately $671 million-almost double current damages-
by the year 2040 without continuation of the Program. Metropolitan
urges the subcommittee to support funding for the Program in FY23 at
the levels outlined above so that it can avoid these additional impacts
of increased salinity.
Given the scale of these potential damages, Congress's continuing
modest investment in the Program yields a substantial rate of return.
In addition to Congress's contribution, the seven Colorado River Basin
States provide matching funds up to 30 percent of Program funding,
extending the value of Congress's contribution even further.
The Program funds the Paradox Valley Unit (PVU), which includes a
deep injection well used to sequester brine from the hyper-saline
Dolores River (a tributary to the Colorado River) in western Colorado.
The well has been virtually non-operational since March 2019 due to
induced seismic activity in the valley. The PVU is especially important
to our region as it is the largest single salinity control project in
the Program. Historically, the PVU has reduced salt loads to the
Colorado River by over 100,000 tons per year and salt concentrations at
key downstream locations by up to 9 mg/L. Given the unique importance
of the PVU, Metropolitan urges Reclamation to resume operation of the
existing well and to expedite the process of finding a long-term
solution that prevents the salt from reaching the Colorado River.
Metropolitan also requests the subcommittee's support for resuming PVU
operations as soon as practicable.
The Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum (Forum) was formed
in 1973 to coordinate the Colorado River Basin States' salinity control
efforts. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has charged the
Forum with reviewing the Colorado River's water quality standards for
salinity every 3 years (the ``Triennial Review''). In so doing, the
Forum adopts a Plan of Implementation consistent with these standards.
The level of appropriations requested in this testimony is in keeping
with the Forum's Plan of Implementation adopted in the 2020 Triennial
Review, which will be implemented by the BLM, Reclamation, and the
NRCS.
Metropolitan appreciates your consideration of this request. Please
feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
[This statement was submitted by Adel Hagekhalil, General Manager,
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.]
______
Prepared Statement of Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum
Waters from the Colorado River are used by nearly 40 million people
for municipal and industrial purposes and for irrigation of
approximately 5.5 million acres in the United States. Natural and man-
induced salt loading to the Colorado River causes environmental and
economic damages. In 2020 the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation)
estimated the quantifiable damages to Lower Basin water users due to
elevated salinity levels at about $354 million per year. Congress
authorized the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program (Program)
through the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Act (Act) (Public Law
93-320) in 1974 to offset increased damages caused by continued
development and use of the waters of the Colorado River. Modeling by
Reclamation indicates that the quantifiable damages would rise to
approximately $671 million by the year 2040 without continuation of the
Program. Congress has directed the Secretary of the Interior
(Secretary) to implement a comprehensive program for minimizing salt
contributions to the Colorado River from lands administered by the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM). BLM has funded these efforts as
directed by Congress through its Aquatic Habitat Management sub-
activity. BLM's efforts are an essential part of the overall effort. A
funding level of $2.0 million for salinity specific projects in 2023 is
requested to prevent further degradation of the quality of the Colorado
River and a commensurate increase in downstream economic damages.
EPA has identified that more than 60 percent of the salt load of
the Colorado River comes from natural sources. The majority of land
within the Colorado River Basin is federally owned, much of which is
administered by BLM. In authorizing Program (Public Law 93-320, Act) in
1974, Congress recognized that most of the salts in the Colorado River
originate from federally owned lands. Title I of the act deals with
programs downstream of Imperial Dam that enable the U.S. to meet its
commitment regarding the quality of waters being delivered to Mexico
(Minute No. 242 of the International Boundary and Water Commission,
United States and Mexico). Title II of the act addresses measures
upstream from Imperial Dam, thus improving the quality of the water
delivered to users in the United States. This testimony deals
specifically with Title II efforts. In 1984, Congress amended the
Salinity Control Act (Public Law 98-569) and directed the Secretary to
develop a comprehensive program for minimizing salt contributions to
the Colorado River from lands administered by BLM. In 2000, Congress
reiterated its directive to the Secretary and requested a report on the
implementation of BLM's program (Public Law 106-459). In 2003, BLM
employed a Salinity Coordinator to increase BLM efforts in the Colorado
River Basin to pursue salinity control studies and to implement
specific salinity control practices.
BLM is now working on a comprehensive Colorado River Basin salinity
control program as directed by Congress. In January 2018 BLM issued A
Framework for Improving the Effectiveness of the Colorado River Basin
Salinity Control Program, 2018-2023. This document lays out how BLM
intends to implement Colorado River Basin salinity control activities
over the 5-year period. Meaningful resources have been expended by BLM
in the past few years to better understand salt mobilization on
rangelands. With a significant portion of the salt load of the Colorado
River coming from BLM administered lands, the BLM portion of the
overall program is essential to the success of the effort. Inadequate
BLM salinity control efforts will result in significant additional
economic damages to water users downstream.
Concentration of salt in the Colorado River causes approximately
$354 million annually in quantified damages and significantly more in
unquantified damages in the United States and results in poor water
quality for United States users. Damages, by water usage sector,
include the following:
--a reduction in the ability to reclaim and reuse water for
beneficial uses, including drinking water and irrigation water
supplies, due to high salinities in the water delivered to
water treatment and reclamation facilities,
--a reduction in the yield of salt sensitive crops, increased water
use to meet leaching requirements and additional actions
necessary to comply with the Clean Water Act within the
agricultural sector,
--increased use of imported water and cost of desalination and brine
disposal for recycling water in the municipal sector,
--a reduction in the useful life of galvanized water pipe systems,
water heaters, faucets, garbage disposals, clothes washers and
dishwashers, and increased use of bottled water and water
softeners in the household sector,
--an increase in the cost of cooling operations and the cost of water
softening, and a decrease in equipment service life in the
commercial sector,
--an increase in the use of water and the cost of water treatment,
and a corresponding increase in sewer fees in the industrial
sector,
--a decrease in the lifespan of treatment facilities and pipelines in
the utility sector, and
--difficulty in meeting wastewater discharge requirements to comply
with National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit
terms and conditions, and an increase in desalination and brine
disposal costs necessary to minimize accumulation of salts in
groundwater basins.
The Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum (Forum) is composed
of gubernatorial appointees from Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada,
New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. The Forum is charged with reviewing the
Colorado River's water quality standards for salinity every 3 years to
facilitate compliance with Section 303(c) of the Clean Water Act
(Public Law 92-500). In so doing, it adopts a Plan of Implementation
consistent with these standards. The level of appropriation requested
in this testimony is in keeping with the adopted Plan of
Implementation. If adequate funds are not appropriated, significant
damages from higher salinity concentrations in the water will be more
widespread in the United States and Mexico.
In summary, implementation of salinity control practices through
BLM is a cost-effective method of controlling the salinity of the
Colorado River and is an essential component to the overall Program.
Continuation of adequate funding levels for salinity control within the
Aquatic Habitat Management sub-activity will assist in preventing
further degradation of the Colorado River's water quality with a
commensurate significant increase in economic damages to municipal,
industrial and irrigation users. A modest investment in source control
pays huge dividends in improved water quality to nearly 40 million
Americans. The Forum requests that this committee direct that BLM again
expend at least $2.0 million in 2023 from its Aquatic Habitat
Management Program sub-activity for Colorado River specific salinity
control activities.
[This statement was submitted by Don A. Barnett, Executive
Director, Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum.]
______
Prepared Statement of Colorado River Board of California
This testimony is in support of Fiscal Year 2023 funding for the
Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) associated
activities that assist the implementation of Title II of the Colorado
River Basin Salinity Control Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-320). This
long-standing successful and cost-effective salinity control program in
the Colorado River Basin is being carried out pursuant to the Colorado
River Basin Salinity Control Act and the Clean Water Act (Public Law
92-500). Congress has directed the Secretary of the Interior to
implement a comprehensive program for minimizing salt contributions to
the Colorado River from lands administered by the BLM. BLM funds these
efforts through the Aquatic Habitat Management Program. BLM's efforts
are an essential part of the overall effort. A funding level of $2.0
million for salinity specific projects in FY-2023 is requested to
prevent further degradation of the quality of Colorado River water
supplies and increased environmental and economic damages.
The Colorado River Board of California (Colorado River Board) is
the state agency charged with protecting California's interests and
rights in the water and power resources of the Colorado River system.
In this capacity, California participates along with the other six
Colorado River Basin States through the Colorado River Basin Salinity
Control Forum (Forum), the interstate organization responsible for
coordinating the Basin States' salinity control efforts. In close
cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and
pursuant to requirements of the Clean Water Act, the Forum is charged
with reviewing the Colorado River water quality standards every 3
years. Every 3 years the Forum adopts a Plan of Implementation
consistent with these water quality standards. The level of
appropriation being supported in this testimony is consistent with the
Forum's 2020 Plan of Implementation. The Forum's 2020 Plan of
Implementation can be found on this website: https://
coloradoriversalinity.org/docs/2020 percent20REVIEW percent20-
percent20Final percent20w percent20appendices.pdf. If adequate funds
are not appropriated, significant damages associated with increasing
salinity concentrations of Colorado River water will become more
widespread in the United States and Mexican portions of the Colorado
River Basin.
The EPA has determined that more than sixty percent of the salt
load of the Colorado River comes from natural sources. The majority of
land within the Colorado River Basin is federally owned, much of which
is administered by BLM. Through passage of the Colorado River Basin
Salinity Control Act in 1974, Congress recognized that much of the
salts in the Colorado River originate on federally owned lands. Title I
of the Salinity Control Act deals with the U.S. commitment to efforts
related to maintaining the quality of waters being delivered to Mexico
pursuant to the 1944 Water Treaty. Title II of the act deals with
improving the quality of the water delivered to water users in the
United States. In 1984, Congress amended the Salinity Control Act and
directed that the Secretary of the Interior develop a comprehensive
program for minimizing salt contributions to the Colorado River from
lands administered by BLM. In 2000, Congress reiterated its directive
to the Secretary and requested a report on the implementation of BLM's
program (Public Law 106-459). In 2003, BLM employed a Salinity
Coordinator to coordinate BLM efforts in the Colorado River Basin
States to pursue salinity control studies and to implement specific
salinity control practices. BLM is now working to create a
comprehensive Colorado River Basin salinity control program as directed
by Congress. In January 2018 BLM issued A Framework for Improving the
Effectiveness of the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program,
2018-2023. This document lays out how BLM intends to implement Colorado
River Basin salinity control activities over the next 5 years.
Meaningful resources have been expended by BLM in the past few years to
better understand salt mobilization on rangelands. With a significant
portion of the salt load of the Colorado River coming from BLM-
administered lands, the BLM portion of the overall program is essential
to the success of the entire effort. Inadequate BLM salinity control
efforts will result in significant additional economic damages to water
users downstream.
Over the forty-eight years since the passage of the Colorado River
Basin Salinity Control Act, much has been learned about the impact of
salts in the Colorado River system. As described in the 2020 Plan of
Implementation, the salinity concentration of Colorado River water
causes about $354 million in quantifiable economic damages in the
United States annually. Economic and hydrologic modeling by Reclamation
indicates that these economic damages could rise to more than $671
million by the year 2040 without continued implementation of the
salinity control program. For example, damages can be incurred related
to the following activities:
--A reduction in the ability and increased costs to reclaim and reuse
water due to high salinities in the water delivered to water
treatment and reclamation facilities;
--A reduction in the yield of salt-sensitive crops and increased
water use to meet the leaching requirements in the agricultural
sector;
--Increases in the amount of imported water;
--Increased costs of desalination and brine disposal for recycled
water in the municipal sector;
--A reduction in the useful life of galvanized water pipe systems,
water heaters, faucets, and other household appliances, and
increased use of bottled water and water softeners in the
residential sectors;
--Increased costs of cooling operations and the cost of water
softening, and a decrease in equipment service life in the
commercial sector;
--Increases in the use of water and cost of water treatment, and an
increase in sewer fees in the industrial sector;
--Decreased life of treatment facilities and pipelines in the utility
sector;
--Increasing difficulty in meeting wastewater discharge requirements
to comply with National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
permit terms and conditions; and
--Increased desalination and brine disposal costs due to accumulation
of salts in groundwater basins.
The Colorado River is, and will continue to be, a major and vital
water resource to the nearly 20 million residents of southern
California, including municipal, industrial, and agricultural water
users in Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San
Diego, and Ventura Counties. The protection and improvement of Colorado
River water quality through the continued implementation of this very
effective salinity control program avoids, or reduces, additional
environmental and economic damages to California, the other Colorado
River Basin States, and Mexico that rely on Colorado River water
resources.
[This statement was submitted by Christopher S. Harris, Executive
Director, Colorado River Board of California.]
______
Prepared Statement of Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program
Congress has directed the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) to
implement a comprehensive program for minimizing salt contributions to
the Colorado River from lands administered by the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM). BLM has funded these efforts as directed by Congress
through its Aquatic Habitat Management sub-activity. BLM's efforts are
an essential part of the overall salinity control effort in the
Colorado River Basin. A funding level of $2.0 million for salinity
specific projects in 2023 is requested to prevent further degradation
of the quality of the Colorado River and a commensurate increase in
downstream economic damages.
The BLM is the largest land manager in the Colorado River Basin. It
manages public lands that are heavily laden with naturally occurring
salt. When salt-laden soils erode, the salts dissolve and enter the
river system, affecting the quality of water used from the Colorado
River by the Lower Basin States and Mexico.
Waters from the Colorado River are used by nearly 40 million people
for municipal and industrial purposes and for irrigation of
approximately 5.5 million acres in the United States. Natural and man-
induced salt loading to the Colorado River causes environmental and
economic damages. Congress authorized the Colorado River Basin Salinity
Control Program (Program) through the Colorado River Basin Salinity
Control Act (Act) (Public Law 93-320) in 1974 to offset increased
damages caused by continued development and use of the waters of the
Colorado River.
EPA has identified that more than 60 percent of the salt load of
the Colorado River comes from natural sources. Most of the land within
the Colorado River Basin is federally owned, much of which is
administered by BLM. In authorizing the Program (Public Law 93-320,
Act) in 1974, Congress recognized that most of the salts in the
Colorado River originate from federally owned lands. Title I of the act
deals with programs downstream of Imperial Dam that enable the U.S. to
meet its commitment regarding the quality of waters being delivered to
Mexico. Title II of the act addresses measures upstream from Imperial
Dam, thus improving the quality of the water delivered to users in the
United States. This testimony deals specifically with Title II efforts.
In 1984, Congress amended the Salinity Control Act (Public Law 98-569)
and directed the Secretary to develop a comprehensive program for
minimizing salt contributions to the Colorado River from lands
administered by BLM. In 2000, Congress reiterated its directive to the
Secretary and requested a report on the implementation of BLM's program
(Public Law 106-459). In 2003, BLM employed a Salinity Coordinator to
increase BLM efforts in the Colorado River Basin to pursue salinity
control studies and to implement specific salinity control practices.
BLM is now working on a comprehensive Colorado River Basin salinity
control program as directed by Congress. In January 2018 BLM issued A
Framework for Improving the Effectiveness of the Colorado River Basin
Salinity Control Program, 2018-2023. This document lays out how BLM
intends to implement Colorado River Basin salinity control activities
over the 5-year period. Meaningful resources have been expended by BLM
in the past few years to better understand salt mobilization on
rangelands. With a significant portion of the salt load of the Colorado
River coming from BLM administered lands, the BLM portion of the
overall program is essential to the success of the effort. Inadequate
BLM salinity control efforts will result in significant additional
economic damages to water users downstream.
In 2020 the Bureau of Reclamation estimated the quantifiable
damages to Lower Basin water users due to elevated salinity levels at
about $354 million per year, plus significantly more in unquantified
damages in the United States and results in poor water quality for
United States users. Modeling by Reclamation indicates that the
quantifiable damages would rise to approximately $671 million by the
year 2040 without continuation of the Program. Damages include:
1. a reduction in the ability to reclaim and reuse water
2. a reduction in the yield of salt sensitive crops
3. increased use of imported water and cost of desalination and
brine
4. a reduction in the useful life of galvanized water pipe systems,
water heaters, faucets, garbage disposals, clothes washers, and
dishwashers
5. an increase in the cost of cooling operations and the cost of
water softening
6. an increase in the use of water and the cost of water treatment,
and a corresponding increase in sewer fees
7. a decrease in the lifespan of treatment facilities and
pipelines, and
8. difficulty in meeting wastewater discharge requirements to
comply with National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit
terms and conditions, and an increase in desalination and brine
disposal costs necessary to minimize accumulation of salts in
groundwater basins.
New Mexico is a member State of the Colorado River Basin Salinity
Control Forum which is charged with reviewing the Colorado River's
water quality standards for salinity every 3 years to facilitate
compliance with the Clean Water Act (Public Law 92-500). In so doing,
it adopts a Plan of Implementation consistent with these standards. The
level of appropriation requested in this testimony is in keeping with
the adopted Plan of Implementation.
In summary, implementation of salinity control practices through
BLM is a cost-effective method of controlling the salinity of the
Colorado River and is an essential component to the overall Program.
Continuation of adequate funding levels for salinity control within the
Aquatic Habitat Management sub-activity will assist in preventing
further degradation of the Colorado River's water quality. New Mexico
requests that this committee direct that BLM again expend at least $2.0
million in 2023 from its Aquatic Habitat Management Program sub-
activity for Colorado River specific salinity control activities.
[This statement was submitted by Mike A. Hamman, P.E., New Mexico
State Engineer.]
______
Prepared Statement of Council of Infrastructure Financing Authorities
The Council of Infrastructure Financing Authorities (CIFA)
represents the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds
(SRFs), the Nation's premier programs for funding water infrastructure
that protects public health and the environment.
funding
CIFA urges Congress to fully fund the Clean Water and Drinking
Water SRFs at $2.75 billion each, the 2023 authorization in the Clean
Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act. Additionally, fully funding the
$5 million authorization for the state financing authorities under the
Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) Program will
ensure SRFs have access to affordable financing to leverage their
programs to meet demand.
Full funding is needed to reduce the legacy gap and growing deficit
in water infrastructure investment. According to the American Society
of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the need for capital investment in water
infrastructure was $129 billion in 2019, while actual investment was
just $48 billion, leaving a gap of $81 billion. If this trend
continues, the gap is will grow to $434 billion by 2029.
Moreover, full funding is needed to help utilities maintain
sustained investment in water infrastructure, while keeping household
user rates affordable. First, more funding is needed to cover
significant cost increases for water infrastructure projects due to
historic levels of inflation, supply chain disruptions, and a tight
labor market. Second, more funding is needed to help utilities comply
with more stringent water quality standards. Third, demand for SRF
subsidized loans is likely to increase as the Federal Reserve raises
interest rates which will impact interest rates on municipal bonds.
Additionally, CIFA urges Congress to fully fund delegated water
quality programs, including the Public Water System Supervision Grants
and Water Pollution Control (Section 106) Grants. These programs play
an integral role in permitting water infrastructure projects that
protect water quality and public health. Without increased Federal
funding, States may not have adequate resources to implement these
delegated programs and process permit applications for drinking water
and wastewater infrastructure projects, the number of which will
increase due to supplemental appropriations in the IIJA.
earmarks
CIFA urges Congress to restore full Federal funding of the
capitalization grants for the Clean Water and Drinking Water SRFs.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022 maintained the 2021
funding levels for the Clean Water and Drinking Water SRFs. However,
Congress used the SRF capitalization grants to fund earmarks, which cut
funding for state projects by $818 million--$393 million or 36 percent
for state drinking water projects and $425 million or 27 percent for
state wastewater, stormwater, and clean water projects.
While appropriations in the IIJA mitigate the immediate impact of
these funding cuts, paying for congressionally-selected projects by
cutting funding for state priorities sets an alarming precedent with
significant cascading consequences.
--Cutting Federal funding for subsidized loans for state priorities
to provide grants for congressionally selected projects
undermines the successful SRF state-federal partnership. Using
the SRF capitalization grants to fund earmarks side-steps the
States' proven process for prioritizing limited funding for
water infrastructure, which can potentially increase the risk
to public health and the environment.
--Cutting Federal funding for SRF subsidized loans impacts other
funding. Using the capitalization grant to pay for earmarks
reduces state match and diminishes the leveraging power of the
SRFs to issue bonds to increase funding for water
infrastructure.
--Cutting Federal funding for the SRFs also cuts funding for
additional subsidy (grants and principal forgiveness), which
helps build water infrastructure for communities that couldn't
otherwise afford it.
--Cutting Federal funding for the SRFs also cuts funding for critical
water quality programs and activities, including technical
assistance for small, rural and Tribal communities, source
water protection and capacity development under the Public
Water System Supervision Program, and other State and local
water protection activities.
--Cutting Federal funding for SRF subsidized loans permanently
eliminates revolving funds to pay for ongoing water
infrastructure needs.
additional subsidy
CIFA urges Congress to eliminate mandates for additional subsidy in
appropriations--10 percent for the Clean Water SRF and 14 percent for
the Drinking Water SRF. Additional subsidy is the portion of an SRF
subsidized loan that doesn't have to be repaid and comes in the form of
principal forgiveness or a grant.
Congress established the SRFs as state-federal partnerships with
shared commitment to protect water quality and provide a safe reliable
supply of water in communities across the Nation. Annual Federal and
State funding was intended to capitalize the subsidized loan programs
which could then provide a recurring source of funding to meet the
perpetual need for sustained investment in water infrastructure. Thanks
to Congress' forward thinking, the SRFs have more than $85 billion in
loan repayments (revolving funds) today--more than total Federal
funding of $74 billion--to fund projects that may never have been built
under a traditional Federal grant program.
However, Federal mandates for additional subsidy have eroded
capitalization of SRFs, jeopardizing a permanent, protected, recurring
source of funding to meet water infrastructure needs for future
generations.
Only 20 percent of 2022 annual appropriations for the Drinking
Water SRF must be provided in subsidized loans, which capitalize the
programs. Of the remaining capitalization grant,
--26 percent must be used for federally mandated additional subsidy
(14 percent mandated by the 2022 Appropriations Act and 12
percent mandated by the Safe Drinking Water Act),
--23 percent may be used for additional subsidy at the discretion of
the state, and
--31 percent may be used for set-asides (2 percent for technical
assistance for small communities, 4 percent for administration,
10 percent to support the Public Water System Supervision
program, and 15 percent for State and local activities, such as
capacity development and source water projection).
Only 54 percent of 2022 annual appropriations for the Clean Water
SRF must be provided in subsidized loans, which capitalize the program.
Of the remaining capitalization grant,
--20 percent must be used for federally mandated additional subsidy
(10 percent mandated by the 2022 Appropriations Act and 10
percent mandated by the Clean Water Act),
--20 percent may be used for additional subsidy at the discretion of
the state, and
--6 percent may be used for set-asides (2 percent for technical
assistance for small, rural and Tribal communities and 4
percent for administration).
Federal mandates for additional subsidy have also impacted the
ability of some States to issue bonds for state match. These SRFs need
loan repayments to provide security for bonds to generate state match;
fewer loans and historically low interest rates have reduced revenue
needed for state match.
Congress has provided multiple forms of financial assistance to
help low-income, disadvantaged and underserved communities to build
much-needed water infrastructure.
--As part of the IIJA, Congress mandated that 10 percent of annual
Federal funding for the Clean Water SRF be provided in
additional subsidy for communities that meet the affordability
criteria and increased the mandate for additional subsidy for
the Drinking Water SRF from 6 percent to 12 percent. Moreover,
Congress has provided States with the ability to provide up to
30 percent of annual Federal funding for the Clean Water SRF
and up to 35 percent of annual Federal funding for the Drinking
Water SRF to help communities that couldn't otherwise afford
much-needed water infrastructure.
--According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's
interpretation of the IIJA, Congress requires 49 percent of
2023 supplemental appropriations--$2.2 billion for each
program--to be provided in additional subsidy to communities
that meet affordability or disadvantaged community criteria.
That's more than $2 billion in funding for principal
forgiveness and grants in 2023.
--In 2018, Congress established the Small, Underserved and
Disadvantaged Community Grant Program specifically to help the
neediest communities build infrastructure to provide safe
drinking water.
Finally, many States have grant programs to help low-income,
disadvantaged communities. State grant programs tend to be more
accessible and user-friendly for small and disadvantaged communities,
especially those that lack the professional capacity to comply with
Federal mandates, such as Davis Bacon, American Iron and Steel, and the
myriad of Federal crosscutters required of SRF borrowers.
dedicated funding in the infrastructure investment and jobs act
CIFA urges Congress to provide specific allowances for dedicated
special category appropriations in the IIJA, including funding to
replace lead pipes and remediate emerging contaminants with a focus on
per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Changes to the base program
are not necessary. However, targeted and limited adjustments for the
dedicated special category funding are needed to efficiently and
effectively achieve the goals of Congress.
2022 and 2023 Appropriations for Replacement of Lead Service Lines:
--Allow funding to be used for replacement of any, and all, lead
pipes, including lead water mains which EPA has determined are
ineligible for this dedicated funding.
--Allow up to 100 percent of funding to be used for additional
subsidy for any community, which is necessary to alleviate the
cost to homeowners to replace the privately owned portion of
the lead service lines.
--Allow funding to be used by SRFs to contract directly for lead
service line inventories.
--Allow funding to be used to replace indoor lead plumbing, such as
water fountains and faucets, for public buildings or buildings
that serve vulnerable populations, such as daycare centers,
schools, nursing homes, libraries, and courthouses.
2022 and 2023 Appropriations for Remediation of Emerging
Contaminants with a Focus on Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances
(PFAS):
--Allow funding to be used for testing and monitoring.
--Allow funding to be used by SRFs to contract directly for
remediation efforts.
--Extend the deadline to apply for the capitalization grant by 1-year
to provide sufficient time for SRFs to build a pipeline of
projects for this new dedicated special category funding.
--Eliminate the requirement that 10 percent of the capitalization
grant for this dedicated special category funding be used for
green projects.
[This statement was submitted Deirdre Finn, Executive Director,
Council of Infrastructure Financing Authorities (CIFA).]
______
Prepared Statement of Defenders of Wildlife
Madam Chairman, Ranking Member and Members of the subcommittee,
thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony. I am Mary Beth
Beetham, Director of Legislative Affairs at Defenders of Wildlife.
Founded in 1947, Defenders has nearly 2.2 million members and
supporters and is dedicated to the conservation of wild animals and
plants in their natural communities.
Biodiversity is in crisis on a global scale. Numerous scientific
studies in the last several years have raised the alarm about this
crisis. A landmark 2019 study \1\ compiled by hundreds of the world's
leading scientists found that about one million species are facing
extinction. The health of wildlife and ecosystems is directly related
to human health--exploitation and habitat loss can cause spillover of
animal diseases to humans. Moreover, the World Economic Forum found
that biodiversity loss is one of the top three threats to the global
economy in its 2022 report.\2\ And a 2022 National Academy of Sciences
report emphasizes biodiversity's ``essentially incalculable'' role in
protecting human health, agriculture, and the economy.\3\
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\1\ Diaz, S., J. Settele, E. S. Brondizio, et al. 2019. ``Summary
for Policymakers of the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and
Ecosystem Services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.''
\2\ World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2022
\3\ National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
2022. ``Biodiversity at Risk: Today's Choices Matter.'' Washington, DC:
The National Academies Press.
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The biodiversity crisis cannot be addressed without funding--more
than 1,900 scientists signed a letter \4\ published in the journal
Science which asked Congress to fully fund conservation programs to
protect biodiversity, including the Endangered Species Act (ESA). While
we appreciate the modest increases provided in the final fiscal Year
2022 bill, years of severely inadequate funding and the scale of the
catastrophe facing the planet's wildlife make them gravely
insufficient. Significantly more funding is needed in every area.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Malcom, J et al. 2019. ``Solve the biodiversity crisis with
funding.'' Science 365 (6459): 1256
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In addition, Defenders is deeply disturbed that, although neither
the House nor Senate fiscal Year 2022 bills included the sage-grouse
rider, the omnibus yet again included this longstanding prohibition on
protecting the sage-grouse under the ESA that has been in the bill
since 2014. We urge the subcommittee to draw a line in the sand and
ensure that this rider which undermines sound science and the ESA is
removed from the fiscal Year 2023 bill once and for all.
fish and wildlife service
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is our Nation's premier
wildlife conservation agency. To address the biodiversity crisis, the
agency needs additional increases to support recovery of threatened and
endangered species; protect migratory birds and fish, species of global
conservation concern and other trust species; and prevent domestic and
international wildlife crimes.
Ecological Services--Defenders is part of a coalition of more than
150 organizations requesting a significant infusion of funds into the
Ecological Services program to begin to address the biodiversity
crisis. We very much appreciate the $356.2 million in the president's
request, but the need is far greater. Based on available data on the
needs and costs for ESA implementation by FWS across its programs, as
well as inflation adjustment, program funding should be at least $543.5
million, or $266.5 million more than the fiscal Year 2022 level:
--Listing: There are approximately 310 species on the FWS National
Listing Workplan for fiscal Year 2022-FY 2027 that must be
reviewed for protections under the ESA, with more species
petitioned for protection every year. For FWS to meet this
obligation, a total of $78.7 million is needed annually, an
increase of $57.4 million.
--Recovery: Of the more than 1600 listed U.S. species, more than 1200
have no recovery plans or have plans that are at least a decade
old and that may no longer contain current scientific
information, especially related to climate change. Hundreds of
listed species receive less than $1,000 per year for recovery
and many receive no FWS funding at all. Congress should provide
a minimum of $50,000 per year per species for recovery. For FWS
to meet its obligations under the recovery budget, a total of
at least $287 million is needed annually, an increase of $178.6
million. We very much appreciate report language directing FWS
to incorporate climate change adaptation into recovery plans
and language supporting improved recovery efforts for red
wolves; we urge continued oversight of these activities.
--Planning and Consultation: FWS conducts ESA Section 7 consultations
on more than 10,000 Federal actions each year so that projects
can move forward while minimizing harm to listed species. The
requirements of pesticide consultations in particular are
highly technical and essential to protecting species. In
addition, the agency will have significantly increased
obligations under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
To meet these needs and to work with non-federal stakeholders
to develop Habitat Conservation Plans, $162.1 million is needed
annually, an increase of $50 million. We are grateful for the
continued support for the Integrated Planning and Consultation
system and for compliance monitoring. We urge continued
oversight of these efforts.
--Conservation and Restoration: At least $15.7 million per year is
needed for the Candidate Conservation element of Conservation
and Restoration to assist with early conservation action on the
current 25 candidate species.
--Wolf Livestock Loss Demonstration Program: We are disappointed that
the president's budget zeroed out this important program that
assists livestock owners co-existing with wolves, and we urge
continued funding at no less than $1 million.
National Wildlife Refuge System Operations and Maintenance--A key
component in addressing the biodiversity crisis in the U.S. is to
refocus Federal land management on it. Our National Wildlife Refuge
System is the largest network of public lands and waters in the Nation
dedicated to wildlife conservation. Since 2010, the System has added 2
million land acres, 13 national wildlife refuges, and 597 million acres
of marine national monuments, has experienced a 44 percent increase in
visitation, and has worked to significantly expand its urban refuge
program in historically excluded communities. Yet the System has lost
25 percent of its staff since 2010, and despite increases provided in
the fiscal Year 2022 bill, its funding is far below the fiscal Year
2010 inflation adjusted level of $636 million. While Defenders very
much appreciates the president's request of $597.9 million, we
recommend $712 million to begin to address the real need, an increase
of $193.2 million.
Partners for Fish and Wildlife--Defenders urges full funding of $75
million, an increase of $17.3 million to address a backlog of
applications and fund practices that could restore tens of thousands of
land acres and stream miles on private land. We urge inclusion of
report language directing continued prioritization of projects that
connect, enlarge, and buffer National Wildlife Refuges.
Migratory Bird Management--In North America nearly 3 billion birds
have disappeared since 1970 and the only groups to not suffer severe
declines were waterbirds that have received substantial funding over
the decades.\5\ The administration is currently working to develop
regulations to govern incidental take under the Migratory Bird Treaty
Act (MBTA) following the reversal of harmful Trump-era policies.
Defenders supports the $70.2 million in the president's request, an
increase of $20.7 million, which includes increases of $8.1 million to
help support development of proposed regulations under the MBTA and $1
million for Urban Treaties to help address threats to birds in
underserved communities.
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\5\ Rosenberg, L. V. et al. 2019. ``Decline of the North American
avifauna.'' Science 366 (6461): 120-124.
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Office of Law Enforcement (OLE) and International Affairs (IA)--For
OLE, we support $115 million, an increase of $25.2 million, to help OLE
continue to address the crisis in the illegal global wildlife trade and
the threat of zoonotic disease. For IA, we support $35 million, an
increase of $9.6 million, crucial in continuing to combat illegal
wildlife trade and to build capacity in range countries.
Cooperative Landscape Conservation and Science Support--We support
the president's request of $19 million (an increase of $6.2 million)
and $38.5 million (an increase of $15.3 million) respectively. With
these increases, FWS can continue to work to address complex challenges
posed by the dual climate and biodiversity crises.
Key grant programs--Defenders supports: $149.9 million for the
Cooperative Endangered Species Fund, an increase of $93 million; $20
million for the Neotropical Migratory Bird Fund, an increase of $15
million; and $30 million for the Multinational Species Conservation
Fund, an increase of $10 million.
u.s forest service and bureau of land management
The U.S. Forest Service (FS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
manage close to 20 percent of the country's land base, providing
habitat for hundreds of species listed under the ESA and thousands of
sensitive species. These agencies have long been deprived of the
funding they need to adequately conserve and recover imperiled species.
While we thank the subcommittee for the modest increases provided in
the fiscal Year 2022 bill, we were disappointed that the president's
request for fiscal Year 2023 included explicit funding for only one of
the five critical programs listed below. Given the enormity, urgency,
and complexity of the biodiversity crisis and the importance of Federal
public lands, explicit funding and long-term increases are badly needed
for these programs that specifically address the biodiversity crisis
and restore resilient ecosystems.
FS Threatened, Endangered and Sensitive (TES) Species--Defenders
recommends reestablishing the TES line item at a level of $24.7 million
under Wildlife and Fisheries Habitat Management (WFHM). This
appropriation should also be reflected in top-line increases for WFHM
to ensure that increased capacity for TES does not detract from WFHM's
other mission-critical functions. Based on cost estimates in ESA
recovery plans, the FS would need to spend roughly three times the
requested amount annually to meet its responsibility to help recover
the 470 listed species that occur on FS-administered lands. This
increase will help the FS make substantial progress while continuing to
build toward that goal in subsequent appropriations cycles.
Additionally, we request report language asking the FS to report on its
T&E recovery projects, expenditures, and resultant outcomes, and to
ensure that TES funding is used specifically to advance recovery of
listed species on its lands rather than to pay for ESA Section 7
consultations, which should be funded by the benefitting programs.
FS Research and Development Programs (R&D)--Defenders supports
$88.7 million, an increase of $38.7 million for R&D, which was the
president's budget request for fiscal Year 2022. This includes funding
for the Wildlife and Fish Research Program to support crucial science
and applied research. We recommend a specific budget allocation for the
Wildlife and Fish Research Program, which has historically received 9-
10 percent of the R&D programs line item but warrants a significant
increase given the magnitude of the biodiversity crisis. We also ask
that the subcommittee direct the FS to report on the potential for
Research Natural Areas (RNAs) to provide information about climate-
related changes over time and the potential of RNAs to protect habitat
for plant and wildlife species such as rare plants, endemics, and those
with small ranges.
FS Legacy Roads and Trails (LRT)--Defenders recommends $100 million
for LRT, an increase of $95 million. The increase would restore
capacity and address the significant backlog of projects that has
compounded since LRT lost dedicated funding between fiscal Year 2018-FY
2021. We also ask the subcommittee to direct the FS to report on LRT
accomplishments.
BLM Threatened and Endangered (T&E) Species Management--Defenders
supports $51.7 million, an increase of $20.7 million, and elevation of
the program to its own subactivity to better support imperiled species
recovery and improve outcome tracking and accountability. This increase
should also be reflected in top-line increases for the account that
houses the Program to ensure that increased capacity for the T&E
Program does not detract from other mission-critical wildlife
functions. Our request is the best available estimate of what BLM needs
to meet its responsibility to help recover the 330 listed species that
occur on BLM-administered lands based on cost estimates in ESA recovery
plans and current range data.
BLM Plant Conservation and Restoration--Defenders supports $40
million, which includes $35 million for the base program to better
implement the National Seed Strategy and to increase botanical
expertise, and an additional $5 million for the working capital fund to
scale up native plant material development. This program provides
national leadership to ensure consistent and adequate supplies of
America's native plant species for restoration of native ecosystems. It
is also responsible for implementation of key initiatives including the
National Seed Strategy and rare plant conservation. Historically,
funding has been inconsistently cobbled together from multiple sources
within the agency. These contributions have fluctuated between $10
million to $16 million annually over the past 5 years. We recommend
establishment of the program as its own subactivity to ensure it
endures and is accountable Bureau-wide.
u.s. geological survey
Ecosystems--Defenders supports the $375.7 million in the request,
an increase of $97.8 million to support development of crucial
scientific information for sound management of our Nation's biological
resources. This includes a total of $124.7 million, an increase of
$72.8 million for the National and Regional Climate Adaptation Centers.
[This statement was submitted by Mary Beth Beetham, Director of
Legislative Affairs, Defenders of Wildlife.]
______
Prepared Statement of Dine Bi Olta School Board Association
The Navajo Nation established the Dine Bi Olta School Board
Association (DBOSBA) to represent the locally-elected school boards
within the Navajo Nation. With its representation of school boards from
the 66 Bureau of Indian Education-funded (BIE) schools located on the
Navajo Nation, DBOSBA's membership constitutes more than one-third of
the 183 BIE-funded schools nationwide. Of those 66 BIE-funded schools,
32 are operated by the BIE and 34 are tribally-operated (33 pursuant to
grants under the Tribally Controlled Schools Act, Public Law 100-297
(TCSA) and one pursuant to a contract under the Indian Self-
Determination and Education Assistance Act, Public Law 93-638
(ISDEAA)). DBOSBA unites school boards to advocate for educational
programs and services that help ensure each Navajo student graduates
with the preparation necessary to lead a productive and fulfilling
life, with knowledge and understanding of Navajo language and culture.
DBOSBA is grateful for the leadership and commitment of these
subcommittees to address the many challenges facing federally-funded
schools operating on the Navajo Nation and elsewhere throughout Indian
Country. We particularly appreciate the emergency supplemental support
Congress provided to our communities in response to the COVID-19
pandemic. We ask for your sustained partnership as we continue to
respond to these exceptional demands and work to confront longstanding
inequities.
In the 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act, Congress provided our
schools with important support, including: increased Indian School
Equalization Program (ISEP) Formula Funds; continued funding for school
replacement construction projects; action to correct the BIE's failure
to request the funding necessary to meet statutory teacher pay parity
requirements; and extending to all BIE-funded schools the option of
offering their employees participation in the Federal Employee Health
Benefit (FEHB) program. Congress also created an indefinite
appropriation within the BIA's budget to pay for full service leases
and ensured the continuation of full funding for Tribal Grant Support
Costs.
DBOSBA respectfully asks that Congress continue to build upon these
achievements. Our fiscal Year 2023 priorities are increases for ISEP
Formula Funds; full funding for Teacher Pay Parity; Early Childhood and
Family Development; Special Education; Education IT; Student
Transportation; Road Maintenance for School Bus Routes; Facilities
Operations and Maintenance; Facilities Improvement and Repair; and
Replacement Construction; ensuring that employees of all BIE-funded
schools are eligible to participate in the Federal Employee Retirement
System; full funding for Tribal Grant Support Costs; mandatory funding
for full service leases; and the inclusion of BIE schools in any
expansion of pre-kindergarten across the Nation. To ensure these vital
Federal resources reach our communities, DBOSBA calls on Congress to
hold the BIE accountable and restore the Federal commitment to ``a
meaningful Indian self-determination policy for education.'' 25 U.S.C.
Sec. 2501(b).
ISEP Formula Funds are the core account for BIE-operated and
tribally controlled schools (also known as ``grant schools''). This
account funds everything from classroom instruction materials and
teacher salaries to gifted and talented programs, summer programs, and
food services. Increases in ISEP Formula Funds directly benefit
students and help attract and retain the quality teachers vital to our
students' academic success. BIE-funded schools across the Nation are
facing a significant teacher shortage, but that shortage is
particularly acute here on the Navajo Nation, where many schools
operate in remote locations and because surrounding public schools in
New Mexico and Arizona have responded to the teacher shortage by
substantially increasing teacher pay. Having the resources to attract
and retain quality teachers is one of our biggest challenges.
Full Funding for Teacher and Counselor Pay Parity is a critical
tool for attracting and retaining quality teachers. Federal law
requires the BIE provide funding so that teachers and counselors in the
BIE-funded school system may be paid equivalent salaries to their
counterparts in the Department of Defense Education Activity. Federal
law also provides that, at the discretion of the local school board, a
BIE-operated school may pay salaries consistent with those paid by
public schools in the state where the BIE school is located.
DBOSBA would like to thank the subcommittees for the fiscal Year
2021 House Report 116-448 and the Joint Explanatory Statement
accompanying the 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act which direct the
BIE to ``clearly display funding amounts required to comply with
Defense Department-equivalent pay rates as part of future budget
justifications and to include sufficient funding in its budget request
to fully fund these requirements.'' While the Administration's fiscal
Year 2022 budget request for the BIE proposed an increase for ISEP
Formula Funds and included teacher and counselor pay parity among the
priorities to be funded from within this program increase, the fiscal
Year 2022 budget justification failed to quantify the specific amount
for this purpose. We ask the subcommittees to continue to hold the BIE
accountable for quantifying and requesting the correct amount for
teacher and counselor pay parity and ensuring that the amounts provided
are sufficient to match the increases provided by the Defense
Department schools or are consistent with the rate of pay of public
schools in the States where our BIE-operated and tribally controlled
schools are located, whichever of these rates is higher. Given the
acute teacher shortages, this parity is essential to our schools'
ability to recruit and retain qualified teachers.
Ensuring that employees of all BIE-funded schools are eligible to
participate in the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) would
significantly bolster the ability of tribally controlled schools to
attract and retain quality teachers, and would not create any new costs
for the Federal Government. Congress recently extended grant schools
the opportunity to offer their employees insurance through the FEHB and
Federal Employee Group Life Insurance (FEGLI) programs. Similarly,
extending the option of FERS participation to all BIE-funded schools
would provide valuable benefits to teachers and schools at no cost to
the Federal Government.
Early Childhood and Family Development funding plays a critical
role in preparing children for school and supporting and empowering
their parents. Substantial program increases are needed each year to
expand these opportunities to more BIE-system schools. Of the 183
schools in the BIE school system, the Administration's fiscal Year 2022
budget justification reports that 47 receive Early Childhood and Family
Development funds. The National Education Association finds that
children in early childhood education programs are: less likely to
repeat a grade; less likely to be identified as having special needs;
more prepared academically for later grades; more likely to graduate
from high school; and more likely to become higher earners in the
workforce. As Congress separately considers a nation-wide expansion of
access to high-quality pre-school and early learning opportunities, it
is absolutely critical that schools in the BIE system are included and
receive dedicated, sufficient, and flexible funding.
Special Education requires greater investment and improved
congressional oversight of the BIE. American Indian children are more
likely to require special education services than any other group in
the United States (18 percent of students, according to the National
Center for Education Statistics in 2020, but our experience indicates
an even higher rate for students at Navajo Nation schools). Yet, our
schools do not have the resources to recruit qualified and culturally
knowledgeable special education teachers. In addition to funding,
greater accountability of the BIE is needed to ensure that the
resources made available to the BIE serve to enhance special education
programming and services for the students who need them.
Education IT, specifically, funding to increase connectivity for
schools and students is absolutely critical as some of our schools are
still holding classes remotely or on a hybrid schedule and because
connectivity needs will persist even after the worst of the pandemic
recedes. The funding increases proposed for fiscal Year 2022 are
welcomed and can be built upon for fiscal Year 2023.
Student Transportation in the BIE Budget and Road Maintenance for
School Bus Routes in the BIA Budget are of particular importance to
schools located on the Navajo Nation. Our students travel some of the
longest distances to their schools on some of the worst roads in the
Nation. Outdated buses improperly equipped to handle the many unpaved
and unimproved roads put our students' safety at risk or can mean that
our students miss critical instruction days and fall behind their peers
in other jurisdictions. DBOSBA cautions that the proposed conversion to
electric buses could actually present new problems given the extensive
distances of remote bus routes on the Navajo Nation and the limited
electric system capacity of many of our communities. Without further
increases for Student Transportation and Road Maintenance, and the
alignment of new technologies to our circumstances, this precarious
situation will continue.
School Facilities Operations and Maintenance funds play a pivotal
role in the health and safety of our students and staff. More funding
is needed to address the BIE system-wide maintenance backlog and to
ensure schools have enough funding to adequately heat and cool
buildings and to achieve air circulation rates that reduce the risk of
coronavirus transmission. Congress should ensure this funding gets
properly distributed to schools. DBOSBA encourages Congress to shift
these two accounts to the forward funded portion of the BIE's budget to
further insulate schools from the uncertainties of continuing
resolutions and government shutdowns.
School Facilities Improvement & Repair and School Replacement
Construction in the BIE's Education Construction budget also
significantly impact the health and safety of our students and staff.
This funding not only helps keep our students and staff safe, it also
helps prolong the useful life of our school buildings. Unfortunately,
many schools throughout the BIE system are far beyond the end of their
safe and useful life and must be replaced. Many of these schools in
poor or dangerous condition are located on the Navajo Nation. The BIE's
fiscal Year 2022 budget justification reports that only one of the 10
schools on the 2016 School Replacement List is complete. It is critical
for Congress to continue to provide robust levels of funding for School
Replacement Construction so the remaining schools on the list can be
completed expeditiously and a new list can be created. DBOSBA thanks
Congress for enacting the Great American Outdoors Act, and calls on the
subcommittees to ensure that the act's 5 years of supplemental funding
to help address the repair and replacement backlogs across the BIE
school system is just that: supplemental to the robust funding Congress
will continue to provide in the coming years.
Continued Full Funding for Tribal Grant Support Costs means that
tribally controlled schools can focus ISEP funds where it counts:
supporting students, improving classroom instruction, and attracting
and retaining quality teachers. DBOSBA thanks Congress for providing
full funding for Tribal Grant Support Costs since fiscal Year 2016.
Shifting 105(l) Tribal Leases to Mandatory Funding would make the
discretionary budget process more predictable and would free up
additional funding for Indian programs within the topline allocation
for the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies appropriations bill.
In fiscal Year 2023, the Administration is requesting that this account
be classified as mandatory spending. DBOSBA strongly supports the
Administration's request.
DBOSBA is committed to working with Congress to ensure the
effective implementation of these vital programs and the efficient use
of these valuable Federal resources. We call the subcommittee's
attention to several immediate and urgent oversight concerns regarding
the BIE's noncompliance and disregard for statutory mandates that
Congress enacted in order to ``facilitate Indian control of Indian
affairs in all matters relating to education'' as enshrined in the
Indian Education Title of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
Amendments of 1978, Public Law 95-561, and the TCSA. The BIE's actions
undermine self-determination in Indian education and distract our
teachers and administrators from focusing on providing quality
educational services to our students. The BIE has not met the standards
set by Congress and does not deserve a passing grade for its
performance. Significant improvement by the BIE is needed to ensure
effective program implementation and efficient use of Federal
resources. DBOSBA will be providing the subcommittees with a letter to
accompany this testimony detailing our observations and concerns
regarding the need for greater accountability at the BIE. DBOSBA
respectfully requests that the subcommittee express its awareness of
our oversight concerns in the appropriations instructions that will be
provided to the BIE and that those instructions request a report or
response from the BIE.
DBOSBA thanks the subcommittees for the opportunity to provide this
testimony.
[This statement was submitted by Ervin Chavez, Executive Board
Chair of the Dine Bi Olta School Board Association.]
______
Prepared Statement of Ding Darling Wildlife Society
This testimony is submitted on behalf of the ``Ding'' Darling
Wildlife Society (Society), the Friends-of-the Refuge group that was
formed in 1982 to support the J. N. ``Ding'' Darling National Wildlife
Refuge on Sanibel Island, Florida. As the Society celebrates its
fortieth anniversary, we respectfully request that the National
Wildlife Refuge System Operations & Maintenance budget receive fiscal
year 2023 funding of $712M.
The J. N. ``Ding'' Darling National Wildlife Refuge is a critical
driver in the tourist-based economy of Southwest Florida and is the
second most visited location, after our beaches, in the entire area.
It's wealth of wildlife, some endangered, is unique. And although
protected within the framework of the National Wildlife Refuge System
(NWRS), its very existence is under threat by climate change, by water
quality issues and, most seriously, by the severe lack of adequate
Federal funding of the NWRS.
In the last 10 years, annual visitation to the Refuge has increased
by some 60 percent to nearly one million but, during that same period,
its Federal Appropriations, impacted by years of Continuing
Resolutions, has forced the US Fish and Wildlife Service to reduce the
refuge's staff by almost half. As a Friends group, the Society has done
whatever it can to help fill the gap through the generation of
independent funds to support student education, internships, research
projects, informational literature, advocacy, land acquisition and
facility enhancements.
As an example, in recent months the Society has been able augment
the Refuge's commitment to the NWRS urban refuge program by helping
design, equip and staff a Wildlife on Wheels (WoW) mobile classroom
that visits local schools, churches and other locales, primarily in
economically-distressed areas. In so doing, youth and adults from these
areas re provided the opportunity to enjoy a glimpse of the tremendous
benefits that wildlife refuges afford. Since December of 2020, WoW has
had over 10,000 visitors with the vast majority expressing unanimously
positive reactions.
However, that being said, both the J. N. ``Ding'' Darling National
Wildlife Refuge and the NWRS overall remain significantly underfunded.
The NWRS requires at least $1 billion in Operations and Maintenance
Funding to be considered ``fully funded''. Such funding would support
staffing of all refuges at the needed levels; provide for adequate
maintenance; and adequately finance comprehensive biological, hunting,
fishing, and environmental education as well as interpretive programs.
Our testimony reflects the criticality of reaching this full funding
goal over the next few years and, as a result, we ask that you work
towards that by recommending $712 million in annual funding for the
NWRS Operations and Maintenance budget in Fiscal Year 2023.
Our $712 million funding request reflects the urgent need to
address the loss of over 1,000 NWRS staff in the last decade, the
direct result of budget shortfalls during that period. At the same
time, millions of new acres were added to the System, including 13 new
refuges. During this same period, the Refuge System's important urban
program was launched and NWRS has been challenged to address the
increasing problem of managing invasive species on almost all of its
refuges. While the requested fiscal year 2023 funding may be viewed as
a significant increase, it is precisely what is needed to sustain
healthy and vibrant wildlife habitats throughout the NWRS.
Thank you for your consideration, and please feel free to contact
me at 239-410-7931 or [email protected] should additional information
be needed.
[This statement was submitted by Michael J. Baldwin, PhD, Board
Member & Immediate Past President ``Ding'' Darling Wildlife Society.]
______
Prepared Statement of Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle Community School
Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle Community School (DCS) operates a K-8 school
and residence program in Bloomfield, New Mexico. DCS is funded by the
Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) and has operated pursuant to the
Tribally Controlled Schools Act (TCSA, Public Law 100-297) since 2005.
DCS is a Member of the Dine Bi Olta School Board Association (DBOSBA),
which represents all of the locally-elected school boards within the
Navajo Nation. DCS wishes to associate ourselves with DBOSBA's fiscal
Year 2023 appropriations testimony and share our school's experiences
to provide additional context for these priorities.
DCS is one of the schools on the 2016 Replacement School list and
we are excited to report that we received the certificate of
substantial completion for our dormitory last week and that we
anticipate receiving the certificate of substantial completion of our
academic building in April. Thanks to the subcommittees' dedication to
prioritizing appropriations and oversight for School Replacement
Construction, DCS for the first time will now be able to offer our
students a healthy and safe facility. Our dormitory and academic
buildings are designed with Navajo cultural features that invite
students into an atmosphere that is colorful and open for learning and
growth. These new buildings have Navajo names. For example, the
academic building's name, ``Al'chini bi Olta,'' means ``place for
learning that belongs to the children.'' It reflects our School's
commitment to Navajo culture and our students. We could not be where we
are in this process without your dedication to our students' well-
being.
Our testimony highlights the following fiscal Year 2023 priorities:
--School Replacement Construction and Oversight of the Division of
Facilities Management and Construction (DFMC);
--Continued Support for Early Childhood and Family Development
Programs;
--Formula Funds for the Native Language and Culture Immersion Program
Instead of Competitive Grants;
--Increases for ISEP Formula Funds;
--Full Funding for Teacher and Counselor Pay Parity;
--Expanding Eligibility for Tribally Controlled Schools to
Participate in the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS);
--Increased Funding and Flexibility for Education IT;
--Increases for Road Maintenance for School Bus Routes and Student
Transportation;
--Shift School Facilities Operations and Maintenance Accounts to the
Forward Funded Portion of the BIE's Budget; and
--Reduce Unnecessary and Burdensome Reporting.
School Replacement Construction and Oversight of the Division of
Facilities Management and Construction (DFMC). As one of the schools on
the 2016 Replacement School list, we are currently at the 80 percent
completion stage of our design-build contract. DCS is committed to
putting our school in operation as promptly as possible for the well-
being of our students. Our students have always been academically well-
prepared, as shown by test scores and other performance measures. They
have demonstrated high achievement despite the hindrances of broken
pipes, sewer back-ups, and outdated internet technology. They have also
had to endure health and safety risks associated with poor air quality
and the presence of asbestos. With the new academic building and
dormitory, our students will have the opportunity to excel to their
potential. They will have healthy and safe facilities that include bi-
polar ionization to filter viruses and bacteria from the air, fast and
reliable connectivity to the internet, and features supporting computer
technology, as well as cultural features demonstrating pride in their
Navajo culture and identify. DCS is grateful to the subcommittees for
your partnership with us.
As we have reported in prior years' testimony, under DCS
leadership, the school replacement construction project has largely
been on track for its scheduled completion and budget despite delays
and bottlenecks caused by the Indian Affairs Division of Facilities
Management and Construction (DFMC) failure to meet review and approval
timeframes. Last year, however, we encountered a number of
disconcerting setbacks arising from the DFMC's failure to properly
supervise the contractor DFMC assigned to be project manager. The
project manager failed to respect the new school construction project
grant agreement terms and the previously approved project documents. As
a result, DFMC issued directives to expand scope of work for the school
reconstruction project to require additional square footage, a redesign
and reconstruction of our wastewater lagoon, and a rooftop HVAC
penthouse. This penthouse requirement interferes with the approved
project design that includes a roofline based on the contours of a
traditional, Navajo hogan. Each of the DFMC's directives were
unilateral and received post-award, meaning that the cost to carry them
out was not included in the authorized program budget. Only after our
School filed disputes and made repeated requests for grant amendments
did DFMC provide funding for its directives--the most recent of those
were only resolved in February 2022. Although DCS has been able to
steer the project to success and the DFMC has taken corrective action,
meeting the project's milestones has taken more time, money, and effort
from DCS than it should have. Looking forward, we urge the
subcommittees to redouble your oversight of the DFMC.
Early Childhood and Family Development funding plays a critical
role preparing our children for school and supporting and empowering
their parents. DCS' Family and Community Engagement (FACE) program
provides pre-school, home-based and adult education programs that
strengthens our community and school. Even during the COVID-19 Pandemic
our program served 27 families with 33 children. We have seen
significant increases in the number of parents who achieve a graduate
equivalent degree (GED) through our adult education program and
children who participate in the pre-school program arrive to
kindergarten more prepared than those who do not. DCS provides
trainings to parents in our Navajo language. The DCS FACE program has
been nationally recognized as a model for other schools. Funding
increases are essential as many schools are unable to hire teachers and
trainers. As Congress separately considers a nation-wide expansion of
access to high-quality pre-school and early learning opportunities, it
is absolutely critical that schools in the BIE system are included and
receive dedicated, sufficient, and flexible funding to support current
early learning programs and to help those schools without a program to
start one.
Providing Formula Funds to all Schools for Native Language and
Culture Immersion would significantly help our school and others.
Additional funding is needed as we work to recruit, train, and retain
teachers with the knowledge and cultural understanding to provide
culturally appropriate, bilingual education consistent with
requirements of the Navajo Department of Education. We have seen
important student performance gains thanks to the bilingual and
cultural education programs funded with grants from this program in the
past. DCS is able to offer Navajo language and culture materials on a
daily basis. Through DCS's conversational Navajo language course, we
have seen our students' language skills grow--and frequently observe
our students using Navajo words and phrases in their interactions with
each other. Because this program is currently a competitive grant
program, participation is limited. We believe that all Native students
in BIE system schools could benefit from these resources.
ISEP Formula Funds is the core BIE account, which funds our
school's operations. This account funds everything from classroom
instruction materials to teacher salaries. Increases for ISEP directly
benefit our students. ISEP funding increases are vital to enhancing
learning opportunities for all of our students through the training,
development, and retention of excellent teachers. Schools across the
Nation are facing a significant teacher shortage but that shortage is
particularly acute here in more remote communities like ours on the
Navajo Nation. Additionally, New Mexico has responded to the Nationwide
teacher shortage by increasing teacher pay by tens of thousands of
dollars. We believe teachers should be compensated to reflect the
important work they do every day, but we do not have the budget to
compete with these salaries being offered by public schools here in New
Mexico. In order to effectively address this problem, we need ISEP
increases paired with Full Funding for Teacher and Counselor Pay
Parity, and opportunities to expand the benefits package we can offer
our teachers and staff as discussed below.
Full Funding for Teacher and Counselor Pay Parity is a critical
tool for attracting and retaining quality teachers. We ask the
subcommittees to continue to hold the BIE accountable for ensuring that
the amounts requested for pay parity are sufficient to match the
increases provided by the Defense Department schools. Given the
significant salary increases for public school teachers in New Mexico,
DCS also encourages consideration for pay rate increases that would
keep pace with either the Defense Department schools, or the rate of
nearby public schools, whichever of these rates are higher. Given our
acute teacher shortage, these requested increases to provide pay parity
are essential.
Expanding Eligibility for Tribally Controlled Schools to
Participate in the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) would not
create any new costs for the Federal Government but it could
significantly bolster the efforts of tribally controlled schools like
ours to attract and retain quality teachers. Congress recently extended
eligibility for tribally controlled schools to participate in the
Federal Employee Health Benefits (FEHB) and Federal Employee Group Life
Insurance (FEGLI) programs. Extending the option of FERS participation
to us and other tribally controlled schools would strengthen this
effort.
Education IT, specifically, funding to increase connectivity for
schools, students, and teachers and to pay the salaries of technical
staff is absolutely critical. The funding increases proposed for fiscal
Year 2022 are welcomed and can be built upon for fiscal Year 2023. We
also ask that the subcommittees ensure that these funds are distributed
to schools and are not centralized, micromanaged, or delayed by the
BIE's bureaucracy.
Increases for Student Transportation in the BIE Budget and Road
Maintenance Funding for School Bus Routes in the BIA Budget are of
particular importance to DCS. Many of our students travel long
distances on unpaved and unimproved roads. Poor weather creates safety
concerns and makes student absences more likely. Meanwhile,
skyrocketing fuels costs have increased the strain on our budgets. DCS
welcomes more fuel-efficient vehicles, however, given distances, road
conditions and limited electrical system capacity, we ask the
subcommittees to ensure the General Services Administration (GSA)
conducts proper feasibility assessments before seeking to deploy
electric vehicles on our bus routes. Continued increases for Student
Transportation and Road Maintenance funding targeted to school bus
routes remain essential.
School Facilities Operations and Maintenance funds play a pivotal
role in the health and safety of our students and staff. We call upon
Congress to shift these two accounts to the forward funded portion of
the BIE's budget to help further insulate our schools from the
disruptive uncertainties of continuing resolutions and government
shutdowns.
Reduce Unnecessary and Burdensome Reporting to ensure the effective
implementation of these vital programs and the efficient use of these
valuable Federal resources. When Congress drafted the TCSA, it included
an express limitation on tribally controlled schools' reporting
requirements and what authorities apply to them. Under the TCSA,
tribally controlled schools must submit an annual financial statement
and financial audit that complies with the Single Audit Act, along with
an annual program evaluation conducted by an impartial evaluation
review team. Yet, the BIE often attempts to subject tribally controlled
schools to additional reporting that duplicates information already
available in the existing reports that tribally controlled schools
provide. For example, our independent audit comprehensively evaluates
program compliance and financial management. Despite the comprehensive
information tribally controlled schools submit pursuant to statutory
and regulatory requirements, the BIE has demanded that schools complete
numerous time-consuming reports and forms that are not permitted by
statute. When DCS personnel are used to gather, format, and submit
information in response to the BIE, they are not available to focus
their efforts on providing educational services to our students.
We call the subcommittee's attention to these reporting concerns
and to the separate letter DBOSBA is providing to the subcommittees
regarding the need for greater accountability at the BIE. We
respectfully ask that the subcommittees express awareness of concerns
in the appropriations instructions that will be provided to the BIE and
that those instructions request a report or response from the BIE.
Thank you. We would like to thank the subcommittees for your
support and partnership throughout the pandemic. The resources you
allocated for BIE system schools helped keep our students and teachers
safe and connected. Thank you for the opportunity to provide this
testimony. Please consider us a resource if you have any questions.
[This statement was submitted by Chrystal Martinez-Tom, Principal,
Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle Community School.]
______
Prepared Statement of Ecological Society of America
The Ecological Society of America (ESA) appreciates the opportunity
to provide testimony in support of Fiscal Year 2023 appropriations for
U.S Forest Service Research and Development. ESA is the Nation's
largest society of professional ecologists, representing over 9,000
members across the country. Improving the future health and
sustainability of the Nation's forests, grasslands and aquatic systems
requires a strong investment in USDA Forest Service Research and
Development (R&D), funded through the Forest and Rangeland Research
budget line. We thank you for supporting a funding increase in FY 2023
and urge you to increase funding for all of Forest Service R&D (Forest
and Rangeland Research) to a minimum of $80 million and provide $22.2
million for Forest Service Inventory and Analysis, matching the fiscal
Year 2023 President's Budget Request. ESA supports $10.8 billion in
overall Forest Service appropriations, recognizing that the Forest
Service's land management programs must be fully funded in order for
Forest Service employees to be able to adequently use the best
available science in decision-making.
Building on a trove of over 100 years of research, Forest Service
R&D programs inform policy and landmanagement decisions that improve
the health and use of the Nation's forests and grasslands and adjoining
aquatic systems. Funding for these important activities is critical to
sustaining the Nation's natural resources. Showing value in this
investment requires R&D leaders and scientists be attuned and
responsive in providing relevant information and support in a timely
manner with an ability to effectively deliver assistance to all users.
The work conducted at experimental forests and ranges, regional
research stations, and the Forest Products Lab, incubates progress on
new products and services; tracks disturbance responses; fosters
greater forest resilience; quantifies contributions to air and water
quality; and drives innovation in renewable energy and product
development.
Notable recent Forest Service R&D contributions include:
avoiding endangered species act listing and saving taxpayer dollars
Forest Service fish and wildlife researchers are leading scientists
in their fields and specialize in providing applied research to natural
resource managers and decision-makers in State and Federal Government
and the private sector. Forest Service research informs conservation
efforts that have helped to avoid Endangered Species Act listings for
several forest and rangeland wildlife species. For example, Forest
Service scientists used molecular techniques to determine that the
Arapahoe Snowfly, a species petitioned for protection, was not actually
a distinct species but rather a hybrid. This type of robust science is
a perfect example of researchers providing the best available science
to inform management actions.
guiding drought management response
Drought affects local and regional economies through its effects on
water resources for agriculture, ranching, and forestry operations and
the supply of clean drinking water. Drought also leads to more
devastating wildfires, resulting in loss of life and property, reduced
economic activity, degraded wildlife habitat, and greater wildlife
suppression costs. Forest Service R&D has been a leader in reviewing
impacts of drought on U.S. forests and rangelands to better manage for
resiliency and adaptation. Agency drought assessments and guidance have
helped federal, Tribal, State, and private stakeholders devise and
implement strategies to sustain healthy, resilient ecosystems.
revolutionizing monitoring for invasive species and species at risk
Land managers and regulatory agencies are using environmental DNA
(eDNA), a non-invasive genetic sampling technique, to locate invasive
species as well as rare and sensitive species in need of special
management considerations. For example, water sampling can reveal
Forest Service R&D has leveraged it own investments in this path-
breaking technology to receive additional funding through partnerships
with national forests and other agencies. Future research will continue
to lower the cost and improve the efficiency of eDNA sampling, which is
twice as likely as traditional sampling to detect species in low
abundance at less than half the cost. Broad-scale implementation could
save natural resources management agencies millions of dollars in
sampling costs annually.
valuing urban forests and trees
Forest Service scientists have devised alternatives to grey
infrastructure and helped communities calculate the economic,
environmental, and social value of new and existing trees-including
property value increases, energy savings, air pollutant uptake, and
stormwater reduction. In addition, R&D research also encourages clean
watersheds by analyzing the impacts of people, vegetation, and
infrastructure on urban water, and supports urban watershed restoration
projects that revitalize neighborhoods.
utilizing applied forest ecology
Silviculture research forms the scientific foundation for forest
management and conservation. Forest Service silviculture researchers
study how to regenerate forest trees and other plants, how trees grow
over time, and how stands of trees interact with the environment,
wildlife, diseases, and insects. R&D research creates, quantifies, and
integrates knowledge about tree growth, soils, plant physiology, and
genetics. The condition of today's forests are due, in part, to Forest
Service silviculture research in the past. Future forest conditions
will depend on today's investments in silviculture research to help
respond to a changing climate and other disturbances.
balancing fish habitat and resource needs
R&D fisheries biologists are developing better approaches to
managing forested landscapes that provide good habitat for native
salmon and trout in high elevation lakes and streams across the
Rockies. Critical to developing comprehensive restoration strategies,
this science has not only helped create more resilient forests but also
the habitats and prey essential for healthy, native fish populations.
Recent successes include innovative protocols for monitoring fish
populations and habitat quality in addition to strategies for meeting
growing demands for water, energy, and other forest-based commodities
while ensuring the sustainability, diversity, and integrity of aquatic
species.
quantifying the role of forests in providing clean air and water
Research directly linking trees to clean air and water underscores
the economic value and benefits trees and forests provide to all
residents and communities. Recent R&D work shows that forests, which
make up 26 percent of U.S. land area, are the source of 46 percent of
the U.S. water supply. Managing forested landscapes to sustain and
enhance production of low-cost, clean water supplies as well as
improved air quality is critically important to human health and
provides a value of nearly $7 billion every year. In particular, the
recommended funding level will enable R&D to expand delivery of this
science to managers of forested watersheds whose activities benefit
water supply utilities in cities and towns that depends on clean
surface water supplies.
data and tools to improve wildfire management.
In February 2021, Forest Service scientists updated the National
Wildland Fire Hazard Potential map using the most current vegetation
data. This map informs risk reduction models of hazardous fuels
treatments and supports wildland fire response systems. For example,
the WildfireSAFE response tool is a web interface that integrates real-
time data from multiple data sources, including fire hazard potential,
drought conditions, satellite-derived vegetation conditions, and
weather analysis to automatically analyze the fuels, terrain
conditions, and values at risk in the surrounding area. Fire managers
can view data for any active incident, compare active incidents within
an area of interest, and capture observations about fire behavior.
Forest Service research about pre-fire management planning processes
also supports wildland fire response. For instance, recent research
about potential control locations showed the extent to which forest
roads are useful in fire operations response planning, accounting for
82 percent of fire holding features during a coordinated planning
process.
Additional research in fiscal Year 2021 produced new information
about the vulnerability of communities to wildland fire, including a
new spatial dataset of wildfire risk for populated areas in the United
States and a Fireshed Registry that uses information about community
vulnerability as one of the datasets to inform the agency's strategic
placement of fuel treatments to reduce risk.
collaborative, participatory research with underserved communities.
During fiscal Year 2021, Forest Service R&D and USDA Climate Hubs
worked together with Tribes to investigate how climate change could
affect various Tribal agricultural efforts and communities, as well as
to assess priorities for post-fire rehabilitation of Tribal lands.
Another recent example of collaborative research with the
Stillmeadow Community PeacePark and Forest in Baltimore, Maryland
demonstrates the value of working together to improve urban green
spaces. In fiscal Year 2021, Forest Service R&D worked with Stillmeadow
community members to transform an ecologically degraded, hazardous
forest into a place of healing and resilience for the Baltimore
community. Forest Service R&D provided best practices for urban
reforestation, long-term monitoring and evaluation, empowering citizen
stewards, and knowledge exchange through field visits, demonstrations,
webinars, and multi-media content.
insect and disease disturbances correlate with reduced carbon
sequestration in forests.
In fiscal Year 2021, using FIA data, researchers found that forests
damaged by insects sequestered about 70 percent less carbon than
undamaged forests. Those affected by disease sequestered 28 percent
less carbon. In total, the damage currently being caused by insects and
diseases across the contiguous U.S. is reducing the sequestration
potential of America's forests by roughly 50 million tons of carbon
dioxide each year, the equivalent of emissions from more than 10
million cars. Science-based strategies to reduce the frequency and
intensity of forest insects and diseases include enhancing forest
health protection and preventing non-native insects and diseases from
entering North America.
Advancing forest science is integral to improving the health and
welfare of U.S. forests and citizens, increasing the competitiveness of
U.S. products in the global marketplace, and adapting to unforeseen
future challenges.
[This statement was submitted by Ecological Society of America.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Entomological Society of America
The Entomological Society of America (ESA) respectfully submits
this statement for the official record in support of funding for
entomology-related activities at the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service,
and the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI). For fiscal year 2023, ESA
recommends $864 million for the EPA Science and Technology (S&T)
account with $50 million towards the Science to Achieve Results (STAR)
Program, as well as strong support for programs across the agency that
advance the safe application of pesticides. ESA also strongly supports
EPA's commitment to work with other Federal agencies to monitor and
improve pollinator health. In addition, ESA requests the Forest Service
be funded at no less than $9.0 billion in discretionary funds. Within
the Forest Service, ESA requests the Forest and Rangeland Research
budget be supported at $318 million to preserve valuable invasive
species research and development. The Society also supports continued
investment in Forest Health Management programs across the Forest
Service at no less than the fiscal Year 2020 enacted level of $100
million. ESA also recommends that DOI continue to support the important
work of the National Invasive Species Council (NISC), at a level no
less than $2 million for its critical coordination of efforts across
agencies to respond to the threats posed by invasive species.
Advances in forestry and environmental sciences, including the
field of entomology, help to protect our ecosystems and communities
from threats to our Nation's economy, public health, and agricultural
productivity and safety. Through improved understanding of invasive
insect pests and the development of biological approaches to pest
management, entomology plays a critical role in reducing and preventing
the spread of infestation and diseases harmful to national forests and
grasslands. The study of entomology also contributes to the development
of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques, which use science-
based, environmentally conscious, comprehensive methods to take
effective management action against pests, often resulting in lower
costs and a more judicious use of pesticides. In addition, entomology
improves our knowledge of pollinators and factors affecting pollinator
health and populations, helping to ensure safe, reliable crop
production that meets the needs of a growing world population.
EPA carries out its mission to protect human health and the
environment by: developing and enforcing regulations; awarding grants
for research and other projects; conducting studies on environmental
issues; facilitating partnerships; and providing information through
public outreach. Through these efforts, EPA strives to supply the
Nation with clean water, clean air, a safe food supply, and communities
free from pollution and harmful chemical exposures. EPA's Pesticides
Licensing Program Area, supported by EPA's Science & Technology and
Environmental Program & Management budgets, evaluates, and regulates
new pesticides to ensure safe and proper usage by consumers. Through
the mandate of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act
(FIFRA), EPA uses scientific expertise and data, including knowledge
gained from entomological sciences, to set maximum tolerated residue
levels and to register pesticide products as effective and safe. By
controlling insects that carry diseases of humans and domesticated
animals, and invasive insect species that endanger our environment,
pesticides registered by EPA help protect public health and the
Nation's food supply.
Although pesticide registrations and regulations are within EPA's
purview, the agency has not been a major sponsor of entomology
research. However, EPA has provided support to projects that promote
IPM adoption and the safe application of pesticides while also
promoting pollinator protection. For example, the EPA has supported the
Pesticide Educational Resources Collaborative (PERC) which empowers
farmworkers and other pesticide handlers to employ better and safer
practices in pesticide use. Since 2016, PERC has successfully developed
over 40 multilingual pesticide-related training programs, manuals,
videos, and guides. In 2020 alone, the community downloaded over 75,000
copies of PERC online resources.\1\ In addition, the EPA's Pesticide
Environmental Stewardship Program (PESP) grants enable grantees to
``implement sustainable pest management practices that reduce
unnecessary risks from pests and pesticides.'' \2\ While IPM is a long-
standing and well-researched paradigm for mitigating pests, relatively
few focused funding sources are available for entomologists focused on
this subject. As such, ESA encourages the committee to continue
expanding its investment in IPM and other innovative programs to
promote the safe use of pesticides through increased funding for such
activities across the agency's research and regulatory portfolios. ESA
also requests $864 million for EPA S&T account including $50 million
for the EPA's Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Program, which supports
extramural research and a portion of which should be utilized to re-
instate the ESA's STAR Graduate Research Fellowship Program.
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\1\ EPA Awards $6 Million to the University of California, Davis to
Support Pesticide Safety Outreach https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-
awards-6-million-university-california-davis-support-pesticide-safety-
outreach.
\2\ Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Program Grants https://
www.epa.gov/pesp/pesticide-environmental-stewardship-program-grants.
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ESA is in favor of increased funding for scientific studies of
pollinator populations and health. Pollinators play a vital role in our
Nation's agriculture industry. Honeybees alone pollinate more than 90
crops in the U.S. and are essential to produce an estimated one-third
of all the food we eat or export, contributing over $17 billion in
annual crop and seed production in the U.S. alone. To ensure a healthy
bee population, more research is needed to fully understand the diverse
factors that endanger bee health. Pesticides represent just one
potential risk to bees, but both the risks and benefits must be
balanced, and they will vary between different crops and different
crop-producing regions of the U.S. EPA is well-positioned to help
identify methods for protecting bee health. The agency has previously
awarded agricultural grants to three universities to aid in the
development of IPM practices that lower pesticide risks to bees while
protecting valuable crops from pests. For this reason, ESA supports
EPA's participation in multi-agency efforts to investigate pollinator
health and implement plans to prevent pollinator population decline.
The U.S. Forest Service sustains the health, diversity, and
productivity of 193 million acres of public lands in national forests
and grasslands across 44 States and territories. Serving as the largest
supporter of forestry research in the world, the agency employs
approximately 30,000 scientists, administrators, and land managers. In
addition to activities at the Federal level, the Forest Service
provides technical expertise and financial assistance to state and
private forestry agency partners.
The Forest Service's Forest and Rangeland Research budget supports
the development and delivery of scientific data and innovative
technological tools to improve the health, use, and management of the
Nation's forests and rangelands. Programs within Forest and Rangeland
Research provide science-based approaches to reduce and prevent the
spread of destructive insects, plants, and diseases that can have
serious economic and environmental consequences for our Nation. For
example, Forest Service scientists are working to understand the impact
of the mountain pine beetle (MPB) on U.S. forests. Since 2000,
outbreaks of MPB have affected more than 10 million hectares of
lodgepole pine forests, compromising long-term forest health while
creating the potential for more dangerous wildfires, loss of wildlife
habitat, poorer water quality, and soil erosion.\3\ Such outbreaks are
predicted to continue in the face of increased temperatures and drought
associated with climate change. Funding for such studies will enable
land managers to better predict and respond to ecosystem changes that
occur following such outbreaks. ESA requests that Forest and Rangeland
Research be funded at $318 million for fiscal Year 2023.
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\3\ Fettig, C.J., R.A. Progar, J. Paschke, F.J. Sapio. Forest
insects. G. Robertson, T. Barrett (Eds.), Implications of Forest
Disturbance Processes for Sustainability in the Western US. PNW-GTR-XX.
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest
Research Station, Portland, OR (2020). In press.
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Also under the purview of the Forest Service is the Forest Health
Management program, which conducts mapping and surveys on public and
private lands to monitor and assess risks from potentially harmful
insects, diseases, and invasive plants. The program also aids State and
local partners to help prevent and control outbreaks that threaten
forest health. According to a 2011 study, invasive forest insects cost
local governments alone an average of over $2 billion per year; direct
costs to homeowners from property loss, tree removal, and treatment
averages $1.5 billion per year.\4\ Initiatives within the Forest Health
Management program can help control these costly pests. The program's
``Slow the Spread'' activities, for example, have led to a 60 percent
reduction in the rate of the spread of the gypsy moth, another invasive
species, resulting in an estimated benefit-to-cost ratio of 3:1.
Without the program, it is estimated that 50 million additional acres
would have been infested by the moth.\5\ Additionally, the southern
pine beetle is the most destructive pest of pine trees from New Jersey
to Florida and west to Texas. This beetle caused an estimated $1
billion in damage during an outbreak across the southern U.S., and it
has since rapidly moved far further northward than previously thought
possible.\6\ The new northeast range of the southern pine beetle
includes threatened and rare pine ecosystems, such as the pine barrens
of New Jersey.\7\ Funding for the Forest Health Management Program will
support detection, monitoring, prevention, and management of this pest
and slow its spread and limit its damage as it affects more and more of
our country's forests. To support these important functions, ESA
requests that the subcommittee provide no less than the fiscal Year
2020 enacted level of $100 million for Forest Health Management.
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\4\ Aukema, J.E.; Leung, B.; Kovacs, K.; et al. 2011. Economic
impacts of non-native forest insects in the continental United States.
PLoS ONE 6(9): e24587.
\5\ Forest Service fiscal Year 2017 Budget Overview: http://
www.fs.fed.us/sites/default/files/FY-2017-FS percent20-budget-
overview.pdf.
\6\ Nowak, J.; Asaro, C.; Klepzig, K. et al. 2008. The southern
pine beetle prevention initiative: working for healthier forests. J.
For. 106(5): 261-267.
\7\ Dodds, K. J.; Aoki, C. F.; Arango-Velez, A. et al. 2018.
Expansion of southern pine beetle in northeastern forests: management
and impact of a primary bark beetle in a new region. J. For. 116(2):
178-191.
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The National Invasive Species Council (NISC) plays a critical role
in coordinating policy, communication, and technology application to
address invasive species detection and response across 16 Federal
agencies. NISC serves a vital function since the impacts of invasive
species are felt across a variety of sectors (agriculture,
environmental protection, public health). A 2021 study estimated that
invasive species have cost North America over $26 billion per year
since 2010. Invasive insects have directly impacted native insect
populations and entire ecosystems through predation, plant consumption,
and disease transmission. For example, emerald ash borer (EAB), Agrilus
planipennis, is an exotic beetle that was discovered in Michigan in
2002. Since its discovery, EAB is now found in 35 States and five
Canadian provinces. It has killed hundreds of millions of ash trees in
North America and cost cities, property owners, tree nurseries, and
forest products industries hundreds of millions of dollars.\8\
Preventing establishment of invasive species like EAB depends on early
detection and rapid response. Improving these efforts requires not only
relying on standard means of inspection and tracking but taking
advantage of new technologies as well. To respond to such threats, NISC
helped coordinate the development of guidelines for use by decision
makers that improve access to and analysis of invasive species
information.\9\ Such methods can enable more effective communication
and aid in early detection of invasive species and rapid response,
potentially saving billions of dollars' worth of crops, safeguarding
native ecosystems, and preventing the destruction of private property.
As such, ESA requests that the Committee provide the DOI funds to
support NISC at no less than $2 million in fiscal Year 2023.
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\8\ Emerald Ash Borer Information Network http://
www.emeraldashborer.info/index.php.
\9\ Enabling Decisions that Make a Difference: Guidance for
Improving Access to and Analysis of Invasive Species Information 2018.
https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/uploads/isim_guidance.pdf.
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ESA, headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland, is the largest
organization in the world serving the professional and scientific needs
of entomologists and individuals in related disciplines. Founded in
1889, ESA has more than 7,000 members affiliated with educational
institutions, health agencies, private industry, and government.
Members are researchers, teachers, extension service personnel,
administrators, marketing representatives, research technicians,
consultants, students, pest management professionals, and hobbyists.
Thank you for the opportunity to offer the Entomological Society of
America's support for programs at the National Invasive Species
Council, Forest Service and EPA programs.
[This statement was submitted by Jessica Ware, Ph.D., President,
Entomological Society of America.]
______
Prepared Statement of Fish and Wildlife Service
The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) benefits our citizens and
protects our wildlife and habitat. Yet the FWS is being starved for
budget and resources with a budget that has stayed essential the same
since 2010. The actual FWS budget from FY2011 to fiscal year 2022
compared to the budget adjusted for the inflation rate each year
averaged 14 percent lower and for that period translated to a shortfall
of $952 million.
I have been involved with the Texas Mid-coast National Wildlife
Refuge Complex since 2004 helping with teaching students in our
Environmental Education programs and with Outreach programs to the
public. Several thousand students per year attend our Environment
Education programs and several thousand attend our outreach programs. I
joined the board of FOBWR in 2005 and have served various positions
including President for 8 years.
Over that time our refuges have lost 9 personnel, representing a 29
percent reduction of staff, and 2 more are retiring this year and it's
not clear if either will be replaced. Also, during this time frame our
refuges have acquired over 40,000 acres of land in satellite refuge
units with another 5,800 acres in the process of being acquired. It
should be noted that Congress has authorized the acquisition of 70,000
acres of riparian forest and costal prairie and wetlands to be added to
our Mid-coast Complex.
Our refuges are in the Central Flyway essential for migrating birds
which need these habitats to survive. What land we can't preserve will
be swallowed up by the ever-increasing Houston area urban sprawl. Our
refuges also have an endangered species, the Kemp's Ridley turtle and
species of concern, the Eastern Black Rail and the Piping Plover. Each
of these species requires management by our refuge staff.
We have many trails and hunting and fishing areas for the public to
use. We have seen a large increase in number of visitors to our refuges
during the past 2 years. But due to a lack of resources, the refuge
managers are considering closing some of our trails because the refuge
does not have the personnel to maintain them.
Our Friends group has been successful in getting funds from local
corporations for new trails, projects and large events. However,
corporations generally are not prone to fund maintenance projects. We
have started to submit requests to our corporate friends for trail
maintenance with limited success, but this is not a long-term solution.
To restore the alignment between services provided and resource
needs, FOBWR is asking the United State Senate to increase the FWS
budget to $712 million for fiscal year 2023. We also strongly support
the National Wildlife Refuge Association's efforts on this matter.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony for this
important topic.
[This statement was submitted by Edward Barrios Vice-President
Friends of Brazoria Wildlife Refuges (FOBWR) & Board Member of the
National Wildlife Refuge Association.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Florida Keys Wildlife Society
This testimony is being submitted on behalf of the Florida Keys
Wildlife Society, which was formed in 1997 to support the Florida Keys
National Wildlife Refuge Complex. We appreciate the opportunity to
offer comments on the fiscal Year 2023 Interior Appropriations bill and
ask that you work towards the overall goal of $900 million in annual
funding. This year we are specifically asking that the budget include
$712 million for Refuge System Operations and Maintenance for fiscal
Year 2023.
Woven into the fabric of the Florida Keys and attached to the
hearts of residents and visitors are the four fabulous National
Wildlife Refuges within the Florida Keys National Wildlife Complex. The
economic engine of the Florida Keys is tourism. One of the Florida Keys
NWR Complex's greatest challenges is not only to educate year around
residents on how they can help sustain and protect the fragile habitats
so many federally protected species depend on, but to also educate the
5.3 million tourists who visit the Florida Keys each year so that their
visitation also helps protect and sustain the same fragile habitats so
appreciated by the residents. Our Refuges staff, volunteers and Friends
group work together to educate residents and visitors on how they can
enjoy the refuges with the goal of protecting the fragile habitats so
many of our endangered species depend on. In the opinion of the
Friends, staffing shortages are affecting the vital work of the Florida
Keys National Wildlife Refuges and our ability to support them. The
number of USFWS staff has dropped from 13 in 2010 to 6 in 2022. These
six are responsible for the management of an area the size of the state
of Rhode Island.
In the Upper Keys, northernmost of our complexes four refuges is
Crocodile Lake which was established in 1980 to protect and preserve
critical habitat for the American crocodile. A common thread in the
Florida Keys Complex is that several other federally protected species
are found in all of the refuges contiguous habitats. Only slightly less
iconic than Key Largo's American Crocodiles are the endangered Key
Largo Woodrat found only on the northern one third of Key Largo.
The Lower Florida Keys are home to the other three National
Wildlife Refuges in the complex:
--In 1957 the National Key Deer Refuge was established and 8,542
acres on Big Pine Key were dedicated to protect and preserve
the iconic Key Deer.
--The Key West NWR was established in 1908 as a preserve and breeding
ground for native birds and other wildlife. The refuge
encompasses more than 200,000 acres with only 2,000 acres of
land. The area is home to more than 250 species of birds and is
important for sea turtle nesting.
--The Great White Heron NWR in 1938 as a haven for great white
herons, migratory birds, and other wildlife. The refuge
consists of almost 200,000 acres of open water and islands
which provide critical nesting, feeding, and resting areas for
hundreds of species of birds and sea turtles.
Overall, the National Wildlife Refuge System requires at least $900
million in Operations and Maintenance Funding to be considered ``full
funding'' with all refuges staffed, with adequate maintenance,
biological, hunting, fishing, environmental education, and
interpretation programs. We ask that you work towards that overall goal
of $900 million in annual funding.
We request that this subcommittee allocate $712 million in funding
for the Refuge System Operations and Maintenance fund for fiscal Year
2023.
This request of $712 million would greatly impact our refuge which
is currently critically understaffed. The Florida Keys NWR Complex
would be able to hire more staff, restore more critical habitat, and
most importantly operate our new Refuge Nature Center on Big Pine Key.
Without sufficient USFWS staff, our volunteers are without adequate
direction.
Thank you for your consideration, and please feel free to contact
Kathy Rhodes, of the Florida Keys Wildlife Society for any additional
information.
[This statement was submitted by Kathleen A. Rhodes, Chair, Board
of Directors, Florida Keys Wildlife Society.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski, and respected members
of the Committee, I am Kevin Dupuis, the Chairman of the Fond du Lac
Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. On behalf of the Fond du Lac Band of
Lake Superior Chippewa, We submit this testimony to urge Congress to
increase, or, at the very least preserve, the Federal funding levels
for Indian programs.
As we talk about funding needs in Indian country, it is essential
to keep in mind that the problems that face communities nationwide are
far more severe for Indian communities, with Tribes having far fewer
resources to address problems like substance abuse, domestic violence,
public safety, and homelessness. The Fond du Lac Band has worked, and
will continue to work, to find solutions to problems of this kind. With
seed money from Federal funds, we provide health, education, social
services, public safety and other governmental services to our 4,200
members and more than 7,300 Indian people who live on and near our
Reservation. We are proud of what we have accomplished, but more
remains to be done. The investment of Federal funds is key to that
effort. It allows us to use Band resources and attract private partners
so we can provide jobs, grow the local economy, educate our children,
prevent crime, and care for our elders and infirm. We urge Congress to
continue to fund these programs at least at the levels the President
has requested.
bia: trust-natural resources management
There is nothing more important than preserving and protecting the
territories and resources that our ancestors reserved for our people
when they signed our Treaties with the United States. The Fond du Lac
Band is committed to the management, conservation, and sustainability
of the natural resources of the Fond du Lac Reservation and within our
Ceded Territory, where we have Treaty rights to hunt, fish and gather.
We urge you to provide full funding for Trust-Natural Resources
Management in fiscal Year 2023, including increased funding for Rights
Protection and Implementation which will allow us to protect, enhance,
and restore natural resources within our Reservation and Ceded
Territory.
The Fond du Lac Reservation consists of 101,153 acres, including
forests, lakes and rivers that must be managed and protected for the
current and future generations. In addition, our Ceded Territory covers
portions of Upper Michigan, Northern Wisconsin, and North Central
Minnesota. The challenges to our natural resources across the region
are diverse and complex, from species restoration and reintroduction to
adaptation to climate change. But our members depend on our Treaty
rights to put food on the table and for ceremonial practices that serve
as the foundation for our culture. The stewardship of those natural
resources-through scientific study, resource management, and
enforcement of Band laws that regulate Tribal members who hunt, fish
and gather those resources-is critical and is also an important source
of employment for members.
environmental protection agency (epa)
We appreciate Congress' continued support to provide Federal funds
for EPA, but we ask that funding for EPA in fiscal Year 2023 be
increased.
State and Tribal Assistances Grants (STAG). We thank Congress for
continuing to support funding for STAG. We strongly urge Congress to
increase funding for this Program, which has not seen a substantive
increase in years, yet the Band's responsibilities continue to grow as
we work to protect our land, water and air in the face of increasing
pressures and obstacles.
Water Quality. We have a robust federally-approved water quality
standards program. Given the current threats to water resources in our
region, we urge that Tribal Section 106 funding be doubled so that we
can do the work needed to protect our waters.
Air. We have a long-standing air monitoring program that has faced
a steady decline in Federal funding. As the impacts of climate change
continue to be felt in higher temperatures and more frequent heavy
precipitation events, both indoor and ambient air quality concerns
continue to impact Band members and their health. We request that air
quality program funding for Tribes be increased.
Wetlands. One-half of our reservation is made up of wetlands.
Proper management and restoration of this valuable resource is
impossible without adequate and consistent Federal funding. We request
sustained wetland monitoring and protection program funding.
Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. The Band fully supports this
initiative and thanks Congress for its continued support of this
initiative. We ask that Congress maintain the $330 million level of
funding for this initiative. This initiative has broad-reaching
benefits to resources of importance for all stakeholders (state, Tribal
and private) in the Great Lakes region. This funding helps support our
wildlife programs, including our ongoing wild rice and fisheries
stewardship and restoration efforts on the Reservation and in our Ceded
Territories.
bia: public safety and justice
A significant part of protecting our homeland is having a fully
staffed and trained law enforcement department. We appreciate
Congress's decision to increase funding for BIA's Public Safety and
Justice, including funding to solve Missing and Murdered Indigenous
Women cold cases. The largest law enforcement problems we face are due
to opioids and other substance abuse problems. Our law enforcement
responds to a wide range of issues and calls, and the demand increases
each year.
We address law enforcement by a combination of Tribal and available
Federal funds and cooperative agreements with local law enforcement
agencies, but more funding is needed. To meet need, we should have 23
full-time peace officers to provide 24-hour coverage on the Fond du Lac
Reservation, but currently we only have funding for 19. Those 19 peace
officers include the Chief of Police, Lieutenant Chief of Police, 3
Investigators (General Crimes, Sex Trafficking, Narcotics), 1 Victim
Advocacy Officer, 4 Patrol Sergeants, 6 Patrol Officers, 1 Officer in
Field Training Program, 1 ``new hire'' in background process and 1
School Resource Officer. With additional funding we would be able to
add another General Crimes Investigator and fill the Patrol division
shifts to four officers per shift. This would allow us to better
respond to calls and protect our Reservation community. We currently
respond to over 5,500 calls per year in two counties.
We also have 3 administrative staff but should have 2 more to
ensure our department can effectively operate, and we need funding to
update crime tracking and case management systems. Funding is also
needed for training. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and with an increase
in the drug epidemic and related crimes, our officers need, but are not
receiving, vital training, including for dealing with an increase of
people with mental health issues. We have seen an increase in Heroin
and Fentanyl overdoses, including an increase in fatal overdoses. We
are also seeing that these incidents correlate with general crimes like
burglary, theft and assaults. We need additional equipment including
both marked and unmarked squad vehicles for narcotic investigations. We
are currently using outdated equipment for narcotic investigations but
budget constraints also restrict us from replacing and updating
essential necessary equipment like tracking devices, cameras, and
recorders.
bureau of indian education
With funding from the BIE and the Department of Education, we
operate the Fond du Lac Ojibwe School serving an average of 220
children from pre-K through 12th grade. More than 90 percent of our
students come from very low-income households, and 96 percent receive
free or reduced-price lunch. We are slowly making progress in improving
the outcomes for our students. While the high school graduation rates
for American Indians in Minnesota is at 51 percent, we are now at 59
percent, which is still far behind the State-wide rate of 81 percent.
BIE funding has never kept pace with need, which prevents us from
providing the educational services needed for our students. We urge
Congress to significantly increase Federal funding for Indian
education.
indian health service
We appreciate Congress's continued support to increase funding for
IHS. However incremental increases do not begin to address substandard
outcomes in Tribal communities because it only provides an increase for
current services. We urge Congress to provide full funding for IHS for
a total of $49.8 billion as identified by our National Tribal Budget
Formulation Workgroup. Indians at Fond du Lac, like Indians throughout
the Nation, continue to face severe disparities across a broad range of
health issues, including due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the opioid
epidemic. We serve over 7,300 Indian people at our clinics, but the
current funding level meets only 33 percent of our health care funding
needs.
We support the preservation of Medicaid, and the continuation of
the Indian Health Care Improvement Act (``IHCIA'') and other Indian-
specific provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
We believe there needs to be dedicated funding to begin implementing
the new authorities contained in the IHCIA, which have not yet been
implemented and funded.
We support the Administration's proposal to provide advance
appropriations for Indian Health Service starting in fiscal Year 2023.
We also believe that Tribal programs should be permanently excluded
from sequestration and rescissions. The Indian Health Service is the
only Federal health care system created as the result of treaty
obligations, yet it is the most chronically underfunded Federal
healthcare system and the only Federal healthcare system that is not
exempt from government shutdowns or continuing resolutions. As many of
my elders have said, we prepaid for our health care and this funding
should not be subject to the discretionary appropriations process.
We also support the proposal to make both Contract Support Costs
and the 105(l) leasing funding mandatory, including establishing a
mandatory appropriations account that is funded every year. This is
important because this funding, which is a non-discretionary funding
obligation for the agency competes with discretionary funding that
could be directed to other much needed program increases. Any
Congressional increase in discretionary funding for IHS never truly
results in the full amount of that funding reaching discretionary
programs because a large part gets re-directed to cover IHS' legal
obligations to fund Contract Support Costs and 105(1) leasing
requirements.
We also support permanent reauthorization of the Special Diabetes
Program for Indians (``SDPI'') and that it be funded at $250 million
per year indexed for inflation. Tribes and Tribal Organizations should
also be authorized to receive SDPI awards through Public Law 93-638
contracts or compacts.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the lack of infrastructure funding
and support for Tribes and Tribal organizations. As such we support an
increase of $627.5 million as well as recurring funding to support
Public Health Infrastructure to address current and future public
health emergencies. Congress should also fully fund Critical
Infrastructure Investments, like EHR Monetarization to include Tribal
facilities, health care facilities construction, and demonstration
projects. Lastly, Congress should authorize Federally-Operated health
facilities and IHS headquarters to use Federal dollars efficiently and
adjust programmatic fund flexibility across accounts at the local
level, in consultation with Tribes.
Miigwech. Thank you.
[This statement was submitted by Kevin R. Dupuis, Sr., Chairman of
the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Fort Peck Reservation
I am Floyd Azure, Chairman of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of
the Fort Peck Reservation. I would like to thank the House Interior
Appropriations subcommittee for the opportunity to present testimony
concerning fiscal Year 2023 appropriations for the Indian Health
Service (IHS), the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA).
The Fort Peck Reservation is in northeast Montana, forty miles west
of the North Dakota border, and fifty miles south of the Canadian
border, with the Missouri River defining its southern border. The
Reservation encompasses over two million acres of land. We have
approximately 13,000 enrolled Tribal members, with approximately 7,000
Tribal members living on the Reservation. We have a total Reservation
population of approximately 12,000 people.
Congress has long recognized that the foundation for economic
development and prosperity in Indian country lay in community
stability, which begins with quality health care and infrastructure,
such as safe drinking water, roads, and public safety, and a clean
environment.
indian health service funding
We strongly support full funding for the Indian Health Service. The
COVID-19 pandemic showed the Nation the chronic health care
deficiencies in Indian country. Native people acquired and died of this
disease at some of the highest rates in the Nation. This is because we
suffer from the comorbidities at higher rates, we lack access to
adequate health care, and we lack basic community infrastructure.
As we are coming out of the pandemic, Indian country is preparing
for the next health crisis, a mental health crisis. Our people were
engaging in self-harming behaviors at drastic rates before the
pandemic. We fear that because our people have suffered tremendous
losses and have not been able to properly grieve, that this grief will
manifest itself in unhealthy behaviors. Congress must focus on mental/
behavioral health programs to ensure that we do not have another
epidemic to respond to.
bureau of indian affairs
We strongly support the increased funding for the Bureau of Indian
Affairs.
1. Social Services and ICWA Funding
There is a dire need for increased funding for our Tribal Social
Services program is critically needed. There has not been any increase
in this program for several years. Over 36 percent of the children in
the foster care system in Montana are Indian children--Indian people
represent only 10 percent of the State population. More than 100 Fort
Peck children are in the foster care system. We need a social worker in
the Fort Peck Agency. We need more support to recruit and retain
licensed foster care homes on the Reservation. Importantly, we need to
provide social services to families so that they have the tools to be
the best parents possible, so that their children do not enter the
foster care system.
Montana is one of six States in the country to have instituted an
ICWA court. This court handles State ICWA cases in Yellowstone County
from the Fort Peck, Northern Cheyenne, and Crow Tribes. The team
approach of the ICWA Court in Montana fosters collaboration between
State and Tribal stakeholders, promotes meaningful State compliance
with the Indian Child Welfare Act, and improves outcomes for Indian
children and their families involved in the foster care system.
In this era where ICWA is under constant attack, in spite of it
providing needed protections for Indian children, families and Tribes,
the Committee should encourage the BIA to work collaboratively and
strategically with Tribes to expand ICWA courts across the country.
This kind of support and dedicated staff can only be done through
additional funding for the BIA Tribal Social Service and ICWA programs.
2. Tribal Court Funding
Relatedly, while we appreciate the increased funding for Tribal
courts that Congress has provided, it has not been enough. Tribal
Courts are the backbone of Tribal sovereignty. Without sound Tribal
courts, we could not be a community where people feel safe, where
business want to open and where our children and our most vulnerable
receive protection. The Fort Peck Tribal Court is one of the oldest in
the country and we are very proud of the work our judges, prosecutors,
defense attorneys and clerks do.
Currently, the Bureau of Indian Affairs only provides a fraction of
the funding to operate our Tribal Court. Our court is one of the few
Tribal Courts in the Country exercising expanded VAWA jurisdiction.
This work is important to making our Reservation a safe place for
women. However, this takes additional resources to retain properly
trained defense counsel, prosecutors, and judges.
3. Law Enforcement
There is critical need for increased law enforcement funding
throughout Indian country. Our Police Chief estimates that 70 percent-
80 percent of criminal conduct has a drug component to it, with
assaults and burglaries arising out of drug use-and addiction. We are
dealing with violent crimes, in particular violent crimes against women
and children. We need to emphasize community policing but to do this we
need more law enforcement personnel to live and work in our community.
The crime in our community is impacting the most vulnerable in our
community the most and it is time that we stop accepting this as
normal. It is not normal, it is tragic.
4. Housing
One of the reasons the Pandemic impacted our community so
significantly is that too many people on our Reservation are living in
overcrowded conditions. In many homes, there are three or families
living in 4-bedroom homes. Across Indian country it is estimated that
approximately 20 percent of all homes are overcrowded, it is much
higher on the Fort Peck Reservation. This overcrowding situation is
contributing to the social disfunction that our children experience. In
many instances, it is the grandparents who take in their adult children
and grandchildren. Sadly, these adult children are in the grips of
addiction, and other unhealthy behaviors, which their children can't
escape from as they are living with it every day. Moreover, when a
grandparent allows an active user to live in their home, they are
putting their own housing security at risk, because our Housing
Authority does not allow active users to live in a HUD home, and thus,
these elders can face eviction. In short, in order to have a healthy
community, we must have more housing. This includes not only more
housing for families, but also recovery housing so that people with
addictions are not forced to go homeless.
In addition to overcrowded housing on the Reservation, the housing
shortage also impacts our ability to recruit professionals, including
education, law enforcement, and especially health care workers. Thus,
we need housing that is not only directed to low-income families, but
also working families so that we can attract the professionals we need
to work in our schools, clinics, and police stations.
Importantly, housing funding must include the resources for
infrastructure to ensure any new housing has water, sewer, electricity,
and broadband access. This is why the Instructure and Investment, and
Jobs Act is so important to Indian country because it includes critical
funding for this infrastructure.
5. Bison Program Funding
We want to thank the subcommittee for funding that you provided for
the Tribal Bison program. This funding is critical to bringing
traditional food and traditional practices back to our communities. The
Fort Peck Tribes have implemented a robust bison restoration program
and now have partnered with the National Park Service to conduct post
quarantine assurance testing of NPS bison from Yellowstone National
Park. These efforts resulted in the restoration of over 600 bison to
the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. We have translocated some of these
bison to other Tribes for their herd development.
environmental protection agency
There is an important need to increase funding for Tribal
environmental programs with the Environmental Protection Agency. This
in includes the Indian Environmental General Assistance Program, the
Solid Waste-Indian Lands Program, and the Tribal Clean Air Program.
None of these programs have received and increase in funding in several
years. It is important to support these programs with increased
funding.
[This statement was submitted by Floyd Azure, Chairman Assiniboine
and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Reservation.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Friends of Crab Orchard National Wildlife
Refuge
I see the opportunity to give input to a committee which can
determine the strength and ongoing vigor of our Refuge system for
future generations.
I live in Southern Illinois, in Williamson County, this county also
is the host to Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge. Our Refuge has
been organized as a formal Refuge for 75 years this August. It started
as a WPA project to provide potable water and area recreation in 1939.
The ensuing years saw the rise of fascism and the land was converted to
the Illinois Ordnance Plant until the end of WWII. The lands were
turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to maintain as a
National Wildlife Refuge.
Crab Orchard has 4 main objectives: 1) To provide available land
for agricultural use (conservation related row crops, hay and grazing),
2) To provide opportunity for business and industry, 3) To provide
recreational opportunities to the community and visitors, and 4)
conservation of native wildlife.
Crab Orchard has been on this mission from its inception 75 years
ago to today! The tactics to deliver results have varied over time.
Each objective is rooted to the specific past of this land use. First
settled by people looking for opportunity in the early 1800's the land
was the home of many small farms and hamlets of people who came seeking
the happiness enshrined in our constitution. A remnant of these early
settlers are 38 known cemeteries on the Refuge. We just conducted a
Memorial Day program, I led it with the help of two interns and my
wife. At the Hampton Cemetery, there are 10 veterans buried. 7 are
Union soldiers from our Civil War, 1 a veteran of the Franco-Prussian
war, 1 a veteran of the Mexican War, and 1 from WWI. Just this cemetery
signifies a significant swath of our country's history. This event had
25 participants on a warm May morning, some interested in history, some
were direct descendants of those interred, others just interested in
the opportunity. This is a historic/cultural aspect that directly links
today to our local past. This is a type of recreation.
Two weeks ago, with the respite from Covid, the Refuge hosted the
Kid's Fishing Derby. This is historically an annual event, but Covid
put a pause on performance. We had 263 total participants, over 20
volunteers supported the event. There were people of all ages, ethnic
groups, veterans, parents, grandparents, loved ones of all varieties,
and of course...KIDS, lots of them. I provided general support, worked
to feed people, took photos, greeted people and interacted. I baited
some hooks, cleared a line from a snag, saw several young folks catch
their first fish. It was a memorable day. It provided a significant
point of time and place to positively impact the youth and families in
our area. This is a type of recreation.
I can go on with my personal anecdotes, my witness of the positive
impact the Refuge has on citizens in our local communities, but that
would be driven by my recent calendar. All areas of impact need to be
noted and opportunities to improve the impact are critical to note as
well.
The Refuge has provided a home to industry. Currently General
Dynamics has a facility on site, this links with the defense production
which was critical to the war effort in our past. Small industry also
has some opportunities to use some of the features of our location.
Agriculture was noted above. Row crops fields are available to
farmers who agree to the conditions. This is beneficial to the area,
and individual farmers. It is likewise a meaningful method to manage a
portion of the property. Grain remnants provide food sources for
migratory fowl and resident animals. The land has seen agricultural use
since the early 1800s and that practice continues today.
Conservation of native plants and animals is a cornerstone of our
Refuge. This includes control and management methods such as hunting or
fishing within seasonal guidelines and rules. There is a fish hatchery
onsite which provides replenishment of fish to our three reservoirs and
also the surrounding community. The Refuge has a wide variety of native
fish, bass, crappie, bluegill, catfish, even trout. We have fishers
throughout the year, bank and boat fishing are both popular.
Invasive management, forestry, wetlands development, habitat
development and restoration are all regular necessities to maintain
both native plant and animals
Animal conservation supports habitat for all native species. Two
outstanding species which we have in abundance are Turkey and White
Tail Deer. We conduct seasons for each of them. It is the fiftieth
anniversary of deer hunting on the Refuge this year also. We have local
hunters and also folks from hundreds of miles away that have made an
annual pilgrimage to hunt deer on site. The deer hunts now host up to 3
generations of hunters returning to the same hunting grounds.
The Refuge has a small (7,00 acre) wilderness area maintained also.
Finally, I will pause to note the multitude of recreational
activities available at this Refuge. It is difficult to fit all
activities into one label. Is bicycling recreation, exercise, social
activity, or a means to simply immerse oneself into a natural
environment. The same thought relates to hunting and fishing, it may be
viewed as a means to control animal populations or simply as
recreational sport. Thus things don't always fit neatly into ordered
topics. Hiking is encouraged, we have several formal trails
established, one is outstanding, Rocky Bluff Trail. That trail exhibits
the exemplary topography for which our region is known, sandstone
bluffs, intermittent waterfalls among glades. The site is filled with
ephemeral wildflowers in April. Photography, a means to capture a
memory and a moment is encouraged. We have a Friends of CONWR and
Photography group, a joint project endorsed by the Service. There are
over 250 Facebook members, and an active group of 50 people who take
photos of nature weekly, at times daily at the Refuge. The groups
quality work captured the attention of a regional art gallery who
supported an exhibit, Nature Photographs from Crab Orchard National
Wildlife Refuge. It was on display for 2.5 months. Subsequently the
exhibit was shown at two local libraries. Is this practicing
photographic skills or art? Is this providing nature photography tips
and techniques or sparking the interest in nature photography in some
young viewer? I aver that it is all of the previously noted attributes
with an inclusion of repeated visits to the Refuge to find that perfect
shot.
Again, I could write on each recreational topic that I see folks
enjoy. A short list to consider is: boating, kayaking, camping,
hunting, fishing, hiking, walking, bicycling, jogging, picnicking, and
simply enjoying nature.
Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge is the 8th most visited
Refuge in the system of over 650 such Refuges. We normally have over
1.5 million visitors in any year. There has been an increased number
since the pandemic.
During the peak of the pandemic, people needed some refuge...we saw
a marked increase of use during this period. People needed not just
refuge, they needed Crab Orchard Refuge. Refuge use was up 30 percent
in 2020 and 2021. This is without educational programming or public
gatherings!
All volunteer efforts and much Service work was halted for several
months, then slowly, carefully restored. Today we are providing a
normal list of educational opportunities and gatherings. There is one
problem though in this natural paradise...Service staff.
The Rangers are critical to visitor services in general and
environmental education programming in particular. This includes such
outreaches as school programs, library programs, community education,
garden programs, environmental education programs of all types, and
special requests by any group. The lack of Rangers disrupts an ongoing
program designed to give the basic skills to enjoy and safely
participate in all our activities, ``Becoming an Outdoor Family"
Our last Ranger departed her part time position last October. The
developed programs are facilitated primarily by volunteers currently,
we do have 2 interns (students themselves), but are losing both of them
by September. That leaves a Visitor Services Manager, and volunteers.
We will have no professional leadership at the worker level, and an
overtasked Manager.
This is a dire situation at a time when we seem to most need
Refuges. Local residents and visitors are seeking nature more often as
the respite to relieve themselves from the turmoil of modern life.
These visitors all need more opportunity to learn from and enjoy nature
on a deeper level. If funding is not immediately made available for
critical roles, such as Rangers, the process of operating and
maintaining a welcoming Refuge will slowly grind to a halt. Rangers are
only one example, mowing, road maintenance, invasive control and many
other topics require staff and equipment to perform. Our nation's
Refuge system is a natural wonder and a general expectation of our
citizenry. It must be properly funded.
I have input from several different Refuges throughout the system,
this problem of staffing and adequate funding is ubiquitous among them
all. It is not isolated to a Region, but is a holistic problem.
Failure to address this issue will affect services and availability
to the general public. It creates a scenario where the Refuge system
moves toward an unfunded mandate, a shell of what was a gem in a
perfect setting.
[This statement was submitted by Rick Whitecotton, President,
Friends of Crab Orchard Refuge.]
______
Prepared Statement of Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge
I am writing to urge you to provide a much needed and long over due
increase to funding for our Nation's National Wildlife Refuges. In my
view, this should not be seen as a partisan issue, rather it is an
issue of national importance to American citizens generally. I know my
region's Refuge--Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge--has seen large
increases in use in the last decade or more. In fact, during Covid,
visits to our Refuge sky rocketed and show no signs of leveling off
now. I see families with children, hikers, bicyclists, boaters, people
fishing, hunters and photographers all experiencing some peace and
tranquility as they enjoy the wildlife and other natural wonders of the
Refuge.
I am currently retired and a member of the Friends of Crab Orchard
NWR Board. As such, I visit and enjoy the Refuge a great deal along
with my wife and other family members. Over the last 5 years alone, I
have seen increased use of the Refuge. Yet, at the same time we have
seen a number of staff lost and not replaced. In communication with
other Friends members here and across the country, we are all seeing
the same thing--increased use by the public--yet drops in funding for
staffing across the board and in maintenance of the refuges as well.
Little or no effort has been made to keep up with inflation--let alone
deal with the huge uptick in use.
As such, school groups will no longer be able to come to our refuge
for education about wildlife, plants and the natural environment
generally--because we don't have the Rangers to meet with them. Rangers
provide a lot of interaction and education to other community groups as
well.
In addition, at our refuge photographers and hunters find common
cause in preserving and maintaining wildlife habitat. We come together
and serve on the same committees to support Refuge maintenance for
waterfowl and and other wildlife. Yet we both see staff--when we have
them--struggling to keep up with the basic maintenance needs of the
Refuge. Another area that has reached crisis levels is the lack of law
enforcement personnel--again due to totally inadequate funding. These
are just a few examples of the failure to adequately fund our Nation's
Refuges.
Our National Wildlife Refuges are a treasure bestowed on us by wise
past presidents. They are the envy of many other nations that are not
so blessed.
When you think about how little they are asking--712 million--and
that this would fund 568 Refuges (up from 510 in 2010) this is clearly
an amazing bargain. The facts easily support a figure of 1 billion in
funding. This would help make up for the neglect to maintenance and
failure to build in inflation costs that have occurred during the past
12 years. I strongly urge you to provide the 1 billion that is truly
needed to deal with the growth in number of refuges, people served by
refuges, the ongoing cost of maintenance and the impact of inflation.
Thank you for your kind and I hope urgent and generous attention to
this matter.
[This statement was submitted by Don Mullison, Friends of Crab
Orchard NWR Board Member and interested citizen.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Friends of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge
The purpose of this letter is to urge the members of the
subcommittee to support the full funding detailed in the proposed
fiscal Year 2023 budget for the operation of the Fish and Wildlife
Service (FWS) and specifically for the operation of the Nation's
National Wildlife Refuge System.
Full funding of this important function for fiscal Year 2023
amounts to a total of $712 million. This reflects a substantial
increase, but one that is justified in every way. This critical
environmental program has been starved for operating funds for years,
and the result has been a very definite reduction in the health of the
natural resources found our wildlife refuges and the services available
to visitors at the refuges. Neither of these situations is acceptable.
I speak from long personal experience. I am not only a regular
visitor to our Nation's wildlife refuges but also the board president
of the Friend of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a non-profit
organization that partners with our refuge to enhance resource
protection and visitor services.
From these twin vista points, I can tell you that a continuing lack
of funding is sapping the ability of the refuges to carry out their
mission. Here at Malheur, the staff of the refuge has shrunk year after
year and is now barely half the size it was decades ago. And even when
jobs still exist, they are often kept vacant for prolonged periods,
further reducing management capacity.
My organization exists to assist the Federal staff at Malheur NWR.
We provide volunteers to assist the refuge in its operations and fill
funding gaps to the best of our ability. All too often, however,
despite their best intentions, our Federal colleagues simply don't have
sufficient time to work with us, even when we are bringing material
assistance to the refuge.
Intensifying this situation is the inescapable fact that many of
the refuges along the Pacific Flyway, including Malheur NWR, are facing
severe impacts from drought and climate change. The very purpose of the
refuges is threatened. Under these circumstances, starving these places
for funding simply makes no sense.
Speaking for the Friends of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge,
an organization with a thousand active members from all over the
Nation, I urge you to provide the FWS the $712 million it so badly
needs in fiscal Year 2023.
[This statement was submitted by William Tweed, President and Board
Chair of Friends of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Friends of the Mid-Columbia River National
Wildlife Refuges
This testimony is being submitted on behalf of the Friends of the
Mid-Columbia River National Wildlife Refuges. Our organization was
formed in 2001 to support the 7 separate refuges and one national
monument in eastern Washington State that are managed by the United
States Fish and Wildlife Service. We appreciate the opportunity to
offer comments on the fiscal Year 2023 Interior Appropriations bill.
This subcommittee allocated $582 million in funding for Refuge
System Operation and Maintenance in fiscal year 2022, and we are very
grateful for the large increase, commensurate with the President's
Budget Request that year. We don't anticipate a large increase in the
President's Request for fiscal year 2023, but we request that this
subcommittee continue the trend up and allocate $712 million in funding
for the Refuge System O&M fund. These resources would have a strong
positive impact for the Mid-Columbia Refuges by allowing them to fill
vacant staff positions, to continue with much needed habitat
restoration and to support their many environmental education programs.
As a result of our volunteer work with F&WS staff of the Mid-Columbia
River refuges, we can testify to their professionalism and dedication
to the mission of this agency.
Their work is very important to our community. Our region, like
others, has been greatly affected by the pandemic and mandated
isolation. During this time, we have noted that many people have been
visiting the Mid-Columbia Refuges not just to hunt, but simply to walk
or observe wildlife. We have had an annual visitation of approximately
150,000 including roughly 30,000 hunt visits. Our local refuges have
become a much needed refuge for people as well as wildlife. Our bi-
county health district has strongly encouraged these activities as a
way to help local citizens cope with the isolation and depression
associated pandemic restrictions.
Our Friends group has worked closely with Refuges staff on many
projects, including habitat remediation, field trips for the general
public, trail maintenance (including improved ADA access), citizen
science programs and wildlife rehabilitation. We know from personal
experience how hard Refuge staff work to keep these lands healthy and
accessible. Their support is very important to our community.
But more is needed. Recent development and construction in our area
has resulted in the loss of much valuable habitat. Similar issues on a
national level are resulting in a reduction in the population of many
species. The Mid-Columbia Refuges provide habitat for hundreds of
thousands of waterfowl, endangered salmon, and rare/declining species
including burrowing owls, long-billed curlews, and ferruginous hawks.
We feel strongly that the Refuge system should continue playing a role
in turning around national trends, and if we do not act now, we will
lose much that we hold precious and valuable to our very existence.
This request of $712 million for fiscal year 2023 reflects the loss
of over 1,000 staff from the System in the last decade. In that time,
hundreds of millions of new acres were added to the System, along with
13 new refuges. The urban program was created and the Service is
tackling invasive species on almost all refuges. While this seems like
a large increase, it is simply what the System needs in order to
maintain healthy wildlife habitats on our refuges.
Thank you for considering this request. Please feel free to contact
me at [email protected] if more information is required.
[This statement was submitted by Carl Berkowitz, Secretary, Friends
of the Mid-Columbia River National Wildlife Refuges.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Friends of Missisquoi National Wildlife
Refuge
Thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony and offer
comments on the fiscal Year 2023 Interior Appropriations bill. My name
is Julie Filiberti, and I sit on the board of the Friends of Missisquoi
National Wildlife Refuge, a non-profit organization formed in 2002 to
support the Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge. My comments in this
testimony are on the behalf of this organization.
The Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge is situated in the
northwest corner of Vermont on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain. It
is made up of lands and waters cared for by the Abenaki for thousands
of years and is one of only two National Wildlife Refuges in the State
of Vermont. Missisquoi NWR was established in 1943 to protect habitat
for migrating waterfowl, and 70 years later, in 2013, was designated as
a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance. The 7218 acres of the
refuge includes the 457 acre Eagle Point Unit, co-managed with the
Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, and the 262 acre tract located in
upstate New York. The refuge is also responsible for the management and
oversight of 376 acres of Conservation Easement in both Vermont and New
York.
The main parcel of the acreage in northwestern Vermont encompasses
a variety of habitats. A majority of the refuge is composed of wetlands
and floodplain forest where the Missisquoi River empties into Lake
Champlain. This area is the most expansive intact floodplain forest in
the state. The refuge also contains the largest bog in the northeast,
the 900-acre Maquam Bog. In addition to these expanses of unique
habitat, the refuge also contains shrublands and maintains 250 acres of
managed grasslands. The refuge is an essential resting and feeding
stopover for migrating ducks, geese, shorebirds, and other water birds.
It is a haven for 17 state threatened or endangered species, including
Spiny Softshell turtle, Black Tern, and the recently listed Eastern
Meadowlark.
The refuge is utilized for all six of the public use focuses of the
National Wildlife Refuge system: hunting, fishing, wildlife
observation, photography, interpretation, and education.
Because of limited public lands in the area, the trails and
waterways of the Missisquoi NWR provide the population of northwest
Vermont with available areas for these outdoor recreation activities in
all seasons. The recent pandemic saw a dramatic increase in the usage
of the refuge as people sought out places to safely immerse themselves
in the natural world. The refuge lands also provide the habitats for
important learning and mentoring opportunities for students engaging in
environmental education. Perhaps most importantly, the Missisquoi
National Wildlife Refuge, like most refuges in the system, has the
critical job of protecting and conserving a biologically diverse,
internationally important, and archaeologically significant area.
In 2002, the non-profit Friends of Missisquoi National Wildlife
Refuge, Inc. was formed to support the work at the refuge. Now in our
20th year, our small but dedicated group works to bring awareness to
the refuge through public outreach by organizing educational and fun
events for the public at large. We provide environmental education
webinars, presentations, group birding opportunities, and various other
outdoor events. Through our membership funds and donations, we support
learning opportunities at the refuge for both students and adults. Our
financial support also stretches to assist the refuge in acquiring
grant funding for invasive species control. We work in collaboration
with the refuge manager to provide financial assistance with any
projects that do not have funding but are deemed necessary for the
operation of the refuge.
It has been many years since the Missisquoi NWR has had adequate
Federal funding to keep up with its mission to appropriately manage the
refuge for public use and provide protection for the lands and waters.
According to the Comprehensive Conservation Plan, the refuge would need
these 7 permanent full-time positions to completely function and meet
its goals: a Refuge Manager, an Administrative Support Assistant, a
Park Ranger, a Wildlife Biologist, a Maintenance Worker, and a Law
Enforcement Officer along with an additional Park Ranger, Biological
Technician, and Maintenance Worker as Term and/or seasonal positions.
Missisquoi is currently operating with 4 positions: a Refuge Manager, a
Wildlife Biologist, an Administrative Officer, and one Maintenance
Worker. This current level of staffing is making operations and
maintenance of the refuge difficult.
The difficulties are seen in many areas. Missisquoi lost its Park
Ranger in 2018, and the position has yet to be replaced. This critical
loss, on top of an already short staff, has left a huge hole in the
educational opportunities available, so our interpretive center and
spacious classroom sit essentially unused. Many loved long-running
programs such as the fishing derby and the Jr. Waterfowl Duck Stamp
program have come to an end without staff to organize them. The refuge
struggles to operate the visitor's center during the workweek, and it
remains closed on weekends, which is peak visitation on the refuge. The
trails are quickly falling into disrepair because recruitment,
management, and coordination of volunteers and supervision of youth
programs such as YCC are no longer possible. The absence of a Law
Enforcement Officer means poaching, vandalism, dumping, and drug use
are going unchecked since the closest Federal officer to respond is in
Massachusetts. The State Wardens respond when they can, but they cannot
fully dedicate themselves to ongoing refuge enforcement. Planning for
any new projects for the refuge has not been possible when even
emergency projects are struggling to get done. This refuge, with its
small staff, is struggling. The Friends of Missisquoi contributes when
possible, but our small organization with limited dollars and limited
time, cannot make up for the lack of Federal funding or staffing. Like
refuges all across the country, ours is visibly showing the suffering
under a continual lack of appropriate Federal funding.
Overall, the National Wildlife Refuge System requires at least $1
billion in Operations and Maintenance Funding to be considered ``full
funding.'' This allows all refuges to be staffed and to have adequate
maintenance, biological, hunting, fishing, environmental education, and
interpretation programs. Our testimony reflects our desire to reach
this full funding goal over the next few years, and we ask that you
work towards that overall goal of $712 million in annual funding in
fiscal year 2023.
Congress released omnibus language allocating just $519 million for
fiscal year 2022 Refuge System Operations and Maintenance. This $16
million increase over current funding was much needed and appreciated,
yet it was far below the roughly $1 billion needed for full funding of
the Refuge System. The President's Budget Request last year made it
clear we needed $584 million to fund the System. We appreciate the
small increase, but it still is a world away from what is needed to
adequately fund the System. We request that this subcommittee continue
the allocation trend upward and assign $712 million in funding for
Refuge System Operations and Maintenance, which will get us closer to
where we need to be.
This request of $712 million reflects the loss of over 1,000 staff
in the last decade from the System. In that time, hundreds of millions
of new acres were added to the System, along with 13 new refuges. The
urban program was created and the Service is tackling invasive species
on almost all refuges. While this seems like a large increase, it is
simply what the System needs in order to maintain healthy wildlife
habitats on our refuges.
The National Wildlife Refuge System is a national treasure in this
country, providing valuable areas for our citizens to recreate and
enjoy the great outdoors. In our current world threatened by climate
change, protecting these critical habitats for wildlife as a whole is
increasingly important. Refuges are places that provide environmental
learning opportunities and are areas to immerse oneself in nature's
wonders, both of which are crucial for future generations to develop an
appreciation and respect for our natural world. This country's refuge
system is uniquely set up to effectively protect these important
habitats, but they need adequate funding to do their job. Dollars spent
on the National Wildlife Refuge System are a wise investment for our
country and our world, and I urge you to consider adequately funding
the System.
Thank you for your consideration, and please feel free to contact
Rich Kelly, President of the Friends of Missisquoi NWR, at
[email protected] if you would like any further information
regarding our organization.
[This statement was submitted by Julie Filiberti, Board Member,
Friends of Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge.]
______
Prepared Statement of Friends of Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge
Friends of Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge is a 501c3 non-
profit dedicated to supporting the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge
Mission. As Friends we encourage membership, programs, and volunteer
support. We know you are familiar with the Okefenokee Wildlife Refuge
in south east Georgia. We have a natural treasure of world
significance, and we need your help.
Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge is currently facing exciting
progress and unparalleled challenges. On the verge of progress towards
becoming inscribed as a World Heritage site, the refuge is faced with
budget shortfalls and staffing levels reduced to debilitating lows. We
are pleading for you to step up in support of this crown jewel of the
National Wildlife Refuge System. The support needed is: 1. The
importance of our Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge as well as all
Refuges for our earth, wildlife, and our communities. 2. Please support
the overall National Wildlife Refuge System with an ask of $712 million
for fiscal Year 2023, and special attention for the Okefenokee.
The refuge is scheduled to build a new Visitor Center with funding
allocated this current fiscal year. This new construction is essential
to replace the existing aging structure and provide a world-class
interpretive center for Okefenokee's visitors from around the world.
Each year visitors from all 50 States and 46 different countries flock
to this unique National Wildlife Refuge, also designated a Wetland of
International Importance, National Natural Landmark, and National
Wilderness Area. The refuge is at a critical juncture where they are
recognizing the need for a beautiful, educational, and engaging visitor
and education center, however Federal funds for such a project are
falling short of what this refuge deserves to educate future
generations in support of the National Wildlife Refuge System. Not only
have building prices skyrocketed this year due to supply chain issues,
the Federal dollars allocated for this project through U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service deferred maintenance will not even begin to cover the
costs of building a new visitor center of comparable size as what the
refuge currently has. Additionally, there have not been any Federal
dollars allocated to cover the cost of exhibits, fabrication, or
installation. This is where we need help from you to be able to secure
the necessary funds to ensure that the Okefenokee National Wildlife
Refuge and the refuge's thousands of visitors have the world-class
visitor and education center that is deserved by this special place. It
is estimated that an additional $1 million in funding is necessary to
accomplish the refuge goals of building a 6500 square foot center with
a 2300 square foot exhibit hall.
Such exciting progress like a new Visitor Center should be welcome
news to a refuge that is currently operating with a visitor center that
is over 50 years old, but this also comes with challenges that cannot
go unnoticed. Over the past 12 years, the staff at Okefenokee National
Wildlife Refuge has been diminished to less than one half of what it
once was. At one time, there were 32 full time Federal employees with
countless seasonal hires, youth hires, and volunteers. Currently, the
refuge is staffed with 11 full time employees to manage over 407,000
acres, 120-miles of water trails, endangered red-cockaded woodpecker
and longleaf pine restoration projects, and over 600,000 visits
annually. Even though the refuge has been able to replace a handful of
full time positions over the past 2 years, staffing levels still fall
well short of what is absolutely critical to refuge functions.
As I mentioned, the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge is on the
verge of great progress towards becoming an inscribed World Heritage
Site. This would mean that the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge
would be one of only 24 internationally recognized sites in the entire
United States, right here in your district! World Heritage Sites are
designated and identified due to their global importance and the refuge
is recognized in at least two criterion as being globally significant.
Once a World Heritage Site is designated, there is a potential to see
remarkable increase in domestic and international visitation and
research due to elevating the reputation of these globally significant
locations. Communities that support, market, and promote these sites
can benefit in many ways in support of tourism to the designated site.
The refuge is currently working on developing a steering committee and
securing permission to pursue inscription as a World Heritage Site as
designed by the United Nations Environmental, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO).
To summarize, we believe that although the Okefenokee National
Wildlife Refuge and staff are currently embarking on exciting work that
will shape the refuge for generations, we are pleading for your help
for additional Federal appropriations to ensure that the National
Wildlife Refuge can develop the world class facilities and staffing
support necessary for public safety, education, and environmental
health.
Thank you again for your support of the Okefenokee National
Wildlife Refuge's the National Wildlife Refuge System.
[This statement was submitted by Lynn Crew, Friends of the ONWR
Vice-President.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Friends of Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge
This testimony is being submitted on behalf of the Friends of
Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, which was formed in 1997 to support
the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge Complex in Oak Harbor, Ohio. We
appreciate the opportunity to offer comments on the fiscal Year 2023
Interior Appropriations bill.
The Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge Complex is comprised of three
national wildlife refuges. Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge is located
between Toledo and Port Clinton. The 7,930 acre refuge is managed for
waterfowl, shorebirds, neo-tropical migrant songbirds, and a variety of
plant and animal species. The three-story Visitor Center and hiking
trails are located here. Cedar Point NWR's 2,616 acres comprise the
largest contiguous marsh on Lake Erie (US). Aside from a designated
fishing and kayaking area, this refuge is closed to the public and
provides excellent nesting habitat for waterfowl, shorebirds, and
songbirds. West Sister Island National Wildlife Refuge is an 82-acre
island is situated in Lake Erie, about 9 miles from shore. It is the
largest Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, and Black-Crowned Night Heron
rookery in the U.S. Great Lakes. It is also the only Federally
Designated Wilderness Area in the State of Ohio.
history
Before European settlers arrived, much of the area from the
southwest shores of Lake Erie to Fort Wayne, Indiana was covered by
dense, deep habitat called the Great Black Swamp. It was a foreboding
place to the early settlers but home to many Native American Tribes.
Bartering with early settlers for tobacco and corn, the largest of
these Tribes came to be called ``Ottawas'', a name derived from the
Algonquin word adawe, meaning ``to trade''. Much of Ottawa National
Wildlife Refuge and the surrounding lands were once part of this swamp
which included 1,500 sq miles of a vast network of forests, wetlands
and grasslands. Farmers and farm fields replaced Native Americans and
wetlands; blackbirds and livestock supplanted eagles and panthers. The
Great Black Swamp was reduced from 300,000 acres of habitat to just
15,000 acres--less than 5 percent of the Great Black Swamp remained by
1900. Fortunately, in 1961 Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge was
established under the authority of the Migratory Bird Conservation Act
when several hunt clubs and farmsteads were purchased with Federal Duck
Stamp funds. The refuge complex protects a network of wetlands,
grasslands and forests to provide habitat for a variety of migratory
birds, resident wildlife and threatened and endangered species. It has
been recognized with global significance for its value to wildlife. The
refuge has received the following designations: Globally Important Bird
Area through the American Bird Conservancy, Important Bird Area through
Audubon Ohio and Regionally Significant Site in the Western Hemisphere
Shorebird Reserve Network.
impact
The refuge provides valuable habitat for a diversity of waterfowl
and other migratory birds, resident wildlife and endangered and
threatened species. It provides a place for people to enjoy wildlife-
dependent activities and learn about the complexities of the natural
world through education and interpretive programming. The refuge adds
to the richness of the community by holding in trust a portion of the
natural heritage of the Great Lakes ecosystem for the continuing
benefit of the American people.
Our region has grown nature tourism as an economic sector as
thousands come to visit ever year for outdoor recreation, specifically
birding. In early May, 60,000--90,000 visitors descend upon the refuge
and surrounding natural areas to view migratory warblers as they feed
and refuel before crossing Lake Erie into Canada. These visitors bring
thousands of dollars into the local community from Toledo to Sandusky.
The refuge also has a huge impact on the health of Lake Erie. The
refuge complex is located along the shores of the 11th largest lake in
the world. The Great Lakes contain about 20 percent of the world's
fresh water. The wetlands of Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge play a
critical role in the Lake Erie ecosystem, acting as the kidneys of the
landscape; working to protect NW Ohio's drinking water, work and
leisure. Through the support of special funding initiatives like the
Great Lakes Restoration Fund, the refuge has been able to address
failing infrastructure, reconnecting hydrology to filter pollutants
from Lake Erie and work to combat harmful algal blooms.
friends of ottawa national wildlife refuge
Friends of Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge was formed in 1997 by a
group of passionate volunteers. They worked together with Federal
partners to support the conservation mission of Ohio's only national
wildlife refuge complex by acquiring and restoring land, engaging the
community, and enhancing public access. The Friends of Ottawa National
Wildlife Refuge exist to support the refuge through fundraising and
volunteerism so that we can be the change that our wildlife and
community deserve. Through the engagement of the NW Ohio community, the
Friends are diligently working to fill the gaps of the Federal budget
each year to support the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge Complex in
three priority areas: Youth Development, Public Access Projects, and
Land Acquisition and Restoration. In 2021 a total of $167,900 of
Friends funding went directly towards these priorities, and an
additional $100,000 purchased 16.5 acres of land. It's a drop in the
bucket compared to what we need.
challenges and needs
The Friends are dedicated to supporting the refuge's priorities--in
part to create outdoor recreation opportunities on the refuge focused
around the ``Big 6'' wildlife-dependent recreational uses--wildlife
observation, photography, environmental education, interpretation,
hunting and fishing. Along with such incredible habitat and
opportunities for wildlife-dependent recreation, we are seeing record
visitation. Visitation to the refuge has increased from 212,033 visits
in 2016 to 360,000 visits in 2021, a 70 percent increase over 5 years.
What hasn't increased enough is the refuge budget.
Ottawa NWR is managed primarily for migratory and nesting bird
habitat. A lot of that management involves manipulation of our greatest
natural resource- water. The refuge biologist and maintenance teams
manage 57 water control structures, 46 culverts, 18 electric pump
stations, 18 flap gates, 9 portable pumps, and 7 fish passage
structures. The refuge also has 70 miles of roads and dikes that it
must maintain. Rising costs of doing business are having a profound
impact on costs of materials for routine maintenance. Budgets need to
reflect the rising costs of managing a refuge whether it's for large
scale projects or just basic essentials. Fixed costs are increasing for
electric, fuel, and vehicle maintenance but budgets are not keeping
pace with inflation forcing the refuge to make hard decisions. Just
recently the boardwalk had deteriorated so significantly yet instead of
fixing it all at once the refuge is doing it in phases. That decision
was driven by the lack of personnel, timing, resources to get it done.
When refuge staff noticed that boards were rotting 3 years ago, they
didn't have funds to fix it so they fixed the worst parts and came back
to the others. There are still sections that have not been completed.
The Visitor Center is another example of deferred maintenance due to a
lack of funding. Without a facilities manager dedicated to the Visitor
Center, water damage was unnoticed until a major rainstorm made the
leak apparent. Mold mitigation and fixing leaks along the roof and
balcony has taken up discretionary funds for fiscal Year 2022. We are
set to reopen from the pandemic closure later this week and the project
isn't completed. Drywall has not been installed on exposed walls in the
stairwell because the refuge doesn't have funds to do so. Since
discretionary funds have been spent on these unforeseen maintenance
issues, when the refuge's batwing mower needed to be replaced there
were no funds to do so. Do you maintain trails or maintain the
building? Fix the trucks or the dikes? These are daily questions and
stressors on our refuge staff.
The refuge also has aging infrastructure that needs to be
maintained. For example, the maintenance shop was built in the 1960s.
Its septic system is outdated, and the building is not up to OSCA
standards. Other outbuildings used to store equipment have outdated
electric which is disconnected, while other buildings have poor
drainage and other maintenance issues.
Refuge staff are daily facing climate change-related impacts to
infrastructure and outer dikes due to high water. In some areas entire
dikes need to be rebuilt to effectively manage water. Invasive species
are another huge challenge at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge.
Phragmites is everywhere. European frogbit is choking out ditches and
wetlands. Purple loosestrife is thriving with climate change. Last year
populations exploded because the plants had more moisture than normal
during critical times. The plants produce a lot of seed, and it will
now only continue to get worse without enough staff to address this
issue.
Staffing is one of the biggest challenges at Ottawa National
Wildlife Refuge. We currently have 9 full time staff members for 10,800
acres and 360,000 visitors. In order to manage the types of programs
needed to effectively deliver our messaging to our constituency, we
need at least another 4 full-time year-round staff members added to our
roster. A full time bio-tech would assist the biologist in addressing
water and habitat management. A full-time maintenance worker would help
address the deferred maintenance backlog. The visitor services program
in particular is struggling. It currently is a staff of one. In
December 2020 our Visitor Services Manager accepted different job and
this position still has not been advertised because there's no money to
fill the position. With the increased visitation we need to fill the
Visitor Services Manager position and add another full time Visitor
Services staff person to promote and increase interpretive programs and
administer the hunt program. Additionally, the law enforcement program
at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge has one Federal wildlife officer for
its 10,800 acres and three refuges. This position also serves as the
wildlife officer for Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge in
Monroe, Michigan, covering a combined total of 17,000 acres in two
States.
If refuge had full funding, it would have a staff of 20 people to
manage this resource including additional law enforcement, biology,
maintenance, visitor services, and managers. We could have a robust
Urban Wildlife Conservation Program to broaden our reach to Toledo and
address environmental and social justice in underserved communities. We
could have enough staff to manage policy and planning, education
programs on site and off site in addition to addressing deferred
maintenance projects. Our current staff are doing the best they can
with what they have, but what they have is not enough.
national funding
We are working every day to protect, conserve, and enhance Ottawa
National Wildlife Refuge to the best of our ability with limited
resources. You can help us to protect Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge
and refuges around the country. Overall, the National Wildlife Refuge
System requires at least $1 billion in Operations and Maintenance
Funding to be considered ``full funding'', which all refuges staffed,
with adequate maintenance, biological, hunting, fishing, environmental
education, and interpretation programs. Our testimony reflects our
desire to reach this full funding goal over the next few years, and we
ask that you work towards that overall goal of $712 million in annual
funding.
This subcommittee allocated $582 million in funding for Refuge
System O&M in fiscal year 2022, and we are very grateful for the large
increase, commensurate with the President's Budget Request that year.
We don't anticipate a large increase in the President's Request for
fiscal year 2023, but we request that this subcommittee continue the
trend up and allocate $712 million in funding for the Refuge System
Operations and Maintenance Fund.
This request of $712 million reflects the loss of over 1,000 staff
in the last decade from the System. In that time, hundreds of millions
of new acres were added to the System, along with 13 new refuges. The
urban program was created and the Service is tackling invasive species
on almost all refuges. While this seems like a large increase, it is
simply what the System needs in order to maintain healthy wildlife
habitats on our refuges.
I'm honored to have this opportunity to share the story of Ottawa
National Wildlife Refuge with you today. As a 9th generation NW Ohioan,
Ottawa Refuge is in my blood. My ancestors hunted and trapped these
marshlands for survival. My grandfather, a descendant of Ottawa Chief
Ottokee and early French-Canadian settler Peter Navarre, grew up on a
family farm located on what is now the end of the Ottawa NWR Wildlife
Drive. It means so much to me to be able to advocate and protect the
very land that provides the soil for the roots of my family tree.
Please help us to fund these natural areas to preserve their
cultural, economic, and ecological value for generations to come. Thank
you for your consideration.
[This statement was submitted by Aimee Arent, Executive Director,
Friends of Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge.]
______
Prepared Statement of Friends of Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge
Chair Merkley , Ranking Member Murkowski and Honorable Members of
the subcommittee: I am Bill Durkin, President of The Friends of Rachel
Carson National Wildlife Refuge, headquarters in Wells, Maine.
I have been a member of the Friends of Rachel Carson NWR for the
past 33 years. The group was founded in 1987, we are a small group
supporting the mission of the refuge. The mission of the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service (FWS) is to work with others to conserve, protect, and
enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing
benefit of the American people. I have given numerous written
statements over the years and we really appreciate the subcommittee's
support in the past. With the passing of the Great American Outdoors
Act , we no longer need to ask for ``re-authorization'' of the Land ,
Water and Conservation Fund at the $900M level--thanks to Congress, it
is permanently authorized at that level and is now law. This year, our
refuge, Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, is requesting $2M in
appropriations for protection of critical wildlife habitat and we are
asking for general funding of the National Wildlife Refuge System of
$712M.
The Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge is named in honor of one
of the Nation's foremost and forward-thinking biologists. After
arriving in Maine in 1946 as an aquatic biologist for the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, Rachel Carson became entranced with Maine's coastal
habitat, leading her to write the international best-seller The Sea
Around Us. This landmark study, in combination with her other writings,
The Edge of the
Sea and Silent Spring, led Rachel Carson to become an advocate on
behalf of this nation's vast coastal habitat and the wildlife that
depends on it. We recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of naming
the refuge in honor of Rachel Carson. We had a year long program of
various event and activities, including the Sense of Wonder Art
Contest. This was a photography and essay/poem contest open to our
community with the winners ultimately displayed in The Friends 2022
calendar. We had ``Exploring Nature's Connections'', a educational
series for school children and also reached out to the local business
sector with `` Conservation Champions, Businesses for a Greener
Future.''. With the refuge's acquisition of a new headquarters, we will
have a new Visitor's Center and a Multi-purpose room that will aid in
more continuous community engagement. The refuge administration has
hired a new Visitor Service Specialists that will enhance future
visitor's experience. People can use the refuge as a springboard to
connect to nature by experiencing wildlife observation, environmental
education, interpretation, wildlife photography, hunting and fishing.
In addition, The Friends are very excited to have an office and a
bookstore at the new location.
The refuge was established in 1966 to preserve migratory bird
habitat and waterfowl migration along southern Maine's coastal
estuaries. It consists of 11 refuge divisions in 12 municipalities
protecting approximately 5,600 acres within a 14,800 acre acquisition
zone. Consisting of meandering tidal creeks, coastal upland, sandy
dunes, salt ponds, marsh, and productive wetlands, the Rachel Carson
NWR provides critical nesting and feeding habitat for the threatened
piping plover and a variety of migratory waterfowl, and serves as a
nursery for many shellfish and finfish. The salt marsh habitat found at
Rachel Carson NWR is relatively rare in Maine, which is better known
for its dramatic, rocky coastline. Upland portions of the landscape in
and around the refuge host a unique, unusually dense concentration of
vernal pools that provide habitat for several rare plant and animal
species. Located along the Atlantic flyway, the refuge serves as an
important stopover point for migratory birds, highlighted by shorebird
migration in the spring and summer, waterfowl concentrations in the
winter and early spring, and raptor migrations in the early fall. In
fact, southern Maine contains a greater diversity of terrestrial
vertebrates, threatened and endangered species, and woody plants than
any other part of the state.
Previous years' appropriations have allowed the USFWS to conserve
several properties within the refuge at Biddeford Pool, Parson's Beach,
the newly created York River Division and 11 years ago with the
purchase of Timber Point, an iconic undeveloped parcel with a peninsula
jutting out to the Atlantic Ocean. All of these purchases provide an
important buffer between the intense development pressure along the
southern Maine coast and its fragile coastal estuaries. With towns in
the area growing rapidly--at rates ranging between 11 percent and 32
percent over the next 10 years--development pressures continue to
spiral upwards and additional coastal properties are under threat. It
is said that Rachel Carson NWR has the most neighbors/abutters than any
other refuge in the system, thus demand for available land is high and
the market value expensive. The Timber Point parcel enhances the
refuge's ability to protect water quality in the estuary and important
wildlife habitat by linking it to already conserved refuge lands in the
Little River Division of the refuge. Since then, we have built a
National Recreational Trail (NRT) for public use. The refuge is working
diligently to restore salt marsh habitats and to improve coastal
resilience along the 50 miles of coastline in southern Maine. This
provides great dividends for refuge trust resources such as shorebirds
and waterfowl and life and safety for local communities. As well as
delivery of ecosystem services such as clean water, air, economically
important marine resources and coastal protection in the face of sea
level rise and increased storm incidences fueled by global climate
change. In FY23, Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge is requesting
$2M for land acquisition. There are 2 parcels in the ``pipeline'', one
a 110 acre piece abutting refuge land in the Little River Division and
the other 50 acres of prime water front habitat in the newly created
York River Division. We request your support.
With 568 units, the National Wildlife Refuge System is a model for
conservation around the world. More than 160 coastal refuges buffer
communities from the increasing frequency and intensity of storms, and
even more provide habitat for millions of migrating birds each year.
All of the refuges are in dire need of staffing and upkeep. The
National Wildlife Refuge System is responsible for 568 million acres of
lands and waters, but currently receives less than a $1. per acre for
management costs. The refuges cannot fulfill its obligation to the
American public, our wildlife and 47 million annual visitors without
adequate funding. Refuges provide unparalleled opportunities to hunt,
fish, watch wildlife and educate children about the environment. An
investment in the Nation's Refuge System is an excellent investment in
the American economy, generating $2.4 billion and creating about 35,000
jobs in local economies. Without increased funding for refuges,
wildlife conservation and public recreation opportunities will be
jeopardized.
Overall, the National Wildlife Refuge System requires at least $1
billion in Operations and Maintenance Funding to be considered ``full
funding'', which all refuges staffed, with adequate maintenance,
biological, hunting, fishing, environmental education, and
interpretation programs. The Friend's testimony reflects our desire to
reach this full funding goal over the next few years, and we ask that
you work towards that overall goal of $712 million in annual funding
for FY23.
This past March, Congress released omnibus language allocating
$519M for FY22 Refuge Operations and Maintenance. This amount is
greatly appreciated but falls far below for full funding of the Refuge
system. This subcommittee allocated $582 million in funding for Refuge
System O&M in fiscal year 2022, and we are very grateful for the large
increase, commensurate with the President's Budget Request that year.
We don't anticipate a large increase in the President's Request for
fiscal year 2023, but we request that this subcommittee continue the
trend up and allocate $712 million in funding for the Refuge System
Operations and Maintenance fund.
Our request of $712 million reflects the loss of over 1,000 staff
in the last decade from the System. In that time, hundreds of millions
of new acres were added to the System, along with 13 new refuges. The
urban program was created and the Service is tackling invasive species
on almost all refuges. While this seems like a large increase, it is
simply what the System needs in order to maintain healthy wildlife
habitats on our refuges.
I again extend our appreciation to the subcommittee for its ongoing
commitment to our National Wildlife Refuge System and respectfully
request the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations
subcommittee allocate $2M to Rachel Carson NWR and $712M for the Refuge
System's FY23 Operations & Maintenance Budget.
Thank you again, Chair Merkley and Ranking Member Murkowski for the
opportunity to present this testimony in support of protecting wildlife
and it's habitat. Enjoy your next walk out on a National Wildlife
Refuge.
[This statement was submitted by Written Testimony of Bill Durkin,
President, Friends of Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Friends of Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge
This testimony is being submitted on behalf of the Friends of
Sherburne NWR, which was formed in 1993 to support the Sherburne
National Wildlife Refuge.
We appreciate the opportunity to offer comments on the fiscal Year
2023 Interior Appropriations bill. We request that this subcommittee
allocate $712 million in funding for the Refuge System Operations and
Maintenance fund for fiscal Year 2023.
who we are
Friends of Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge is a 501(c)(3)
nonprofit organization that nurtures an appreciation for and the
conservation of Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge through education,
volunteerism, and philanthropy. With more than 450 members, we support
the refuge in providing education for children in nature's classroom,
furnishing information and facilities for refuge visitors, and ensuring
family events like Wildlife Festival remain free and open to all. Our
members are passionate about conserving wildlife and wild places,
especially at Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge
importance of sherburne nwr
Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge provides important resources and
services to the community and beyond: 1) maintenance and conservation
of environmental resources, services, and ecological processes; 2)
protection of natural resources such as fish, wildlife, and plants; 3)
protection of cultural and historical sites and objects; 4) provision
of educational and research opportunities; and 5) outdoor and wildlife-
related recreation. Major ecological contributions of the refuge are
watershed protection, maintenance and stabilization of ecological
processes, and the enhancement of biodiversity.
overview of refuge and programs
Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge is in central Minnesota and at
30,700 acres is composed of oak savanna habitat, one of the rarest
habitats in the Nation. Sherburne supports a wide variety of wildlife,
including state threatened Blanding's turtles, and is a fall staging
area for greater sandhill cranes, with a record number of over 11,000
cranes estimated to be roosting on the refuge in recent years. The land
is also managed to promote the health and well-being of migratory birds
and their habitat.
Oak savanna habitat, traditionally found in Minnesota and the
Midwest, has largely disappeared from the landscape due to plowing and
development. Only about 0.02 percent of this habitat remains. The
refuge strives to maintain, enhance, and restore this landscape for the
benefit of a wide variety of species, including the red-headed
woodpecker.
The refuge is an asset to local communities, providing recreational
opportunities for residents and for those traveling through these
communities. Many visitors enjoy the scenery and wildlife that can be
spotted on the refuge's three hiking trails, the Prairie's Edge
Wildlife Drive, or from a canoe or kayak on the designated canoe route
along the St. Francis River.
A hotspot for photographers and birders, Sherburne NWR draws many
visitors from the Twin Cities (it is classified as an ``urban refuge'')
and across the country. Among hunters, we are known for deer, small
game, and migratory bird hunting. Anglers are commonly spotted at the
various fishing access points spread across the refuge.
The refuge hosts environmental education programs throughout the
year for local elementary and intermediate schools, both on and off
site. The refuge has a partnership with two schools that receive
volunteer or staff-led programming and also offers self-led
opportunities for other neighboring school districts. Further, it
provides a variety of interpretive programs and events throughout the
calendar year. The refuge has an active volunteer program, with more
than 200 passionate and dedicated individuals donating their time and
expertise, some for more than two decades.
national funding and the sherburne national wildlife refuge
Overall, the National Wildlife Refuge System requires at least $1
billion in Operations and Maintenance Funding to be considered ``full
funding,'' meaning all refuges staffed, with adequate maintenance, and
support for biological, hunting, fishing, environmental education, and
interpretation programs. We ask that you work towards that overall
goal.
We request that this subcommittee allocate $712 million in funding
for the Refuge System Operations and Maintenance fund for fiscal Year
2023.
This request of $712 million benefits our refuge. With adequate
funding, Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge would be better able to
hire the staff and cover expenses to:
--Restore and maintain oak savanna critical for support of species
dependent on the habitat
--Provide maintenance of wetlands to support migrating waterfowl
--Provide increased capacity for biological research, surveys, and
monitoring
--Control invasive species to benefit a diversity of fish and
wildlife
--Have an adequate level of law enforcement for natural resource
protection and public safety
--Further build out our environmental education programs
--Increase capacity to reach communities of diverse backgrounds
--Construct and operate the long-awaited Visitor Center
Just as Sherburne NWR is the face of public lands for people from
the north metro of the Twin Cities to St Cloud, Minnesota, all national
wildlife refuges are there for communities across the country. We need
full funding to ensure that they stay protected, accessible, and
stewarded for the generations to come.
Thank you for your consideration.
[This statement was submitted by Steven Chesney, President, Friends
of Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Friends of Tampa Bay National Wildlife Refuge
This testimony is being submitted on behalf of the Friends of Tampa
Bay National Wildlife Refuge, which was formed in 2008 as a 501c3 to
support the Egmont Key, Passage Key, and Pinellas National Wildlife
Refuges.
We appreciate the opportunity to offer comments on the fiscal Year
2023 Interior Appropriations bill.
We respectfully request that you allocate $712 million for the
National Wildlife Refuge System in fiscal Year 2023 for Operations and
Maintenance.
The Tampa Bay National Wildlife Refuge islands are a part of the
Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge Complex located in west central
Florida. The offices are located about 90 miles north of Tampa Bay. Our
Friends group has over 250 members who spend many hours volunteering
and raising funds. Many of the members have been with us since the
beginning. They are passionate about the environment, the wildlife, the
history of Egmont Key NWR, and the Tampa Bay Refuges.
The Tampa Bay National Wildlife Refuge islands were set aside for
nesting and resting birds as well as preserving the ruins of Ft. Dade
on Egmont Key NWR. The refuge complex has lost much of its staff due to
budgets. They are not even close to having enough personnel or funding
to carry out their mandates. The Tampa Bay NWR's have one visitor
services manager but he frequently has to fill in at the Refuge
Headquarters in Crystal River. There is almost always a budget
shortfall towards the end of the fiscal year causing staff to
discontinue many of the activities they should be doing to fulfill the
mandates for each refuge.
Unbelievably, the Friends of the Tampa Bay NWR's is having to fund
predator trapping on the Pinellas NWR or risk losing our very
successful nesting colonies of water birds to rats and raccoons. These
islands are close to St Petersburg, FL so the rats and raccoons swim to
the island for an easy meal during nesting season. It is part of the
mandate for the refuge to protect the wildlife and yet they don't have
funds to do so! The Friends also fill the gap of environmental
education for adults and kids. Friends also spend countless hours
repairing boats to get to the islands, refurbishing informational
kiosks, picking up trash, pulling invasive plants, posting and
reposting signs to keep the birds safe, and this past year creating a
film about the Tampa Bay NWR's for visitors to see. The film shows them
why these refuges are important. You can view it at
www.TampaBayRefuges.org.
Egmont Key NWR has hundreds of thousands of visitors each year who
come to enjoy the beaches, see the Ft. Dade ruins, and watch the birds
in the areas open to the public. This gives people a feeling of
relaxation and a way to unwind. Everyone needs to do that especially in
these difficult times. It is important to protect Egmont as well as
Passage Key and Pinellas Refuges which do not have visitors but supply
the area with new generations of beautiful birds.
Overall, the National Wildlife Refuge System requires at least $1
billion in Operations and Maintenance Funding to be considered ``full
funding'', with all refuges staffed, with adequate maintenance,
biological, hunting, fishing, environmental education, and
interpretation programs. Our testimony reflects our desire to reach
this full funding goal over the next few years, and we ask that you
work towards that overall goal by funding $712 million for fiscal Year
2023.
This subcommittee allocated $582 million in funding for Refuge
System Operations and Maintenance in fiscal year 2022, and we are very
grateful for the large increase, commensurate with the President's
Budget Request that year. We don't anticipate a large increase in the
President's Request for fiscal year 2023, but we request that this
subcommittee continue the trend up and allocate $712 million in funding
for the Refuge System Operations and Maintenance fund.
This request of $712 million reflects the loss of over 1,000 staff
in the last decade from the System. In that time, hundreds of millions
of new acres were added to the System, along with 13 new refuges. The
urban program was created and the Service is tackling invasive species
on almost all refuges. While this seems like a large increase, it is
simply what the System needs in order to maintain healthy wildlife
habitats on our refuges.
[This statement was submitted by Barbara Howard, President Friends
of the Tampa Bay National Wildlife Refuges.]
______
Prepared Statement of Tampa Bay National Wildlife Refuges
First of all I would like to thank you for your support for the
National Wildlife Refuge System, a uniquely American asset and the
largest systems of lands set aside for wildlife in the world. As an
active USFWS volunteer I am urging you to support an increase in
funding for Refuge System Operations and Maintenance to $712 million in
fiscal year 2023. Our Friends group works closely with Refuge System
staff in our local and regional offices, and on refuges themselves. We
talk to them about their projects, and what they need to do their jobs.
And the overwhelming response is: we need more staff, and we need more
funding. Wildlife refuges are economic engines for their communities,
but, by far, the biggest challenge facing the NWR system today is a
lack of funding. Refuge units are incredibly rich and diverse wildlife
habitat, and each unit is unique and requires unique management. The
lack of staff on refuge units (including ours) is stark. Since FY2010,
when the budget was funded nearly the same ($503m) as it is today in
fiscal year 2022 ($519 million as proposed in the omnibus bill released
March 9, 2022), nearly 1,100 positions have been lost, an enormous 25
percent loss in capacity. We as a community cannot continue to expect
healthy lands and wildlife populations when we allow staffing levels to
drop so low that maintenance is impossible, visitor services are
curtailed, and planning and biological work is either eliminated or
severely reduced. Over the last decade, flat or declining budgets have
resulted in reduced station allocations and staffing across the Refuge
System. We have seen this first hand on the three refuges in Tampa Bay,
Florida; Egmont Key NWR, Passage Key NWR and Pinellas NWR. These
refuges are some of the last wild areas remaining in Tampa Bay--they
are important to wildlife. The Service has a responsibility to manage
for the long-term sustainability of the System and to avoid reactive,
ad hoc, and piecemeal actions in response to budgetary changes. These
budget declines are now resulting in the inability of the NWR system to
serve the public and protect natural resources.
Given that the increase that was called for in fiscal year 2022 was
not delivered, we ask that you go further this year, and allocate the
money that the System actually needs-a jump to $712 million. This is
the number the National Wildlife Refuge Association has calculated that
is needed to keep up with the backlog of work and rising costs.
We have seen this first hand. As a Friends group we have had to
provide supplemental funding for accomplishing basic tasks on the
refuges. This seems wrong that a volunteer based organization must
supplement a Federal program in order to properly manage the refuges.
Our three NWRs are continually short of funds and labor. To add to this
we have a huge increase in visitation to all three refuges in the last
2 years, but no increase in funding to help manage the visitation--this
is a problem.
The National Wildlife Refuge System is the largest system of public
lands set aside for wildlife conservation in the entire world. Nothing
like the System exists anywhere else. The United States has a
professional workforce of biologists, wetlands managers, foresters,
wildlife officers, and many others who are trained to manage these
lands. We are squandering this opportunity to manage this System of
biologically critical habitat and overwhelming staff, who care deeply
about their jobs and the Refuge System.
Again, I am urging you to support an increase in funding for Refuge
System Operations and Maintenance to $712 million in fiscal year 2023.
Thank you for allowing the opportunity to submit testimony.
[This statement was submitted by Patrick Mundus, Vice President,
Friends of the Tampa Bay National Wildlife Refuges.]
______
Prepared Statement of Friends of Tualatin River National Wildlife
Refuge
I appreciate the opportunity to provide written testimony on behalf
of the Friends of Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge Complex, near
Portland, Oregon. Friends of Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge is
a 501 (C) (3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote the
conservation and welfare of the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge
for all dependent species and to enrich the lives of citizens through
education and experience. Our organization has approximately 300
members. I am President of the Board of this organization. We thank you
for your support for the National Wildlife Refuge System and for the
opportunity to offer comments on the fiscal year 2023 Interior
Appropriations bill, most importantly regarding funding for the Refuge
System Operations and Maintenance Fund, which we respectfully request
you fund at $712 million for fiscal year 2023.
When the pandemic quickly shutdown most federal, State, and local
parks, our beloved Oregon Coast beaches, and other public lands in the
Portland area, there was one place where visitors could go and safely
bask in nature while masked and socially distanced. That place was
Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge. Located just 15 miles from the
heart of Portland, OR, Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge, founded
in 1992 and opened to the public in 2006, is cradled in Portland's
southwest suburbs and is easily accessible to this urban population
including being accessible by public transportation with a bus stop at
its main gate. The refuge has existed as a designated Urban Refuge
since it was created. Although the Visitor Center and restrooms and
even the parking lot were closed, we flocked there by the thousands to
soak up our much-needed ration of the outdoors.
As more and more people ``discovered'' the Refuge as a respite in a
very stressful time, there has been a heightened public awareness of
its value as a resource to our community. But, with increased awareness
and usage comes increased need for upkeep and protection. Also, being
in an urban area results in a higher level of required management to
safeguard the wildlife and habitat.
Our Fish and Wildlife Staff has done a stellar job of preserving
the refuge, but they are working at a great handicap. In 2012, the
refuge consisted of 1,384 acres under the management of a full-time
staff of 6. In 2013, the 944-acre Wapato Lake National Wildlife Refuge,
34 miles from refuge headquarters, was created and complexed with
Tualatin River NWR with no additional staff. In 2020, an additional 20
acres was added to the original refuge and in 2021 full-time staff was
increased to 7. Managed acres increased by 70 percent and staff by 1.
During the pandemic, two major changes have occurred at our refuge
complex. Wapato Lake National Wildlife Refuge is being prepared to open
to the public. This is extremely significant to the local community and
to the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde who are the original
caretakers of this land. But, without sufficient staff, the progress
toward public access has been delayed and a date for opening to public
access has still not been set.
Historically, the Wapato lakebed filled and receded with the rise
and fall of the Tualatin River. A pump system and earthen levees,
designed to facilitate farming, were installed in the 1930s. Eighty
years later, the economic and public health risks of this aging
infrastructure had become evident.
Challenges at Wapato Lake involved not only aging infrastructure,
but also the significant level of collaboration, funding and expertise
that would be needed to transform this expansive and critical site into
a haven for wildlife and an asset to the surrounding communities. The
completely inadequate budgets fail to cover the cost of maintaining the
incredibly rich and diverse wildlife habitats that make up the Refuge
System.
Also, the past 2 years at Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge,
have been a time of exciting change. Chicken Creek that flows across
the main unit of the refuge is being reoriented to a sinuous flow,
replacing the straight channel that was created when the land was
converted for agricultural use over a century ago. The project will
create a 280-acre connected, naturally functioning wetland system on
the Refuge's Atfalat'i Unit. A reconfigured pedestrian trail will allow
visitors to access the new natural wetland and creek area.
Both projects have been accomplished with the help of numerous
community partners making the refuge more meaningful to even more
members of our communities.
The number of annual Refuge System visitors jumped by 13 million
over the last 6 years. More people are looking to recreate on wildlife
refuges, yet understaffed refuges struggle to provide those
opportunities. Reductions in visitor services can be extremely limiting
for constituencies who want to visit. Equally troubling is a 15 percent
drop in the number of volunteers since FY2011. At a time when record
numbers of Americans are retiring and have the capability and desire to
give back, the Service's ability to oversee their efforts has been
curtailed. Volunteers provide an additional 20 percent of work on our
National wildlife refuges, yet they are being turned away when the
System needs them the most.
The Refuge System is bare bones right now and increased growth in
urban spaces and outdoor recreation, and the impacts of climate change,
place additional stress on the System. Every year, more and more
refuges are closed to the public, habitat degrades, and visitors are
turned away.
The funding gap that has arisen due to low budget allocations over
the last decade has resulted in the degradation of critical wildlife
habitat and imperiled important species. Although the FY2020
appropriations bill injected a much needed additional $14 million to
the budget, funding levels remain below the high of $503 million in
FY2010, with the shortfall becoming more acute every year. We must
change this trajectory.
National Wildlife Refuges are currently funded at 59 per acre per
year compared to funding for National Park Service at $30 per acre per
year.
This subcommittee allocated $582 million in funding for Refuge
System O&M in fiscal year 2022, and we are very grateful for the large
increase, commensurate with the President's Budget Request that year.
We don't anticipate a large increase in the President's Request for
fiscal year 2023, but we request that this subcommittee continue the
trend up and allocate $712 million in funding for the Refuge System
Operations and Maintenance fund.
The Refuge System cannot fulfill its obligation to the American
public, our wildlife, and 59 million annual visitors (in FY2019)
without increases in maintenance and operation funds. Even with the
gains in fiscal Year 2020, overall funding for the Refuge System has
declined substantially over the last 10 years. Funding in FY2010 was
$503 million--$598 million in today's dollars with inflation and salary
increases. This difference of $95 million has forced the Service to cut
back on programs and create efficiencies whenever possible--
efficiencies that are sometimes harmful or even dangerous. For example,
many refuges, such as Tualatin River, have been placed into complexes,
where staff travel sometimes large distances to juggle duties on
multiple refuges.
Overall, the National Wildlife Refuge System requires at least $900
million in Operations and Maintenance Funding to be considered ``full
funding'', with all refuges staffed, with adequate maintenance,
biological, hunting, fishing, environmental education, and
interpretation programs. Our testimony reflects our desire to reach
this full funding goal over the next few years, and we ask that you
work towards that overall goal of $712 million in annual funding.
This request of $712 million reflects the loss of over 1,000 staff
in the last decade from the System. In that time, hundreds of millions
of new acres were added to the System, along with 13 new refuges. The
urban program was created, and the Service is tackling invasive species
on almost all refuges. While this seems like a large increase, it is
simply what the System needs to maintain healthy wildlife habitats on
our refuges.
The Friends of Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge Complex
appreciates the subcommittee's consideration of our request of $712 mil
for the refuge system operations and maintenance budget for fiscal year
2023 We look forward to working with Congress to accomplish this goal
and appreciate your consideration of our requests. Please let me know
if you have any questions.
[This statement was submitted by Cheryl Turoczy Hart, Board
President of Friends of Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge.]
______
Prepared Statement of Friends of Wertheim
This testimony is being submitter on behalf of the Friends of
Wertheim, which was formed in 1998 to support the Wertheim Refuge which
is the Headquarters of the Long Island National Wildlife Refuge
complex.
We appreciate the opportunity to offer comments on the fiscal Year
2023 Interior Appropriations bill.
Our Friends organization was founded in 1998 and is committed to
the conservation and protection of the natural and cultural resources
of the Wertheim National Wildlife Refuge. We are committed to fostering
community education, outreach and advocacy, in pursuit of enhanced
awareness ,appreciation and respectful stewardship of our wildlife and
its habitat, in partnership activities that enrich and support the
objectives of the Service.
In 2011 a formal Visitor Center was opened at Wertheim with nature
exhibits and an educational classroom that allows us to offer more
varied programs. We welcome School groups, Scouting activities and
Birding enthusiasts , as well as a summer camp program. An outreach
effort to acquaint local Latino residents to the benefits of visiting a
Refuge has been successful. We also advocate on behalf of the Refuge
and surrounding communities on environmental issue that would be
detrimental to the health and welfare of both.
The Refuge provides the community a peaceful place to walk nature
trails available on either side of the Carmans River, which intersects
the length of the Refuge. Many canoe and kayaking enthusiasts enjoy the
scenic vistas. Migrating birds have a safe haven and are greatly
appreciated by skilled and novice birders. Regulated hunting and
fishing is offered within Federal and State guidelines. We are also
home to a pair of Eagles, one of many that have returned to making
their homes on Long Island.
As the name implies, L.I. National Wildlife Refuge complex,
Wertheim is one of 10 Refuge sites on the Island that U.S. Fish and
Wildlife staff oversee. Two other sites, Target Rock in Huntington and
Elizabeth A. Morton in Sag Harbor, are also open to the public. The
other areas encompass sites that are home to protected Flora and/or
Fauna. If you look at a map of Long Island, you will see that a lot of
milage is involved with getting to the different sites. When the
Visitor Center was opened, it includes offices and work areas for
staff, we had a full compliment of U.S. Fish and Wildlife employees to
easily handle the work. The work force has been steadily eroded since
2012, although the work needed to be done is the same. A very big loss
is lack of a Federal Law Enforcer, we have been without one again for
over a year. We have experienced increased vandalism, including thefts
of Catalytic Converters from Federal Vehicles parked in fenced locked
areas. Because of Covid the Visitor Center was closed to the public,
but the grounds experienced increased foot traffic. some of whom
weren't very respectful and adhering to rules governing what is and is
not allowed on a Refuge. While we appreciated people discovering this
lovely place, we were without an Officer to enforce the rules. Pleas
note that the one Officer also oversees any problems that arise at all
of the sites.
Yes, we need a hefty increase in funding throughout the whole of
the many Refuges across the country.
As more of the general public turn to them for nature experiences
and activities, the upkeep needed to maintain them is crucial. Many of
these Refuge sites were donations from families who originally owned
and maintained them, as a way of preserving the nature contained within
them as many of these sites were not heavily disturbed.
We fully support the $712 million being asked for fiscal year 2023.
Spread out over the many Refuges in dire need it is not too much to
ask. Our Wildlife Refuges have become a lifeline for many of our fellow
countrymen, who seek peaceful places to commune with Nature and enjoy
healthy outdoor activities.
Thank you for your consideration.
Respectfully submitted on behalf of the Long Island National
Wildlife Refuge Complex, of which the Wertheim Refuge is the
headquarters.
[This statement was submitted by Friends of Wertheim National
Wildlife Refuge, Long Island National Wildlife Refuge Complex.]
______
Prepared Statement of Geological Society of America
The Geological Society of America (GSA) recommends that Congress
provide $1.85 billion in annual appropriations for the U.S. Geological
Survey (USGS) in Fiscal Year 2023. As one of our Nation's key science
agencies, the USGS plays a vital role in understanding and documenting
mineral and energy resources that underpin economic growth; researching
and monitoring potential natural hazards that threaten U.S. and
international security; informing communities about the impacts of a
changing climate; determining and assessing water quality and
availability; and assessing risk of COVID-19 spread to new species.
Approximately two thirds of the USGS budget is allocated for research
and development. In addition to supporting the science activities and
decisions of the Department of the Interior and other Federal agencies,
this research is used by communities across the Nation to make informed
decisions in land-use planning, emergency response, natural resource
management, engineering, and education. GSA believes that it is
important to grow the USGS budget in order to address past shortfalls
in staffing, facilities, and research, given the importance of its many
activities that protect lives and property, contribute to national
security, and enhance the quality of life.
The Geological Society of America (GSA) is a scientific society
with members from academia, government, and industry in more than 100
countries. Through its meetings, publications, and programs, GSA
enhances the professional growth of its members and promotes the
geosciences in the service of humankind. GSA encourages cooperative
research among earth, life, planetary, and social scientists, fosters
public dialogue on geoscience issues, and supports all levels of earth
science education.
The Geological Society of America (GSA) thanks the Committee for
recognizing the importance of the work of the U.S. Geological Society
(USGS) to protect lives, property, and national security. GSA urges
Congress to provide USGS $1.85 billion in Fiscal Year 2023. This
increase will allow the USGS to implement new initiatives, maintain the
base funding for critical research and monitoring, fill vacant
positions, and address deferred maintenance on existing facilities.
This investment will ensure that the USGS is able to respond to 21st-
century challenges with 21st-century science and technology.
u.s. geological survey contributions to national security, health, and
welfare
The USGS is one of the Nation's premier science agencies, with a
distinctive capacity to engage interdisciplinary teams of experts to
gather data, conduct research, and develop integrated decision-support
tools. USGS research is used by communities across the Nation to make
informed decisions in land-use planning, emergency response, natural
resource management, engineering, and education. USGS research
addresses many of society's greatest challenges for national security,
health, and welfare. Several are highlighted below.
natural hazards
Natural hazards are a major cause of fatalities and economic
losses. NOAA found that in 2021 alone, there were 20 weather/climate
disaster events with losses greater than $1 billion. Additionally, 2021
is the seventh consecutive year in which 10 or more billion-dollar
weather/climate events impacted the U.S. An improved scientific
understanding of geologic and atmospheric hazards will reduce future
losses by informing effective planning and mitigation. GSA urges
Congress to continue supporting efforts for USGS to modernize and
upgrade its natural hazards monitoring and warning systems, including
additional 3-D elevation mapping and earthquake early warning systems,
while maintaining fundamental research and monitoring.
Decision makers in many sectors rely upon USGS data to respond to
natural hazards. For example, USGS volcano monitoring provides data to
enable decisions to ensure aviation safety. Similarly, the USGS plays a
key role in the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program by tracking
tsunami sources using seismic data as part of a collaborative effort to
increase preparedness, reduce impacts, and issue warnings.
USGS is a key partner in obtaining data necessary to predict severe
space weather events, which affect the electric power grid, satellite
communications, and navigation systems. The Promoting Research and
Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow
Act (PROSWIFT Act), which was signed into law in October of 2020,
highlights a path forward for USGS research to meet these objectives.
In addition, the new Space Weather Advisory Group established by the
PROSWIFT Act will conduct a comprehensive survey to identify the
research, observations, forecasting, and modeling advances required to
improve space weather products.
GSA recommends adequate funding to implement recently-enacted
hazards-related legislation. For example, the National Landslide
Preparedness Act, signed into law in January 2021, expanded the USGS
Landslide Hazards Program and authorized a 3D elevation program to
update and coordinate the collection of elevation data across the
country using enhanced, high-resolution surveys. Directives to USGS
include identifying, mapping, assessing, and researching landslide
hazards, responding to landslide events, and developing landslide
guidelines for geoscientists, emergency management personnel, and land-
use decision-makers.
energy and minerals
As articulated in the Energy Policy Act of 2020, there is a vital
need to understand the abundance and distribution of critical mineral
resources, as well as the geologic processes that form them, both
within the United States and globally. Achieving this goal will require
continually expanding collection and analysis of geological,
geochemical, and geophysical data. Specifically, GSA supports building
upon the allocation of $167 million through the bipartisan
Infrastructure bill to establish the Energy and Minerals Research
Facility on the Colorado School of Mines campus, which will replace
deteriorating laboratories across the U.S. used by the USGS to work on
energy and critical minerals. The facility will also support the
expansion of STEM talent and increase diversity through student
engagement and workforce development.
GSA supports increases in minerals science, research, information,
data collection and analysis that will allow for more economic and
environmental management and utilization of minerals. In addition, GSA
supports increases in funding for research to better understand
domestic sources of energy, including conventional and unconventional
oil and gas and renewables. GSA appreciates congressional support for
the EarthMRI program, which will provide new resources and leverage
current data to accelerate geological and geophysical mapping, identify
critical mineral sites for further scientific review, among other
safety, security, scientific, and industrial uses. The mapping has a
central focus on both minerals still in the ground and minerals that
may be reprocessed from legacy mine waste, and will also provide
important data for abandoned mine remediation and for understanding
other natural resources. GSA appreciates investments made it in the
bipartisan Infrastructure Bill that will accelerate the expansion of
the program by providing an additional $64 million annually for 5
years.
water resources
Improved understanding of the quantity, quality, distribution, and
use of water resources through monitoring, assessment, research, and
delivery of actionable information by the USGS and associated partners
is necessary to ensure adequate and safe water resources for the health
and welfare of society. For example, the USGS national network of
stream gages provides key data for the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor Maps
and classifications. Improved representation of geological, biological,
and ecological systems-including underlying physical and chemical
processes and their interactions-is needed. In addition to maintaining
current monitoring capabilities, new hydrologic data are required to
improve the reliability and reduce the uncertainty of scientific
analyses that support water resources management and policy decisions.
climate change
USGS research on climate impacts is used by local policymakers and
resource managers to make sound decisions based on the best possible
science. In addition to fundamental, long-term climate change research,
the USGS provides scientific information necessary to anticipate,
monitor, and adapt to the effects of climate change at regional and
local levels, allowing communities to make smart, cost-effective
decisions. Much of this work operates through the network of nine
regional Climate Adaptation Centers (CASC). For example, the Alaska
CASC has conducted research on the relationship between wildfire and
other ecological disturbances, such as drought, which will help
resource managers plan for and adapt to the evolving threat that fire
poses to humans, infrastructure, and ecosystems. Across the country,
the Southeast CASC is using artificial intelligence to predict flood
damage changes in response to rising sea levels, and the Northeast CASC
recently conducted a study showing that small channels developed to
facilitate drainage in salt marshes may help mitigate sea level rise
and restore vegetation.
core science systems, facilities, and science support
Activities from hazard monitoring to mineral forecasts are
supported by Core Science Systems, Facilities, and Science Support.
These programs and services, such as geologic mapping, data
preservation, and satellite observation, provide critical information,
data, and infrastructure that underpin the research of the USGS.
Stagnant funding has created backlogs in the hiring of new scientists;
increased investment is needed to fill these critical roles. These
investments will also allow for the recruitment and training of a
diverse STEM pipeline, paving the way for increased diversity, equity,
inclusion, and accessibility within the field of Earth sciences.
GSA appreciates recent investments in Facilities, including the
creation of the Energy and Mineral Research Facility, and encourages
continued investment to address deferred maintenance issues. GSA also
recommends long-term funding and support for the USGS library, which is
used by both Federal scientists and external researchers. The Library
houses more than 1.5 million volumes and more than three million maps,
photographs and field records, with much of the information unique to
the USGS.
The Landsat satellites have amassed the largest archive of remotely
sensed land data in the world, a tremendously important resource for
natural resource exploration, land use planning, and assessing water
resources, the impacts of natural disasters, and global agriculture
production. On September 27, 2021, the NASA/USGS Landsat program
launched its ninth satellite in its 50 year program that will operate
in tandem with Landsat 8 and replace Landsat 7. GSA supports
interagency efforts for future support of Landsat.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony about the U.S.
Geological Survey. For additional information or to learn more about
the Geological Society of America--including GSA Position Statements on
climate change, water resources, mineral and energy resources, natural
hazards, and public investment in Earth science research--please visit
www.geosociety.org or contact GSA's Director for Geoscience Policy
Kasey White at [email protected].
[This statement was submitted by Kasey White, Director for
Geoscience Policy, Geological Society of America.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative
I am Howard Learner, the Executive Director of the Environmental
Law & Policy Center (ELPC), which is the Midwest's leading
environmental legal advocacy and sustainability innovation
organization. ELPC's staff has been engaged in robust and diverse ways
to protect the Great Lakes. Since 2008, we have participated with
policymakers and colleagues to build, effectively implement, and expand
the successful Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI).
Thank you Chair Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski and all members
of the subcommittee for the opportunity to submit testimony in support
of full funding of at least $400 million for the Great Lakes
Restoration Initiative for fiscal Year 2023 as provided in the Great
Lakes Restoration Initiative Act of 2019. GLRI funds have been
effectively deployed to protect safe clean drinking water supplies,
clean up toxic sites, protect wetlands and shorelines, hold off
invasive species from entering the Great Lakes, and safeguard aquatic
resources. Restoring the Great Lakes' vital natural resources creates
very high leveraged value gained for environmental, public health and
recreation benefits, and for overall economic growth. GLRI is a program
that has worked very well and has demonstrated successes.
The Great Lakes are a global gem. They contain 21 percent of the
planet's fresh water supply, and 42 million people rely on the Great
Lakes for safe drinking water supplies. They provide a rich aquatic
habitat for many species. They support a $7 billion annual fishing
industry, and Great Lakes recreation draws millions of tourists who
boost the economies of shoreline communities. In short, the Great Lakes
are where tens of millions of people live, work and play.
ELPC strongly supported reauthorization of the GLRI and the ramp up
of funding to $475 million in 2026, matching the funding that this
successful program received in its initial year. We request that the
Committee fully fund the GLRI program with at least the authorized $400
million for fiscal Year 2023 and, hopefully, a higher amount will be
considered.
I'll make two points in support of full funding for the GLRI:
First, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is vitally important
and successful. This is a model Federal program providing great
benefits, and it is working well.
Second, the challenges to the Great Lakes from increases in harmful
algal blooms and climate change merit full funding of at least the
authorized $400 million for fiscal Year 2023 and, hopefully, a higher
amount will be considered.
1. The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is vitally important and
successful. This is a model Federal program providing great benefits,
and it is working well.
The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative has been a breakthrough
program, injecting critical funding and structure that had been missing
in order to restore the Lakes. Over the past 13 years, the GLRI has
achieved strong results with sustained funding. As the third GLRI
Action Plan States: ``the GLRI has been a catalyst for unprecedented
Federal agency coordination, which has in turn produced unprecedented
results.'' The program supports shoreline and wetlands protection
projects, keeping out invasive species, and reducing harmful algae
blooms. Congress' recognition of the effectiveness of the Great Lakes
Restoration Initiative is reflected in the bipartisan support of fully
funding the program with increasing funding.
The GLRI funds and supports thousands of projects across the Great
Lakes States to:
--Improve water quality for safe drinking water supplies, fisheries
and aquatic habitats.
--Protect shorelines and restore wetlands.
--Protect and restore native habitats and species.
--Help prevent and control invasive species.
--Clean up toxic sediments on lake bottoms.
--Reduce agricultural and other nutrient runoff that causes harmful
algal blooms.
The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative effectively creates a system
of coordination among Federal agencies, State entities and local
partners to achieve outcomes. Since its inception, the program has
achieved strong results with sustained funding.
There are countless examples of GLRI projects that deliver multiple
benefits to the Great Lakes from watershed and natural area restoration
projects to addressing and ultimately delisting of Areas of Concern.
The Healing Our Waters Coalition provides numerous examples of projects
across the region, including among many others:
--Restoration of West Creek in Independence, Ohio, including
restoration of the Creek's floodplain, wetlands and stream
bank, that is helping to improve water quality in the Cuyahoga
River and Lake Erie.
--Stabilization of the Flute Reed Riverbank in Northern Minnesota
that keeps nutrients out of Lake Superior, improves flood
plains and creates habitat for fish.
--Improvement of the Burnham Wildlife Corridor in Chicago, which
restored natural areas with native species and wildlife
habitats, and reduced runoff into Lake Michigan by filtering
water before it enters the Lake.
GLRI projects bring together a broad array of partners to work
together to achieve the program's goals and create jobs. The third GLRI
Action Plan details work to address Areas of Concern, including those
that are now delisted: Presque Isle Bay in Pennsylvania, and Deer Lake
and White Lake in Michigan. Significant work remains to be done,
however, to fully address the 25 Areas of Concern across the Great
Lakes basin. We greatly appreciate that the Infrastructure Investment
and Jobs Act added $1 billion for the GLRI. In February, President
Biden announced in Lorain, Ohio that this additional funding will
accelerate clean up and restoration of these toxic Areas of Concern.
GLRI has broad regional economic benefits. A University of Michigan
study showed that every Federal dollar spent on GLRI projects between
2010 and 2016 will produce $3.35 in additional economic activity in the
Great Lakes region through 2036.
2. The challenges to the Great Lakes from increases in harmful
algal blooms and climate change merit full funding of at least the
authorized $400 million for fiscal Year 2023 and, hopefully, a higher
amount will be considered.
While recognizing the GLRI's successes, the growing threats from
climate change and recurring severe algal outbreaks are getting worse.
ELPC commissioned 18 leading Midwest and Canadian scientists to
write the state-of-the-science report An Assessment of the Impacts of
Climate Change on the Great Lakes, which we released in 2019 along with
recommended policy solutions. The scientists concluded that climate
change is causing significant and far-reaching impacts on the Great
Lakes region, including increasingly extreme water level fluctuations--
mostly higher, and occasionally lower--which wreak havoc on
communities, homes, beaches, businesses and the overall shoreline's
built environment. Annual precipitation in the region has increased at
a higher percentage than the rest of the country, and more
precipitation is coming in unusually large events such as derechos and
intense storms. Lake Michigan had record-high water levels in 2021;
especially when whipped by strong winds and large waves, this led to
extensive flooding that damaged the shoreline and infrastructure.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), 2021 was the 6th hottest year on record and part of a nine-year
period of record-breaking temperatures as climate change continues to
impact the Great Lakes and region.
ELPC is now preparing a report examining the impacts of rising lake
levels and extreme weather events creating flood risks at several
industrial facilities and contaminated sites along the Lake Michigan
shoreline in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. Using NOAA's
Digital Elevation Model data, this upcoming report visualizes the
extent and severity of inundation at the sites and surrounding areas
due to extreme weather events of the scale expected in the near future.
Climate change impacts on the Great Lakes exacerbate the growing
problem of agricultural runoff pollution--mostly fertilizers and
manure--that is the principal cause of severe recurring toxic algae
outbreaks in western Lake Erie and other Great Lakes shallow water
bays. The Ohio EPA concluded that agricultural runoff pollution
accounts for 90 percent of the phosphorus flowing into western Lake
Erie.
The Maumee River Basin, which flows into western Lake Erie, is
among the priority watersheds included in the third GLRI Action Plan.
Using satellite imagery to count and measure Concentrated Animal
Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and to estimate the number of animals and
amount of manure those facilities produce, ELPC concluded that, in 2018
alone, CAFOs produced over 3.5 million tons of manure.
The current GLRI Action Plan provides a detailed look at strategies
to reduce this harmful agricultural runoff pollution, noting the GLRI
projects have kept more than one million pounds of phosphorous out of
the lakes. The nutrient pollution threats from CAFOs to the Great Lakes
region continue, and are amplified with changing rainfall patterns.
GLRI funds could be used to support wetlands restoration to more
effectively capture phosphorous, and water testing and monitoring to
identify effective approaches to reducing runoff. On April 7-9, 2021,
ELPC hosted our 6th Science-Policy Confluence Conference bringing
together scientific experts and policy makers to focus on the growing
threat of CAFOs to the Great Lakes region. A more robust GLRI will
continue to be an important source of solutions to address this
pressing problem.
In conclusion, the Environmental Law & Policy Center commends the
Senate Appropriations Committee and this subcommittee's support for the
Great Lakes Restoration Initiative with each year's budget. GLRI is a
successful program and a model for federal, State and local
cooperation. We urge that the program be fully funded with at least the
authorized $400 million for fiscal Year 2023 and, hopefully, a higher
amount will be considered.
[This statement was submitted by Howard Learner, Executive
Director, Environmental Law & Policy Center.]
______
Prepared Statement of Healthy Schools Network
We urge you to allocate $110 million to the US Environmental
Protection Agency's (EPA) fiscal Year 23 budget, including $100 million
for the Office of Air and Radiation/Indoor Environments Division to
fulfill the Clean Air in Buildings Challenge outlined by the White
House in March 2022, to help school buildings become healthier and to
advance school pandemic and climate-resiliency; and, $10 million for
EPA's Office of Children's Health Protection to increase environmental
public health services for children in K-12 schools and child care
facilities as well as research.
Schools must be able to stay open and reopen quickly and safely.
Education is a social determinant of health, for children's long-term
health, development, and safety, and for the economy to stay open. Yet,
with over 8 billion square feet of learning space nationwide, valued at
over $3 trillion, schools are neither resilient to weather extremes,
nor are they even fully pandemic-ready.
--Children are not just little adults: they are uniquely vulnerable
to environmental health hazards (EPA, CDC, NIEHS); and,
--Schools are not little offices: they are used more hours/day and
days per week than offices and more densely occupied than
nursing homes and 95 percent of the occupants are women and
children (NCES).
Today, some 40 percent of school age children have existing chronic
health issues (CDC). But despite facilities' clear impacts on the
economy and on children, numerous studies have documented that school
buildings are in poor condition and those conditions such as polluted
Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), molds, dust and debris, high heat, poor
siting, proximity to hazards, and poor lighting and sanitation, can
permanently damage children's ``health, thinking, and learning''
(Harvard SPH 2017; NRC 2006). Schools that institute good environmental
control measures can decrease population exposures to allergens and
irritants which can then lead to decreased allergy and asthma symptoms.
There are no two States alike in addressing school buildings and
grounds. But what is common is that local schools rely on local
dollars, thus, the poorest communities with the highest proportions of
at-risk children (poverty, COVID, extreme weather) have the schools in
the poorest conditions and facility staff with the fewest professional
credentials and resources, and no access to outside consultants. Rural-
remote schools also have big challenges in finding and affording
outside consultants.
EPA's proven guidance on school and child care facilities and two
decades of work with the K-12 communities are key assets to expand on.
Years of published research has shown that indoor environmental
exposure to pollutants can be more intense than outdoor exposures and
that school facilities have been neglected for decades. Poor indoor
environment result in decreased seat time, attendance, and test scores,
and increase asthma and other health events, and thus increase health
costs. There is clearly a significant need to educate, train, and
encourage schools and childcare facilities on child-safe and effective
preventive management of facilities. EPA has the existing
authorizations and programs to conduct this work.
$110 Million in fiscal Year 23 for EPA's long leadership on IAQ and
related work on indoor environments is authorized under several
statutes cited below. We urge that over half of the $110 million for US
EPA be allocated to national cooperative agreements and regional grants
to States, Tribes, cities, universities, NGOs, to provide outreach,
training, and technical assistance to assist school communities
improve, monitor, and benchmark improvements to indoor environments in
schools and child care facilities, consistent with the President's
Clean Air in Buildings Challenge to combat the airborne pandemic. Some
funds should also be used by EPA/OAR directly to establish a national
Clean Air in School Buildings public information campaign.
Authorizations. The primary statutory authorities EPA relies on for
the indoor air program are: the Superfund Amendments and
Reauthorization Act (SARA) Title IV--Radon Gas and Indoor Air Quality
Research Act; the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Title III--Indoor
Radon Abatement Act of 1988, and TSCA Title V, Healthy High Performance
Schools Act; the Clean Air Act (CAA), Sec. 103(a, b, c); and additional
statutes related to indoor air such as CERCLA and FIFRA.
Recommended funding for EPA in fiscal Year 23:
EPA/OAR/Indoor Environments Division ($100M) to include:
--$65M to deliver Clean Air Programs on the ground: grants to
States/Tribes, cites, universities, and NGOs, via national
cooperative agreements and regional grants to advance
education, and training to schools/child cares, personnel,
parents, and communities; technical assistance and
monitoring/measuring of IAQ elements; annual conference for
grantees and other key stakeholders.
--$5M for an EPA-led National Public Information Campaign to
activate the White House Clean Air Challenge, focused on
clean air in schools/childcare, congregate settings, and
other buildings: consultants for planning, materials,
video, paid/un paid placements.
--$1M to host a Federal Advisory Committee to help EPA address the
complex state, Tribal and local issues of school Indoor Air
Quality (IAQ), and including ED, CDC, Energy, FEMA.
--$3M for EPA Regional offices' stakeholder meetings and
conferences.
--$1M to update EPA Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools (IAQTfS)
voluntary program including guidance on pandemic/epidemic
readiness and climate resiliency and mitigation, benchmarks
for the Clean Air Challenge and the detailed guidance on
Clean Air Master Plans.
--$10M Research: Climate and Indoor Environments: how warming
climate is impacting indoor environments and human health,
including two pull out sections: 1- on impacts on children,
and 2- impacts on indoor learning environments, and
recommendations on steps to protect health and learning;
Legacy Toxics in Schools: research to assess scope and
measures of risks and exposures in schools to legacy toxics
such as lead, radon, asbestos, mercury, PCBs and
pesticides/disinfectants, as well as stores of
instructional laboratory, maintenance, and garage supplies,
and recommendations on reducing risks; School Design and
Construction: science-based recommendations for school and
child care facility design elements, construction, and
operations, with goals to promote student health, thinking,
and learning, ease of maintenance, pandemic readiness, and,
climate resiliency and mitigation.
--$15M Federal EPA/CDC/ED Guidance to Assist States/Tribes/Cities/
Districts: create and disseminate: Model Infection
Prevention and Control Policies for schools to adopt, in
cooperation with State and local health agencies, driving
clean air, clean water, and clean school buildings; model
State/Tribal tracking system on school facility
environmental conditions; model State/Tribal/City tracking
and reporting on children's environmental and physical
health and safety in schools and child care
--$10M US EPA/OCHP: Office of Children's Health Protection to
restore investment in Centers of Excellence in Children's
Environmental Health (co-funded with NIEHS), research on
children's risks and exposures in school and child care
facilities, co-chair Task Force on children's environmental
health (EO 13045), expand pediatric environmental health
services.
Thank you for your consideration. We recognize that there are many
priorities facing your subcommittee, but none as crucial as enhancing
the health, ability to learn, and safety of the Nation's children. We
hope that you will fully support these small but nationally impactful
programs that will result in healthier children and far better
educational outcomes.
National Organizations:
21st Century Schools Fund
Allergy & Asthma Network
American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology
American Federation of Teachers
American School Health Association
APHA Occupational Health Section
Asian Pacific Islander Women's Forum
Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America
BlueGreen Alliance
Center for Environmental Health
Children's Environmental Health Network
Coalition for Environmentally Safe Communities
Collaborative for High Performance Schools
Earth Day.org
Environmental Working Group
First Focus Campaign for Children
Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, Inc
Health Promotion Consultants
Healthy Schools Network
IPM Institute of North America
MGH Innovative One Health Solutions
National Association of School Nurses
National Association of State Boards of Education
National Center for Healthy Housing
National Coalition for Healthier Schools
National Environmental Health Association
National Healthy Schools Caucus
Pesticide Action Network
Quality First EHS, Inc.
Rachel Carson Council
Responsible Purchasing Network
Society of State Leaders of Health and Physical Education
Until Justice Data Partners
Women's Voices for the Earth
State Organizations:
Air Balancing Service Co, CT
Alaska Community Action on Toxics, AK
American Nurses Association- New York (ANA-NY), NY
Center for Professional Academic Consulting, DC
ConnectiCOSH, CT
Connecticut Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Society, CT
Connecticut AFL-CIO, CT
Connecticut Education Association, CT
Connecticut Nurses Association, CT
ConnFESS, CT
Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, TX
Dr. Yolanda Whyte Pediatrics, GA
Florida Clinicians for Climate Action, FL
HARAMBEE House Inc., GA
Healthy Schools Now- NJ WEC, NJ
Informed Green Solutions Inc., VT
LEW Environmental Services LLC, NJ
Maryland Children's Environmental Health Coalition (MD CEHC), MD
Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health, MA
New Jersey Association of Designated Persons, NJ
NJ Work Environment Council, NJ
New York State Parent Teacher Association (NYS PTA), NY
Quattrocchi Kwok Architects, CA
Regional Asthma Management and Prevention, CA
San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility, CA
Selah Natural Medicine Portland, OR and Kalispell Mt., OR and MT
South Texas Asthma Coalition, TX
Take Care of Your Classroom Air, TX
Women for a Healthy Environment, PA
[This statement was submitted by Claire L. Barnett, MBA, Executive
Director, Healthy Schools Network.]
______
Prepared Statement of International Fund for Animal Welfare
Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski, and Members of the
subcommittee: Thank you for the opportunity to offer testimony on the
FY23 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The
International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has 15 offices globally
and works in more than 40 countries around the world. IFAW takes a
holistic approach to innovating solutions for tough conservation
challenges like conflicts between humans and wildlife, and illegal
wildlife trafficking. Recognizing the unbreakable link between animals
and human wellbeing, we support and empower communities to coexist with
and value native wildlife and help those communities develop tools to
protect their wild heritage. IFAW is grateful for this subcommittee's
championship of strong conservation funding for the current fiscal year
(FY22), and requests your continued support for these programs in FY23.
Unfortunately, the final funding levels for the current fiscal year are
insufficient to meet the increasingly critical need to conserve the
imperiled natural systems on which we depend for humanity's very
survival: the species and ecosystems that provide us with the air we
breathe, drinkable water, and productive soil. We are therefore asking
for significant increases to key programs within your jurisdiction.
Specifically, we request $20 million for BOEM's office of environmental
programs; $30 million for the Multinational Species Conservation Funds;
$30 million for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Office of
International Affairs; $152.5 million for the FWS Office of Law
Enforcement; and $694.8 million for Endangered Species Act (ESA)
implementation across five programs. IFAW also requests the
subcommittee deny support for any projects that seek to circumvent the
ESA or National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and exclude any riders
aimed at undermining the ESA.
The year 2021 was marked, as was the year before it, by ever-more
disturbing news about the state of our natural world. It was the sixth
hottest year on record, slightly behind 2020, which was the second
hottest year in Earth's history.\1,\\2\ Changing climate conditions
spurred storms and other natural disasters of increased frequency and
severity: hurricanes, cyclones, flash floods, and wildfires wreaked
havoc in communities around the world with deadly--and costly--
results.\3\ Trafficking in wildlife and wildlife parts remained the
fourth most lucrative criminal enterprise worldwide with an estimated
annual revenue of $20 billion-add in illegal logging and fishing, and
that number skyrockets to $1 trillion or more.\4\ And we all continued
to suffer as the effects of COVID-19, the deadly zoonotic pandemic
caused by human interference with wildlife, forced the second year of
world-wide lockdowns, and a mounting toll of illness and deaths around
the globe.\5\
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\1\ https://www.noaa.gov/news/2020-was-earth-s-2nd-hottest-year-
just-behind-2016
\2\ https://www.noaa.gov/news/2021-was-worlds-6th-warmest-year-on-
record
\3\ https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/beyond-data/2021-
us-billion-dollar-weather-and-climate-disasters-historical
\4\ http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/482771571323560234/
WBGReport1017Digital.pdf
\5\ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/mapping-
spread-new-coronavirus/?itid=sf_coronavirus_sn_mapping-spread-new-
coronavirus_2
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The environmental, biodiversity, and pandemic crises we continue to
face are not the product of bad luck; they are the direct results of
human activities. On June 10, 2021, a report on Biodiversity and
Climate Change was released on a workshop co-sponsored by the
Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem
Services (IPBES) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC)--the first ever collaborative workshop co-sponsored by the two
organizations.\6\ This peer reviewed report warns that ``changes in
climate and biodiversity, driven by human activities, have combined and
increasingly threaten nature, human lives, livelihoods and well-being
around the world. Biodiversity loss and climate change are both driven
by human economic activities and mutually reinforce each other. Neither
will be successfully resolved unless both are tackled together.'' \7\
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\6\ https://ipbes.net/sites/default/files/2021-06/
20210609_workshop_report_embargo_3pm_CEST_10_june_0.pdf
\7\ https://ipbes.net/sites/default/files/2021-06/20210606
percent20Media percent20Release percent20EMBARGO percent203pm
percent20CEST percent2010 percent20June.pdf
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Fortunately, as we have been the architects of our current crises,
it is within our power to change our shared trajectory, and this
subcommittee has jurisdiction over critical programs that can help to
do just that. Given the severity of the challenges we face, IFAW
respectfully asks the subcommittee to exert its leadership in order to
reverse the alarming and interrelated climate and biodiversity
emergencies by making substantial increases in funding for the
important conservation programs within your purview. Doing so will help
to protect biodiversity, and will in turn have significant protective
effects against future wildlife-borne diseases entering the human
population, promote healthy ecosystems, fight climate change, improve
climate resilience, and safeguard human health and wellbeing.
No NEPA or ESA Waivers: IFAW urges this subcommittee to consider
the health of wildlife and the environment in all of its actions. At a
minimum, no federally-supported construction projects, including
disaster remediation projects, should be exempted from such fundamental
laws as the ESA and NEPA. NEPA and ESA analyses protect against
substantial social, environmental, and economic harm. These reviews
allow construction projects to move forward while ensuring full
disclosure of potentially harmful outcomes, informed decision-making,
effective design, and risk mitigation. There has been a distressing
trend toward exempting projects from NEPA, ESA, or other environmental
reviews and we urge the subcommittee to reverse this trend by denying
funding for any plan that does not include a commitment to bedrock
conservation laws and environmental reviews.
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management: BOEM is responsible for managing
the development of U.S. Outer Continental Shelf energy and mineral
resources in an environmentally and economically responsible way. In
the face of increasing energy demands, development of new energy and
existing energy technologies, and snowballing stress on ocean
ecosystems caused by a changing climate, human activities, and a
biodiversity crisis, that mission is more and more complicated. In
order to accomplish its mission, BOEM will need to create a
comprehensive ecosystem-based management. Importantly, the plan must
take into special consideration the critically endangered right whale
(NARW), whose population continues to fall, and now numbers well below
400 individuals. But even before that plan can be developed, there are
vital data gaps in our understanding that need to be filled through
further study. Those gaps include NARW acoustic behavior as they move
from southern calving grounds to northern latitude feeding, as well as
environmental occupancy indicators--environmental markers that can be
used to predict NARW presence in a given area. By investing in BOEM
scientific studies on the acoustic ecology of whales and environmental
occupancy indicators, we can protect the NARW population while still
ensuring robust development of offshore energy. IFAW therefore requests
$20 million for BOEM's office of environmental programs, environmental
studies program in FY23.
us fish and wildlife service priority programs
Endangered Species Act: The biodiversity crisis represents an
existential threat to humanity. Ecosystems require healthy biodiversity
and wildlife in order to remain healthy. As native species decline,
ecosystems weaken, and can even collapse, and may no longer have the
capacity to provide the services upon which we all rely: among them
drinking water, clean air, and productive soil.
The Endangered Species Act, remains our Nation's most important
conservation law, and has been successful in protecting 99 percent of
listed species from becoming extinct. While the ESA is extremely
popular among Americans regardless of political party, it continues to
face attacks through spending riders. IFAW thanks this subcommittee for
its efforts to fend off appropriations riders in past bills, and asks
that any riders aimed at undermining the ESA-including legacy riders-be
excluded from the FY23 Act.
Despite these many successes, the United States must do more to
stem the loss of our Nation's biodiversity and halt the global
extinction crisis. In October 2021, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
announced the removal of 22 animals and one plant from the endangered
species list because of extinction. This was the largest set of
delistings in the agency's history, ad these 23 species will now join
the list of 650 species in the United States that have likely been lost
to extinction.
These extinctions are due, at least in part, to the fact that as
species face ever-mounting pressures from climate change, habitat loss,
and other factors, funding for the ESA has not kept pace with the need.
Furthermore, there remains a backlog of species awaiting consideration
for protections under the act, as well as listed species in need of
additional resources to promote recovery. IFAW requests $694.8 million
across the following five programs to make up for lost ground and put
species on the path to recovery:
--Recovery Program: $283.6 million
--Planning and Consultation Programs: $157.4 million
--Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund: $161.7 million
--Listing Program: $77.3 million
--Conservation and Restoration Program: $14.8 million
FWS International Affairs: The FWS International Affairs (IA)
program is tasked with coordinating domestic and international efforts
to protect and restore wildlife and ecosystems. By overseeing domestic
conservation laws and international conservation treaties, including
the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild
Fauna and Flora (CITES), the IA program has become a keystone of U.S.
leadership on the international stage. Importantly, the IA program
supports transboundary regional projects as well as those that focus on
target species, promoting habitat conservation and restoration in areas
where wildlife is most at risk from habitat loss or wildlife
trafficking. For instance, the jaguar--the largest feline native to the
Americas--faces growing threats from poaching for the illicit trade in
their skins, fangs, and other body parts; increased funding for IA
could help to support work in Latin America and the Caribbean to
protect these magnificent cats.
The IA program also brings a critical perspective to interagency
work around preventing the spread of zoonotic diseases and adapting to
climate change by providing expertise on the fundamental importance of
wildlife and conservation to those efforts. IFAW requests $30 million
for this important program in FY23.
Multinational Species Conservation Fund (MSCF): MSCF funds protect
tigers, rhinos, African and Asian elephants, great apes, and marine and
freshwater turtles and tortoises, all of which are in constant danger
from illegal poaching and wildlife trafficking, habitat destruction,
climate change, and other pressures. These programs have helped to
sustain wildlife populations by funding groundbreaking projects that
combat poaching, reduce human-wildlife conflict and protect the vital
habitat of priority species. By promoting community engagement and
combatting trafficking, the MSCF programs also promote the rule of law
abroad and contribute to our domestic security. These programs are
highly efficient, with low administrative costs ensuring that around 95
percent of appropriated funds are distributed through grants.
Furthermore, in 2019, the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation,
Management, and Recreation Act (Public Law 116-9), reauthorized the
individual conservation acts that constitute the MSCF through 2023 with
strong bipartisan support. The MSCF is authorized at $30 million, but
it has never been fully funded. Meanwhile, pressures on these species
continue to increase around the globe. IFAW requests that $30 million
be appropriated for the MSCF for FY23.
Office of Law Enforcement: The Office of Law Enforcement (OLE)
within the FWS is on the front lines of wildlife crime, inspecting
wildlife shipments, conducting investigations, and enforcing Federal
wildlife laws to protect fish, wildlife, plants, and ecosystems. The
OLE combats poaching and wildlife trafficking, breaking up
international criminal rings that not only harm wildlife, but may also
engage in other illicit activities.
Among other things, the small but mighty force at OLE sends
experienced FWS attaches to strategic regions where they combat
wildlife trafficking by supporting and advising foreign partners. In
early February, the House passed H.R. 4521, the America COMPETES Act,
which included in its base text language authorizing a significant
expansion of the attache program and an additional $150 million
annually for that purpose. IFAW requests a significant increase for OLE
with the intention that $37.5 million, or one quarter of the newly
appropriated funds, should be used to allow FWS to begin the expansion
of the attache program. Of those funds, we request at least $1million
be made available to USFWS law enforcement attaches to carry out
operations abroad, as these operations are essential to identifying key
actors along the illegal trade chain and dismantling criminal networks.
As the world continues to battle a novel coronavirus with origins
in wildlife, the OLE's inspection and enforcement responsibilities take
on even greater import. This program is critical both to domestic and
international conservation efforts and to national health and security.
IFAW requests $152.5 million in FY23 for OLE.
conclusion
In closing, thank you for the opportunity to share IFAW's funding
priorities to promote conservation in the fiscal year 2023 Interior,
Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. Wildlife and their
habitats are more than our National heritage; they are essential to
human health and welfare, and to domestic and international security.
We appreciate the continued leadership of this subcommittee on
conservation efforts globally and within the United States. With your
support, we can reverse the tide of extinction, protect human health,
and promote a better future for generations of wildlife lovers and
Americans yet to come.
[This statement was submitted by Kate Wall, Senior Legislative
Manager, International Fund for Animal Welfare.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Interstate Mining Compact Commission
Compact Commission (IMCC). My address is 435 Carlisle Drive,
Herndon, VA 20190. My phone number is 703 709 8654. My email is
[email protected]. We request that $69.7 million be provided in the
budget of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement
(OSMRE) of the Department of the Interior for State and Tribal
regulatory grants under Title V of the Surface Mine Control and
Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA) for Fiscal Year 2023.
I appreciate the opportunity to present this statement conveying
the views of IMCC's 26 member States on the fiscal Year 2023 budget for
OSMRE. The Compact is comprised of 26 States that together produce over
98 percent of the Nation's coal, as well as other important minerals.
Among the Compact's purposes are to advance the protection and
restoration of land, water and other resources affected by mining
through the encouragement of programs in each of the party States that
will achieve comparable results in protecting, conserving and improving
the usefulness of natural resources.
States are given exclusive regulatory jurisdiction over the
environmental impacts of coal mining under Title V of SMCRA. This means
that the core regulatory functions under this Federal law are being
carried out at the state level by IMCC member States. Primacy States
perform all the duties mandated by SMCRA, including inspection and
enforcement, ensuring that timely reclamation occurs following mining,
designating lands as unsuitable for mining and permitting. In addition
to performing the regulatory work Congress required in SMCRA, States
pay a significant portion of the cost of meeting this mandate. Half of
the cost of regulation on non-federal lands is borne by the States. In
the aggregate, the States are paying approximately 46 percent of the
total cost of SMCRA regulation (all of the cost of regulation on
Federal lands is borne by the Federal Government). In addition to the
fact that States bear a large part of the cost of regulation, another
feature of state regulation that makes it cost-effective is lower
personnel cost. The biggest single category of program expense is
payroll and state pay scales are, for the most part, lower than those
of the Federal Government. Accordingly, fulfilling the Federal mandate
for effective environmental regulation of coal mining impacts comes at
a bargain to the Federal Government.
It is no secret that coal production in America has declined.
Instead of simplifying the regulatory challenge for States, the effect
of this decline has been the opposite. The challenge of effectively
regulating the environmental impacts of an industry in decline is much
greater than when its markets were robust. Not only do States have the
challenge of gaining compliance from mine operators who face declining
cash flow, they also have the challenge of navigating their way through
complex, high-stakes bankruptcies. Meanwhile, the number of permits
that States must inspect has not declined at anywhere close to the
falling rate of coal production. Adequate funding for protection of
people and the environment from the adverse impacts of coal mining is
more important than ever. Continued appropriation of adequate funding
for State regulatory programs is essential if these programs are to
achieve the objectives Congress established for them.
Congress has appropriated $68.59 million in Federal funding for
State and Tribal SMCRA Title V regulatory programs in six of the last
seven fiscal years.\1\ This has been done in the face of administration
budgets over the last 4 years that would have gutted appropriations for
State regulatory programs, cutting them by as much as $25 million per
year (proposed budget fiscal Year 2021). Congress has wisely rejected
these proposed reductions and continued a much-needed trend of
appropriating an amount for State regulatory grants that aligns closely
with the States demonstrated needs. The States are grateful for this.
Against this amount, consider that the total grant requests for all
State and Tribal Title V regulatory programs combined have consistently
exceeded $70 million. See, Grants Resources (osmre.gov). For the last
five fiscal years, the total of State and Tribal Title V budget
requests has ranged from $70 to $76 million. In Fiscal Year 2021, State
and Tribal grant requests totaled $72.75 million. These requests
represent the amounts the States believe they will need from the
Federal Government to operate their regulatory programs for the year.
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\1\ Grant funding for the Tribes' regulatory effort also comes from
this appropriation. As appropriate in context, references herein to
``States'' should be read to include the Tribes.
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The amount the States have been able to actually spend for
operation of these regulatory programs has averaged $63 million per
year. Importantly, the gap between actual expenditures and the States'
projected funding needs has been closing. The State's actual
expenditures are on an upward trend. A variety of factors have
prevented the States from spending all of their budgeted funds. These
generally include the time it takes to fill vacancies under state
personnel procedures, State-wide hiring and/or spending freezes imposed
when States face budgetary issues and state revenue shortages that
affect a State's ability to match Federal dollars for program
operation. State primacy under the SMCRA regulatory program dates to
the early 1980's. As this regulatory program reached maturity in recent
years, employees who began their employment when the State programs
began have reached retirement age and moved on. When these senior
employees have retired, they have often been replaced from within by a
less senior employee. Less senior employees have often been replaced by
junior employees, who have been replaced by new hires. It is not
unusual for a State to go through the hiring process three times to
eliminate the vacancy caused by a single retirement. During the time
such vacancies persist, the money budgeted for the positions
necessarily is not being spent. Because personnel costs are the biggest
single cost driver for most State programs, vacancies are among the
biggest of the challenges that a State program faces in operating
according to budget. As the declining gap between budget needs and
actual expenditures may demonstrate, the States are nearly past this
wave of retirements and the multiple vacancies that can result from
them. Multiple vacancies should pose less of a budgetary challenge in
the future, so the States' future needs from the Federal Government
should be closer to what they have budgeted.
With many States now in a position to utilize more of their full
grant amount, it is imperative that funding be maintained at a level
that meets the estimates of program needs the States made in their
budget requests. Those requests reflect the ongoing work associated
with state program implementation including permit reviews, inspections
and enforcement at all inspectable units. Even with reduced coal
production, the States' workload has not correspondingly decreased--and
in many cases has increased given the tenuous financial condition of
some coal companies. Higher levels of vigilance are necessary to ensure
contemporaneous reclamation and abatement of violations.
This calls for vigilance by Congress. Inflation and other costs
beyond the control of the States cannot be allowed to undermine State
efforts to realize needed program improvements and enhancements or,
more importantly, to jeopardize their efforts to minimize the potential
adverse impacts of coal extraction operations on people and the
environment. Our analysis of state program funding needs for fiscal
Year 2023 based on recent estimates indicate that a full Federal
appropriation of $68.6 million will be required for the existing State
and Tribal programs. This represents a good middle ground figure that
balances the need to assure that adequate funds will be available to
enable the States to perform this vital work with the recognition that
factors beyond state control may continue to have some effect on
States' ability to spend the entirety of their projected regulatory
budgets. In addition, sufficient funds need to be provided for the new
state program in Tennessee. It will be seeking a program development
grant of $1.1 million in fiscal Year 2023. Tennessee will need $1.3
million in fiscal Year 2024, when it is expected to attain primacy.\2\
Therefore, we urge appropriation of $69.69 million for State Title V
grants.
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\2\ While money for the Tennessee program might be an increase in
the appropriation for State grants under SMCRA, it should be noted that
it is merely a shift in existing SMCRA funding. OSMRE currently bears
the entire cost of operating the Tennessee program from funds it
receives for operation of Federal regulatory programs. When Tennessee
attains primacy, the State will begin to bear half of the cost of the
program there, with the other half coming from OSMRE's funds for state
program grants. We urge you to consult OSMRE regarding the fiscal
impact of Tennessee primacy on OSMRE.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We acknowledge that over the course of many years, the gap between
States' actual program expenditures and the amount of their budget
requests for regulatory grants caused a balance of approximately $30
million in unspent funds to accumulate. This was primarily the result
of two factors: 1) the fact that appropriations for State regulatory
grants are treated as 2-year money, thereby providing flexibility for
the use of these moneys and 2) a few tough years where States faced
particular challenges in obtaining state share match moneys and/or
expending grant funding before the end of the Federal fiscal year. Now,
however, this accumulated balance has been all but eliminated. As
adopted, the Fiscal Year 2021 funding bill (H.R. 133) rescinded $25
million of this balance. Having a small cushion of available carryover
funding provides the certainty and confidence that both OSMRE and the
States require in managing funding for these critical programs.
Congress should specifically mandate through report language that all
carryover funds from past fiscal years can only be used to fund State
regulatory program needs. It would also be beneficial to state program
implementation if OSMRE was authorized to utilize these carryover funds
for state program enhancement activities (without matching
requirements) for such critical program topics as electronic
permitting, mine mapping, and benchmarking workshops.
Clear indications from Congress that reliable, consistent funding
will continue into the future has done much to stimulate support for
these programs by State legislatures and budget officers who, in the
face of difficult fiscal climates and constraints, have had to deal
with the challenge of matching Federal grant dollars with state funds.
This is particularly true for those States whose match is partially
based on fees from the mining industry, where significant reductions in
mining and permitting activity translate to lower revenue, but not
necessarily a corresponding reduction in the volume of regulatory work
for State agencies. Be aware that any cut in Federal funding generally
translates to an additional cut of an equal amount for overall program
funding for States, especially those without Federal lands, because, as
a general matter, these States can only match the grant funds they
receive from the Federal Government.
For all the above reasons, we urge Congress to approve not less
than $69.7 million for State and Tribal Title V regulatory grants in
fiscal Year 2023, the same amount enacted by Congress in most of the
recent fiscal years, plus an additional $1.1 million to cover the grant
needs of the State of Tennessee in its efforts to attain primacy. In
doing so, Congress will continue its commitment to ensuring the States
have the resources they need to continue their work on the forefront of
environmental protection and preservation of public health and safety.
In addition to State regulatory grants, the States have a great
degree of interest in the appropriations for OSMRE's National Technical
Training Program (NTTP) and Technical Information and Professional
Service (TIPS). The States rely heavily on the NTTP and TIPS training
classes for their new employees and for refresher courses for more
seasoned employees. These training programs are especially important as
States find themselves at a point where many of their employees are
finishing careers and must be replaced with less experienced people.
Any adjustments to these two programs should involve the States working
through the NTTP/TIPS Steering Committee.
With regard to funding for State Title IV Abandoned Mine Land (AML)
program grants, the States and Tribes should receive the mandatory
appropriation million (before sequestration) in fiscal Year 2023. We
also strongly support clarification of the Infrastructure Investment
and Jobs Act (IIJA) to allow States to dedicate a portion of the grant
funds they are already slated to receive under the IIJA to interest
bearing state accounts to pay for the long-term costs of addressing
acid mine drainage, as they have done in the past under the fee-based
AML program, as well as appropriation of $115 million for the AML
economic revitalization (AMLER) program for economic and community
development goals. IMCC also supports a continuation of funding for the
watershed cooperative agreements at $1.5 million. Much valuable work
has been accomplished through this program, especially given the
matching funds that come from other sources besides OSMRE's share for
these worthwhile projects.
A forward-looking observation that should be made concerns the
potential impact of actions to eliminate emissions of greenhouse
gasses. A foreseeable collateral impact of greenhouse gas regulation
may be reduction or elimination of the revenue from the coal industry
many States have been using to pay for their share of the cost of their
SMCRA regulatory programs. If this happens, the States are likely to
need a significant increase in the Federal Government's share of
regulatory program funding to make up the difference. In aftermath of
any significant new regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, well-funded
State regulatory programs will be essential to the effort to
effectively address the environmental impacts of existing mines.
We appreciate the opportunity to submit this statement on OSMRE's
budget for fiscal Year 2023. We also endorse the statement of the
National Association of Abandoned Mine Land Programs (NAAMLP), which
goes into greater detail regarding the implications of OSMRE's funding
for the States and Tribes related to the AML program. We would be happy
to answer any questions.
[This statement was submitted by Thomas L. Clarke, Executive
Director of the Interstate Mining Compact Commission.]
______
Prepared Statement of Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe
On behalf of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe, I am pleased to submit
this written testimony on our funding priorities and requests for the
Fiscal Year 2023 Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and Indian Health
Service (IHS) budgets. Ensuring Tribal Nations have the tools and
resources for effective and efficient governmental operations is
critical to achieving Tribal self-sufficiency and fulfilling the
promises in the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act
(ISDEAA). Tribal Nations have developed comprehensive approaches to
implementing programs and services at the local level that address our
Tribal citizens and community's critical needs and align with our
unique cultures, traditions, values, and institutions.
The success we have attained through the implementation of Self-
Governance demonstrates that continued Federal support is invaluable to
growing sustainable Tribal economies that will enable us to attain our
goal of self-sufficiency. We commend Congress and the Biden/Harris
Administration for the historic levels of health and economic relief
funding that enabled Tribes to stabilize their government operations
and begin to re-build their economies following the devastating
aftermath of the pandemic that disproportionately impacted American
Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN). However, as documented in the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights Reports ``A Quiet Crisis'' (2003) and
``Broken Promises'' (2018), Tribal programs have been chronically
underfunded and, at times, inefficiently structured for decades leaving
Tribes unable to address their community's basic needs and leaving our
citizens vulnerable to disease and financial devastation.
As we continue to urge Congress to provide robust investments in
Tribal programs and services, the structural deficiencies across the
Federal system also need to be addressed. Funding silos, restrictions
on the use of funds, bureaucratic impediments in the form of outdated
and paternalistic regulatory requirements and processes, and the
inability to utilize a single funding mechanism, such as, our Self-
Governance compacts to combine resources and address critical needs
creates programmatic inefficiencies and stifles Tribal Self-Governance
and self-sufficiency. Congress has already created a solution to these
issues--Tribal Self-Governance. The ISDEAA empowers Tribes to employ
holistic techniques, develop innovative solutions, and enter successful
partnerships that leverage the Federal dollar and allow us to realize a
greater return on the Federal investment.
Congress can further Tribal Self-Governance and support strong
Tribal governments, economies, and communities through the following
actions: enact the Build Back Better Act, allow funding from all
Federal departments and agencies to be allocated through ISDEAA Funding
Agreements, empower Tribes with maximum funding flexibility to improve
programmatic outcomes, provide direct funding to Tribes rather than
funneling funding through States, and require the Executive Branch to
submit an annual estimate of the total cost to fully fund Tribal trust
and treaty obligations.
Tribal Top Three Priorities and Recommendations for the BIA/BIE and
IHS:
1. Advanced Appropriations for Tribal Programs and Services
2. Mandatory Appropriations for Section 105(l) Leases and Contract
Support Costs
3. Increase Funding for Tribal Base Budgets
Advance Appropriations for Tribal Programs and Services-- Providing
appropriations 1 year in advance for the BIA, BIE and IHS will mitigate
the adverse financial effects of Federal budgetary uncertainties and
allow Tribes to engage in more effective strategic planning, spend
funds more efficiently, grow our Tribal economies and businesses and
increase the quality of care and well-being of our Tribal citizens and
community. Tribal Nations are resilient but the continuous delays and/
or lapse in Federal appropriations continues to disrupt the execution
of Tribal government operations. The Federal Government has a legal and
moral obligation to make sure that funding for trust and treaty
obligations is not delayed. Time is of the essence when it comes to the
survival of our people, our language, our culture, our homelands and
resources and our sovereignty. Advance appropriations is a budgetary
solution that does not impact spending caps and allows Tribes to
continue to provide critical services.
Reclassify Discretionary Spending for Section 105(l) Leases and
Contract Support Costs to Mandatory-- The agencies are legally required
to compensate Tribes for Section 105(l) lease obligations and contract
support costs (CSC) in accordance with the ISDEAA, but these
obligations have grown tremendously since their inception. As far back
as 2014, Congress acknowledged that obligations of this nature are
typically addressed under mandatory appropriations because they have
the potential to impact other programs. Separate, indefinite accounts
were established to support Section105(l) leases and CSC but have
resulted in the unintended reduction of funding for critical Tribal
programs. Reclassifying mandatory funding for CSC and 105(l) leases is
needed to prevent programmatic decreases. In addition, many Tribes are
the only healthcare providers in their rural communities and the only
ones who will accept Medicare and Medicaid patients. Tribes generate
third party revenue by serving these individuals as authorized under
Section 813 of the IHCIA and this money in turn is used to provide
healthcare to their own citizens. The IHS, however, has adopted a
policy that denies compensation to Tribes for the portion of their
healthcare facility that the agency decides serves non-beneficiaries
even though Congress authorized such services under Section 813 of the
IHCIA. One may venture to ask where Tribes are supposed to provide
these individuals healthcare if not in their own facilities and why the
IHS is making it harder for Tribes to raise revenue to supplement their
underfunded healthcare services? We urge Congress to take legislative
action to clarify its intent that space used to provide services within
the scope of the ISDEAA to any patient is compensable under 105(l).
Increase Funding for Tribal Base Budgets-- Tribal Priority
Allocations (TPA) and Recurring Programs are consistently identified as
funding priorities by the Tribal Interior Budget Council (TIBC) because
they provide core funding that supports critical government programs
and services. Flexibility in the use of funds to support local needs is
an important aspect of this funding. TPA and Recurring Program funding
provides security and certainty for Tribes rather than funding provided
through grant dollars. There has been a growing trend among agencies to
fund Tribal programs and services with grant dollars rather than
providing base and recurring funding. Grant funding is incongruent with
the trust and treaty obligations.
Tribal Priorities, National & Regional Requests and Recommendations for
the BIA:
1. Trust Natural Resources/Treaty Rights/Habitat Restoration/
Climate Resiliency
--$60 million BIA Rights Protection Implementation
--$17.1 million Western Washington Fisheries Management
--$10 million Wildlife & Parks Program TPA
--$35 million BIA Climate Resilience
2. Human Services
--$70 million Social Services
--$100 million Welfare Assistance
--$30 million Indian Child Welfare Act
$60 million--BIA Rights Protection Implementation-- Rights
Protection implementation is essential to preserve our Tribal treaty
rights through resource management activities. The Federal investment
in our trust natural resources serves two primary purposes. It allows
us to fulfill our environmental stewardship responsibilities through
the protection and restoration of the ecosystems and habitats of our
Tribal homelands and waters through sustainable conservation policies
and practices. These funds also foster Tribal self-sufficiency and
support our economy by allowing us to cultivate partnerships with State
and local governments and other entities, create jobs for our Tribal
citizens and community members, and promote and advance trade of our
marine resources in local, regional, national, and international
markets.
$17.1 million--Western Washington Fisheries Management-- This
critical funding supports Tribal co-management activities of our treaty
resources with the state of Washington. This funding is critical to
support day to day activities and monitoring of endangered habitat and
fish stocks. Increased commercial and recreational activities coupled
with the severe consequences of climate change has increased the
urgency and costs associated with protecting our treaty resources. The
vitality and sustainability of our natural resources is integral to the
health and welfare of our Tribal citizens, communities, culture and
religious practices and economies.
$15 million Wildlife and Parks-- Aquaculture allows us to
demonstrate best practices in restoring our waterways, producing more
seafood to alleviate food insecurity, combining our Tribal ecological
knowledge with advanced technology in marine science to address
endangered species concerns, and create economic opportunities while at
the same time protecting the environment and preserving our cultural
heritage and traditional practices. This funding supports our hatchery
operations that harvest salmon, oysters and other fish and shellfish
stocks. Our Tribal culture and traditions, ceremonies and subsistence
are dependent on the survival of these species.
$35 million BIA Climate Resilience-- Climate resilience funding is
essential to restore ecological functions, healthy habitats, and
protect our resources. Our Tribal Treaty Rights are at risk. Climate
change is having a profound impact on Tribal communities, lands,
resources and infrastructure and degradation of our natural environment
is happening faster than we can restore it in the Northwest.
$200 million Human Services/Social Services/Welfare Assistance/
ICWA-- Funding for our social service programs is an investment in our
most important resources, our elders, our children, and our Tribal
families. AI/AN children have a unique legal status as citizens of
Tribal governments and the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) provides
safeguards to maintain Tribal and family connections and relationships.
We lead our citizens down the path of self-sufficiency by developing
their leadership skills, educational skills, job skills, and fostering
their health and well-being in a culturally appropriate way. The return
on this investment is measured by the increased number of Tribal
citizens and descendants entering higher education and earning degrees,
the composition of our growing workforce with over 80 percent comprised
of Tribal citizens, descendants, and other Natives, participation in
cultural preservation classes that instill a sense of pride in our
people to create marketable products that are sold through the Tribe's
retail outlet. Our history remains embedded throughout the community
and among the generations through flourishing language, traditional
foods, and culture programs.
Tribal Priorities, National and Regional Requests and
Recommendations for the IHS:
1. $2.9 billion to Support Current Services
2. $1 billion for Purchased and Referred Care
3. $82 million Behavioral Health Mental and Alcohol and Substance
Abuse
$2.9 billion to Support Current Services-- The Federal trust
obligation requires significant investment in Tribal healthcare
systems. To maintain current services, factors such as the inflationary
rate, pay costs, contract support costs, population growth and staffing
needs for recently constructed facilities all need to be fully funded.
When these mandatory factors are not funded, Tribes must supplement
programs with their own limited revenue, or chose between limiting
services or shutting down services completely.
$1 billion Purchased and Referred Care (PRC)-- PRC funds are used
to purchase essential health care services, including inpatient and
outpatient care, routine emergency ambulatory care, transportation, and
medical support services, such as diagnostic imaging, physical therapy,
laboratory, nutrition, and pharmacy services. PRC funds are extremely
important to the Portland Area Tribes because the Portland Area lacks
hospitals and specialty care centers, so Tribes in the Northwest are
forced to turn to the private sector to fulfill this need.
$82 million Behavioral Health Mental and Alcohol and Substance
Abuse--The Jamestown Healing Clinic will provide a holistic approach to
treatment for those who suffer from opioid use disorder through the
provision of wrap-around services, to include, primary care, dental
services, transportation to and from the clinic, employment, housing,
and other associated needs.
[This statement was submitted by W. Ron Allen, Tribal Chairman/CEO,
Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe.]
______
Prepared Statement of Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
Indians
On behalf of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
Indians, I am pleased to submit testimony concerning the Tribe's fiscal
Year 2023 funding needs in the Indian Health Service (IHS) account. For
fiscal Year 2023, the Tribe urges the subcommittee to provide advance
appropriations for the IHS; to prioritize funding increases to the
Service's Clinical Services programs, including Alcohol and Substance
Abuse, Mental Health, and Purchased/Referred Care (P/RC) programs; and
to increase appropriations for IHS Facilities construction funds so
that we can renovate or expand health facility space. The COVID-19
pandemic drove home to us our need for greater facility space and
health professionals. Due to the need to sanitize exam rooms and tables
between patient visits, health staff saw fewer patients each day. As a
rural Indian Tribe, healthcare staff retention is also one of our
biggest challenges. The loss of our health professionals to better
paying competitors reduces our ability to provide the continuum of care
our Tribal members require to lead healthy lives and for others to
overcome addictions and return to their families and jobs as healthy
individuals.
As one Tribal health official stated, COVID-19 was the
``earthquake'' and the Tribe is now dealing with the ``Tsunami'' that
follows. The movement to telework is accelerating and the Tribe must
change our manner of doing business if we are to retain the valued
health and other essential staff we employ on our rural Reservation.
The Tribe continues to face opioid, alcohol, and other drug misuse
among our members. We are also finding that we are competing with
larger health care facilities/conglomerates which offer higher salaries
and signing/retention bonuses for many of our healthcare service
providers. These competitors effectively price the Tribe out of the
hiring market for these essential workers. Long drive times from Wausau
and Merrill, WI to Lac du Flambeau, coupled with rising gas prices and
limited housing on our reservation or off-reservation towns, also
restrict our ability to recruit and retain professional healthcare
staff. With additional Federal funding, and flexibility as to how we
use those funds, we are better positioned to offer more competitive
salaries and other work incentives, including flex-time work hours/
telecommuting (where possible) for the health care professionals,
administrative staff, and other employees we require to staff our
programs and meet the health and other needs of our members.
The Tribe greatly appreciates the bipartisan work of the
subcommittee on behalf of the Indian nations. The funds the
subcommittee appropriated through the fiscal Year 2021 Consolidated
Appropriations Act, CARES Act, and ARPA helped sustain the Tribe
through the worst of the pandemic. These funds gave us the resources to
actively combat and mitigate the spread of the Coronavirus on our
Reservation. We were able to help Tribal businesses and families, and
ensure that essential governmental services continued. Through our
health programs and with Federal and State funding, we were able to
provide:
--contact tracing/COVID follow-up;
--vaccinations;
--COVID-19 testing;
--COVID-19 education;
--coordinated response with IHS, State and local neighboring clinics
to increase vaccinations among community members;
--two additional negative pressure rooms (bringing total to 3) to see
a greater number of patients experiencing COVID-like symptoms
(ARPA-funded);
--installation of a specialized fume hood in the laboratory that
trapped and exhausts gases and nanoparticles;
--point-of-care PCR testing units that produced COVID tests in one
hour;
--guidance to Incident Command Team/Community/and the Tribal Council.
We were also able to coordinate with Wisconsin State authorities
and initially obtained COVID-19 testing with the State National Guard.
Subsequently, we began testing using our own staff and utilized support
services from the State such as the State Laboratory of Hygiene.
indian health service programs
The Tribe greatly appreciates the subcommittee's bipartisan
commitment to increase funding for the Service. The Tribe provides
comprehensive health services through the Peter Christensen Health
Center, Dental Program, the Family Resource Center, and our in-patient
Treatment Center (Gookomis Endaad). The health programs we provide are
vital to ensuring the support and preservation of family life and
wellbeing by providing such services as outpatient mental health,
inpatient & outpatient alcohol and other drug abuse, and psychological
consults. The Health Center provides quality health care and offers a
full range of family medical services by Board Certified family
physicians, advanced practice nurse practitioner and physician-
assistants serving more than 5,500 patients.
I would like to illustrate our program challenges by discussing the
Tribe's alcohol and drug treatment program, Gookomis Endaad, ``Your
Grandmother's House.'' This 18-bed in-patient treatment program was
impacted by COVID-19 as well as by our challenges to staff full-time
health counselors. The facility offers in-patient and out-patient
behavioral health treatment for Alcohol and/or Drugs (AODA) with co-
occurring disorders. It is a Commission on Accreditation of
Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) accredited drug treatment facility
licensed by the State of Wisconsin. Treatment programs are 90-days with
a 90-day extension or more, if required.
Staff at Gookomis Endaad include a Mental Health and AODA
Counselor, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, Licensed Nurse, Clinical
Social Worker, and a Cultural Liaison. Recovery Coaches also assist
clients daily as they move through the program schedule and chaperone
outside activities. Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT), a cognitive
behavioral treatment and behavioral modification model, is taught and
used in every aspect of the program. Clients move through not only MRT
levels but through a second level system that allows clients to earn
increased privileges as they practice and demonstrate positive behavior
and attitudes in individual and group therapies and activities of daily
living. The Tribe funds the Gookomis Endaad with Service funds from the
Alcohol and Substance Abuse and Mental Health programs within the
Service's Clinical Services account, Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration (SAMHSA) awards, and Tribal discretionary
program funds.
COVID-19 and the loss of our Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse (AODA)
counselors shuttered our program for over a year. The Program
temporarily shut down in spring 2020 along with the rest of the Tribe
to mitigate the spread of infection. When reopened, we resumed services
under strict COVID protocols in compliance with CDC recommendations and
the recommendations from our Medical Director. When the facility
reopened in July 2020, we operated at one-half capacity (with only male
clients) so that the female wing was available for COVID quarantine
which we could not accommodate at our other health facilities. We had a
contracted mental health counselor and a full- time AODA counselor.
We suffered another blow to our program when our founding AODA
counselor passed away in late November 2020. This individual
established our treatment model at Gookomis Endaad. Following his
death, we utilized available counselors to keep Gookomis Endaad open,
but with the loss of additional counselors working long hours with
increased caseloads, we suspended services at Gookomis Endaad in May
2021. The program has been closed for over a year. We have five Tribal
members in off-reservation drug or alcohol treatment facility programs
in Wisconsin and Michigan that average 30-45 day stays at a cost to the
Tribe $45,000/month. Every week, we receive calls from Tribal members
whose loved ones require long-term alcohol and/or drug treatment
rehabilitation counseling and services. Yesterday, a worried mother
tearfully asked that I find space for a loved one struggling with
addiction. When we can reopen Gookomis Endaad, which we hope to do this
spring, we are certain that we will be at full capacity for men and
women.
The Tribe greatly prefers to operate our culturally-appropriate
drug and alcohol treatment programs. Providing local treatment also
ensures that our patients receive the continuum of care they require,
including dental, primary care, and diabetes treatment. Off-reservation
programs are costly and serve short-term needs, but they are no
substitute for the quality of care and support services our members
should receive to ensure that all their healthcare needs are addressed.
This better ensures their successful treatment and integration back
into the Tribal community.
With the rise of telehealth therapy, Gookomis Endaad is forced to
compete with many telehealth companies such as Aspirus and Marshfield
which were offering the ability to work from home along with large
signing bonus that the Tribe cannot compete with. The Tribe lost
several AODA applicants due to competing offers. Other communities near
us and around the State are also losing clinicians to telehealth. This
results in fierce competition for clinicians. With the rising cost of
fuel, we worry that health staff commuting from Wausau and Merrill may
take jobs closer to their homes rather than travel the 160-mile or 120-
mile roundtrip to the Reservation.
Housing shortages also prevent our ability to successfully recruit
and retain health and other professionals. There is little housing
available on our Reservation and rental housing in adjoining
communities is limited. This serves as a limitation on recruiting
health professionals to fill our advertised positions. Young
professionals with families prefer to rent rather than purchase homes
when taking new positions and moving families and children into new
communities. Only after working for a period of time do such
professionals consider purchasing a home.
The Tribe also appreciates the subcommittee's careful attention to
the issue of 105(l) leases. We strongly support keeping such costs an
``indefinite appropriation,'' but with the goal of making these costs
mandatory (along with contract support costs) so that such costs do not
continue to stress the limited funding allocation the subcommittee
receives.
The pandemic period highlighted critical infrastructure needs for
the Tribe:
--Additional Services funding is required to provide expanded
telehealth services (mental health, alcohol and other drug
abuse and primary care), and to ensure that our facilities can
properly bill for those services, as a response to the COVID
pandemic. Alternative work arrangements can help the Tribe
retain qualified professionals;
--Additional Services funding is also needed to support our Tribe's
efforts to be more competitive in the recruitment, hiring, and
retention of qualified health professionals across Tribal
departments/programs that serve the Tribal population. During
the height of the COVID pandemic, work-from-home technology and
policies were put into place, and we learned that many of these
changes actually increased productivity and services for some
departments/programs. Unfortunately, once we began to implement
our ``in-person'' return-to-work policies, we have seen a
dramatic down-turn in employee retention. We are seeing an
expansion in local employers who have begun to offer modified
work (i.e., ``flex'') schedules, hybrid (blend of in-person,
work-from-home) schedules, or full work-from-home schedule.
These are post-effects of the COVID pandemic, and our Tribe
should be able to utilize increased Federal monies to respond
to those hiring challenges;
--Increased Services funding is required to expand the Peter
Christensen Health Center's efforts to provide a formalized
continuum of care, among each element (Health Center, PC-
Dental, Family Resource Center-outpatient mental health and
AODA counseling center, and Gookomis Endaad) of health care and
wellness. This should also include an expansion of funding
solely dedicated to formalized after-care services for
community members struggling with addiction and overall health
and wellness;
--Increased Services Facilities construction funds (including
discretionary and competitive grant opportunities for Tribes)
to permit the Tribe to plan, design, and expand our existing
facility space, such as for an urgent care wing with separate
waiting area to support patients presenting COVID-like
symptoms, and funds to renovate or relocate our pharmacy to
allow drive-thru services where pharmacists can safely see and
interact with far more patients and dispense prescription
medications. During the pandemic, Tribal members parked in the
pharmacy parking lot and pharmacy technicians delivered
prescriptions to them after pharmacists completed verification
checks by phone.
We encourage the subcommittee to provide flexibility to Tribes in
the fiscal Year 2023 appropriation for IHS so that we can address
staffing shortages, staff housing, tele-work, and other incentive
measures to keep the dedicated health professionals, administrators and
other essential workers who deliver 110 percent every day. When Tribes
have the ability to compete successfully for the talented professionals
who are motivated to work in rural Tribal communities, we can create a
more stable and healthy community. Recognizing infrastructure and
staffing limitations in Tribal communities and providing Tribes with
the resources that allow us to implement innovative solutions ensures
that rural Tribal communities can thrive in the 21st Century and remain
vibrant centers of Tribal culture and community.
[This statement was submitted by John Johnson, Sr., President, Lac
du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians.]
______
Prepared Statement of League of American Orchestras
The League of American Orchestras urges the Senate Interior,
Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations subcommittee to
support for fiscal year 2023 a funding level of $203.55 million for the
National Endowment for the Arts, as recommended by President Biden.
Like many artists and arts organizations throughout the country, we
have been very encouraged to see the agency receive ongoing bipartisan
support from the subcommittee and Congress over the last several years.
As we collectively enter the next phase of resuming a more
interconnected and interactive life, it is essential for the arts to
continue receiving strong Federal support that helps communities across
the country to celebrate life, mourn those we have lost, process our
angst over troubling global conflicts, and so much more. The arts have
always provided a productive, creative way to express the full range of
what makes us human, and the past few years truly necessitate that
children and adults have every opportunity to come together and share
in the life-changing and life-affirming experience of engaging with the
arts.
The NEA is strongly valued because of the leadership it provides
through direct and indirect grantmaking, cross-cutting research, and
convenings that bring together arts organizations and practitioners for
shared learning. A direct grant awarded by the National Endowment for
the Arts is a significant honor and designation that conveys an
organization, regardless of its size or geographic location, has passed
a rigorous panel review and offers an artistic engagement worthy of
limited Federal dollars.
Orchestras undertake countless projects and continually innovate to
enhance the experience of live music for people of all ages. Being
responsive to community needs is at the heart of every nonprofit
organization's mission, and orchestras have been no exception to
learning new ways of engaging audiences when traditional ways of
gathering were so suddenly disrupted. The arts are a vital part of
every community's ecology, and orchestras large and small provide
solace, gathering, renewal, and hope for its audiences, who are more
than mere listeners but increasingly serve as co-curators of the kind
of art they most wish to experience. Grants from the National Endowment
for the Arts are an essential form of Federal support, and in some
cases a lifeline during very precarious times. Moreover, the Federal
support pays dividends in the other forms of support it leverages, and
it inspires others who seek to innovate and draw inspiration from
colleagues near and far.
The following orchestral examples illustrate the range of activity
and community engagement the NEA helps make possible.
The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra received an NEA Grants for Arts
Project award to support its Sandbox composer residency project, a
pilot initiative driven by the orchestra's artistic vision committee.
The annual residency will place the composer in the center of the
orchestra's programs, working directly with musicians through regular
rehearsals to try out works in progress, encouraging deeper
collaboration and transparency in the artistic development process and
grounding new works in the here and now. The community will have
opportunities to connect with the composer and orchestra musicians
through panel discussions, interviews, open rehearsals, talk-back
sessions, social media and blog content, and gatherings. Performances
and related activities will take place at the Ordway Concert Hall and
in numerous neighborhood venues throughout the Twin Cities, serving
many Minneapolis/St. Paul audiences.
The curation of engaging, illuminating programming is at the heart
of The Cleveland Orchestra's (TCO) ``Outsiders in Opera and Music''
program, featuring Giuseppe Verdi's opera ``Otello,'' based on
Shakespeare's tragedy centered on a Moorish character who was treated
as an outsider. Continuing this theme, TCO will present several
education concerts for elementary and middle grade students. For Grades
3-5 students, ``Music's Many Voices'' will include repertoire by
composers of many cultures, races, and genders such as Gioachino
Rossini, William Grant Still, Carlos Chavez, Reena Esmail, Huang Ruo,
Alejandro Garcia Caturla, and John Williams. For Grades 6-8 students,
performances will feature the music of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de
Saint-Georges, a Black composer who was a contemporary of Mozart. In
addition, TCO will present an ensemble program, Honoring Black
Composers, at Karamu House Theatre and in Reinberger Chamber Hall this
May as preludes to non-operatic concerts that continue to explore the
'outsiders' composers festival theme.
Another orchestra exploring a mixture of genres is the Pensacola
Symphony Orchestra, which in January of this year presented an open
dress rehearsal and a concert performance pairing symphonic music with
the works of local poets. ``Lyric for Strings,'' written by Pulitzer
Prize-winning Black American composer George Walker to commemorate the
loss of his grandmother, a formerly enslaved person, was presented as a
companion piece to a poem by Pensacola poet Charles McCaskill, Jr.
titled, ``If These Bricks Could Breathe.'' The poem shared the feeling
of loss in the Pensacola community following the razing of the home of
John Sunday, a member of the Union Army, a community leader, and one of
the first Black men to serve in the Florida House of Representatives
and also the Pensacola City Council. Northwest Florida Poet Laureate,
Jamey Jones helped to curate the concert and was also a participant in
the project with his poem ``Nine River Ways,'' which paired with the
flowing melodies of ``Old and Lost Rivers'' by composer Tobias Picker.
Jones' poem contemplates the literal and ethereal ways in which human
existence is like flowing water, powerful and serene, poignant and
mundane. Both local poets participated alongside current city
councilwoman and John Sunday Society President, Teniade Broughton in a
panel discussion about the legacy of Sunday and the Black community in
Pensacola. Attendees of the forum were given free tickets to the dress
rehearsal and the poets joined Pensacola Symphony's Music Director
Peter Rubardt for a pre-concert discussion sharing greater context for
the project. The symphony was delighted to have descendants of John
Sunday join for the performance as guests of Councilwoman Broughton,
and area creative writing students were given free tickets to the
performance.
Creating new opportunities for young people to experience is a
priority many grantees share. With a Challenge America grant, the Boise
Phil has been able to greatly expand its reach and service to local
educators. This modest but impactful grant allowed the orchestra to
increase free access by creating an education resource library for
schools across Southern Idaho. This resource simultaneously supported
classroom teachers while also safely engaging participants amid the
COVID-19 pandemic through a virtual format. Additionally, the Challenge
America grant provided valuable funds that gave the orchestra space to
rethink and reimagine its approaches to serving the local community.
One example of a new approach Boise Phil is undertaking is to pilot a
new school program, which involved the development of a 10-week
sequential curriculum aligned with national core arts standards. This
new programming would not have been possible without the support of the
National Endowment for the Arts, and at a time that has been especially
critical not only for the arts, but for teachers and students.
With funding from the NEA's American Rescue Plan Act grant,
Symphony Tacoma is able to move forward with its commitment to
community during unpredictable times. This includes ensuring consistent
employment for its staff of six and part-time professional orchestra
comprising 84 musicians. The Rescue Plan grant covers a wide range of
performances in and around Tacoma-this includes performances at farmers
markets, presenting a family series, providing high school orchestra
coaching, as well as offering masterclasses with guest artists. Like
countless orchestras and arts organizations across the country,
Symphony Tacoma's finances were uncertain during the pandemic, but
providing music for its community was considered something that must
continue-particularly during a time when the power of music has been
needed most.
The Reno Chamber Orchestra (RCO) also received an American Rescue
Plan grant, which will help offset the costs of additional venue rental
and new artistic personnel positions. Expanding its performance
offerings to include new venues can greatly alter the live experience
an orchestra provides. For example, venues such as Acro Enso, which the
RCO utilized during the last year in addition to its traditional
concert space, are highly valuable because they allow audiences to be
seated closer to the orchestra and thus provide a more creative and
immersive concert experience. RCO's grant will support a new associate
conductor program under the leadership of its new music director, Kelly
Kuo. Maestro Kuo brings a traditional chamber orchestra repertoire
vision along with the desire to feature composers that have
historically been overlooked-like 19th century French composer Louise
Farrenc-as well as composers writing music that addresses our current
world. Part of Kuo's artistic vision focuses on the next generation of
artistic leaders, specifically conductors. An associate conductor
program under Kuo's leadership will recruit conductors who identify as
female or BIPOC (black, indigenous, or people of color), which are
underrepresented groups in classical music. The RCO will select one
conductor per season to work with Maestro Kuo and the orchestra, and
the associate conductor will have the opportunity to conduct at least
one RCO concert per season.
While many orchestras are expanding the repertoire of the music
they share with audiences, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra (NHSO),
like Reno, is promoting opportunities for musicians from traditionally
underrepresented backgrounds. In addition to receiving an American
Rescue Plan grant, which supported wages for musicians and key staff,
the NHSO also received Grants for Arts Projects support for its Harmony
Fellowship, which provides professional development across musical,
administrative, and board levels of the classical music industry for
emerging professionals from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds.
Fellows are paid members of the orchestra who receive mentoring from
leadership and staff. The program supports the development of
individual projects to advance their career goals and provides
opportunities to engage in community and educational programming. In
addition, Harmony Quartets, consisting of Instrumental Fellows and
rostered NHSO musicians, present free Conflict Resolution Workshops
which teach communication through a string quartet model, and Song
Writing programs in New Haven Public Schools. The importance of this
fellowship is evident by one cello fellow who commutes from Indiana to
Connecticut. To date, six emerging professionals of color have
completed their Fellowships, four are currently working with the NHSO,
and three more fellowships will take place during the grant period.
Thank you for this opportunity to share a sampling of ways in which
the National Endowment for the Arts supports orchestras' engagement
with their communities and the renewal of opportunities for the public
to experience live music. These grants have made a tremendous
difference, allowing orchestras to continue providing much-needed
employment to musicians and staff as they deliver on their missions. We
applaud the NEA for its consistent strong leadership in promoting
public engagement with high-quality artistry and for the great empathy
and understanding it has shown for the urgent needs of arts
organizations and artists throughout this pandemic and beyond. It is
our hope that Congress will support an annual appropriations for the
National Endowment for the Arts of at minimum $201 million for fiscal
year 2023 so that communities throughout our Nation can look forward to
deeper engagement with and increased access to the arts.
The League of American Orchestras leads, supports, and champions
America's orchestras and the vitality of the music they perform. Its
diverse membership of more than 1,800 organizations and individuals
across North America runs the gamut from world-renowned orchestras to
community groups, from summer festivals to student and youth ensembles,
from conservatories to libraries, from businesses serving orchestras to
individuals who love symphonic music. The national organization
dedicated solely to the orchestral experience, the League is a nexus of
knowledge and innovation, advocacy, and leadership advancement. Its
conferences and events, award-winning Symphony magazine, website, and
other publications inform people around the world about orchestral
activity and developments. Founded in 1942 and chartered by Congress in
1962, the League links a national network of thousands of
instrumentalists, conductors, managers and administrators, board
members, volunteers, and business partners.
[This statement was submitted by Simon Woods, President and CEO,
League of American Orchestras.]
______
Prepared Statement of League of Conservation Voters
On behalf of Chispa, a grassroots organizing program of the League
of Conservation Voters (LCV) that engages primarily Latinx communities
and communities of color, I am pleased to submit this written testimony
on our funding priorities and requests for Fiscal Year 2023 for the
Department of Interior (DOI), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
and related agency budgets. We are extremely thankful for the members'
continued support of Federal environmental agencies and programs, and
for recognizing the need for increased funding in your initial fiscal
Year 2022 budget proposal. We are also very grateful that the
subcommittee's fiscal Year 2022 budget proposal did not retain long
standing anti-environmental riders. We were disappointed that the final
omnibus bill contained these riders, but we thank the subcommittee for
its strong efforts to oppose them.
Chispa strongly supports the $44.63 billion topline spending number
in the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and
Related Agencies' strong fiscal Year 2022 proposal. Robust funding for
EPA and DOI ensures these agencies have the capacity to implement the
programs that are critical to tackling the climate crisis, protecting
public health, and advancing environmental justice in our communities.
We urge the subcommittee to push for these funding levels again in
fiscal Year 2023. We also urge the subcommittee to include the $287
million from the President's fiscal Year 2022 budget request for
environmental justice programs at EPA, which support its abilities to
integrate environmental justice principles across its entire mission
including clean air, clean water, toxic chemicals, and waste
management.
Below are a series of transportation-related programs in your
subcommittee's jurisdiction that Chispa urges you to support:
--Zero-Emission School Buses
--Chispa's Clean Buses for Healthy Ninos program's organizing has
found that Latinx communities and other communities of
color believe that reducing pollution from school buses
should be a top priority. Electrifying school bus fleets is
the most practical way to do this, and we urge Congress to
fund at least $1.5 billion for the EPA's Clean School Bus
Program in fiscal Year 2023, with no less than 40 percent
of funding to be used to replace school buses serving low-
income communities of color, with priority given to zero-
emission technologies.
--National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory
--It is critical that cars and trucks are complying with emissions
regulations to protect the health of communities across the
country. NVFEL does critical testing and spot checks to
ensure that all vehicles sold domestically are meeting
current clean air standards. As such, we request the
following language for fiscal Year 2023:
-- ``The Committee strongly supports increased funding for the
Federal Vehicle and Fuels Standards and Certification line
in the Science and Technology Clean air budget. Additional
funding should go to vehicle R&D and enforcement, including
increasing the spot testing capabilities of the National
Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory.''
--State and Tribal Assistance Grants (STAG), Categorical Grants
--Communities living near highways and other busy corridors are
disproportionately exposed to air pollution from vehicles.
STAG program grants (under Clean Air Act Sections 103 and
105) can give members of these communities the tools to
monitor and address such air pollution. We request the
following language for fiscal Year 2023:
-- ``The Committee provides $500 million for State and local air
quality management grants and at least $33 million for
Tribal air quality management grants to allow communities
to better monitor and address local air pollution
concerns.''
--EPA Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement
--Air quality monitoring is central to the EPA's mission, and
related programs must be adequately funded to protect the
air that we breathe. Therefore, we request that EPA's
Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards receive at
least $132.35 million in funding for fiscal Year 2023. In
order to uphold these standards, we request that the EPA's
Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance be funded at
$272.71 million, and an additional $132.35 million be
funded for environmental justice enforcement.
--Diesel Emission Reduction Act (DERA) Program
--Harmful pollution from diesel trucks can lead to a number of
breathing and developmental problems. Low-income
communities and communities of color are disproportionately
exposed to such pollution, and we urge Congress to fund the
DERA program at $150 million in fiscal Year 2023 to reduce
these impacts.
[This statement was submitted by Alejandra Ramirez-Zarate, Chispa
National Campaigns Manager, League of Conservation Voters.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians
Summary of Budget Requests:
I. Bureau of Indian Affairs--Increase funding for ``New Tribes''
II. Indian Health Service--Increase funding for Purchased/Referred
Care
III. Indian Health Service--Support for Accreditation Emergencies
Funding
Greetings Chair Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski, and Honorable
Members of the subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related
Agencies. My name is Gerald Gray and I am honored to serve as Chairman
of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Thank you for the
opportunity to provide written testimony regarding the Tribe's fiscal
Year 2023 funding priorities within the subcommittee's jurisdiction.
Little Shell Tribal members became eligible for services provided
by the Indian Health Service (``IHS'') and the Bureau of Indian Affairs
(``BIA'') after enactment of the Little Shell Restoration Act in
December 2019. Following recognition, these two Federal agencies
requested specific funding to support Little Shell--essentially setting
base funding for any future inflationary or appropriated increases.
Therefore, it is critical to ensure that the initial allocations will
meet the needs of the newly recognized tribe.
i. bureau of indian affairs--``new tribes'' funding
When a Tribe is recognized or restored to Federal recognition, the
BIA requests additional funding for the newly recognized tribe--``New
Tribes'' funding. The amount requested customarily becomes the base
funding for the newly recognized tribe-essentially the amount the Tribe
will receive every year going forward. ``New Tribes'' funding was
designed to provide newly acknowledged Tribes with funding and
assistance in initiating federally funded operations by strengthening
Tribal government systems. New Tribes \1\ receive assistance under the
program for 3 years, then funding for those Tribes is transferred to
the Other Aid to Tribal Government program so that they may begin to
establish program and funding priorities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The term ``new Tribes'' is meant only to reflect Tribes that
are in the New Tribes funding line. Tribes cannot be new or created,
only acknowledged. They have existed since time immemorial.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prior to Fiscal Year 1997, the amount of ``New Tribes'' funding
received by newly recognized Tribes varied greatly. New Tribes would
assess their needs, design or propose operational programs to meet
their needs, and submit proposed budgets to implement the proposed
programs. In Fiscal Year 1996 alone, this led to newly recognized
Tribes receiving amounts as small as $127,000 and as large as $1.492
million in ``New Tribes'' funding. In fiscal Year 1997, the ``New
Tribes'' funding methodology was simplified by providing $160,000 in
base funding for new Tribes with less than 1,500 members and $320,000
to Tribes with a population of 1,501 to 3,000 members. The funding
level for new Tribes with more than 3,000 members was to be determined
on a case- by-case basis.
In fiscal Year 2011, the population component of the methodology
was slightly changed moving from 1,500 to 1,700 members for the
$160,000 base level funding and 1,701 to 3,000 for the $320,000 funding
level. The funding level for Tribes with over 3,000 members would still
be determined on a case-by-case basis. This policy appears to have
remained in place for the six Virginia Tribes recognized by Congress in
January 2018.
The Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians, with a Tribal
membership of approximately 6,200 members, qualifies for the ``case-by-
case'' determination under the BIA's longstanding policy. If the
funding level for Tribes with 1,701 to 3,000 members is $320,000, that
equals to a range of $106.66 to $188.12 per Tribal member. According to
this methodology, the Little Shell Tribe's ``New Tribes'' allocation
should be in the range of $661,000 to $1.16 million annually. This
range is well above the $480,000 in ``New Tribes'' funding requested in
the President's fiscal Year 2023 Budget Request. Even this allocation
would be smaller than the $1.492 million received by a similarly sized
new Tribe in 1996--this doesn't even take into account inflation since
1997.
It is critically important to provide the Little Shell Tribe with
adequate ``New Tribes'' funding as it is the Tribe's third and final
year in the program. The Bureau of Indian Affairs Budget Justifications
and Performance Information for Fiscal Year 2023 notes that ``Once a
Tribe has been acknowledged as a federally recognized Tribe, its
designated funding remains in the New Tribes line item for three fiscal
years at which time the funding is then base transferred for the Tribe
to the Aid to Tribal Government line item.''
Failing to right-size ``New Tribes'' funding in fiscal Year 2023 to
meet the Little Shell Tribe's population needs creates inequity and
establishes precedent for future funding allocations. The Little Shell
Tribal population is more than double that of the second-tier base, yet
the funding request falls short. More importantly, this is the only
funding request the BIA made for Little Shell government operations.
Other Tribes receive additional Tribal Priority Allocation (TPA)
funding to operate programs such as Human Services, Trust Services, and
Community and Economic Development. A combination of funding from other
TPA funding lines represents the full base, or recurring, budget for
Tribes. However, Little Shell will not receive funding for these
programs unless there is an increase in the future and only on a
proportional basis compared to other historic funding values. Little
Shell's government needs are comparable to other Tribes by population
and service area, however the BIA's request does not fully evaluate the
needs of the Tribe or the agency's responsibility.
The Little Shell Tribe requests that the subcommittee provide, at a
minimum, $1.16 million in New Tribes funding for fiscal Year 2023.
ii. indian health service--purchased/referred care funding
Similar to the BIA, IHS also requests funding specific to newly
recognized Tribes. In fiscal Year 2021, IHS requested $2.560 million in
Purchased/Referred Care funding ``to fund direct health care services''
for the Little Shell Tribe. IHS received the requested amount in fiscal
Year 2021 and in fiscal Year 2022 for Little Shell.
Typically Purchased/Referred Care (``PRC'') is used to purchase
private care in areas where IHS does not provide services directly or
when IHS provided care is not sufficient to meet patient needs.
However, in fiscal Year 2021 the Little Shell Tribe asked and the IHS
agreed to provide direct service care using the Tribe's PRC allocation,
as allowed under the PRC regulations. The Little Shell Tribe acquired,
renovated, and equipped a new health clinic for IHS to provide direct
care in the four-county service area in late 2021.
The President's fiscal Year 2023 budget requests $1.2 billion for
Purchased/Referred Care, which is an increase of $233 million above the
fiscal Year 2022 enacted level. The President also requested an
increase of $1 million in ``New Tribes'' funding to support newly
federally recognized Tribes. The IHS fiscal Year 2023 Congressional
Justification of Estimates for the Appropriations Committees notes that
``funding for New Tribes is currently reflected in Purchased/Referred
Care.'' It further notes that ``final funding will need to be reflected
in the appropriate Program, Project, or Activity (PPA or budget line)
when these numbers are identified.''
It is critical that Congress provide the $233 million increase
requested for Purchased/Referred Care in the President's fiscal Year
2023 Budget Request to meet the needs of American Indian and Alaska
Native patients, including Little Shell patients. Little Shell, like
other Tribal communities, is still assessing the care needed to treat
patients recovering from COVID-19 and long-term complications
associated with the virus.
IHS has been a good partner in establishing appropriate direct care
services within the service area in collaboration with Little Shell.
However, IHS has limited authority to budget appropriated PRC funds to
reflect common IHS operating lines, such as Hospital and Health Clinic,
Dental Health, Mental Health, etc. This makes it challenging for
Congress and Little Shell Tribal leadership to track how and if health
priorities of the community are met. More importantly, it does not
accurately capture the Service Unit operational status. The Little
Shell Tribe also requests that IHS be given the flexibility to create
operational budgets within the PRC line item that accurately reflect
day-to-day operations of those facilities like to those of the Little
Shell Service Unit.
iii. indian health service--accreditation emergencies funding
Finally, Little Shell requests support for the Accreditation
Emergencies Funding. While Little Shell Service Unit is in operation,
it has not yet gone through the accreditation process. There are no
existing concerns for patient safety or operational concerns, however
Little Shell acknowledges that accreditation ensures that regular
safety protocol and standard operating procedures are observed by all
staff. Access to these funds would ensure that the Little Shell Service
Unit provides the highest standard of care.
[This statement was submitted by Gerald Gray, Chairman, Little
Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians.]
______
Prepared Statement of Methane Action
In this testimony, Methane Action, a not for profit organization,
summarizes its detailed recommendations \1\ for removing methane and
other major greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and beginning the
governance of these methods. These recommendations are from scientists,
lawyers, economists and engineers with expertise in the rapidly
evolving science and policy of methane removal.\2\ The world must
rapidly reduce emissions, of potent short-lived climate pollutants
(SLCPs)\3\ such as methane, which is over 80 times more powerful than
CO2 in its impact period of 20 years. Methane is now at twice its
preindustrial levels in the atmosphere and rising every year, and a
burst of methane could erupt at any time from the melting permafrost
and shallow waters off Siberia. Therefore, we must develop and deploy
methods of converting or removing methane and other ``SLCPs''
responsibly and soon.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Which we have provided to your staff under the title ``Catalog
of Research Needs''.
\2\ (See, E.g., scientists' letter of April 2021 at
MethaneAction.org).
\3\ Mitigating climate disruption in time: A self-consistent
approach for avoiding both near-term and long-term global warming.
Dreyfus, G. B., Xu, Y., Shindell, D. T., Zaelke, D., & Ramanathan, V.
(2022). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(22),
e2123536119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2123536119
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This subcommittee has the power to take the lead. We recommend that
you include in your FY23 bill the language below to create a Climate
Restoration Program and that your Committee Report include descriptions
of the removal methods below to guide the EPA, though the agency could
adjust the details. To come within your Sec. 302(b) allocation, you
could reduce the amounts appropriated for grazing on public lands and
for harvesting mature forests on public lands by an amount equal to the
budget enhancement for the Climate Restoration Program.
Suggested Bill Language:
environmental protection agency
science and technology
After adding $34,800,000 to the section total, insert: ``Of the
funds included under this heading, no less than $34,800,000 shall be
allocated for the establishment of a Climate Restoration Program
beginning with the research, development and assessment of methods of
removing and oxidizing or otherwise destroying methane, including the
co-removal of methane and other greenhouse gases by filters, oxidation,
photocatalysis and bacterial action from both near sources and the
ambient atmosphere as further described in the report accompanying this
act.''
Suggested Committee Report Language: Several of the following
Climate Restoration research programs could cover more than 1 year with
contracts or grants committed or obligated in FY23. These examples are
illustrative and not meant to be definitive or exhaustive. All are
expected to be cost-effective. For comparing the cost of removing
methane and other climate-forcing gases, the term ``CO2 equivalent''
(CO2-eq) refers to removing an amount of the gas that has global
warming potential equivalent to an equal amount of CO2.
1. Zeolite surfaces. Zeolites are porous, high surface area
alumina-silicate minerals whose ability to adsorb CO2 is known. The
methane-oxidizing catalysts copper (Cu)- and iron (Fe)-zeolites have
recently been shown to oxidize methane.\4\ Scientists have screened
almost 100,000 zeolite structures as potential methane sorbents.
Relatively low-temperature methane oxidation has already been shown in
zeolites such as Cu-ZSM-5 (copper) and Fe-ZSM-5 (iron), with iron
zeolites able to oxidize methane at room temperature. Higher
temperatures and pressures generally lead to greater conversion
efficiencies. Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) are both developing versions. (MIT's research is
partially funded to date by DOE/ARPA-E). Cost effectiveness: Target of
$50-100 per metric ton of CO2-eq.
Funds needed: $1,000,000
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Methane removal and atmospheric restoration. Jackson, R. B.,
Solomon, E. I., Canadell, J. G., Cargnello, M., & Field, C. B. (2019).
Nature Sustainability, 2(6), 436-438. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-
019-0299-x; Atmospheric- and Low-Level Methane Abatement via an Earth-
Abundant Catalyst. Rebecca J. Brenneis, Eric P. Johnson, Wenbo Shi, and
Desiree L. Plata, 29 December 2021, ACS Environment Au. https://
doi.org/10.1021/acsenvironau.1c00034
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Photocatalytic surfaces (small scale urban solar chimneys).
Photocatalysts are metal oxide minerals which, when activated by
sunlight or by artificial UV-light, are able to oxidize organic
pollutants and greenhouse gases at room temperature.\5\ The smaller the
size of the nanoparticles, and the larger the surface area and
porosity, the faster the oxidation rate. Several are proven to fully
oxidize methane, such as modified zinc oxide or titanium dioxide.
Trials would be conducted on the ventilation system of an agricultural
facility for cattle. Then a prototype would be tested on a landfill.
Cost effectiveness: Estimate of $166 per metric ton of CO2-eq by 2030
with a target of $100 by 2040. Funds
needed: $5,500,000
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ The comprehensive performance analysis on a novel high-
performance air-purification-sterilization type PV-Trombe wall. Yu, B.,
Li, N., Yan, C., et al. (2022). Renewable Energy, 182, 1201-1218.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2021.11.029; A new double-skin facade
system integrated with TiO2 plates for decomposing BTEX. Building and
Environment, 180, 107037. Li, H., Zhong, K., & Zhai, Z. J. (2020).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2020.107037
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Photocatalytic large-scale solar chimneys and solar chimney
power plants. Large solar chimneys can be built to cause heated air to
updraft, which provides flowing air that can generate electricity
through a turbine, comparable to a wind turbine.\6\ The structure and
coatings on the solar chimney allow flowing air to be cleansed of
methane and other GHGs via photocatalytic coatings or other methods.
Cost effectiveness, as in 2 above.
$3,000,000
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Removal of non-CO2 greenhouse gases by large-scale atmospheric
solar photocatalysis. De Richter, R., Ming, T., Davies, P., Liu, W., &
Caillol, S. (2017). Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, 60, 68-
96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pecs.2017.01.001; Ming, Tingzhen, et al.
``Solar chimney power plant integrated with a photocatalytic reactor to
remove atmospheric methane: A numerical analysis.'' Solar Energy 226
(2021): 101-111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2021.08.024
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Iron salt aerosols demonstration phase. Many ships burn low-cost
bunker fuels that contain metals including iron that may have the
favorable side effect of enhancing the naturally occurring chlorine
atom oxidation of methane.\7\ The mix of particle-phase iron, sunshine,
and sea spray (containing natural chloride) generates chlorine atoms
that oxidize methane in the ship's plume. University researchers are
prepared to demonstrate this mechanism using a combination of
laboratory experiment, reaction system modeling, large scale prototype,
and field observations. After appropriate assessment, consultation,
permitting and governance, practitioners could potentially harness its
power to control methane at scale, in order to substantially reduce
global atmospheric methane concentrations. This approach would take
advantage of shipping traffic and the large volumes of air that are in
contact with diluted ship plumes. Cost-effectiveness: Potentially below
$9 per metric ton of CO2-eq. Full environmental impact assessment
should be completed. Methane Action has had a template for such
assessments prepared by an independent consultant.
Funds needed:
$3,500,000
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ A nature-based negative emissions technology able to remove
atmospheric methane and other greenhouse gases. Ming, T., de Richter,
R., Oeste, F. D., Tulip, R., & Caillol, S. (2021). Atmospheric
Pollution Research, 12(5), 101035. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.apr.2021.02.017; Wittmer, J., & Zetzsch, C. (2017). Photochemical
activation of chlorine by iron-oxide aerosol. Journal of Atmospheric
Chemistry, 74(2), 187-204. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10874-016-9336-6
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Chlorine based photochemical removal at point sources. This
method generates methane-oxidizing chlorine atoms using low-cost light
sources and recycles the chlorine within a closed reactor. Cost-
effectiveness: Modeling based on power requirement results in a price
of $9 per ton of CO2-eq. Funding needed: $2 million for a prototype to
test at livestock barns and a coal mine vent. Funds needed: $2,000,000
(See detailed Catalog of Research Needs sent to subcommittee staff
for items 6-10 and 16.)
11. Surface-based Photocatalytic Enhanced Methane Oxidation
(SPEMO). Given the environmental justice and public health co-benefits
of this approach that would reduce ground level ozone pollution as
well, the Committee expects the EPA, in cooperation with the
Secretaries of Interior and State, and USAID, to contract for research
and development of SPEMO to lower methane emissions from coal mines,
oil wells and animal farms, and apply photocatalytic coating to
buildings, windows, rooftops, and photovoltaic panels, or in a
ventilated conduit to reduce methane in the atmosphere as a complement
to commercial photocatalytic coatings already being used because of
their self-cleaning property and ability to reduce urban pollution such
as nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds.
Funds needed: $3,000,000
12. Capturing methane at Arctic seeps-Field Test. The U.S. start-up
Frost Methane is successfully using recycled parachutes to capture and
flare methane from seeps in Arctic lakes. Through collaboration with a
large dredging company, develop and test a low-cost structure made of
stones and sand that can capture methane seeps in the Arctic Ocean
(especially in the shallow parts of the Siberian Sea). A typical
project covers a circular field of 200-meter diameter, guiding the
methane to an exit point where the gas is captured and flared. Cost-
range: Using seep emission of 176 g/m2/day, estimate of cost: $6.7-$25/
ton CO2-eq. To furhter test the concept at a reserach facility and
create a plan for additional field testing:
Funds needed: $100,000
13. Agricultural and silvicultural methane removal while enhancing
production and nutrition. In cooperation with USDA, the Committee
expects the EPA to contract for an evaluation of methane and other
greenhouse gases sequestration, uptake, oxidation and other long-term
removal methods in agricultural and forestry, including, but not
limited to, the methods described below: a) Rice-With a goal of cutting
methane emissions from rice cultivation in half and enhancing plant
growth, contract in fiscal Year 2023 for a test of the methane removal
impact of various additives to rice, including iron sulfates, already
approved for organic farming to enhance yields, fight plant chlorosis,
and improve the nutritional value of rice by enhancing iron levels in
conjunction with other changes in rice farming practice such as
targeting the flooding of fields more efficiently. The production of
rice, a basic staple for nearly half the world population, produces
about 8 percent of global methane emissions and 2.5 percent of
radiative forcing, and these are expected to double by 2100. b)
Livestock-Methods of reducing the emissions of methane from cows, sheep
and other livestock range from adding food supplements made of red
seaweed (U.S.) to planting native plants that reduce methane generation
in sheep that graze on those plants (France). Active methane removal
from livestock barns and coalmines is to be tested in Denmark. We
expect the EPA to conduct a broad livestock methane reduction and
removal research and demonstration program in cooperation with relevant
agencies. Funds needed: $7,000,000
14. Methane mitigation via wetlands management. Wetlands are 31
percent of total methane emissions. In cooperation with USDA and the
Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA is expected to contract for an
investigation of relative wetland emissions of methane, through field
surveys and laboratory experiments, to determine how alternative
management practices could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and restore
natural ecosystems.
$1,500,000
15. Comprehensive assessment of atmospheric methane sources, sinks
and solutions. The Committee expects the EPA, in consultation with the
Secretary of State, to report to the Committees of authorizing,
appropriations, and oversight jurisdiction by July 1, 2024, (1) an
assessment of the size and changes in global emissions and sinks of
methane; (2) an analysis of the likely impact of atmospheric methane on
climate change and other problems; (3) a review of each major source
and sink to determine what options are available to affect their
impact; (4) a review of promising, and currently practicable,
technologies, programs, policy and regulatory changes to reduce
atmospheric methane levels, by emissions reduction or removal, and for
each proposed technology or policy change, their readiness, likelihood
of success, barriers, cost-effectiveness, and co-benefit analysis; and
(5) national and global plans for atmospheric reduction and removal
with goals and recommendations, and regulatory and land management
options. Funds needed: $2,000,000
17. Establish Governance of GHG removal methods. The Committee
expects the Administrator of the EPA, in cooperation with the Secretary
of State and the U.S. Trade Representative, to pursue a Methane
Declaration to support the assessment, deployment and governance of
methods of restoring the climate by reducing atmospheric methane and
other climate forcing agents to historically healthy levels. The
Declaration should be implemented in support of, but not necessarily
under, the UNFCCC and its protocols and accords, other conservation and
trade agreements, and United Nations' offices.
Funds needed: $5,000,000
[This statement was submitted by John Fitzgerald, Methane Action.]
______
Prepared Statement of Methane Action and Remineralize the Earth
In this testimony, Methane Action and Remineralize the Earth, not
for profit organizations, summarize our detailed recommendations \1\
for removing methane and other major greenhouse gases from the
atmosphere and beginning the governance of these methods. These
recommendations are from scientists, lawyers, economists and engineers
with expertise in the rapidly evolving science and policy of methane
removal.\2\ The world must rapidly reduce emissions, of potent short-
lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) \3\ such as methane, which is over 80
times more powerful than CO2 in its impact period of 20 years. Methane
is now at twice its preindustrial levels in the atmosphere and rising
every year, and a burst of methane could erupt at any time from the
melting permafrost and shallow waters off Siberia. Therefore, we must
develop and deploy methods of converting or removing methane and other
``SLCPs'' responsibly and soon.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ We have provided, e.g., a memo to your staff under the title
``Catalog of Research Needs''.
\2\ (See, E.g., scientists' letter of April 2021 at
MethaneAction.org).
\3\ Mitigating climate disruption in time: A self-consistent
approach for avoiding both near-term and long-term global warming.
Dreyfus, G. B., Xu, Y., Shindell, D. T., Zaelke, D., & Ramanathan, V.
(2022). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(22),
e2123536119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2123536119
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This subcommittee has the power to take the lead. We recommend that
you include in your FY23 bill the language below to create a Climate
Restoration Program and that your Committee Report include descriptions
of the removal methods below to guide the EPA, though the agency could
adjust the details. To come within your Sec. 302(b) allocation, you
could reduce the amounts appropriated for grazing on public lands and
for harvesting mature forests on public lands by an amount equal to the
budget enhancement for the Climate Restoration Program.
Suggested Bill Language:
environmental protection agency
science and technology
After adding $34,800,000 to the section total, insert: ``Of the
funds included under this heading, no less than $34,800,000 shall be
allocated for the establishment of a Climate Restoration Program
beginning with the research, development, assessment and deployment of
methods for the long term removal, oxidizing or destroying methane and
other greenhouse gases both near and far from their sources, including
but not limited to, filters, oxidation, photocatalysis, bacterial
action, enhanced rock weathering, and regenerative agriculture to
improve soil health and carbon drawdown, as further described in the
report accompanying this act.''
Suggested Committee Report Language: Several of the following
Climate Restoration research programs could cover more than 1 year with
contracts or grants committed or obligated in FY23. These examples are
illustrative and not meant to be definitive or exhaustive. All are
expected to be cost-effective. For comparing the cost of removing
methane and other climate-forcing gases, the term ``CO2 equivalent''
(CO2-eq) refers to removing an amount of the gas that has global
warming potential equivalent to an equal amount of CO2.
1. Zeolite surfaces. Zeolites are porous, high surface area
alumina-silicate minerals whose ability to adsorb CO2 is known. The
methane-oxidizing catalysts copper (Cu)- and iron (Fe)-zeolites have
recently been shown to oxidize methane.\4\ Scientists have screened
almost 100,000 zeolite structures as potential methane sorbents.
Relatively low-temperature methane oxidation has already been shown in
zeolites such as Cu-ZSM-5 (copper) and Fe-ZSM-5 (iron), with iron
zeolites able to oxidize methane at room temperature. Higher
temperatures and pressures generally lead to greater conversion
efficiencies. Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) are both developing versions. (MIT's research is
partially funded to date by DOE/ARPA-E). Cost effectiveness: Target of
$50-100 per metric ton of CO2-eq.
Funds needed: $1,000,000
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Methane removal and atmospheric restoration. Jackson, R. B.,
Solomon, E. I., Canadell, J. G., Cargnello, M., & Field, C. B. (2019).
Nature Sustainability, 2(6), 436-438. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-
019-0299-x; Atmospheric- and Low-Level Methane Abatement via an Earth-
Abundant Catalyst. Rebecca J. Brenneis, Eric P. Johnson, Wenbo Shi, and
Desiree L. Plata, 29 December 2021, ACS Environment Au. https://
doi.org/10.1021/acsenvironau.1c00034
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Photocatalytic surfaces (small scale urban solar chimneys).
Photocatalysts are metal oxide minerals which, when activated by
sunlight or by artificial UV-light, are able to oxidize organic
pollutants and greenhouse gases at room temperature.\5\ The smaller the
size of the nanoparticles, and the larger the surface area and
porosity, the faster the oxidation rate. Several are proven to fully
oxidize methane, such as modified zinc oxide or titanium dioxide.
Trials would be conducted on the ventilation system of an agricultural
facility for cattle. Then a prototype would be tested on a landfill.
Cost effectiveness: Estimate of $166 per metric ton of CO2-eq by 2030
with a target of $100 by 2040. Funds
needed: $5,500,000
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ The comprehensive performance analysis on a novel high-
performance air-purification-sterilization type PV-Trombe wall. Yu, B.,
Li, N., Yan, C., et al. (2022). Renewable Energy, 182, 1201-1218.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2021.11.029; A new double-skin facade
system integrated with TiO2 plates for decomposing BTEX. Building and
Environment, 180, 107037. Li, H., Zhong, K., & Zhai, Z. J. (2020).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2020.107037
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Photocatalytic large-scale solar chimneys and solar chimney
power plants. Large solar chimneys can be built to cause heated air to
updraft, which provides flowing air that can generate electricity
through a turbine, comparable to a wind turbine.\6\ The structure and
coatings on the solar chimney allow flowing air to be cleansed of
methane and other GHGs via photocatalytic coatings or other methods.
Cost effectiveness, as in 2 above.
$3,000,000
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Removal of non-CO2 greenhouse gases by large-scale atmospheric
solar photocatalysis. De Richter, R., Ming, T., Davies, P., Liu, W., &
Caillol, S. (2017). Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, 60, 68-
96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pecs.2017.01.001; Ming, Tingzhen, et al.
``Solar chimney power plant integrated with a photocatalytic reactor to
remove atmospheric methane: A numerical analysis.'' Solar Energy 226
(2021): 101-111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2021.08.024
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Iron salt aerosols demonstration phase. Many ships burn low-cost
bunker fuels that contain metals including iron that may have the
favorable side effect of enhancing the naturally occurring chlorine
atom oxidation of methane.\7\ The mix of particle-phase iron, sunshine,
and sea spray (containing natural chloride) generates chlorine atoms
that oxidize methane in the ship's plume. University researchers are
prepared to demonstrate this mechanism using a combination of
laboratory experiment, reaction system modeling, large scale prototype,
and field observations. After appropriate assessment, consultation,
permitting and governance, practitioners could potentially harness its
power to control methane at scale, in order to substantially reduce
global atmospheric methane concentrations. This approach would take
advantage of shipping traffic and the large volumes of air that are in
contact with diluted ship plumes. Cost-effectiveness: Potentially below
$9 per metric ton of CO2-eq. Full environmental impact assessment
should be completed. Methane Action has had a template for such
assessments prepared by an independent consultant.
Funds needed:
$3,500,000
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ A nature-based negative emissions technology able to remove
atmospheric methane and other greenhouse gases. Ming, T., de Richter,
R., Oeste, F. D., Tulip, R., & Caillol, S. (2021). Atmospheric
Pollution Research, 12(5), 101035. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.apr.2021.02.017; Wittmer, J., & Zetzsch, C. (2017). Photochemical
activation of chlorine by iron-oxide aerosol. Journal of Atmospheric
Chemistry, 74(2), 187-204. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10874-016-9336-6
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Chlorine based photochemical removal at point sources. This
method generates methane-oxidizing chlorine atoms using low-cost light
sources and recycles the chlorine within a closed reactor. Cost-
effectiveness: Modeling based on power requirement results in a price
of $9 per ton of CO2-eq. Funding needed: $2 million for a prototype to
test at livestock barns and a coal mine vent. Funds needed: $2,000,000
(See detailed Catalog of Research Needs sent to subcommittee staff for
items 6-10 and 16.)
11. Surface-based Photocatalytic Enhanced Methane Oxidation
(SPEMO). Given the environmental justice and public health co-benefits
of this approach that would reduce ground level ozone pollution as
well, the Committee expects the EPA, in cooperation with the
Secretaries of Interior and State, and USAID, to contract for research
and development of SPEMO to lower methane emissions from coal mines,
oil wells and animal farms, and apply photocatalytic coating to
buildings, windows, rooftops, and photovoltaic panels, or in a
ventilated conduit to reduce methane in the atmosphere as a complement
to commercial photocatalytic coatings already being used because of
their self-cleaning property and ability to reduce urban pollution such
as nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds.
Funds needed:
$3,000,000
12. Capturing methane at Arctic seeps-Field Test. The U.S. start-up
Frost Methane is successfully using recycled parachutes to capture and
flare methane from seeps in Arctic lakes. Through collaboration with a
large dredging company, develop and test a low-cost structure made of
stones and sand that can capture methane seeps in the Arctic Ocean
(especially in the shallow parts of the Siberian Sea). A typical
project covers a circular field of 200-meter diameter, guiding the
methane to an exit point where the gas is captured and flared. Cost-
range: Using seep emission of 176 g/m2/day, estimate of cost: $6.7-$25/
ton CO2-eq. Broad field-testing would require a larger budget but this
step would measure the results at a research facility and plan the
broader field tests. Funds needed:
$100,000
13. Agricultural and silvicultural methane removal while enhancing
production and nutrition. In cooperation with USDA, the Committee
expects the EPA to contract for an evaluation of methane and other
greenhouse gases sequestration, uptake, oxidation and other long-term
removal methods in agricultural and forestry, including, but not
limited to, the methods described below: a) Rice-With a goal of cutting
methane emissions from rice cultivation in half and enhancing plant
growth, contract in fiscal Year 2023 for a test of the methane removal
impact of various additives to rice, including iron sulfates, already
approved for organic farming to enhance yields, fight plant chlorosis,
and improve the nutritional value of rice by enhancing iron levels in
conjunction with other changes in rice farming practice such as
targeting the flooding of fields more efficiently. The production of
rice, a basic staple for nearly half the world population, produces
about 8 percent of global methane emissions and 2.5 percent of
radiative forcing, and these are expected to double by 2100. b)
Livestock-Methods of reducing the emissions of methane from cows, sheep
and other livestock range from adding food supplements made of red
seaweed (U.S.) to planting native plants that reduce methane generation
in sheep that graze on those plants (France). Active methane removal
from livestock barns and coalmines is to be tested in Denmark. We
expect the EPA to conduct a broad livestock methane reduction and
removal research and demonstration program in cooperation with relevant
agencies. Funds needed: $7,000,000
14. Methane mitigation via wetlands management. Wetlands are 31
percent of total methane emissions. In cooperation with USDA and the
Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA is expected to contract for an
investigation of relative wetland emissions of methane, through field
surveys and laboratory experiments, to determine how alternative
management practices could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and restore
natural ecosystems.
$1,500,000
15. Comprehensive assessment of atmospheric methane sources, sinks
and solutions. The Committee expects the EPA, in consultation with the
Secretary of State, to report to the Committees of jurisdiction by July
1, 2024, (1) an assessment of the size and changes in global emissions
and sinks of methane; (2) an analysis of the likely impact of
atmospheric methane on climate change and other problems; (3) a review
of each major source and sink to determine options to affect their
impact; (4) a review of promising, and currently practicable,
technologies, programs, policy and regulatory changes to reduce
atmospheric methane levels, by emissions reduction or removal, and for
each proposed technology or policy change, their readiness, likelihood
of success, barriers, cost-effectiveness, and co-benefit analysis; and
(5) national and global plans for atmospheric reduction and removal
with goals, recommendations, and regulatory and land management
options. $2,000,000
17. Establish Governance of GHG removal methods. The Committee
expects the Administrator of the EPA, in cooperation with the Secretary
of State and the U.S. Trade Representative, to pursue a Methane
Declaration to support the assessment, deployment and governance of
methods of restoring the climate by reducing atmospheric methane and
other climate forcing agents to historically healthy levels. The
Declaration should be implemented in support of, but not necessarily
under, the UNFCCC and its protocols and accords, other conservation and
trade agreements, and United Nations' offices.
Funds needed: $5,000,000
[This statement was submitted by John Fitzgerald, Methane Action.]
______
Prepared Statement of Metlakatla Indian Community
Recommendations:
1. Support increased overall funding for the Bureau of Indian
Affairs (BIA)
2. Provide full funding and advance appropriations for the Indian
Health Service (IHS)
3. Ensure that mandatory funding for Contract Support Costs and
105(l) lease payments
4. Amend Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act
(ISDEAA) to Clarify CSC provisions
5. Fund Critical Infrastructure investments for the Indian health
system (IHS)
6. Increase funding and authorize a self-governance funding
mechanism option for the Special Diabetes Program for Indians (IHS)
7. Support for Tribal Hatcheries at the Bureau of Indian Affairs
(BIA)
8. Support for U.S. Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty (BIA)
9. Support for Tribal Court Assistance for Tribes Subject to PL 83-
280 (BIA)
10. Support Funding to Address the Impacts of Climate Change (BIA)
11. Reduce dependence on competitive grants for Indian Country (all
agencies)
Introduction. Thank you Chairperson Merkley, Ranking Member
Murkowski, and Members of the subcommittee for the opportunity to share
our funding priorities for the fiscal Year 2023 Federal budget. The
Metlakatla Indian Community (MIC) is located on the Annette Islands
Reserve in southeast Alaska, a land base of 87,000 acres which includes
significant fish and forestry resources. Through our Annette Island
Service Unit we provide primary health services at our outpatient
facility through funding from the IHS as a co-signer to the Alaska
Tribal Health Compact under ISDEAA. The following testimony provides
recommendations on fiscal Year 2023 BIA and IHS priorities.
increased funding for the bia
Operation of Indian Programs. In fiscal Year 2023, we recommend a
substantial increase for the Operation of Indian Programs at BIA. This
base funding is critical in the functioning of our government and our
survival as a Tribal Nation. As noted by the National Congress of
American Indians ``Tribal nations are resilient and have demonstrated
their resolve and dedication since time immemorial, yet are uniquely
reliant on their Federal partner to fulfill the promises made in
exchange for the land that created the foundation of the United
States.'' \1\ These funds are essential as they provide for social
services, law enforcement, court services, child care services, public
health and safety, and other essential government functions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ National Congress of American Indians. ``Restoring Promises;
Indian Country fiscal Year 2022 Budget Request,'' p. 25. Accessed at:
https://www.ncai.org/resources/ncai-publications/
NCAI_IndianCountry_Fiscal year 2022_BudgetRequest.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unfortunately, year after year, we experience large funding
shortfalls across all BIA-funded programs, causing government services
in our community to constantly depend on an inconsistent patchwork of
Federal funding. For example, we have been forced to choose between
meeting water quality standards or providing scholarships to our
students. In some cases, these shortfalls force us to cut services
altogether. The programs that have been impacted are realty, higher
education, Tribal scholarships, social services, and limiting services
from the fire department. What has been made clearly evident from the
additional funding made available from the COVID-19 pandemic, is that
these programs remain critically underfunded, even with the increased
funding. We appreciate the Biden Administration's request to fund the
BIA at $2.8 billion in fiscal Year 2023, which is $1 billion above the
fiscal Year 2022 enacted level. We urge you to support this important
funding as you craft your fiscal Year 2023 appropriations bill.
Additionally, we request, that BIA appropriations be funded on an
advance appropriations cycle. It has sadly become the norm that the
Tribe does not receive its full yearly appropriation until several
months (sometimes longer) after the start of the fiscal year. These
funding delays make it impossible for the Tribe to plan and manage
their annual budgets. Congress recognized these challenges when it
provided the Veterans Administration with advance appropriations over a
decade ago. The practical implication of this, is that the Tribe does
not have the ability to plan our finances even weeks ahead due to the
uncertainty as to the level of funding. It is nearly impossible to
Tribes to plan, grow or achieve self-sufficiency. Full advance
appropriations for the BIA would lead to better stability for Tribal
self-governance, reduce dependence on uncertain grant funding, and
improve practices over all.
improving the indian health system
We have been grateful that IHS has received significant
supplementary appropriations to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Those
dollars have been critical in ensuring that we had the means to serve
our patients and fight this deadly disease. Annual appropriations are
essential to this effort and in fulfilling the Federal Government's
trust and treaty obligations by ensuring critical programs and services
receive adequate funding to fulfill their intended purpose. To further
these goals, we support the IHS Tribal Budget Formulation Workgroup
calculated the need $49.8 billion for full funding in fiscal Year 2023.
Support for Mandatory and Advance Appropriations for IHS: We
appreciate the Biden Administration's proposal to provide mandatory
funding for IHS and increase funding over 10 years. Reclassifying the
IHS budget as mandatory spending not only reflects the nature of the
trust and treaty obligations to Tribal Nations, but also will allow IHS
to be funded at a level that is necessary for providing health care to
AI/ANs. As noted in the President's budget request, ``Mandatory funding
for the IHS provides the opportunity for significant funding increases
that could not be achieved under discretionary funding caps.'' \\\2\
The proposal outlined in the President's Budget request is a good
start, but must be developed in partnership with Tribal Nations. We
stand ready to work with you and IHS to further develop this proposal
so that it provides adequate funding for IHS and fully honors Tribal
self-determination and self-governance.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Department of Health and Human Services, Fiscal Year 2023,
Indian Health Service, Justification of Estimates for Appropriations
Committees, p. CJ-3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
However, if full mandatory appropriations cannot be achieved for
fiscal Year 2023, we continue to support IHS advance appropriations for
the short term. For many years, Tribes have requested that IHS
appropriations be funded on an advance appropriations cycle. It has
unfortunately become the norm that IHS does not receive its full yearly
appropriation until several months (sometimes longer) after the start
of the fiscal year. These funding delays make it impossible for IHS and
Tribal health programs to plan and manage their annual budgets. Yet,
IHS still waits for parity. fiscal Year 2022 was almost halfway over
before we received the full appropriation. The practical implication of
this is that our health systems do not have the ability to plan our
finances even weeks ahead, as we do not know what our funding level
will be. At a time when we are desperate for medical professionals and
when the health system is in crisis due to the global pandemic, this is
just unacceptable. Full advance appropriations for the IHS would lead
to better stability for our health system, improve provider recruitment
and retention, and improve practices over all.
We urge the Committee to take the necessary steps in the fiscal
Year 2023 appropriations bill to move/continue IHS to an advance
appropriation for fiscal Year 2023 and beyond if full mandatory funding
for IHS cannot be achieved.
Fully fund critical infrastructure investments: As Congress
considers making dramatic investments in the country's infrastructure,
it is critical that the Indian health system not get left behind.
Therefore, we request that the subcommittee allocate funding for full
implementation of interoperable Electronic Health Records (EHR) and
tele-health. For Tribes and Tribal health organizations who have
committed their own resources to move away from RPMS and making their
systems functional, IHS should take this into consideration with any
new resources and ensure these programs are not only interoperable, but
compensated accordingly. It is critical that Congress make significant
investments in Tribal health facilities construction. IHS and Tribal
facilities are some of the oldest in the Nation. Therefore, consistent
with the Budget Formulation Workgroup's request, we recommend $10.6
billion for facilities in fiscal Year 2023.
Mandatory Funding for Contract Support Costs and 105(l) lease
payments: If Congress is not able to enact full mandatory funding for
IHS this year, we continue to support mandatory funding for Contract
Support Costs (CSC) and 105(l) leases at both IHS and BIA. We
appreciate the subcommittee's commitment to ensuring that CSC and
105(l) lease costs are fully funded by including an indefinite
discretionary appropriation in recent years for both of these accounts.
However, changing these accounts to mandatory appropriations in fiscal
Year 2023 would bring appropriations process into line with the clear
legal requirements of the authorizing statute. CSC and 105(l) lease
funds are already an entitlement under substantive law for the ISDEAA
to function as intended by Congress. It is contradictory and
problematic to appropriate funding for CSC on a discretionary basis. A
simple amendment to a permanent appropriations statute could solve this
challenge.
Amend Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act to
Clarify CSC provisions: We also request that the committee consider
amending the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act
(ISDEAA) to clarify that when agency funding paid to a Tribe for
program operations is insufficient for contract and compact
administration, contract support costs will remain available to cover
the difference. In the recent court decision Cook Inlet Tribal Council,
Inc. v. Dotomain,\3\ a Federal appeals court held that costs for
activities normally carried out by IHS are ineligible for payment as
CSC-even if IHS transfers insufficient, or even no, funding for these
activities in the Secretarial amount. Under this new ruling, if
facility costs are higher for a Tribe than for IHS, the Tribe is forced
to cover the difference by diverting scarce program dollars. Recently,
this serious misinterpretation of the ISDEAA that has been applied to
one Tribal organization resulting in a 90 percent reduction of contract
support costs reimbursement threatens Tribal self-governance and self-
determination. Therefore, we call upon Congress to provide a
legislative fix to clarify the intent on Congress for this matter, and
ensure consistency with precedent.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Inc. v. Dotomain, 10 F.4th 892 (D.C.
Cir. 2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Extend Self-Governance Funding Options to the Special Diabetes
Program for Indians (SDPI) and increase funding to $250 million/year.
SDPI's success rests in the flexibility of its program structure that
allows for the incorporation of culture and local needs into its
services. Congress should authorize SDPI participants the option of
receiving their Federal funds through either a grant (as currently
used) or self-governance funding mechanisms under ISDEAA. Additionally,
SDPI has not had an increase in funding since fiscal Year 2004. We
recommend permanent reauthorization for SDPI at a minimum of $250
million per year with annual adjustments for inflationary increases.
Therefore, we urge you to work with your Congressional colleagues to
ensure that SDPI receives a funding increase of at least $250 million
per year.
Tribal Hatcheries. We deeply appreciate the increase for the Fish,
Wildlife, and Parks sub-activity within the BIA Trust-Natural Resources
Management budget in fiscal Year 2022 and are asking the subcommittees
to continue increased funding levels fiscal Year 2023. We appreciate
the increase proposed by the Biden Administration and the $4 million
proposed for support for associated hatching, rearing and stocking
programs.
other bia funding
U.S./Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty. The Pacific Salmon Treaty was
negotiated between the U.S. and Canada in 1985 to prevent overfishing
and provide optimum production and fair sharing of the salmon harvest.
In the Department of Interior's budget, this funding is appropriated
through the BIA Trust-Natural Resources Rights Protection
Implementation sub-activity and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's
Pacific Marine Fisheries Commission. We thank you for the
subcommittee's continued support for this program in fiscal Year 2022,
and encourage further investments to in fiscal Year 2023. The Biden
Administration has requested $6.5 million for this activity in fiscal
Year 2023.
Tribal Court Assistance for Tribes Subject to Public Law 83-280. We
deeply appreciate the much-needed support for Tribes who are affected
by Public Law 83-280. We are grateful for both the increased
appropriations directed to the BIA Public Safety and Justice Law
Enforcement-Tribal Justice Support program element and the helpful
report language provided in fiscal Year 2021 Senate Appropriations
Committee report 116-123. We appreciate the $4 million increase for
this program in fiscal Year 2022 and ask that the subcommittees
continue to include PL 280-specific funding under this program element
and continue to direct the BIA in fiscal Year 2023.
Increased Funding to Address the Impacts of Climate Change. Like
many Tribal communities we continue to be impacted by the growing
challenge of climate change. We thank the Committee Committee's for $32
million for Tribal Climate Resilience in fiscal Year 2022
appropriations, but request significantly more investment in this
account, specifically to implement mitigation actions identified
through Climate Resilience plans. We appreciate the $29 million
increase proposed by the Biden Administration in fiscal Year 2023, and
hope that the committee will build upon that request.
Reduce Dependence on Federal Grants. We also support moving away
from competitive grants for Federal funding mechanisms across all
departments. The Federal trust responsibility does not require that we
jump through a myriad of hoops and onerous applications to see that
services are provided to our people. Grants also unfairly pit Tribes
against Tribes, when all are deserving of critical resources. Too
often, Tribes are under resourced to apply for Federal grants, and to
comply with the associated burdensome reporting requirements which vary
from grant to grant. Tribes must also be granted the flexibility needed
to respond to the specific needs of their own communities, including
being able to utilize cultural practices and traditional healing, not
those prescribed by Federal grants. This also means providing enough
resources so funds are provided in meaningful amounts across all
Tribes.
[This statement was submitted by Albert Smith, Mayor of the
Metlakatla Indian Community.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe
Summary of Budget Requests:
I. Bureau of Indian Affairs--Increase Funding for Fish Hatchery
Programs
II. Bureau of Indian Affairs--Increase Funding for Tribal Climate
Resilience Program
III. Bureau of Indian Education--Increase Funding for Education
Program Enhancements
IV. Environmental Protection Agency--Increase Funding for Puget
Sound Program
introduction & background
Greetings Chair Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski and Honorable
Members of the subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related
Agencies. My name is Jaison Elkins and I have the privilege of serving
as Chairman of the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. Thanks for the opportunity
to share the Tribe's funding priorities for Fiscal Year 2023.
The Muckleshoot Indian Tribe (``Tribe'') is a successor in interest
to Tribes and bands that were parties to the Treaty of Point Elliot and
the Treaty of Medicine Creek. Through these treaties, the Tribe has
reserved treaty fishing, hunting, and gathering rights, including the
right to take fish at our usual and accustomed fishing grounds and
stations. Despite these assurances, our right to fish is threatened by
a changing climate and the lack of Federal investment in Tribal fish
hatcheries.
i. bureau of indian affairs--fish, wildlife & parks
Fish Hatchery Operations Program & Fish Hatchery Maintenance Program
The Fish Hatchery Operations Program (``FHOP'') and the Fish
Hatchery Maintenance Program (``FHMP'') provide critical resources that
help Tribes, like Muckleshoot, maintain our salmon fisheries and treaty
fishing rights. The FHOP provides Tribes with support for hatching,
rearing, and stocking programs, while the FHMP helps supplement
facility maintenance for Tribal hatcheries. Tribal hatchery funding is
critical to ensure the continued success of the White River Hatchery,
as well as other Tribal hatcheries across the Nation. Without Tribal
hatcheries, our ability to exercise treaty fishing rights is
diminished.
The Tribe's White River Hatchery (``Hatchery'') was opened in 1989
to help restore the declining White River spring chinook. The Hatchery
has produced positive results for the last 30 years, but
infrastructural upgrades are desperately needed. Our master plan for
the Hatchery calls for $25.8 million in infrastructural upgrades,
including $14 million for circular tanks and related infrastructure, $5
million for a Partial Reus Aquaculture System, and $3.9 million for
building upgrades.
The Tribe appreciates the subcommittee's $6.6 million increase in
funding for the Fish, Wildlife, and Parks account last year and
encourages the subcommittee to include a similar increase for fiscal
Year 2023. The President's fiscal Year 2023 budget request also
proposes a $4 million increase to enable Tribes to modify and engage
efforts measured to emerging micro and macro climate issues, and ensure
resilience in planning, development, and operations with climate
management considerations. The Tribe urges the subcommittee to provide
substantial funding increases for these crucial hatchery programs.
ii. bureau of indian affairs--tribal climate resilience
Climate change is having a profound impact on the Muckleshoot's
treaty-protected resources and activities, such as fishing, gathering,
and hunting. Declining salmon runs, changing migration patterns, and
declining shellfish populations are among the many changes we are
witnessing firsthand. The Tribal Climate Resilience Program seeks to
address these and related issues by supporting Tribal efforts to build
climate resilient communities and sustain Tribal ecosystems and natural
and cultural resources, economies, infrastructure, human health, and
safety.
The subcommittee included $60.9 million for Tribal Climate
Resilience in last year's bill, which was an increase of $44 million
above the previously enacted level. The Tribe urges the subcommittee to
include such a similar increase in funding for the Tribal Climate
Resilience in fiscal Year 2023. This increase is in line with the
President's fiscal Year 2023 request of $60.9 million for the program.
iii. bureau of indian education--education program enhancements
The Muckleshoot Tribe is committed to the success of our children
through culturally appropriate education that will prepare them for the
future. The Tribe operates the Muckleshoot Tribal School (``MTS''),
which is a comprehensive Tribally Controlled School that works in
conjunction with the Bureau of Indian Education (``BIE'') and the State
of Washington as a Tribal Compact School to serve the needs of our
community. The school provides K-12 instruction for Native American
students focusing on Common Core Standards while infusing Muckleshoot
culture, practices, and history in our future generations. This
intersection of modern learning and culture will ensure that our
children can compete in the modern economy while not losing their
identities.
Education Program Enhancements enables BIE to provide critical
services and necessary resources to meet the unique needs and
priorities of individual Tribes and their schools. The BIE's Immersion
Demonstration Grant program provides funding that supports immersion
efforts that increase language proficiency and protect against language
loss. Last year, the subcommittee included $4 million within Education
Program Enhancements for Native language immersion grants. The
President is requesting an increase of $6.7 million for Education
Program Enhancements in fiscal Year 2023. The Tribe urges the
subcommittee to provide additional funding so that these sorts of
demonstration projects can be expanded, made permanent, and allow for
more Tribes to access the benefits.
iv. environmental protection agency--puget sound program
EPA's Geographic Programs support the restoration and protection of
important water bodies, such as the Puget Sound. According to the
fiscal Year 2023 budget justification, activities for EPA's Puget Sound
Program include funding assistance agreements with the 19 federally
recognized Tribes in Puget Sound, three Tribal consortia, and the
Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission (NWIFC).
The Tribe appreciates the subcommittees inclusion of $50 million in
last year's bill, which was an increase of $16 million above the
previously enacted level. The Tribe encourages the subcommittee to
include a similar increase in its fiscal Year 2023 bill.
The Muckleshoot Tribe appreciates the opportunity to share its
priorities for fiscal Year 2023.
[This statement was submitted by Jaison Elkins, Chairman,
Muckleshoot Indian Tribe.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Association of Abandoned Mine Land
Programs
My name is Jeff Graves and I serve as the Director of the Inactive
Mine Reclamation Program within the Colorado Department of Natural
Resources. I am providing this statement on behalf of the National
Association of Abandoned Mine Land Programs (NAAMLP), for which I
currently serve as President. NAAMLP represents 32 States and Tribes,
of which twenty-nine implement federally approved abandoned mine land
reclamation (AML) programs authorized under Title IV of the Surface
Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA), and many implement state
level programs for hardrock AML. My office's address is 1313 Sherman
Street #215, Denver CO 80203. My office phone number is (303) 866-3567
x8122. My email is [email protected].
The infusion of much-needed funding for coal AML in the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) has ushered in a new era
for the SMCRA Title IV AML programs and the benefits they bring to
communities all over the country. We thank Congress for recognizing the
critical role this AML work plays in contributing to health and safety,
environmental restoration, access to clean water, and the creation of
jobs and opportunities for economic growth, especially in places like
Appalachia that are affected by the energy transition.
We have been working closely with our sister organization the
Interstate Mining Compact Commission (IMCC) as well as our Federal
partners at the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement
(OSMRE) on implementing the new AML funding. Our efforts so far make us
confident that the AML programs will be successful in delivering the
many benefits that Congress envisions. However, there are also
challenges emerging in implementing the IIJA funding. They are
surmountable, but Congressional attention at this critical time when
the AML program of the future is being established is very appropriate.
SMCRA has been successful largely as a result of the cooperative
federalism model that it employs. While the States and Tribes
understand and appreciate OSMRE's role in the AML program under SMCRA,
we caution against using limited OSMRE funding for unproductive ends,
for example oversight that second-guesses state/Tribal assessments or
requires unnecessary levels of supplemental information that does not
advance program purposes. Rather than having OSMRE engage in additional
oversight, the States and Tribes would benefit from a more
collaborative relationship. We encourage Congress to maintain funding
that serves that purpose.
For example, we believe that funding for technical assistance and
applied science projects related to AML work is particularly important.
We also urge the subcommittee to maintain necessary funding for OSMRE's
training program and TIPS, including moneys for state/Tribal travel.
These initiatives are central to the effective implementation of State
and Tribal AML programs as they provide necessary training and
continuing education for state/Tribal agency personnel, as well as
critical technical assistance. We believe funding for Watershed
Cooperative Agreements should also be maintained in the amount of $1.5
million. This funding serves an important role in facilitating State
and local partnerships, thereby helping to leverage outside sources of
funding and preserve precious reclamation grant funding. OSMRE's
proposed budget generally includes a discretionary appropriation
request of approximately $23 million to fund the agency's own AML work,
its administration of the AML Fund, and other activities in support of
the AML program, which is important to continue. Most importantly, the
States and Tribes should receive the mandatory appropriation of fee-
based AML funding of $161 million (before sequestration) in fiscal Year
2023.
For the AML program to be successful, OSMRE must accept state input
on program design. This is especially important for the new $11.3B in
IIJA treasury-sourced AML funding, which NAAMLP is working to ensure is
implemented efficiently and effectively so that AML work has its
maximum impact. The States and Tribes have serious concerns about DOI's
implementation plans for the IIJA AML funding, draft guidance for which
was released last week.
The host of substantial changes proposed by the draft guidance
present serious danger of undermining the program's core functioning.
As currently drafted, we fear that DOI's implementation plans will be a
detriment to the AML program's fundamental reclamation goals, the
administration's socio-economic goals, and ultimately, the well-being
of the coalfield citizens that rely on AML work. There are many
provisions of the Guidance that the States simply do not have the
ability to implement due to practical and legal obstacles. More detail
is available in IMCC/NAAMLP's comments on the draft IIJA guidance, but
in summary, we believe it would confuse the AML program's priorities
and dilute its focus on health, safety, and the environment, complicate
processes for conducting projects and managing AML funding, and add
tremendous amounts of unnecessary additional administrative work.
We urge Congress to work with DOI to ensure that they integrate
state and Tribal input into IIJA implementation in order to preserve
the AML program's effectiveness. This program has been one of DOI's
most successful over its now more than forty-year history. It has well-
developed, reasonably efficient processes already in place and has
benefited the citizens of coalfields immensely as currently
constituted. We believe the sponsors of this legislation intended to
build on the successes of the mature, pre-existing program instead of
reinventing the wheel.
Another IIJA-related issue requiring Congressional attention is the
AML programs' ability to address legacy water pollution. Abandoned mine
drainage (AMD, aka acid mine drainage) is a persistent scourge on human
and environmental health. It is also an impediment to economic growth
in many States, especially those in the historic coalfields of
Appalachia and the Midwest. Congress clearly intended to expand the
States' ability to treat polluted water through the IIJA. However, a
key element of the authority the States need to be effective at this,
the use of AMD ``set aside'' accounts, has been interpreted by
Department of the Interior as absent from the IIJA. The purpose of set
aside accounts is to fund the long-term costs of AMD treatment systems.
Eleven States have used the set aside authority under the pre-existing
AML program and as States begin to expand their AML work with IIJA
funds, several more States may also need set aside accounts. Without
them, the States' ability to make further progress in eliminating AMD--
restoring the life and productive use of orange-tinted, metal-laden
streams--will be severely impaired.
A bi-partisan bill, the STREAM Act (H.R. 7283/S. 3957) has been
developed to fix this situation. It would clarify that IIJA treasury-
sourced funds can be placed in AMD set aside trust fund accounts as has
been done under the pre-existing fee-based AML program. This does not
represent a new outlay of funds, but rather a clarification about how
funds already appropriated by the IIJA can be spent that would ensure
its established purposes are fulfilled. NAAMLP and IMCC assisted with
the bill's development. We thank its authors and sponsors, particularly
Representatives Cartwright and McKinley as well as Senators Casey and
Braun, for their attention to this important issue and commitment to
helping communities impacted by AMD.
The States have also become increasingly concerned with
administration of an existing portion of the AML program, the AML
Economic Revitalization (AMLER) program. The States and Tribes are very
proud of the projects they have conducted through AMLER, which look for
creative opportunities to turn AML sites into opportunities for
economic development. We request that funding in the amount of $115
million continue. However, Congress should be aware that the AMLER
program has become more and more impeded by untenable administrative
processes and lack of respect for state expertise and primacy.
The most immediate problems in the AMLER program are substandard
communication, opaque administrative process, and the paralyzing
uncertainty that results therefrom. The States have no way of knowing
when they can expect a response on a project application, which
sometimes take a very long time (one such project in Virginia has been
caught up in the OSMRE vetting process for over 1,000 days). They also
have insufficient information on the standards for vetting projects at
OSMRE headquarters such that they are frequently rejected and/or having
to be substantially re-worked without the explanation needed to avoid
the same issues in the future. This vetting process is not required by
law, but has evolved into a time-consuming, nearly complete preplanning
of almost every element of a project. The lack of clarity that results
from the problems above creates substantial, unnecessary administrative
burden, which has resulted in the AMLER program taking up a
disproportionate amount of AML staff time. Worse, the lack of clarity
in the AMLER program creates an untenable situation for project
partners, whose cooperation is essential to the program working as
intended. The local NGOs and businesses that would otherwise
collaborate with States on these projects are finding it increasingly
difficult to navigate the process or to receive reasonable assurance
that their projects will succeed if they follow the program guidelines,
which prompts partners to spend their time and money elsewhere. Last
but not least, OSMRE tends to substitute its own opinions on the
economic development prospects of projects for the States' expertise,
second guessing state decisions where the issues at hand are probably
beyond OSMRE's legitimate ability to judge.
This situation would best be resolved by simply returning primary
responsibility for selecting and developing AMLER projects to the state
AML programs, which we believe was always how the AMLER program was
intended to work. The State programs have the best ability to exercise
their state-specific knowledge and expertise and work with local
partners to determine what reclamation and economic development
projects will best serve their communities. This would be accomplished
by Appropriations report language proposed by Representative Rogers,
which would direct OSMRE to transfer AMLER funds to State programs 60
days after they have been received by the agency. Appropriate oversight
of state AMLER implementation would be conducted by OSMRE and Congress.
OSMRE would collect information on State efforts in its ordinary
oversight role and provide a report to Congress. We urge Congress to
adopt this approach. We believe it is the best way to unleash the
creative, collaborative energies available through cooperation between
States and their local NGO and private industry partners, which are
currently being held at bay by an untenable bureaucratic tangle of an
approval process.
NAAMLP represents many States with significant hardrock AML
problems within their borders. In the absence of a hardrock AML funding
source comparable to Title IV funding for coal AML, state and Tribal
hardrock AML programs struggle to maintain adequate funding and make
consistent progress. There is no comprehensive account of the scale of
the hardrock AML problem, but it is often cited as being in the tens of
billions of dollars. Hardrock AML comes with the same pernicious
effects as coal AML on the health and safety, environment, and economic
vitality of the communities throughout the country, and especially in
the West, that live near them.
The $3B funding authorization for hardrock AML in the IIJA is a
very exciting development, despite the fact that the funding has not
yet been appropriated. Since then, NAAMLP and IMCC have been working
closely with DOI's Office of Environmental Policy and Compliance
(OEPC), the group tasked with developing the new hardrock AML state/
Tribal grants program authorized by the IIJA.
We have been very pleased with OEPC's willingness to integrate
state/Tribal input into their plans. NAAMLP and IMCC have been
convening a large group of States and Tribes with interest in hardrock
AML for many years. We have recently re-doubled our efforts to outline
the best way for hardrock AML state/Tribal grants to operate. We
gathered a group of both our members and non-member States and Tribes,
conducted a survey of current circumstances regarding hardrock AML work
in each State/Tribe, and then summarized those surveys and created
recommendations based on their insights. For example, we have developed
recommendations for how to work toward a national level inventory of
hardrock AML sites in the medium/long term while also enabling States
and Tribes that already have inventories to make progress with
reclamation work in the meantime. All this to say, the States, Tribes,
and our Federal partners are ready to put hardrock AML money to very
productive use. The $1.6M in funding for States and Tribes provided in
the 2022 Omnibus for the energy community revitalization program is an
encouraging start but is not enough to meaningfully further progress
with reclamation. We urge Congress to include more funding for hardrock
AML grants to States and Tribes in the 2023 appropriations.
In closing, the States and Tribes represented by NAAMLP again
express our gratitude to Congress for the recognition of the value of
the AML programs, both coal and hardrock, and the investment in their
future represented by the IIJA. We look forward to beginning this new
chapter for coal AML and are thrilled to be moving toward a national-
scale hardrock AML grants program as well. We are ready to assist with
these and other Congressional efforts to further AML work, such as
through the pilot hardrock Good Samaritan bill, which is much needed.
With Congress' continuing attentiveness to AML implementation issues,
we feel confident that continued success of the State and Tribal AML
programs can be assured.
[This statement was submitted by Jeff Graves, Director, Inactive
Mine Reclamation Program.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Association of Clean Air Agencies
On behalf of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies
(NACAA), thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony on the
fiscal Year 2023 budget for the United States Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), particularly grants to State and local air pollution
control agencies under Sections 103 and 105 of the Clean Air Act (CAA),
which are part of the State and Tribal Assistance Grant (STAG) program.
NACAA has four recommendations with respect to fiscal Year 2023
appropriations. The association urges Congress to 1) provide $500
million in grants to State and local air quality agencies, which is
$178 million above the President's proposed budget for fiscal Year
2023; 2) provide flexibility to State and local air quality agencies to
use any additional grants to address the highest priority programs in
their areas; 3) retain grants for monitoring fine particulate matter
(PM2.5) under the authority of Section 103 of the Clean Air Act, rather
than shifting it to Section 105; and 4) provide grant increases under
authorities of the CAA that do not require matching funds (e.g.,
Section 103) as much as possible to allow agencies that do not have
sufficient matching funds to still obtain the additional grants.
NACAA is the National, non-partisan, non-profit association of air
pollution control agencies in 40 States, including 115 local air
agencies, the District of Columbia and four territories. NACAA exists
to advance the equitable protection of clean air and public health for
all, and to improve the capability and effectiveness of State and local
air agencies. These agencies have the ``primary responsibility'' under
the CAA for implementing our Nation's clean air programs. As such, they
conduct an array of critical activities intended to improve and
maintain air quality and protect public health.
air pollution poses serious public health problems
Federal, State and local air quality programs under the CAA have
been highly successful in reducing air pollution, during a time that
the country has continued to experience strong economic growth.
However, air pollution continues to be a significant problem,
threatening public health and welfare, especially in overburdened
environmental justice communities that disproportionately suffer
adverse human health and environmental impacts.
Every year tens of thousands of Americans die prematurely from air
pollution and millions are exposed to unhealthful levels of air
contaminants, resulting in cancer, damage to respiratory,
cardiovascular, neurological and reproductive systems and other health
problems.\1\ In 2020, approximately 30 percent of the U.S. population--
about 97 million people--lived in areas that exceeded one or more
Federal health-based air pollution standards.\2\ Additionally, EPA's
most recent hazardous air pollution data show that ``millions of people
live in areas where air toxics pose potential health concerns.'' \3\
Environmental justice communities are particularly at risk.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/air-pollution-
current-and-future-challenges
\2\ Our Nation's Air Trends through 2020, https://www.epa.gov/air-
trends
\3\ https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2022-03/
airtoxscreen_2017tsd.pdf (page 123)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
With respect to climate change, some of our Nation's strongest
programs are led by State and local governments, which have instituted
programs to make meaningful progress towards reducing greenhouse gases.
However, there is still much to be done to address increasing
greenhouse gas emissions that result in more and worse wildfires,
longer ozone seasons and upward trending global temperatures.
Overall, few problems in this subcommittee's jurisdiction pose
greater threats to public health than air pollution and climate change.
In terms of the National budget, the amount appropriated for Federal
grants to State and local air quality agencies is relatively small. Yet
the return on investment is among the highest when considering the
benefits of protecting public health and the environment against the
serious threats posed by air pollution and climate change.
state and local air agencies continue to be underfunded
The CAA places the responsibility for implementing the Federal air
pollution program squarely on State and local clean air agencies. This
is an enormous undertaking that calls for monitoring, issuing permits,
planning, developing strategies for reducing emissions, enforcing
requirements, educating the public, training staff and a host of other
activities that grow more complex and sophisticated each year.
Increasingly, these agencies are tasked with new and high-priority
responsibilities to reduce air pollution, address the disproportionate
harm faced by overburdened communities and tackle climate change.
Unfortunately, this simply cannot be accomplished with current levels
of funding.
State and local air agencies have been underfunded for many years.
Federal grants to State and local air quality agencies (under Sections
103 and 105 of the CAA) were approximately the same in fiscal Year 2022
as they were in fiscal Year 2004--nearly 20 years ago. This represents
a substantial decrease in purchasing power when inflation is factored
in, during a time when air quality issues have become ever more
complicated and costly to address. Furthermore, while Federal grants
were originally intended to cover 60 percent of the cost of
implementing the CAA, they cover less than a quarter of that today,
with the remainder coming largely from State and local programs
themselves.
Major source fees under Title V of the CAA are not the answer to
this shortfall since they are required to be used to support the
operating permit program only and cannot be spent on other activities.
Moreover, as State and local agencies reduce air pollution, the amount
of funding available from fees that are paid by regulated entities is
decreasing.
The funds recently appropriated under the ``Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act'' (November 15, 2021) are not the solution
either, as most of those resources are directed to water and
infrastructure projects. While those are worthwhile efforts, they do
not sustain the day-to-day work of State and local air quality
agencies. Additionally, some newly available funds are tied to specific
new work, rather than existing responsibilities, which does not help to
address the current funding deficit.
how would additional funding be used?
NACAA surveyed State and local air agencies about the funding that
will be needed to meet their current and expected obligations. Based
upon the responses, NACAA is recommending that Federal grants under
Sections 103 and 105 be increased to $500 million annually, beginning
in fiscal Year 2023. This is $178 million above the President's
proposed budget for fiscal Year 2023 and an increase of $269 million
over the fiscal Year 2022 appropriation of $231 million.
In NACAA's survey, many agencies reported inadequate funding for
basic responsibilities that are the very foundations of their programs.
These include monitoring, permitting, enforcement, wildfire response,
staffing, training, planning, regulatory development, public outreach
and community support. Increases in funding would provide for
continuation of these essential tasks. Additionally, the following are
just a few of the things that increased Federal grants would support:
--advancing new programs and expanding existing clean air efforts
that protect all Americans, especially vulnerable communities
that continue to bear the greatest pollution burdens;
--strengthening pollution detection and visualization efforts through
air monitors, sensors, and airborne and mobile detection
equipment for criteria pollutants, air toxics and emerging
contaminants;
--supporting small business programs and emission reductions from
smaller sources, including inspections, compliance assistance
and technical support;
--addressing climate change with emission reduction programs that
include planning, monitoring, permitting and enforcement;
energy-transition assistance for communities dependent on
fossil fuels; and adaptation and resilience for frontline
communities that face extreme weather and other climate
impacts;
--preparing and empowering State and local agencies to take on the
additional air quality responsibilities in new Federal clean
energy and clean transportation programs; and
--tackling the ever-increasing threats posed by wildfires, including
mitigating adverse health impacts and communicating with the
public.
Additionally, if Congress adopts significant climate legislation,
it is essential that adequate funds beyond regular fiscal Year 2023
appropriations be provided to State and local agencies and
municipalities to allow them to carry out the law's requirements, even
if those agencies and municipalities do not currently receive Section
103 and Section 105 grants directly.
agencies need flexibility in the use of grants
Air pollution problems around the country vary by area and each
State or local air quality agency must tailor its approach to address
its unique set of circumstances and the issues facing its community.
While one locale's greatest concern may be the impacts from wildfires,
another may find local hazardous air pollution sources or ozone to be
greater challenges. A one-size-fits-all strategy for grants that is
applied nationally may not recognize the need to focus resources
effectively. Therefore, NACAA recommends that Congress provide State
and local air agencies with the flexibility to use increased grant
funds on the highest priority programs in their areas.
allow agencies that cannot match to receive grants
While Section 105 of the Clean Air Act requires grant recipients to
provide matching funds, Section 103 does not. Providing certain grants
under Section 103 authority, therefore, is very helpful for those State
or local agencies that are unable to raise additional matching funds.
In the past, EPA proposed shifting the PM2.5 monitoring
grant program from Section 103 authority to Section 105. NACAA has
asked Congress in previous years to retain PM2.5 monitoring
grants under Section 103 so that no agencies would be forced to refuse
critical monitoring grants due to their inability to afford the
required match. We are very grateful that Congress has previously been
agreeable to this request, and we ask that these funds once again
remain under Section 103 authority in fiscal Year 2023.
This concern goes beyond just the PM2.5 monitoring grant
program, however. While some agencies have adequate matching funds,
others do not. These are often the very same agencies in dire need of
the additional grants we are seeking. So that no agency would be
ineligible for additional grants, we request that Congress provide as
much of the grant increase as possible under authorities that do not
require matching funds (e.g., Section 103). In this way, those agencies
that do not have sufficient matching funds could still obtain the
additional resources.
conclusion
State and local air quality agencies' efforts to protect and
improve air quality are critically important both for public health and
a sound economy. NACAA recommends that Congress 1) provide $500 million
in grants to State and local air quality agencies, which is $178
million above the President's proposed budget for fiscal Year 2023; 2)
provide flexibility to State and local air quality agencies to use any
additional grants to address the highest priority programs in their
areas; 3) retain grants for monitoring PM2.5 under the
authority of Section 103 of the Clean Air Act, rather than shifting it
to Section 105; and 4) provide grant increases under authorities of the
CAA that do not require matching funds (e.g., Section 103) as much as
possible to allow agencies that do not have sufficient matching funds
to still obtain the additional grants.
Thank you very much for this opportunity to provide testimony. If
you require additional information, please contact Miles Keogh
([email protected]) or Mary Sullivan Douglas
([email protected]) of NACAA.
[This statement was submitted by National Association of Clean Air
Agencies.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Association of Clean Water Agencies
The National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) represents
350 public wastewater and stormwater utilities nationwide, both large
and small, that collectively provide clean water services to more than
150 million Americans daily. These essential public services protect
public health and the environment and are vital for local economic
growth.
Our nation's water infrastructure is at a key juncture, with costs
rising both for traditional investment needs like maintaining aging
infrastructure and meeting compliance obligations, as well as for newer
challenges, such as addressing emerging contaminants, managing
increasingly complex water quality issues, meeting the needs of
disadvantaged communities, and ensuring system resilience in the face
of climate change and cyber risks.
NACWA greatly appreciates the support for clean water provided by
Congress under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act/Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law (BIL). The BIL reflects a strong recommitment by the
Federal Government as a funding partner in water infrastructure
investment and begins to address the disparity whereby 95 percent of
drinking water and wastewater infrastructure investment comes from
local ratepayers and States.
NACWA has engaged with EPA, to offer the public utility perspective
and recommendations to support efficient, equitable implementation of
this landmark legislation. We are grateful to EPA for providing
opportunities for this important input and dialogue, and we look
forward to partnering with Congress to ensure appropriate oversight of
BIL implementation.
However, the funds provided by the BIL are simply a down payment on
the additional Federal funding needed to help address the Nation's
water infrastructure challenges. EPA has estimated that nearly $750
billion in capital investment in wastewater and drinking water must be
made by local, State, and Federal partners over 20 years to meet
Federal water quality and health objectives. Even with BIL investments,
clean water still ranks behind other infrastructure sectors like
surface transportation, mass transit, and rail in the amount of Federal
assistance it receives. It is critical that many of the water programs
that were authorized, but not appropriated in the BIL, receive full
funding for FY23.
Below are NACWA's FY23 Appropriations requests. As always, NACWA
appreciates the subcommittee's strong engagement and collaboration with
the Association and our members, and your consideration of these clean
water priorities.
clean water state revolving fund (cwsrf)
The CWSRF is the primary Federal clean water financing tool that
communities and public clean water utilities utilize to help meet their
Clean Water Act (CWA) obligations and infrastructure needs. The CWSRF
has been instrumental to communities' successes in advancing water
quality and public health protection. While the BIL provided a 5-year
infusion of additional funds into the CWSRF, we appreciate that it was
clearly the intent of Congress for the BIL funds to supplement--not
supplant--continued robust annual CWSRF appropriations. NACWA supports
CWSRF funding at the full BIL authorized level of $2.75 billion for
FY23 in the annual spending bill.
NACWA also supports dedicated FY23 appropriations for EPA to
complete an updated Clean Water Infrastructure Needs Survey to provide
a more accurate, updated, and complete understanding of clean water
needs across the country.
Additionally, NACWA members who benefited from Congressionally
Directed Spending greatly appreciate the direct funding provided
through the FY22 Omnibus Appropriations. These funds will help
utilities undertake important work in the communities they serve.
However, as the Committee considers future spending levels, NACWA
requests that funding for these projects not be taken from the CWSRF
but rather as a separate inclusion within the State and Tribal
Assistance Grant Program. This will help ensure that communities who
secured Congressionally Directed spending for their projects are funded
without reducing access to CWSRF financing by all eligible communities
long-term, as well as protect its long-term viability.
Technological innovation also has an important role in managing
water quality challenges and potentially reducing costs for utilities
in the long-term. NACWA requests that the Committee provide language
encouraging EPA, States, and local communities support the use of new
technologies under the CWSRF.
low-income water assistance
NACWA has long supported the creation of a Federal low-income water
assistance program at EPA to assist households in maintaining access to
affordable and reliable public clean and drinking water services.
Similar Federal programs exist to help low-income households with food
and energy costs, as the time has come for water to be treated equally.
A robust and permanent Federal water assistance program is key to
helping communities and public utilities provide service to all
customers while also being able to charge the rates necessary to
maintain safe, reliable water and wastewater systems.
NACWA is grateful for the steps Congress has taken to advance this
critical need, including the BIL's authorizing a national assessment by
EPA of the water and sewer affordability challenges low-income
households face, and authorizing an EPA pilot program to provide
Federal low-income water customer assistance. However, funding is
necessary to get this program off the ground, and NACWA requests a
minimum of $225 million in FY23 to initiate it.
Existing emergency water assistance provided for low-income
households during the pandemic is quickly being spent down by the
States, suggesting a drop-off in support is near. NACWA stands ready to
help EPA and Congress with this effort and is coordinating a project
with leading water sector associations to develop recommendations for a
successful low-income water assistance program.
sewer overflow and stormwater reuse municipal grants
Reducing sewer overflows can be very costly and over the years has
been a key driver of financial strain on many communities and their
ratepayers. This is especially clear in communities under Federal
consent decrees, dealing with aging infrastructure, and/or adjusting to
population and economic shifts. Meanwhile, improved stormwater
management and greater water reuse practices present some of the most
significant opportunities for continued improvement in water quality,
but also come with extremely high costs for communities around the
country.
For these reasons, NACWA strongly supports growing this program,
which not only focuses funds on these investments but also provides a
rare source of full grant (as opposed to loan) funding. The program was
reauthorized at higher levels but not directly appropriated in the BIL.
NACWA supports full funding of the reauthorized level of $280 million
in FY23.
integrated planning
Integrated Planning (IP) is a tool that allows communities the
ability to sequence and prioritize how they meet local clean water
obligations and long-term infrastructure needs. The approach maintains
water quality requirements but allows the local community greater
agency over their investments and ability to manage costs over time.
It takes significant work by a community to develop an integrated
plan, along with considerable resources from the State regulatory
agency and EPA to review and approve. Dedicated financial resources for
IP will help EPA work with communities to develop integrated plans and
provide technical assistance to States so they can work with local
communities to better incorporate integrated planning concepts into
their CWA permits.
NACWA strongly requests $2 million in FY23 appropriations to
support EPA's integrated planning activities that advance water quality
in a holistic approach driven by local priorities.
water workforce infrastructure grants program
The public water sector provides good career paths with competitive
wages where workers can take pride in serving their community. However,
the water utility workforce is retiring rapidly, and public utilities
struggle to compete with other sectors for skilled workers.
NACWA has strongly supported EPA's Water Workforce Infrastructure
Development Grant Program and supports the fully authorized funding
level of $5 million in FY23. This funding will support innovative
efforts to develop tomorrow's utility workforce and ensure long-term
stability in the sector. NACWA also requests that the Committee clarify
that utilities are given direct consideration as a potential recipient
of funding under the program regardless of how they are locally
structured, in line with provisions under the BIL directing the Agency
to do so.
water infrastructure finance and innovation act (wifia) program
The WIFIA program is a complement to the SRFs, accelerating
significant water infrastructure investments and leveraging limited
Federal resources. NACWA supports funding equal to the FY22
appropriated amount of $69.5 million in FY23. NACWA also supports an
additional $5 million for the SWIFIA program, which allows state
financing authorities that administer the SRFs to apply for WIFIA loans
directly through EPA. This ability of a State to bundle multiple
projects on its approved intended use plan can increase participation
in smaller, rural, and lesser-resourced communities.
Clean Water Infrastructure Resilience and Sustainability Program
NACWA was strongly supportive of this new program that was
established under the BIL. These program grants will be helpful to
utilities who are on the front lines of mitigating the impacts of
climate change and ensuring resilience services--through building
resilient infrastructure, managing wet weather, and piloting integrated
and adaptive. NACWA requests the fully authorized amount of $25 million
in FY23 to jumpstart this program.
pfas
Clean water utilities are very concerned about the presence of
emerging contaminants in their influent, the impacts these chemicals
have on their treated effluent and biosolids, and the potential costs
that may accrue to public ratepayers.
NACWA urges funding for EPA to advance its work to better develop
our scientific understanding of PFAS in the environment--particularly
exposure pathways, toxicity levels, and treatment technologies--to
guide the development of appropriate risk-based standards that protect
public health and the environment. This work can also help advance
source control and the transition from PFAS in products and supply
chains to alternative materials.
As a key part of this, NACWA urges Congress to provide dedicated
funding to bolster EPA's Biosolids Program, which regulates the
beneficial reuse of wastewater treatment residuals. Their ongoing work
on a problem formulation for biosolids is critical to providing
certainty for wastewater treatment and residuals management.
NACWA strongly supported the $1 billion in appropriations under the
BIL for clean water utilities to address emerging contaminants such as
per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
We are concerned, however, that since these funds are flowing
through the CWSRF, they may be limited to existing SRF eligibilities,
which focus on capital investment, to the potential exclusion of near-
term utility PFAS costs. These critical funds can be put to work
immediately on sampling, monitoring, studies, and expanding
pretreatment programs with local industry to better understand at a
local level how the contaminants enter the wastewater system, their
fate, and how to reduce concerning sources of PFAS in anticipation of
EPA or state standards. NACWA requests that the Committee consider
clarifying the use of these appropriated funds moving forward.
additional key programs
NACWA also supports increased funding for EPA's Geographic
Programs, which support critical watershed-based investments; Section
319 Nonpoint Source grants that support watershed solutions to
pollution driven by nonpoint sources, which remain the largest
outstanding driver of water quality impairments; and $20 million for
EPA's National Priorities Water Research grant program which supports
work on timely national water research priorities.
[This statement was submitted by Jason Isakovic, Director of
Legislative Affairs, National Association of Clean Water Agencies.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Association of State Energy Officials
Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski, and members of the
subcommittee, I am David Terry, Executive Director of the National
Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO), which represents the 56
State and Territory Energy Directors and their Offices. NASEO submits
this testimony in support of funding for the Energy Star program
(within the Climate Protection Partnership Division of the Office of
Air and Radiation) at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
NASEO supports funding of at least $80 million in FY'23, including
specific report language directing that the funds be utilized only for
the Energy Star program. The program received $54 million a decade ago
and is now down to $38 million. The Energy Star program is successful,
voluntary, and cost-effective. The program has a proven track record--
it makes sense, it saves energy and money, and Americans embrace it.
Energy Star helps consumers and businesses control expenditures over
the long term. The program is strongly supported by product
manufacturers, utilities, and homebuilders, and Energy Star leverages
the States' voluntary efficiency actions. Voluntary Energy Star
activities are occurring in public buildings, such as schools, in
conjunction with State Energy Offices, in virtually every State,
including Oregon and Alaska. The States and the public utilize Energy
Star because it is seen as unbiased and delivers cost-saving benefits
to businesses, consumers and State and local governments.
The Energy Star program is focused on voluntary efforts that reduce
energy waste, promotes energy efficiency and renewable energy, and
works with States, local governments, communities and business to
achieve these goals in a cooperative, public-private manner.
NASEO has worked closely with EPA and approximately 40 States are
Energy Star Partners. With very limited funding, EPA's Energy Star
program coordinates with the State Energy Offices to give consumers and
businesses the opportunity and technical assistance tools to make
better energy decisions and catalyzes product efficiency improvements
by manufacturers without regulation or mandates. The program is
voluntary.
ENERGY STAR focuses on energy-efficient products as well as
buildings (e.g., residential, commercial, and industrial). Over 300
million Energy Star qualified products were sold in 2019 alone, not
including another 300 million Energy Star certified light bulbs. The
Energy Star label is recognized across the United States. Approximately
90 percent of households recognize the Energy Star label and a majority
of surveyed U.S. households reported having purchased an Energy Star
product. The manufacturing, installation, design, wholesale
distribution, and provision of professional services related to Energy
Star products employed almost 827,000 American workers in 2019. It
makes the work of the State Energy Offices much easier, by engaging the
public on easily-recognized products, services, and targets. In order
to obtain the Energy Star label, a product has to meet established
guidelines. Energy Star's voluntary partnership programs include Energy
Star Buildings, Energy Star Homes, Energy Star Small Business, and
Energy Star Labeled Products. We are also encouraged by the new Energy
Star Home Upgrades Program. We are also pleased with the final
residential update for Energy Star Version 3.2, which was just
announced.
Marketplace barriers are also eradicated through the Energy Star
program's collaborative approach to consumer education. State Energy
Offices are working with EPA to promote Energy Star products, Energy
Star for new construction, Energy Star for public housing, etc. Another
Energy Star success is in the manufactured housing sector. Some States
and utilities offer modest rebates for Energy Star manufactured homes
in order to deliver both energy cost savings to homeowners and lower
overall electric grid operation costs for all customers.
In 2021, millions of consumers and thousands of voluntary partners,
including manufacturers, builders, businesses, communities, and
utilities, tapped the value of Energy Star and achieved impressive
financial and environmental results.
An estimated 70,000 energy efficiency home improvement projects
were undertaken through the whole house retrofit program, Home
Performance with Energy Star, in 2020.
More than 840 utilities, State, and local governments and non-
profits utilize Energy Star in their energy efficiency programs, as do
1,800 manufacturers.
The State Energy Offices are very encouraged by progress made at
EPA, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, and in our
States to promote programs to make schools more energy-efficient while
improving indoor air quality and comfort. In fact, there are over 150
Energy Star-rated schools in States from Arizona to Maine. In addition,
many States' private sector partners voluntarily utilize Energy Star to
promote energy efficiency and lower operating costs.
EPA provides technical assistance to the State Energy Offices in
such areas as Energy Star Portfolio Manager (how to rate the
performance of buildings), setting an energy target, and financing
options for building improvements and building upgrade strategies.
Energy Star Portfolio Manager is used extensively by State Energy
Offices to benchmark performance of State and municipal buildings,
saving taxpayer dollars. Portfolio Manager is the industry-leading
benchmarking tool which has been used voluntarily in approximately 50
percent of the commercial buildings in the United States. Portfolio
Manager is used to measure, track, assess, and report energy and water
consumption.
Additionally, the industrial sector embraces Energy Star at job-
creating companies such as GM, Eastman Chemical, Nissan, Raytheon, and
Boeing. Recent Energy Star certified manufacturers include such
companies as J.R. Simplot, Flowers Foods, Ardagh Glass, and Marathon
Petroleum Refining. At the close of 2021, more than 750 U.S. industrial
sites had committed to the Energy Star Challenge for Industry
The State Energy Offices are working cooperatively with our peers
in the state environmental agencies and state public utilities
commissions to ensure that programs, regulations, projects and policies
are developed recognizing both energy and environmental concerns. We
have worked closely with this program at EPA to address these issues.
We encourage these continued efforts.
For example, in Oregon, the State is focused on decarbonization
efforts, and Energy Star is a useful tool to promote sustained
investments in energy efficiency. In Alaska, the State has worked with
partners to promote the Village Energy Efficiency Program, and Energy
Star has been critical.
Moreover, Oregon and Alaska have significant Energy Star activities
underway:
--Oregon is home to more than 180 businesses and organizations
participating in U.S. EPA's Energy Star program: 9
manufacturers of Energy Star certified products; and 10
companies supporting independent certification of Energy Star
products and homes 49 companies building Energy Star certified
homes. Energy Star Partner Activity in Oregon includes 1.9
million customers served by Energy Star utility partners in
2020; 3,607 buildings (255 million square feet) benchmarked
using EPA's Energy Star Portfolio Manager; 26,522 homes earned
the Energy Star to-date; 437 buildings earned the Energy Star
to-date, including 107 schools, 3 hotels, 6 hospitals, 142
office buildings and 5 industrial plants.
--Alaska is home to more than 20 businesses and organizations
participating in U.S. EPA's Energy Star program; has 153
thousand customers being served by Energy Star utility
partners; 437 buildings that have been benchmarked using EPA's
Energy Star Portfolio Manager; 11,891 homes have earned the
Energy Star label; 31 schools, and 4 hospitals.
conclusion
The Energy Star program saves consumers billions of dollars every
year. The payback and job creation benefits are enormous. NASEO
supports robust program funding of at least $80 million in FY'23.
Funding for the Energy Star program is justified. It is a solid public-
private relationship that leverages resources, time and talent to
produce tangible results by saving energy and money and, in light of
Administrator Michael Regan's commitment to environmental justice, can
provide immense benefits to high-need and underserved communities.
NASEO endorses these activities as well as the constructive
partnerships that the State Energy Offices have with EPA to
cooperatively implement a variety of critical national programs without
mandates.
[This statement was submitted by David Terry, Executive Director.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Association of State Foresters
The National Association of State Foresters (NASF) appreciates the
opportunity to submit written public testimony to the House Committee
on Appropriations, subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related
Agencies regarding our fiscal year 2023 appropriations recommendations.
Our priorities focus primarily on appropriations for the USDA Forest
Service (Forest Service) State and Private Forestry (S&PF) programs, as
well as the Research and Development (R&D) Forest Inventory and
Analysis Program.
State foresters deliver technical and financial assistance, along
with forest health, water, and wildfire protection for more than two-
thirds of the Nation's 751 million acres of forests. The Forest Service
S&PF mission area provides vital support to deliver these services,
which contribute to the socioeconomic and environmental health of rural
and urban areas. The comprehensive process for delivering these
services is articulated in each State's Forest Resource Assessment and
Strategy (Forest Action Plan), authorized in the 2008 Farm Bill and
continued in the 2018 Farm Bill. State Forest Action Plans-completed in
2010, updated in 2015, and comprehensively revised in 2020 by all 59
States, U.S. territories, freely associated States, and the District of
Columbia-offer practical and comprehensive roadmaps for investing
federal, State, local, and private resources where they can be most
effective in achieving national conservation goals. S&PF programs
provide a significant return on the Federal investment by leveraging
the boots-on-the-ground and financial resources of State agencies to
deliver assistance to forest landowners, Tribes, and communities. As
Federal and State governments continue to face financial challenges,
state foresters, in partnership with the S&PF mission area of the
Forest Service, are best positioned to maximize effectiveness of
available resources by focusing work on priority forest issues where
resources are needed most.
FY21 marked the first year that Congress appropriated the Forest
Service budget under a modernized structure. To transition to this new
structure, the historical budget for each program account was broken
out into three parts: operations (aka cost pools), salaries & expenses,
and program dollars. Congress determined its fiscal year 2021
appropriations levels based in part on an historical analysis performed
by the Forest Service that described how fiscal year 2021 program
budgets would have broken out under the previous budget structure.
While the modernized budget structure has resulted in unprecedented
levels of transparency-as the fiscal year 2021 budget was implemented,
it became clear that elements of Forest Service analysis were
incorrectly estimated.
Your support of the following programs is critical to helping
States address the many and varied challenges outlined in Forest Action
Plans.
state fire capacity (sfc) and volunteer fire capacity (vfc)
More people living in fire-prone landscapes, high fuel loads,
drought, and deteriorating forest health are among the factors that led
most state foresters to identify wildland fire as a priority issue in
their Forest Action Plans. We now grapple with increasingly expensive
and complex wildland fires--fires that frequently threaten human life
and property. In 2021, roughly 59,000 wildland fires burned more than
7.1 million acres.\1\ State and local agencies respond to the majority
of wildfires across the country; in 2021 State and local agencies were
responsible for responding to 45,186 (77 percent) of the 58,985
reported wildfires across all jurisdictions.\2\
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\1\ National Interagency Fire Center, Historical Wildland Fire
Summaries, Last accessed March 10, 2022 athttps://www.nifc.gov/fire-
information/statistics/wildfires
\2\ Id.
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SFC and VFC are the fundamental Federal mechanism for assisting
States and local fire departments in responding to wildland fires and
in conducting management activities that mitigate fire risk on non-
federal lands. SFC also helps train and equip local first responders
who are often first to arrive at a wildland fire incident and who play
a crucial role in keeping fires and their costs as minimal as possible.
Attacking fires when they are small is the key to reducing fatalities,
injuries, loss of homes, and cutting Federal fire-fighting costs. The
need for increased funding for fire suppression on Federal lands has
broad support. The need to increase fire suppression funding for state
and private lands, where roughly 80 percent of wildfires occur, and
where many Federal fires begin, is just as urgent. NASF supports
funding the State Fire Capacity Program at $79 million, and Volunteer
Fire Capacity Program at $21 million in fiscal Year 2023.
forest pests and invasive plants
Also among the greatest threats identified in the Forest Action
Plans are native and non-native pests and diseases which have the
potential to displace native trees, shrubs, and other vegetation types
in forests; the Forest Service estimates that hundreds of native and
non-native insects and diseases damage the Nation's forests each year.
The growing number of damaging pests and diseases are often introduced
and spread by way of wooden shipping materials, movement of firewood,
and through various types of recreation. There is an estimated 81
million acres at risk of attack by insects and disease.\3\ These
extensive areas of high insect or disease mortality can set the stage
for large-scale, catastrophic wildfire.
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\3\ Tkacz, Bory, et al. 2014. NIDRM 2012 Report Files: Executive
Summary. 2013-2027 National Insect and Disease Forest Risk Assessment.
Last accessed on March, 5, 2019 at: http://www.fs.fed.us/foresthealth/
technology/pdfs/2012_RiskMap_Exec_summary.pdf
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The Cooperative Forest Health Management program supports
activities related to prevention, monitoring, suppression, and
eradication of insects, diseases, and plants through provision of
technical and financial assistance to States and territories to
maintain healthy, productive forest ecosystems on non-federal forest
lands. The Cooperative Forest Health Management program plays a
critical part in protecting communities already facing outbreaks and in
preventing exposure of more forests and trees to the devastating and
costly effects of damaging pests and pathogens. NASF supports funding
the Forest Health-Cooperative Lands Program at $39.43 million in fiscal
Year 2023.
assisting landowners and maintaining healthy forests--forest
stewardship program and forest legacy program
Actively managed healthy forest landscapes are a vital part of
rural America, providing an estimated 900,000 jobs, clean water, wood
products, and other essential services to millions of Americans. Over
50 percent of U.S. forestland is privately owned and supports an
average of eight jobs per 1,000 acres.\4\ However, the Forest Service
estimates that 57 million acres of private forests in the U.S. are at
risk of conversion to urban development over the next two decades.
Programs like the Forest Stewardship Program (FSP) and the Forest
Legacy Program (FLP) are key tools identified in the Forest Action
Plans for keeping working forests intact and for providing a full suite
of benefits to society. With the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA)
signed into law, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) will
receive permanent annual funding at the full authorized level, nearly
doubling historical appropriations for the LWCF. FLP should receive
significant increased funding levels commensurate with the increased
funding provided to the LWCF by the GAOA.
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\4\ Forest2Market. The Economic Impact of Privately-Owned Forests.
2009.
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FSP is the most extensive family forest-owner assistance program in
the country and is delivered in partnership with state forestry
agencies, cooperative extension services, certified foresters,
conservation districts, and other partners. FSP equips private forest
landowners with the unbiased, science-based information they need to
sustainably manage their forests now and into the future, helping to
keep forests as forests. In addition to delivering technical assistance
directly to forestland owners, the Forest Stewardship Program often
serves as a gateway to other landowner cost-share assistance
programming, like the USDA Environmental Quality Incentives Program,
State programs, and partner programs, that can help landowners keep
their forests working and intact. In fiscal year 2021, the Forest
Stewardship Program added 1.45 million acres of new or revised plans
for a total of 20.4 million acres currently enrolled in the program.
Forest landowners that have management plans are almost three times
more likely to meet their management objectives compared to those
without management plans. The FSP leads landowners to reach their
management objectives while tying those objectives to the State's
Forest Action Plan. Increased Federal funding for FSP will allow state
forestry agencies to ramp up outreach efforts and provide additional
technical assistance to landowners to ensure that private forestland
acres are maintained. Forest Stewardship plans provide guidance for
family forest landowners to keep their land healthy and productive and
often serve as management roadmaps for several generations.
Following congressional direction, NASF has worked closely with the
Forest Service to modernize the funding allocation formula to State
agencies for FSP, focused on improving program delivery with greater
emphasis on performance-based outcomes. Under the new allocation
formula, priority areas and priority resource concerns have been
designated in each State and greater emphasis has been placed on
providing technical assistance and implementing land management plans
in those priority areas. NASF supports funding for the Forest
Stewardship Program at $22 million, and the Forest Legacy Program at
$128 million in fiscal Year 2023.
urban and community forest management challenges
Urban forests are important to achieving energy savings, improved
air quality, neighborhood stability, aesthetic value, reduced noise,
and improved quality of life in municipalities and communities around
the country. Urban trees and forests provide a wide array of social,
economic, and environmental benefits to people living in urban areas;
today, more than 83 percent of the Nation's population lives in urban
areas. Yet, urban and community forests face serious threats, such as
development and urbanization, invasive pests and diseases, and fire in
the wildland urban interface (WUI).
The program is delivered in close partnership with state foresters
and leverages existing local efforts that have helped thousands of
communities and towns manage, maintain, and improve their tree cover
and green spaces. In fiscal Year 2021, the U&CF program delivered
technical, financial, educational, and research assistance to 7,100
communities across all 50 States, U.S. territories, three nations in
compacts of free association with the U.S., and the District of
Columbia. NASF supports funding the Urban and Community Forestry
Program at $38 million in fiscal Year 2023.
importance of forest inventory data in monitoring forest issues
The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program, managed by Forest
Service, Forest and Rangeland Research, is the only comprehensive
inventory system in the United States for assessing the health and
sustainability of the Nation's forests across all ownerships. FIA
provides essential data related to forest species composition, forest
growth rates, and forest health data, and it delivers baseline
inventory estimates used in Forest Action Plans. Further, this data is
used by academics, researchers, industry, and others to understand
forest trends and support investments in forest products facilities
that provide jobs and products to society. The program provides
unbiased information used in monitoring of wildlife habitat, wildfire
risk, insect and disease threats, invasive species spread, and response
to priorities identified in the Forest Action Plans.
As the key partner in FIA program delivery via State contribution
of matching funds, state foresters look forward to continued work with
the Forest Service to improve efficiency in delivery of the program to
meet the needs of the diverse user groups for FIA data. This will
ensure that, at a minimum, the historical level of base program
delivery is accomplished, which should include funding the collection
of data on a 7-year cycle in the east and 10-year cycle in the west.
NASF supports funding the Forest Inventory and Analysis Program at
$32.4 million in fiscal Year 2023. However, we request that this
increase not be realized at the expense of other critical Forest
Service Research & Development or S&PF programs. We request you to work
with the Forest Service to establish a budget line item for FIA for
salaries and expenses.
landscape scale restoration (lsr)
The Landscape Scale Restoration (LSR) program is an important way
that States, in collaboration with the Forest Service and other
partners, address critical forest priorities across the landscape. LSR
projects focus on the most critical priorities identified in each
State's Forest Action Plan and on achieving resource objectives
outlined in the 2018 Farm Bill. The program prioritizes funding
projects that reduce the risk of uncharacteristic wildfires, improve
fish and wildlife habitats, maintain or improve water quality and
watershed function, mitigate invasive species, insect infestation and
disease, improve important forest ecosystems, and measure ecological
and economic benefits including air and soil quality and productivity.
As a result, LSR contributes to achieving results across the landscape
and to making meaningful local, regional, and national impacts. NASF
supports funding the Landscape Scale Restoration Program at $20 million
in fiscal Year 2023.
NASF appreciates the opportunity to share our fiscal Year 2023
appropriations recommendations for the Forest Service with the
subcommittee.
[This statement was submitted by Christopher Martin, Connecticut
State Forester, and President.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Association of Tribal Historic
Preservation Officers
Chair Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski, and Members of the
subcommittee, I appreciate this opportunity to present the National
Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers' (NATHPO)'s
recommendations for Fiscal Year 2023 appropriations. My name is Valerie
Grussing and I am the Executive Director.
We were grateful that the subcommittee included $24 million in the
Tribal line item of the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) in the Fiscal
Year 2022 Interior Appropriations bill. That was $1 million more than
both the Biden Administration's budget request and House appropriators'
funding level. Unfortunately, the Fiscal Year 2022 Omnibus bill only
included $16 million in the Tribal line item of the HPF, $8 million
less than this subcommittee had included in its bill. The
subcommittee's $24 million funding level would have taken a significant
step toward enabling Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPOs) to
protect and preserve Tribal Nations' cultural resources and sacred
sites. It also would have expedited important infrastructure and energy
projects that require Tribal Nation consultation. While the funding of
THPOs is a national issue, it also has serious ramifications for the
States represented by members of this subcommittee. Eighty of the 208
THPOs are located in subcommittee members' States.
It is imperative that the final Fiscal Year 2023 funding level
reflects this subcommittee's clear understanding of the important role
that THPOs play. We urge the subcommittee to provide a funding level
for Fiscal Year 2023 that provides THPOs with the resources they need
to do the work that is delegated to them in the National Historic
Preservation Act. Specifically, we urge the subcommittee to support
these funding levels:
1. National Park Service, Historic Preservation Fund, Tribal line
item ($34 million)
2. National Park Service, National NAGPRA Program:
a. Exclusively for NAGPRA Grants ($10 million)
b. Program administration ($1 million for Program Use)
What are Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPOs)? THPOs are
an exercise of Tribal sovereignty, appointed by federally recognized
Tribal governments that have an agreement with the Department of the
Interior to assume the Federal compliance role of the State HPO, per
the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). Tribal historic
preservation plans are grounded in self-determination, traditional
knowledge, and cultural values, and may involve projects to improve
Indian schools, roads, health clinics, and housing. THPOs are the first
responders when a sacred site is threatened or when Native ancestors
are disturbed by development. THPOs are often responsible for their
Tribe's oral history programs, operating museums and cultural centers,
leading revitalization of Native traditions and languages, and many
more related functions.
What is the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation
Officers? NATHPO is a national non-profit membership association of
Tribal government officials committed to protecting culturally
important places that perpetuate Native identity, resilience, and
cultural endurance. NATHPO assists Tribes in protecting their historic
properties, whether they are naturally occurring in the landscape or
are manmade structures.
1. Historic Preservation Fund (HPF), administered by the National
Park Service--Tribal line item ($34 million)
As of December 31, 2021, there were 208 National Park Service
(NPS)-recognized Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPOs). Each
THPO represents an affirmative step by an Indian Tribe to assume the
responsibilities of the State Historic Preservation Officers for their
respective Tribal lands, as authorized by Congress in the 1992
amendments to the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA).
Collectively, these Tribes exercise responsibilities over a land base
exceeding 50 million acres in 30 States. The HPF is the sole source of
Federal funding for THPOs and the main source of funding to implement
the Nation's historic preservation programs. HPF revenue is generated
from oil and gas development on the Outer Continental Shelf. We
recommend $34 million to carry out the requirements of the NHPA. This
would provide the 208 federally recognized THPOs an average of $164,000
each to run their programs. Funding THPOs and staff creates jobs,
generates economic development, and spurs community revitalization. It
also facilitates required environmental and historic review processes,
including for energy and infrastructure permitting. Tribes don't want
to stop this development--they need it more than anyone. But they also
need to reap the benefits rather than just continue to incur the costs.
If these review processes are ever to be ``streamlined,'' THPOs must be
able to do the required work.
What is at stake? As the number of Indian Tribes with THPO programs
increases, the amount of HPF funding appropriated to THPOs must catch
up. Native American cultural properties on millions of acres of Tribal
lands are at risk. For the past several years, each THPO program has
been asked to conduct important Federal compliance work with fewer
financial resources. In the first year of congressional funding support
for THPOs (Fiscal Year 1996), the original 12 THPOs each received an
average of $80,000, while in Fiscal Year 2021, 200 THPOs received an
average of $75,000. This funding was inadequate for THPOs to handle
their current workloads and those workloads have increased
exponentially with the enactment of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill.
Additionally, the number of Tribes with a THPO continues to grow;
around 10 Tribes successfully establish a THPO program each year. The
epidemics we see rampant in Indian Country are the symptoms of
historical trauma--of people systematically cut off from their
families, languages, practices, and lands. Reconnecting Native peoples
to their cultural heritage, traditions, and places has the power to
help heal deep generational wounds. Treating the cause: that is the
work THPOs do. To continue this work in Indian Country, it is essential
that THPO programs receive increased funding to meet the increasing
need. The chart below demonstrates the program growth and funding need.
Additional HPF programs administered by the National Park Service:
NATHPO appreciates the strong HPF funding levels the Committee has
provided in recent years. We support the request of the National Trust
for Historic Preservation that Congress provide a total fiscal Year
2023 HPF appropriation of $200 million. Within that funding we
recommend:
--$65 million for State Historic Preservation Officers (SHPOs);
--$34 million for Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPOs);
--$24 million for competitive grants to preserve the sites and
stories of efforts to advance African American Civil Rights;
--$5 million for the History of Equal Rights Grants program to
preserve the sites and stories associated with securing civil
rights for All Americans, including women, American Latino,
Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and LGBTQ
Americans;
--$12 million for grants to Historically Black Colleges and
Universities;
--$35 million for Save America's Treasures grants;
--$12 million for Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization grants;
--$3 million for grants related to communities underrepresented on
the National Register of Historic Places and National Historic
Landmarks.
We also recommend the Committee encourage the NPS to work with
States and Tribes to improve what has become a burdensome apportionment
process so that SHPOs and THPOs can more readily and efficiently access
funding Congress has allocated for their work.
2. National Park Service, National NAGPRA Program
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)
provides for the disposition of Native American cultural items \1\
removed from Federal or Tribal lands, or in the possession or control
of museums or Federal agencies, to lineal descendants, Indian Tribes,
or Native Hawaiian organizations based on descent or cultural or
geographic affiliation. NAGPRA prohibits trafficking of Native American
cultural items and created a grants program exclusively for Indian
Tribes, Native Hawaiian organizations, and public museums.
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\1\ Cultural items include human remains, funerary or sacred
objects, and objects of cultural patrimony.
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NAGPRA Grants Program:
c. $10 million to be used exclusively for NAGPRA Grants to Indian
Tribes, Native Hawaiian organizations, and museums.
Administration of National NAGPRA Program:
d. $1 million, additionally, for NAGPRA program administration,
including the publication of Federal Register notices, grant
administration, civil penalty investigations, and Review
Committee costs.
3. Bureau of Indian Affairs--Create line items and support the
following divisions:
The BIA has federally mandated responsibilities to work with Indian
Tribes and comply with the NHPA, the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA), NAGPRA, and the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA).
Currently the BIA does not have any budget line items devoted to
complying with these Federal laws. Funds are not only needed for the
BIA to comply with their internal development efforts, such as roads
and forestry, but also to conduct project reviews of outside
development projects, such as oil and gas development. ARPA crime on
Indian reservations continues to be a major problem, as looters and
traffickers continue to steal valuable cultural resources from Tribal
and Federal lands. The BIA does not have any special agents or law
enforcement forces to combat this uniquely destructive crime in Indian
Country and we urge the creation of a dedicated line item within the
BIA.
NATHPO recommends the BIA create line items and support the following
divisions:
a. Cultural Resource compliance at the 12 Regional BIA Offices
($3 million);
b. Central Office cultural resource efforts throughout the bureau
($200,000);
c. NAGPRA compliance work ($765,000);
d. To fight ARPA crimes on Indian reservations ($200,000).
4. Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian
and the National Museum of Natural History Repatriation Programs
NATHPO requests that the Smithsonian Institution receive $1.25
million for its repatriation activities, including operation costs of
the Review Committee and repatriation office.
Thank you for considering our testimony. I would be pleased to
answer any questions you have.
[This statement was submitted by Valerie J. Grussing, PhD,
Executive Director.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Conference of State Historic
Preservation Officers
fiscal year 2023 historic preservation fund (hpf)
Apportionment Total Request:
$65 million for State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPOs)
$35 million for the Save America's Treasures grant program
$34 million for Tribal Historic Preservation Offices (THPOs)
$24 million for the African American Civil Rights grant program
$12 million Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
grant program
$12 million for the Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization grant program
$10 million for the Semiquincentennial grant program
$5 million for the History of Equal Rights grant program
$3 million for the Underrepresented Community grant program
Funded through withdrawals from the Historic Preservation Fund (16
USC 470h), U. S. Department of the Interior's National Park Service.
unique and successful federal-state partnership
Understanding the importance of our National heritage, in 1966
Congress passed the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA, Title 54
U.S.C. 300101 et seq), which established historic preservation as a
national priority, particularly in the face of widespread loss of
historic buildings and places that represent the American identity in
communities throughout the country. Recognizing that State officials
have local expertise and knowledge with the ability to work most
directly with and for constituents, the act's authors directed Federal
entities charged with its implementation--the Department of the
Interior and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation--to partner
with the States to fulfill this vital national priority through a
remarkably successful exercise in federalism.
Federal NHPA duties delegated to the SHPOs include: 1) locating and
recording historic resources; 2) nominating significant historic
resources to the National Register of Historic Places; 3) cultivating
historic preservation programs at the local government level; 4)
providing funds for preservation activities; 5) commenting on Federal
rehabilitation tax credit projects; 6) review of all Federal projects
for their impact on historic properties; and 7) providing technical
assistance to Federal agencies, State and local governments and the
private sector.
Ten years later in 1976, Congress established the Historic
Preservation Fund (HPF) to assist the States in accomplishing this
federally delegated work. Congress at that time opted to fund the HPF
from outer-continental shelf lease revenues (rather than tax dollars),
based on an initial premise that the depletion of one non-renewable
resource could be used to help preserve another non-renewable
resource--our heritage. The States also contribute to the current
funding mechanism, matching at least 40 percent of the Federal HPF
funding they receive.
saving america's heritage
The foundational step in preserving and protecting America's
heritage is to identify it--through the survey, documentation,
stewardship and sharing of historic place data. Adequate funding is
essential for SHPOs to do this work in a way that takes advantage of
and reflects advances in technology. Recent shortfalls in funding mean
that many States must continue to rely upon outdated paper records and
inefficient manual processes. Having accurate, up-to-date, and
digitally accessible information about our Nation's historic resources
dramatically increases the efficiency of project consultation as well
as builds a permanent record of our Nation's physical heritage. From
decisions on the design of local infill development, to state
transportation planning projects, to Federal large-scale energy
projects and disaster recovery efforts--every single project that could
impact historic places, and by extension, the American people, benefit
from enhanced and accessible historic resource maps and databases.
Once identified and documented, America's historic resources are
primarily recognized at the local, State, and national levels by
listing on both the National Register as well as State and local
historic registers with varying degrees of protection, consideration,
and recognition. SHPOs, through the authority of the NHPA assist,
support, and encourage communities with their preservation efforts and
are the gateway to listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
National Register recognition by the Secretary of the Interior confirms
citizens' belief in the significance of their communities' historic
places as well as provides incentives for the further preservation of
these irreplaceable places, often through public-private partnerships.
The National Historic Preservation program is primarily one of
assistance, not acquisition. The Federal Government does not own,
manage, or maintain responsibility for the vast majority of the
historic assets aided by the National Historic Preservation program.
Instead, the citizen-oriented national program working through the
SHPOs provides individual Americans and communities, together with the
local, State, and Federal Governments that serve them, with the tools
needed to identify, preserve, and utilize the historic assets of
importance to them. SHPOs are fundamentally constituent-oriented and
work closely and cooperatively with individual Americans to preserve
historic places across the Nation.
Directing $65 million for fiscal Year 2023 to SHPO offices will
provide much needed operational funding to aid in increased capacity
and efficiency to maximize constituent assistance and responsiveness.
Specifically, with the recent $500 billion in new Federal
infrastructure spending, SHPOs are in dire need of resources to operate
programs as they continue to fulfill responsibilities to review and
comment on increasing numbers of Federal undertakings under NHPA.
Likewise, Tribal Historic Preservation Offices (THPOs) assume many of
the responsibilities of the SHPO on their respective Tribal lands. The
number of THPOs continues to increase annually, requiring funding to
keep pace with expanding needs. With over 200 THPOs in place, funding
of $34 million for THPO offices is necessary to prevent a decrease in
the average THPO grant.
HPF funds also support competitive grant programs aimed at
protecting and promoting the Nation's historic and cultural resources,
while furthering efforts to tell the full scope of America's history
through recognition and preservation of our irreplaceable historic
places. As such, NCSHPO encourages HPF funding of $35 million for the
Save America's Treasures grant program; $24 million for the African
American Civil Rights grant program; $12 million to assist in the
preservation and rehabilitation of buildings on the campuses of
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); $12 million for
the Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization grant program to support
historic preservation in rural communities; $10 million to support the
Semiquincentennial grant program to commemorate the Nation's 250th
anniversary; $5 million for the History of Equal Rights grant program;
and $3 million for competitive grants to identify, recognize and
preserve the sites and stories related to Underrepresented Communities.
In fiscal Year 2022, the importance of having appropriate funds to
protect and promote our historic and cultural assets was reflected in
the amount authorized under the final omnibus spending bill for the
HPF. A record $173 million was appropriated under the fund including
$55.675 million for SHPOs, $16 million for THPOs, and the remainder
going towards competitive grant programs that support historic
preservation efforts. While this is trending in the right direction,
there are additional citizen-oriented needs that must be met and more
work to be done.
jobs, economic development & community revitalization
Historic preservation has stimulated economic growth, promoted
community education and pride, and rescued and rehabilitated
significant historic resources throughout the country. By positively
combatting the effects of blight and vacancy through respectful
repurposing of existing historic building stock, historic preservation
is frequently a catalyst for positive community change--resulting in
dynamic destinations for visitors and residents alike. Further,
preservation incentives and programs foster affordable housing and
solutions to the challenge of climate change.
The Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credit (HTC) program, administered
by the State Historic Preservation Offices in cooperation with the
National Park Service, is an important driver for economic development.
Throughout the program's history, the HTC has enabled the
rehabilitation of more than 47,000 buildings \1\, generated more than
2.9 million jobs and leveraged $181 billion in private investment
nationwide.\2\ On average, the HTC leverages $5 dollars in private
investment for every $1 dollar in Federal funding, cultivating highly
effective public-private partnerships and community focused re-
investment. 39 States currently offer a historic tax credit program
\3\, including my own state of North Carolina. State tax credit
programs complement the Federal HTC program incentives and provide
additional opportunities for community revitalization and saving
historic places for the use and enjoyment of future generations of
Americans.
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\1\ 2022. National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior,
Technical Preservation Services. Federal Tax Incentives for
Rehabilitating Historic Buildings--Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2021.
\2\ 2021. Rutgers Edward J Bloustein School of Planning & Policy &
National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Technical
Preservation Services. Annual Report on the Economic Impact of the
Federal Historic Tax Credits for Fiscal Year 2020.
\3\ 2022. National Trust for Historic Preservation. Preservation &
State Historic Tax Credits.
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As an example of return on the Federal HPF investment in my own
state of North Carolina, the modest Federal funding provided to our
office of less than $2 million in the last fiscal year helped our
professional staff to facilitate in that 1 year approximately $200
million of historic tax credit-fueled private investment in historic
buildings, which employs local workers at the construction and post-
rehab stage, brought about local construction material spending,
generated new sources of local, State, and Federal tax revenue, and
enhanced community pride through the renewal of historic building stock
for a new generation of productive use.
Historic preservation also stimulates economic development through
heritage tourism. SHPOs are essential local partners in identifying and
interpreting the historic places that attract visitors. A modest
increase in SHPO funding would allow SHPOs to expand their public
outreach and assistance efforts, enabling communities to take greater
advantage of heritage tourism opportunities which likewise lead to job
creation, new business development and strong community identity.
state historic preservation offices' accomplishments
The HPF has facilitated nearly 100,000 listings to the National
Register, with over 1.9 million contributing resources, and the survey
of millions of acres for cultural resources. The HPF has also provided
SHPOs with the administrative capacity for constituent access to the
Federal Historic Preservation Tax Credit program, which has generated
more than $39.4 billion in Federal tax revenue from historic
rehabilitation projects from inception through fiscal Year 20202. In
fiscal Year 2021, HPF funding also enabled SHPOs to review 124,300
Federal undertakings, and in so doing, aid in a conscientious public
consideration of how to balance two fundamental needs--public
investments for the future and preservation of America's historic
places.
Many SHPOs have also made extensive use of HPF grant programs that
are intended to make sure that a wide variety of historic places are
preserved. In North Carolina, over the last several years, we have
applied for and received grants under several of these grant programs.
A 2015 Underrepresented Communities grant yielded National Register
nominations and listings for eight Rosenwald School nominations, two
historic African American cemeteries, and the College Heights Historic
District, which is associated with the HBCU North Carolina Central
University; a 2022 award through this program will survey and nominate
to the National Register extant Green Book properties, as examples of
Black entrepreneurship during the difficult segregation era. A 2020
Civil Rights grant is currently underway with a study to gather and
document oral histories, background research, and places associated
with the Civil Right Movement in northeastern North Carolina. The North
Carolina Division of State Historic Sites has also recently received a
Civil Rights grant to rehabilitate the home of Civil Rights leader
Golden Frinks in Edenton and update the existing National Register
listing for the home to capture its Civil Rights significance. A
current American Battlefield Protection Program planning grant is
providing needed funding to study the combat role of US Colored Troops
in North Carolina with an eye to strategizing battlefield preservation
priorities in the future.
conclusion
Historic preservation recognizes that what was common and ordinary
in the past is often rare and precious today, and what is common and
ordinary today may be extraordinary, whether it is fifty, one hundred
or five hundred years from now. The national network of State Historic
Preservation Offices, employing public history professionals in service
to American citizens, helps to ensure that the places associated with
the history of all Americans are recognized and preserved. To that end,
I would like to thank the committee sincerely for its commitment to
historic preservation. The Federal Government plays an invaluable role
in preserving our Nation's history and our collective sense of place.
Through our federalism partnership, SHPOs remain committed to working
together to identify, protect, and maintain our Nation's heritage and
in doing so, provide Americans with a strong sense of orientation
towards our common history.
On behalf of all 59 SHPOs, I'd like to thank you, Chairman Merkley,
Ranking Member Murkowski, and members of the U.S. Senate Committee on
Appropriations, subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related
Agencies for the opportunity to submit testimony.
[This statement was submitted by Ramona Bartos, President.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Congress of American Indians
On behalf of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI),
thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony on fiscal Year 2023
funding for the Department of the Interior (DOI), the Indian Health
Service (IHS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the U.S.
Forest Service, involving our recommendation of $55.54 billion in
funding. The spending within this subcommittee's jurisdiction include
some of the most critical funding for Indian Country. Unfortunately,
chronically underfunded and sometimes inefficiently structured Federal
programs have left many basic obligations of the United States to
Tribal Nations and their people unmet for centuries, which contribute
to the inequities observed in Native American communities.
The President's fiscal Year 2023 Budget Request to Congress calls
for a historic shift in the paradigm of Nation-to-Nation relations that
seeks to restore the promises made between our ancestors and the United
States in several key programs. It includes requesting mandatory
funding for: IHS, DOI Contract Support Costs, and Section 105(l) Tribal
Leases; along with a myriad of investments in Indian healthcare,
education, public safety, natural resource management, and
infrastructure. The Biden-Harris proposal represents the most
revolutionary presidential budget and policy proposals for Tribal
programs, which Tribal leaders have long advocated for, are long
overdue, and are prepaid for by our ancestors.
After the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the Federal Government listened
to Tribal Nations' collective voice and provided the largest single
infusion of Federal funding for Native Americans in U.S. history.\1\
Funding from the American Rescue Plan Act embodied a simple and
effective strategy to maximize the investment: empowering Tribal
Nations to design their own solutions. While this funding is historic,
necessary, and essential, Tribal Nations began the pandemic on unequal
footing compared to State and local governments. This historic
inclusion in Federal spending for Indian Country must be the norm, and
not the exception.
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\1\ Eric C. Henso et. al, ``Assessing the U.S. Treasury
Department's Allocations of Funding for Tribal Governments under the
American Rescue Plan act of 2021'', Harvard Project on American Indian
Economic Development & Native Nations Institute, Policy Brief No. 7
November 3, 2021), accessed at: https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/
files/assessing_the_u.s.--
treasury_departments_allocations_of_funding_for_tribal_governments.pdf?m
=1635972521
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The subcommittee can do this by: working with the Budget Committee
to account for mandatory obligations as mandatory spending; providing
funding for programs that far outpaces the appropriations status quo
that has left Tribal communities less safe, less prosperous, and
inhibits economic potential; empowering Tribal Nations to address
climate change and restore their homelands, including funding for
taking land into trust and a Carcieri fix;\2\ providing resources to
further DOI's commitment to improve the protection of, and Tribal
access to, Indigenous sacred sites; and by providing advance
appropriations until such time that all trust and treaty obligations to
Tribal Nations are accounted for and provided as mandatory spending.
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\2\ See NCAI Resolutions RAP-10-058c, MSP-15-044, and DEN-18-055.
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u.s. department of the interior
The government-to-government relationship between the United States
and Tribal Nations extends to all agencies of the Federal Government
and is not singularly housed within Tribal affairs bureaus or offices.
The long history of Federal Indian policies of removal, assimilation,
reorganization, and termination have placed many Tribal lands in the
hands of Federal land management agencies with the duty to conserve and
protect them. Tribal Nations are assuming greater roles of stewardship
and co-management of public lands, waters, and wildlife that
demonstrate the creative management solutions that tribal/federal
partnerships bring to Federal land management. Additionally, Tribal
Nations play a unique role in the mitigation of wildland fires, a joint
responsibility of Federal land management agencies and Tribal Nations
over more than 535 million acres.
Tribal Nations are fighting battles to protect and retain access to
their homelands, ensuring their freedom to continue practicing their
religious and cultural customs. Every week, it seems, NCAI hears a new
story of our sacred lands under threat, either from nonconsensual
development, environmental harm, or restriction of treaty guaranteed
access for the original stewards of these places. Infringements on
Native American cultural and religious rights and protections are not
limited to Federal lands. Private landowners continue to till some of
the last natural habitats for Peyote in the United States, affecting
biodiversity in the ecosystem and destroying religious practices that
have existed for millennia. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
Partners for Fish and Wildlife program allows for partnerships with
Tribal Nations and private landowners for the conservation and
protection of working landscapes such as forests, farms, and ranches.
This subcommittee must leverage these and other existing authorities to
provide grants to Tribal Nations and Tribal organizations for
partnerships with private landowners for the conservation and
protection of Peyote.
In November 2021, the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture
signed a joint secretarial order to facilitate agreements with Tribes
to collaborate in the co-stewardship of Federal lands and waters.\3\
This subcommittee must provide and direct resources into the protection
and Tribal co-management of Federal lands for the conservation and
protection of natural resources, historical and sacred areas, and
subsistence rights for all Tribal Nations.
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\3\ Joint Secretarial Order on Fulfilling the Trust Responsibility
to Indian Tribes in theStewardship of Federal Lands and Waters, Order
No. 3403, accessed at: https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/elips/
documents/so-3403-joint-secretarial-order-on-fulfilling-the-trust-
responsibility-to-indian-Tribes-in-the-stewardship-of-federal-lands-
and-waters.pdf.
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indian affairs
NCAI recommends $5.36 billion for Indian Affairs programs in fiscal
Year 2023, consistent with the official fiscal Year 2023 recommendation
of the Tribal/Interior Budget Council (TIBC).\4\ Within TIBC's fiscal
Year 2023 recommendations are robust increases for all base-funded
programs, and additional funding to address public safety and justice
in Tribal communities; the economic and social wellbeing of our
citizens and all those who visit or do business there; the backlog of
school, community, and government infrastructure construction and
maintenance; taking land into trust; and addressing climate resiliency
in Tribal communities and on Indian and Federal lands.
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\4\ TIBC Tribal Representatives' fiscal Year 2023 Budget Submission
to the Department of the Interior, June 14, 2021, accessed at: https://
res.cloudinary.com/ncai/image/upload/v1632171603/tibc-documents/
FY_2023_Tribal_Budget_Submission_qs1dgw.pdf.
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NCAI supports the TIBC recommendation for an additional $15 million
for the expansion of the Tiwahe Initiative to, at least, 10 new pilot
sites. The Tiwahe Initiative promotes a comprehensive and integrated
approach to supporting family stability and strengthening Tribal
communities by addressing interrelated issues associated with child
welfare, domestic violence, substance abuse, poverty, and
incarceration. Lasting and efficient community solutions lie in
addressing the interrelated problems of poverty, violence, and
substance abuse through a comprehensive, culturally appropriate
approach to help improve the lives and opportunities of Indian
families.
NCAI also recommends funding for the establishment of an Economic
Development Pilot Initiative, similar to the Tiwahe Initiative, that
provides base funding increases directly to Tribal governments to
develop and operate comprehensive and integrated economic and community
development. Tribal Nations are diverse in their geographic and
cultural representation, making targeted and limited Indian Affairs
funding opportunities for economic and community development too
restrictive, too costly, and less efficient. The June 2021 TIBC meeting
discussed diverse community needs from tourism, to farming/ranching, to
advancing Tribal timber industries (e.g., saw mills), to fish
hatcheries; but this conversation was not new to the TIBC discussion or
limited to these topics. The common theme between them is that they are
each unique but their development must be integrated, which underscores
the value of policy solutions that empower Tribal governments to
develop solutions specifically tailored to their communities. This
Economic Development Pilot Initiative should include, at least, funding
for: the development of Tribal government codes to promote economic
development (e.g., tourism, timber, zoning, and building codes, etc.);
business infrastructure development; feasibility studies; and
investment capacity.
NCAI strongly supports accounting for Contract Support Costs and
Payments for Tribal Leases as mandatory spending. This shift in
scorekeeping can occur by an agreement between Appropriators, the
Office of Management and Budget, and the Budget Committees. This
subcommittee has consistently published report language citing the
mandatory nature of these obligations, which are typically addressed
through mandatory spending. NCAI urges this subcommittee to work with
the Senate Budget Committee to achieve this goal.
indian health service
NCAI recommends $49.83 billion for the Indian Health Service (IHS)
in fiscal Year 2023, consistent with the official fiscal Year 2023
recommendation of the IHS National Tribal Budget Formulation
Workgroup.\5\ NCAI also strongly urges you to ensure IHS funding is
provided as mandatory spending, with a mechanism to automatically
adjust spending to keep pace with population growth, inflation, and
healthcare costs. This will ensure that the funding Congress provides
for Indian healthcare can be used efficiently and strategically,
without leaving IHS wondering if, or when, funding will halt.
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\5\ IHS National Tribal Budget Formulation Workgroup fiscal Year
2023 Budget, May 2021, accessed at: https://www.nihb.org/docs/02072022/
FY percent202023 percent20Tribal percent20Budget percent20Formulation
percent20Workgroup percent20Recommendations percent20Vol
percent201.pdf.
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Mandatory spending for IHS is a simple promise. A promise that the
United States honors and upholds its treaty and trust obligations. A
promise that Congress will enact solutions that cease the undue and
unnecessary suffering of our people. A promise of certainty and
security for our communities and most vulnerable populations. We urge
you to help fulfill this promise made to our ancestors, by your
ancestors, for our shared future.
environmental protection agency
As place-based peoples, Tribal Nations have sacred histories and
maintain cultural practices that tie them to their current land bases
and ancestral territories. As a result, Tribal peoples directly, and
often disproportionately, suffer from the impacts of environmental
degradation. Federal funding to support environmental protection for
Tribal lands was not forthcoming until more than 20 years after the
passage of the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts.\6\ Almost 40 years after
the passage of the Clean Water Act, only 46 of 77 eligible Tribal
Nations have Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-approved water
quality standards,\7\ which are a cornerstone of the Clean Water Act.
Given the disparate access of Tribal communities to safe and clean
water, NCAI recommends a 5 percent Tribal set-aside for each the
National Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) and the
National Clean Water Act State Revolving Fund (SRF), with $71.97
million to be appropriated to the DWSRF and $99.1 million to be
appropriated to the SRF.
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\6\ United States Federal Register, Indian Tribes: Air Quality
Planning and Management, 63 Fed. Reg. 7254, 1998, accessed at: https://
www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1998-02-12/pdf/98-3451.pdf.
\7\ Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Actions on Tribal Water
Quality Standards and Contacts, accessed at: https://www.epa.gov/wqs-
tech/epa-actions-tribal-water-quality-standards-and-contacts.
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Additionally, NCAI recommends $100 million be appropriated for the
EPA Tribal General Assistance Program, $30 million for the Tribal Air
Quality Management Program, and $46.8 million for EPA's Land and
Emergency Management programs for the benefit of Tribal Nations.
u.s. forest service
Tribal Nations that engage in timber harvesting are working to
expand their participation in the management of neighboring at-risk
Federal forest through accelerated implementation of the Tribal Forest
Protection Act (TFPA). TFPA authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture and
the Secretary of the Interior to enter into contracts or agreements
with Tribal Nations to carry out tribally proposed projects on Forest
Service or Bureau of Land Management-managed lands. Additionally, the
2018 Farm Bill contains an important expansion of the Public Law 93-638
contracting authority to the U.S. Forest Service, allowing the
Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to enter
into agreements whereby Tribal Nations or Tribal organizations may
perform administrative, management, and other functions of TFPA
programs through Public Law 93-638 contracts. The President's fiscal
Year 2023 Budget Request includes a request for $11 million to expand
the time-tested principles of self-determination and self-governance
and empower Tribal Nations to reclaim what they have known for
millennia--how to manage and conserve the landscape for sustainable
economies and cultural practices.
conclusion
Tribal Nations are resilient and have demonstrated their resolve
and dedication since time immemorial. However, Tribal Nations are
uniquely reliant on the Federal Government to fulfill the promises made
in exchange for the land that created the foundation of the bounty and
wealth of the United States. Our people have paid for every penny
obligated to Indian Country hundreds of times over by providing this
nation with our land. In order to uphold this Nation's promises to its
people, it must first uphold its promise to this land's First People.
We expect to continue to be treated as sovereign nations and with
governmental parity. When we work together we can achieve so much. We
must now continue down that path of Nation-to-Nation growth, and only
then will all of our people be able to fully flourish.
[This statement was submitted by Dante Desiderio, Chief Executive
Officer of the National Congress of American Indians.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Council of Urban Indian Health
My name is Francys Crevier, I am Algonquin and the Chief Executive
Officer of the National Council of Urban Indian Health (NCUIH). On
behalf of NCUIH, the National advocate for health care for the over 70
percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) living off-
reservation and the 41 Urban Indian Organizations (UIOs) that serve
these populations, I would like to thank Chairman Jeff Merkley, Ranking
Member Lisa Murkowski, and Members of the subcommittee for your
leadership to improve health outcomes for urban Indians, especially in
the COVID-19 response. We respectfully request the following:
--$49.8 billion for the Indian Health Service (IHS) and $949.9
million for Urban Indian Health for FY23 (as requested by the
Tribal Budget Formulation Workgroup)
--Advance appropriations for IHS until mandatory funding is enacted
current status of covid-19 in indian country
UIOs provide a range of services and are primarily funded by a
single line item in the annual Indian health budget, constituting less
than 1 percent of the total IHS annual budget before fiscal Year 2020.
There have been vast improvements from where we were 2 years ago
regarding the availability of supplies, tests, and vaccines, but
despite advances, the situation facing Natives has not relented. AI/ANs
are 3.2 times more likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 and 2.2 times
more likely to die from the virus.\1\ Due to the disproportionate
impacts of the pandemic, we are asking Congress to prioritize Indian
Country and for the government to truly honor its trust obligation
through the full funding of IHS and UIOs.
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\1\ https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/
investigations-discovery/hospitalization-death-by-race-ethnicity.html
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With the funding and resources from Congress, UIOs have been highly
successful at their vaccine rollouts. As of February 2022, AI/ANs have
some of the highest vaccination administration rates in the U.S, with
70.6 percent of AI/ANs having received at least one dose of the COVID-
19 vaccine, according to CDC Vaccine Administration Data.\2\ UIOs have
played a critical role in achieving these high vaccination rates;
however, in order to fully provide health care for the over 70 percent
of AI/ANs residing in urban areas, UIOs need a consistent baseline of
regular funding.
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\2\ https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-
demographics-trends
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With COVID relief funding, UIOs have also been able to purchase PPE
and medical supplies, hire behavioral health staff, upgrade electronic
health records to accurately and effectively enter vaccine and testing
data, install a new HVAC system, provide new training for staff,
purchase a new building, lease mobile units to expand their services,
and expand behavioral health and victim services. With increased
funding, UIOs will be better equipped to respond to future pandemics
immediately.
request: $49.8 billion for the indian health service and $949.9 million
for urban indian health
While your leadership was instrumental in providing the most
significant investments ever for Indian health and urban Indian health,
we must continue in this direction to build on our successes. The
national average for health care spending is around $12,000 per person;
however, Tribal and IHS facilities receive only about $4,000 per
patient. Furthermore, UIOs receive just $672 per IHS patient--that is
only 6 percent of the National average per capita amount. That's what
our organizations must work with to provide health care for urban
Indian patients.
The Federal trust obligation to provide health care to Natives is
not optional, and we thus request Congress honor the Tribal Budget
Formulation Workgroup (TBFWG) FY23 recommendations of $49.8 billion for
IHS and $949.9 million for urban Indian health. In a letter to the
Committee, 12 Senators requested the same amount for urban Indian
health, support for the President's proposal for mandatory funding for
IHS, and support for advance appropriations for IHS in the fiscal Year
2023 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.\3\
That number is much greater than the FY22 enacted amount of $73.4
million, demonstrating how far we have to go to reach the level of need
for urban Indian health. In fact, at an IHS Area Report meeting where
Tribal leaders presented their budget requests, one Oklahoma Tribal
leader stated, ``There are inadequate levels of funding to address the
rising urban Indian population.''
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\3\ https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/
review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:81e70647-16f0-3112-ba67-
d70489fe053a#pageNum=1
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Currently, the entire Eastern seaboard lacks full-ambulatory UIOs
due to a lack of funding. The IHS has deemed the two remaining UIOs on
the East Coast to be outreach and referral only, with a combined less
than two-million-dollar budget. Unfortunately, the pandemic has shown
that two outreach and referral UIOs to serve all urban Indians on the
entire East Coast of the country is a failure to uphold the Federal
trust obligation. It is evident the UIO line item is insufficient to
allow IHS to authorize our East Coast UIOs to open fully operational
clinics. Native American Lifelines is two programs run in both Boston
and Baltimore with an annual budget for both cities of $1.6 million.
During the height of the pandemic, Native people living in urban areas
on the East Coast had to go back to reservations to get their vaccine
to take advantage of the IHS authority that would give them the vaccine
early and hopefully not become a mortality statistic.
During a May 11, 2022, Senate Appropriations subcommittee on
Interior hearing to review the fiscal Year 2023 President's Budget for
IHS, Senator Jeff Merkley asked IHS Acting Director Elizabeth Fowler if
more grants went out to UIOs due to the increase in funding. Ms. Fowler
informed that the funding will allow some referral-only programs to
initiate clinical services to provide their patients. NCUIH requests
the Committee seek information on which referral-only programs are
being provided with additional funding to initiate clinical services,
and how IHS is overseeing this process.
In 2018 the Government Accountability Office (GAO-19-74R) reported
that from 2013 to 2017, IHS annual spending increased by roughly 18
percent overall and approximately 12 percent per capita. In comparison,
annual spending at the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), which has
a similar charge to IHS, increased by 32 percent overall, with a 25
percent per capita increase during the same period. Similarly, spending
under Medicare and Medicaid increased by 22 percent and 31 percent,
respectively. In fact, even though the VHA service population is only
three times that of IHS, their annual appropriations are roughly 13
times higher. Despite the trust and treaty obligation of the Federal
Government to provide health care to AI/ANs, IHS has been historically
underfunded in comparison to other major Federal health agencies.
The Federal Government owes a trust responsibility to Tribes and
AI/ANs that is not restricted to the borders of reservations. Funding
for Indian health must be significantly increased if the Federal
Government is, to finally, and faithfully, fulfill its trust
responsibility.
update on allowability of urban indian health funds for facilities
Last year, we requested language to allow the use of UIO funding
for facilities--to enable UIOs to make long-needed upgrades to address
gaps that were exacerbated by COVID-19. With the help of your
leadership, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF) included the
Padilla-Moran-Lankford Amendment to allow UIOs to utilize their
existing contracts to upgrade their aging facilities. We want to thank
the committee for your support in enabling UIOs to use their funding to
upgrade their facilities.
However, because UIOs do not receive facilities funding, unlike the
rest of the IHS system, and must use their line item for this purpose,
the committee must increase the funding for the urban Indian health
line item. In a recent IHS Area Report meeting, the Phoenix Area
prioritized urban Indian health in the IHS budget while highlighting
the need for increased funding for urban Indian health facility
renovation. UIOs report needing at least $200 million to fund
construction and renovation projects.\4\ These examples further support
the need to increase the UIO line-item budget to the Tribal request of
$949.9 million.
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\4\ https://ncuih.org/wp-content/uploads/UIO-Facilities-Needs-
2021_NCUIH_D169_V3-FINAL.pdf
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request: advance appropriations for ihs until mandatory funding is
enacted
The Indian health system, including IHS, Tribal facilities, and
UIOs, is the only major Federal health care provider funded through
annual appropriations. For example, the VHA at the Department of
Veterans Affairs receives most of its funding through advance
appropriations. If IHS were to receive mandatory funding, or at the
least, advance appropriations, it would not be subject to government
shutdowns, automatic sequestration cuts, and continuing resolutions
(CRs) as its funding for the next year would already be in place.
According to the Congressional Research Service, since FY1997, IHS has
only once (in FY2006) received full-year appropriations by the start of
the fiscal year.
The lack of consistent and clear funding creates significant
barriers for the already underfunded Indian health system. Congress
enacted three CRs to maintain the fiscal year 2021 budget, which costs
time and resources from IHS that could have been directed to pandemic
response. When funding occurs during a CR, the IHS can only expend
funds for the duration of a CR, which prohibits longer-term,
potentially cost-saving purchases. In addition, as most of the Indian
health services provided by Indian Tribes and UIOs are under contracts
with the Federal Government, there must be a new contract re-issued by
IHS for every CR. IHS was forced to allocate resources to contract
logistics twice in the height of the pandemic when the resources could
have been better spent equipping the Indian health system for pandemic
response. In addition, lapses in Federal funding quite literally put
lives at risk. During the most recent 35-day government shutdown at the
start of fiscal Year 2019--the Indian health system was the only
Federal healthcare entity that shut down. UIOs are so chronically
underfunded that several UIOs had to reduce services, lose staff, or
close their doors entirely, forcing them to leave their patients
without adequate care. In a UIO shutdown survey, 5 out of 13 UIOs
indicated that they could only maintain normal operations for 30 days
without funding. Advance appropriations are imperative to provide
certainty to the IHS system and ensure unrelated budget disagreements
do not risk lives. For instance, Native American Lifelines of Baltimore
is a small clinic that received seven overdose patients during the last
shutdown, five of which were fatal.
NCUIH supports the President's proposal in the fiscal Year 2023
Budget to fund the IHS through mandatory appropriations and to exempt
IHS from proposed law sequestration. The 10 years of appropriated
mandatory funding in the fiscal Year 2023 Budget will ensure
predictability, allowing the I/T/U system to engage in long-term and
strategic planning. Until authorizers act to move IHS to mandatory
funding, we request that Congress provide advance appropriations to the
Indian health system to improve certainty and stability.
conclusion
These requests are essential to ensure that urban Indians are
appropriately cared for, both during this crisis and in the critical
times following. The United States government must provide these
resources for AI/AN people residing in urban areas. This obligation
does not disappear amid a pandemic; instead, it should be strengthened,
as the need in Indian Country is more significant than ever. We urge
Congress to take this obligation seriously and provide UIOs with all
the resources necessary to protect the lives of the entirety of the AI/
AN population, regardless of where they live.
[This statement was submitted by Francys Crevier, (Algonquin), CEO,
National Council of Urban Indian Health.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Endowment for the Arts
As the only trade association in Washington representing all music
creators--songwriters, performers, and studio professionals-the
Recording Academy is pleased to offer testimony to the Senate Committee
on Appropriations subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related
Agencies in support of a substantial funding increase for the National
Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in Fiscal Year 2023 of no less than the
$203.55 million. The Recording Academy is proud to support the NEA and
its initiatives to enrich American music and culture.
The NEA brings music and the arts to communities across the
country, and its mission has never been more important. The agency has
been an indispensable part of the creative economy's recovery from the
COVID-19 pandemic, and it remains poised to help revitalize local arts
sectors in all 50 States. As such, the Recording Academy supports
increasing funding of the NEA for the coming fiscal year to align with
the budget request submitted by President Biden.
Through supporting music and the arts, the NEA empowers local
communities, improves student development, and advances cultural
achievements. Considering that NEA grants yield more than $500 million
in matching support-leveraging outside funds at a ratio of 9:1-it is
financially one of the smartest investments the government can commit
to. In the music industry, the NEA supports more than $50 million in
music related direct grants each year-bringing music, and matching
investments, to your back yards. From the My Voice Music youth program
in Portland, Oregon ($15,000, in 2022) to the Anchorage Symphony
Orchestra in Alaska ($10,000, 2021); and from the Burlington Jazz
Festival in Vermont ($30,000, 2022) to Magic City Smooth Jazz in
Birmingham, Alabama ($10,000, 2020), the NEA has proven to support and
foster local music communities and opportunities.
The Recording Academy applauds Congress for demonstrating a
willingness to strongly support the NEA during the recent
appropriations process, but the Agency remains in need of additional
funding to fulfill its mission of expanding access to and participation
in the arts. Robust funding for the NEA will ensure the agency can
provide grants across all 50 States, while promoting more equitable
access and reaching more diverse audiences.
As you finalize appropriations for FY23, please make a strong
commitment to the arts and music with robust funding for the NEA.
[This statement was submitted by Todd Dupler, Acting Chief Advocacy
& Public Policy Officer.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Fire Protection Association
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is a self-funded,
global non-profit organization dedicated to ending losses from fire,
electrical, and related life-safety hazards. As the toll of wildfires
on communities and citizens continues to grow, NFPA urges Congress to
fund mitigation and community protection programs at levels sufficient
to turn the tide of destruction and loss.
Millions of acres of Federal lands are at high or very high risk of
fueling wildfires that will be difficult to contain, creating a
pressing need to support hazardous fuel mitigation treatments. NFPA
supports the Administration's fiscal Year 2023 total request of $625
million for this activity ($321 million U.S. Forest Service; $304.3
million Department of Interior). This funding should be applied on top
of the money made available for fuel treatment in the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act for fiscal year 2023. NFPA is very encouraged
by the Forest Service's recent announcement to treat an additional 50
million acres over the next 10 years and to focus its efforts on high-
risk firesheds. With nearly two-thirds of National Forest System
acreage prone to catastrophic wildfires, the scale of the funding must
enable a treatment rate above the current pace. NFPA also supports the
Administration's fiscal Year 2023 request for $80 million for the
Collaborative Forest Restoration Program. This competitive grant
program helps foster multi-jurisdictional engagement to develop and
implement forest restoration projects that ultimately reduce risk of
catastrophic wildfire and provide other benefits.
State and local jurisdictions also need assistance addressing the
risks wildfires pose to communities in the wildland urban interface.
NFPA echoes the calls from some of the Nation's leading fire service
organizations to fund the State Fire Capacity (SFC) program item at no
less than $79 million and the Volunteer Fire Capacity (VFC) program at
no less than $21 million for fiscal year 2023. The work carried out
under these programs helps train and equip local first responders,
educate residents on wildfire risks and mitigation measures, and plan
and implement local mitigation programs. With nearly one-third of all
homes in the U.S. located in wildfire-prone areas, there are hundreds
of communities that need assistance to prepare and respond to
wildfires. NFPA's Fifth Needs Assessment of the U.S. Fire Service finds
significant and alarming gaps in wildfire-specific training and
personal protective equipment for those departments that include
wildfire response among their duties.\1\ The study also shows that
departments serving smaller communities are the most likely to lack
sufficient training and equipment to respond to wildfires. Assistance
through SFC and VFC is an important means to help these fire
departments safely protect their communities.
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\1\ National Fire Protection Association (2021) Fifth National
Needs Assessment, https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/News-and-Research/
Fire-statistics-and-reports/Emergency-responders/Needs-Assessment/
OSFifthNeedsAssessment.ashx (Overall, 78 percent of departments who
perform WUI/wildland firefighting operations have some need for
training, and the need is more pronounced in smaller departments; Two-
thirds of departments who are responsible for WUI/wildland firefighting
have unmet needs for wildland personal protective clothing for their
firefighters. There is need even among the largest departments, with 35
percent being unable to equip all of their responsible personnel.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
SFC also funds public education and engagement and community
mitigation activities. This includes the Firewise USA(r) program, which
is a grassroots, voluntary community-based wildfire preparedness
program administered by NFPA. Since its inception in 2002, the program
has expanded to now include over 1,800 active Firewise sites in 43
States. To earn Firewise recognition and remain in good standing,
residents must work together to create an organizational structure to
oversee mitigation activities, obtain a formal wildfire risk
assessment, develop a mitigation plan, and commit in-kind and/or
financial resources to mitigation activities, among other requirements.
The SFC program helps States promote more fire adapted communities and
builds capacity for wildfire preparedness and mitigation.
Finally, NFPA supports a robust budget for forestry research,
including programs to better understand wildfire behavior and landscape
treatment strategies, as well as programs to develop new wood products
and markets to create more financial incentives for hazardous fuel
treatment. As part of that funding, the Joint Fire Sciences Research
program should receive $8 million each from the Forest Service and
Department of the Interior.
[This statement was submitted by L. Seth Statler, Director of
Government Affairs, National Fire Protection Association]
______
Prepared Statement of National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
Thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony regarding fiscal
year 2023 funding and thank you for your years of steadfast support of
the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's (NFWF) conservation work.
NFWF's efforts sustain, restore and enhance the Nation's fish,
wildlife, plants and habitats for current and future generations. Many
NFWF programs also enhance nature-based infrastructure that protects
communities across the Nation from the impacts of flooding, drought,
wildfire, and other natural threats.
NFWF will match fiscal Year 2023 funding provided to the Foundation
at least dollar for dollar with non-federal funds to increase
conservation benefits across the country through local partnerships.
NFWF will accomplish this by applying 100 percent of the appropriated
funding to on-the-ground conservation projects with ZERO administrative
cost to the Federal Government as required by law.
We believe that NFWF is a sound investment because of our proven
track record of leveraging Federal funding with private contributions
to maximize the impact Federal resources can achieve. We appreciate the
subcommittee's past support and respectfully request your approval of
funding at the following levels:
--$3.0 million provided through the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM)
Management of Lands and Resources appropriation and restoration
of legislative bill text directing BLM to provide this funding
for NFWF to administer in support of BLM's wildlife
conservation efforts.\1\;
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Prior to the FY18 spending bill, the appropriations language
required BLM to provide NFWF the full amount of appropriated funds. The
FY18 appropriation bill changed the law by making the provision of
funds to NFWF the discretion of the Director of the BLM and removed the
language from the bill. This created questions about BLM's legal
authority to provide funding to NFWF and has hindered the two
organizations' ability to partner in the most effective manner. We
request that the FY17 bill language be restored in the FY23 bill.
--$7.022 million provided through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service's Resource Management appropriation and inclusion of
this legislative text in the legislation as opposed to the bill
report in past years.\2\ (same funding level as fiscal Year
2022); and
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ In the past, the FWS appropriation for NFWF was included in the
report accompanying the appropriations bill. We respectfully request
that it be included in bill language. This will make NFWF's direct
appropriations in the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Bill
consistent across all agencies in the bill and expedite the permitting
of conservation projects. The exclusion of this provision from the bill
text increases the time needed by FWS to approve permitting of
conservation projects and significantly delays the implementation of
urgent conservation efforts.
--$3.0 million with the standard bill language through the Forest
Service's National Forest System appropriation (same funding
level as fiscal Year 2022).
bureau of land management
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has partnered with NFWF for
many years to further conservation efforts on public lands throughout
the United States. With $11.7 million of BLM funding received from
fiscal Year 2017--FY 2021, NFWF leveraged $66.5 million in on-the-
ground conservation impact. NFWF continues to work closely with the
BLM, other Department of the Interior agencies, and 11 western States
to achieve significant conservation gains.
For example, the Foundation and its partners are administering a
corridors program that from 2019--present day has awarded $11.6 million
across 53 projects, leveraging $57.5 million in matching contributions
to generate a total conservation impact of more than $69.1 million. The
projects collectively will remove or improve 421 miles of fencing to be
more wildlife friendly; reconnect 307 miles of migration corridors for
big game species; restore 65,838 acres of public and private land
through efforts like invasive weed and conifer removal treatments;
improve management on 695,000 acres of public and private land through
efforts like grazing and wildlife management plans and; protect 111,060
acres of private land from fragmentation through conservation easements
due to our partnerships.
The committee's support for continuing funding for NFWF from BLM
appropriations would help continue this work and help drive other
conservation outcomes. For FY21, NFWF worked with BLM's Wildlife
Division to determine allocations and priorities for four NFWF program
landscapes. These programs focus on outcomes including perennial
grassland management through the Northern Great Plains Program; wet
meadow and sagebrush restoration through the Rocky Mountain Rangeland
Program; watershed and associated upland restoration to benefit
declining species through the Pecos River, and emerging Gila River
Initiatives. Other BLM partnership areas of interest include pollinator
recovery through the Monarch Butterfly and Pollinators Conservation
Fund and desert conservation through a new Mojave Desert Tortoise
Initiative. Each of these programs provides opportunities to leverage
BLM resources with corporate and foundation private sector partners.
Requested restoration of FY17 BLM Bill Language for fiscal Year
2023:
``; of which $3,000,000 shall be available in fiscal year 2023
subject to a match by at least an equal amount by the National
Fish and Wildlife Foundation for cost shared projects
supporting conservation of Bureau lands; and such funds shall
be advanced to the Foundation as a lump-sum without regard to
when expenses are incurred.''
united states fish and wildlife service
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has been a
trusted partner since NFWF was created by Congress in 1984 and signed
into law by President Reagan. In the past 5-years (FY 2017--FY 2021),
NFWF leveraged $34.3M in FWS appropriated funds across 378 projects
into a total of $158.4 million in on-the-ground conservation impact.
The funds appropriated to NFWF serve as a magnet to attract funds from
the private sector to create public-private partnerships critical to
restoring fish, wildlife, eco-system restoration, improving aquatic
passage, addressing climate change, and increasing natural processes
for immediate carbon sequestration.
In the past, the FWS appropriation for NFWF was included in the
report accompanying the appropriations bill. However, we respectfully
request that the appropriation be included in bill language. This will
make NFWF's direct appropriations in the Interior, Environment and
Related Agencies Bill consistent across all agencies in the bill and
expedite the permitting of conservation projects. The exclusion of the
FWS appropriation for NFWF increases the time needed for FWS to approve
permitting of conservation projects and significantly delays the
implementation of urgent conservation efforts.
Requested FWS Bill Language for fiscal Year 2023:
``; of which $7,022,000 shall be available in fiscal year 2023
subject to a match by at least an equal amount by the National
Fish and Wildlife Foundation for cost-shared projects
supporting conservation of wildlife and other natural
resources; and such funds shall be advanced to the Foundation
as a lump-sum grant without regard to when expenses are
incurred.''
Additionally, because NFWF works with FWS on discretionary
cooperative agreements for conservation programs, we respectfully
support the highest possible funding levels for the Delaware River
Basin Conservation Act, Klamath Basin Restoration, efforts to combat
white-nosed syndrome in bats, and Recovery Challenge matching grants
within the FWS, Resource Management appropriation.
united states forest service
Congress has appropriated approximately $3 million in annual
funding to NFWF for partnerships with the United States Forest Service
(USFS) since fiscal Year 1998. From fiscal Year 2017 to fiscal Year
2021, NFWF has leveraged $15.0 million of USFS funds to provide $110.3
million in on-the-ground conservation investments.
Retain US Forest Service Language for fiscal Year 2023 as it has
been in past years:
``Pursuant to section 2(b)(2) of Public Law 98-244, up to
$3,000,000 of the funds available to the Forest Service may be
advanced to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation in a lump
sum to aid cost-share conservation projects, without regard to
when expenses are incurred, on or benefitting National Forest
System lands or related to Forest Service programs: Provided,
That such funds shall be matched on at least a one-for-one
basis by the Foundation or its sub-recipients: Provided
further, That the Foundation may transfer Federal funds to a
Federal or non-Federal recipient for a project at the same rate
that the recipient has obtained the non-Federal matching
funds.''
environmental protection agency
NFWF has partnered with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
since fiscal Year 1997 and since fiscal Year 2000 has worked with EPA
to make grants to States and other grantees within the Geographic
Programs appropriation. Therefore, we respectfully support the highest
possible funding levels for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative,
Chesapeake Bay, Gulf of Mexico, and Long Island Sound within the
Environmental Protection Agency Geographic Programs. We also
respectfully ask that the long-standing report language that delineates
the amount of funding for nutrient and sediment removal grants and
small watershed grants within the Chesapeake Bay program be continued
(FY 2022 language is below).
Chesapeake Bay.--The Committee recommends $90,500,000 for the
Chesapeake Bay program, $3,000,000 above the enacted level and
equal to the request. From within the amount provided,
$10,375,000 is for nutrient and sediment removal grants and
$10,375,000 is for small watershed grants to control polluted
runoff from urban, suburban and agricultural lands, and
$8,750,000 is for State-based implementation in the most
effective basins.
An example of a project made possible with EPA Geographic Programs
funding is the Restoring and Reconnecting Brook Trout Strongholds in
the South Branch of the Potomac that funded work in West Virginia and
Virginia. NFWF awarded $492,619 that leveraged an additional $602,460
in matching funds to support a total conservation impact of over
$1million. The implementation partner that received the award will
mitigate a large barrier to fish migration on the North Fork of the
South Branch of the Potomac River, reconnecting and restoring two of
the largest brook trout strongholds in the Chesapeake Bay. The project
will reconnect 150 miles of headwater sources, improve water quality
and habitat through agricultural best-management practices, and help to
create a 239-squaremile brook trout stronghold super patch.
nfwf background
NFWF was established by Congress in 1984 to catalyze private
investments to conserve fish, wildlife and their habitats. NFWF raises
private funds not only to leverage appropriated dollars, but also to
support the associated management costs of implementing the
appropriated funds. Since its creation by Congress in 1984, NFWF and
its grantees have invested $7.4 billion in to more than 20,400 projects
while partnering with more than 6,000 organizations.
NFWF remains fully transparent and is required by law to notify
Congress 30 days in advance of every grant that exceeds $10,000 in
Federal funds. Details of all projects awarded during fiscal Year 2021
can be found in NFWF's annual investment guide and all NFWF's grants
can be found on our website: https://www.nfwf.org/grants/grants-library
In fiscal Year 2021, NFWF was audited by an independent accounting
firm and they issued an unqualified report with no material weaknesses
identified and no deficiencies identified. This is the THIRTEENTH
consecutive year of unqualified audits. In addition, NFWF has
continually qualified as a low-risk auditee under OMB guidelines.
Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski and members of the
subcommittee, we greatly appreciate your continued support and stand
ready to answer any questions you or your staff might have.
[This statement was submitted by Will Heaton, Director, External
Relations, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Humanities Alliance
On behalf of the National Humanities Alliance (NHA), with our more
than 200 member organizations, I write to express strong support for
the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
overview
For fiscal Year 2023, we respectfully urge the subcommittee to
consider at least $204 million for the National Endowment for the
Humanities.
While we recognize the difficult choices that are before this
subcommittee, we believe that expanding the capacity of the NEH is
essential at this moment in the Nation's history when the humanities
are so needed to 1) build strong communities and foster civic dialogue;
2) preserve cultural heritage including indigenous languages; 3)
cultivate knowledge of world histories and cultures; and 4) rebuild the
economy and revitalize communities.
The NEH has a clear track record of supporting programs that work
towards these ends, and additional capacity is needed to ensure that
these crucial goals are met around the country. The NEH does not have
the capacity to fund many of the highly rated proposals it receives-in
fiscal Year 2020, 1,605 applications with high ratings were not funded,
amounting to a total of $184,789,512.
building strong communities and fostering civic dialogue
NEH funding builds strong, civically-engaged communities through
its support of cultural organizations. The agency's grantmaking helps
establish and sustain robust community institutions, providing
opportunities for learning, empathy, and understanding. The
International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, Tennessee, regularly
hosts programs that promote discussion and dialogue. Ninety-three
percent of respondents to a survey done by NHA indicated that they were
``motivated to listen to the stories of people whose background was
different from their own'' after participating in a program featuring
the stories of Black Appalachians. The NEH's Dialogues on the
Experiences of War grants strengthen communities by offering veterans
the chance to reflect upon their experiences, while building bonds with
each other and with civilians. Ninety-nine percent of respondents
across eight programs reported a desire to ``keep in touch with some of
the people [they] met during the program.''
NEH funding has an outsized role especially in small and rural
communities, where it can build and support the infrastructure and
programs that are vital to strong communities. The Seward Community
Library and Museum, for example, which leveraged an NEH challenge grant
to build a new facility, has averaged 60,000 more visitors per year
than it received in its old space. In addition to hosting tourists, the
organization provides space for nonprofits and other institutions to
conduct their business. In rural Utah, the Entrada Institute developed
programs to encourage meaningful connections between traditional local
communities and newer arrivals. In partnership with the local 4-H club,
organizers developed after-school programs centering around locally
relevant themes-for example, Western Heritage Shooting Sports-that
would culminate with community dinners featuring activities for all
ages.
preserving cultural heritage including indigenous languages
Our cultural heritage lives in many forms, from presidential
letters and great works of art to community archives and endangered
languages. It is also vulnerable and requires protection from natural
and man-made disasters as well as simple decay over time. NEH funding
is indispensable to ensuring that our cultural heritage is both
accessible now and preserved for future generations. In addition to
funding projects that tell important presidential histories-like the
publication of The Papers of John Adams and archaeological research at
Andrew Jackson's The Hermitage-the NEH helps small and mid-size
institutions invest in their own preservation needs. Institutions like
Abilene Christian University in Texas and the Stillwater Public Library
in Oklahoma have used NEH funds to help ensure their collections are
protected for the future. NEH funds also help make these collections
more widely accessible by funding digitization projects.
Funding for documenting traditional cultures and endangered
languages supports Indigenous people throughout the United States.
Through the Dynamic Language Infrastructure-Documenting Endangered
Languages program, a partnership with the National Science Foundation,
NEH funding has preserved and made accessible languages spoken by
Indigenous Tribes, having a profound impact on their way of life. DEL
grants have helped produce dictionaries for languages like Klallam and
Arapaho; they have also provided the funds for these resources to be
online and freely available to Tribal members. NEH support for the
Coeur d'Alene Online Language Resource Center helped create a single
searchable repository for a wide range of language resources, from
dictionaries to archival recordings of personal narratives and coyote
stories. The NEH additionally supports the documentation and
revitalization of Indigenous American languages through its regular
grant programs.
cultivating knowledge of world history and cultures
Established in the midst of the Cold War, the NEH has always
provided funding to support research and programs that help Americans
understand and engage with timely world issues. From scholarly
exchanges with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and language
institutes in the 1970s, to international research support for American
scholars and professional development for school teachers today, NEH
funding supports efforts to understand other nations' languages,
cultures, and geopolitical contexts. NEH funding has supported the
research and publication of books such as Treason in Transit: Soviet
Defectors and the Borders of the Cold War World (2022), by Erik R.
Scott, and Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956
(2013)-among many other works of history that shed light on current
events. NEH-supported English translations of Ukrainian literature,
including Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine (2017) and The White
Chalk of Days: The Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series Anthology
(2017) bring Ukrainian literature to broader American audiences.
NEH funding also provides high quality education on world affairs
for school teachers and college educators. Kean University's 2021 two-
week seminar ``The Search for Humanity after Atrocity'' helped higher
education faculty integrate atrocity studies into their research and
curricula, using the Holocaust as a case study. A 2016 program for K-12
educators, hosted by Ferris State University, explored U.S.-Russian/
Soviet relations from 1776 to the present. And from 2013-2018, a series
of NEH grants helped community colleges throughout the U.S. integrate
the study of world cultures into their curricula. These programs
included content on Latin America, Asia, Russia, Eastern Europe, and
the Middle East, among other topics.
rebuilding the economy and revitalizing communities
NEH funding catalyzes growth in local economies and connections
within communities-exactly the work that is needed as we look to
rebuild from the pandemic. Communities throughout the U.S. today
benefit from NEH investments that have built strong community
institutions and stimulated local economies. NEH pandemic relief
provided a direct lifeline to struggling organizations, which they then
used to support their communities both economically and culturally.
Thomas Jefferson's Monticello used pandemic relief funds to retain
staff and uphold the quality of its programs, thus ensuring the
organization remains an important economic driver in the region-50
percent of the site's 400,000 annual visitors stay in a hotel for at
least one night, contributing no less than $13.1 million to the local
economy.
Humanities organizations are also important employers, particularly
in small and rural communities. The Monhegan Museum in Monhegan Island,
Maine (pop. 54) is the island's primary employer and major tourism
attraction. By funding staff salaries over a period of several months
in 2020, an NEH CARES grant helped families stay on the island,
supporting the island community as a whole. Similarly, NEH funding to
the Willa Cather Center in Red Cloud, Nebraska (pop. 1,000) supported
staff salaries and public programming during 2020, helping stabilize an
organization that is key to the town's survival. A CARES grant to the
Enfield Shaker Museum in New Hampshire allowed them to support the
local economy by pairing online talks about local specialties with food
baskets, which were sourced from local vendors and available for
purchase.
Still, far more support is needed to ensure that these institutions
survive and continue to bolster local economies. Both the CARES Act and
ARP Act fell short of meeting the needs of the humanities sector. The
NEH was only able to fund 14 percent of the applications it received
for CARES grants, while on average the state councils were only able to
fund 38 percent. Additionally, while state and jurisdictional
humanities councils have quickly and effectively distributed $42
million in SHARP grants, they were only able to fund 50 percent of the
total requested, which was more than $84 million, underlining a
significant unmet need.
[This statement was submitted by Stephen Kidd, Executive Director,
National Humanities Alliance.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Parks Conservation Association
Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony on
behalf of the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). Founded
in 1919, NPCA is the leading national, independent voice for protecting
and enhancing America's National Park System for present and future
generations. We appreciate the opportunity to provide our views
regarding the National Park Service (NPS) FY23 budget and comment on
challenges facing NPS and its related agencies.
Operation of the National Park System (ONPS): We again urge a
robust increase for this account, NPCA's highest priority. We recognize
the FY22 allocation was modest, so appreciate the committee meeting
fixed costs and providing targeted investments to help parks and
communities, including the African American Civil Rights Network and
Everglades Restoration. However, more significant progress is needed
because parks and supporting offices remain substantially understaffed.
Between 2011 and 2021, NPS lost 15 percent of its staff while at the
same time struggling to accommodate an 8 percent increase in
visitation. The challenges posed by this visitation increase are among
several contributors to declining staff morale that can be addressed in
part with a robust ONPS increase. Increased inflation also challenges
parks' ability to make operational ends meet.
We encourage the committee to discuss with NPS the many challenges
of widespread and significant understaffing, which has led to
insufficient maintenance, law enforcement capacity, interpretation and
education, scientific capacity and more. We urge support for the
president's requested increase of $320 million for ONPS, which would
bring back about half of the more than 3,000 FTEs that NPS has lost
over the decade. NPS would make significant progress if the committee
could then build on this investment in FY24 and beyond with sustained
increases to gradually meet the goal of at least 23,000 FTEs, as urged
by Sens. King and Daines.
We support the administration's investments in the Natural
Resources Conservation Initiative including its proposed $180 million
investment in ONPS, which would provide needed science and resources to
address climate change, including for wildlife migration corridors and
climate resilience projects. We are particularly excited about the
proposed $31 million for the Civilian Climate Corps and the proposed
$16 million increase for inventory and monitoring, as we know this is a
major challenge for both natural and cultural resources as parks deal
with storm surges, wildfires, drought and other climate-related
effects.
At the same time, we must emphasize NPS' lack of cultural resource
capacity and ask for resources to support a Cultural Resources
Challenge, launched in 2013 but unfulfilled. At least $20 million
should be added to the ONPS budget in FY23 to support this effort to
provide parks with cultural resource experts, to improve cultural
resource documentation, and stabilize cultural and historic structures
and landscapes.
Construction Account: We request support for the president's
proposed $48 million increase for this account to support the
Conservation Initiative with investments in climate adaptation,
abandoned mineral lands projects, zero emissions vehicles, climate
vulnerability assessments and environmental impact planning and
compliance.
Deferred Maintenance: We support NPS' recent improvements in
measuring deferred maintenance, as it is a more transparent and
complete assessment of repair needs. We are, however, dismayed by both
the updated size of the backlog as well as the news that the backlog
continues to grow despite the success of the Great American Outdoors
Act. To help with repair needs, we ask the committee to consider
increasing funding for the line-item construction account--in addition
to the repair/rehab and cyclic maintenance subaccounts within ONPS.
Additional investments are needed to help NPS meet the administration's
efforts towards sustainability including procurement of sustainable
materials. The need is heightened by significant inflation and
increased materials and labor costs.
Management Planning and Visitation Concerns: We are concerned that
planning is not happening at the pace needed to guide park management,
especially with the dual challenges of climate change and skyrocketing
visitation at many parks. NPS must proactively address visitor
experiences and impacts to resources include disturbance to vegetation
and soils, wildlife, and aquatic systems; impacts to cultural
resources; human waste impacts; introduction of non-native species; and
impacts to natural sounds. Support is needed for utilizing social
science to develop visitor carrying capacities that consider higher
temperatures, fire, drought, flooding, and other climate change impacts
that may compound visitation challenges. Increased funding is needed
for research, preparation, and implementation of visitor use management
plans.
NPS should enhance NPS' capacity (staff, training, equipment) for
conducting social science and using it to guide visitor use management
planning and adaptive management (monitoring, analysis, adjustment);
study the application of recreation ecology science in visitor use
management planning; and support mechanisms for gateway communities and
other public land management agencies to collaborate and conduct
coordinated regional visitor use management planning.
ONPS funding should support innovative strategies (i.e. parkwide
reservation systems) that could result from visitation planning
processes. NPS should have the capacity to ensure they provide fair and
equitable access for people of all demographics, including those in
underserved and/or underrepresented communities.
NPS hiring challenges: We have several concerns. We urge a robust
increase in ONPS in part because it is an opportunity to address the
lack of diversity within NPS by filling new and lapsed positions with
more diverse hires. However, this is only one step that is needed. We
are dismayed not only by the considerable lack of diversity in the
ranks of NPS personnel but also by what has been described in several
agency reports by employees as a biased, white dominated culture.
Employees of color feel they do not get the promotions and management
opportunities of their white counterparts and are afraid to report
discrimination for fear of retaliation. These are among many complaints
supported by the 2018 Voices Tour report, the release of which was
delayed for years. We encourage the committee to use its oversight
authority to engage NPS on these disturbing problems to promptly
identify solutions beyond diversity, equity and inclusion discussions
that staff report to us are more window dressing than an avenue to
authentic solutions.
We also encourage the committee to examine several hiring
authorities that are frustrating to NPS staff and are preventing the
agency from making needed strides in hiring personnel to meet the
agency's mission. NPS needs greater hiring flexibility, beginning with
direct hiring authority, to build a diverse, experienced, professional
and technical workforce. As parks face what increasingly becomes a
year-long busy season, the requirement that seasonal staff be employed
for fewer than 6 months (1,560 hours) prevents superintendents from
having needed flexibility to address high visitation with seasonal
staff; an extension to 9 months would be very helpful. NPS should also
be given longer term authority of 10 years. A ten-year term authority,
as was once provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,
would allow the agency to more successfully hire term professionals in
a competitive job market, more capably meeting the goals of the Great
American Outdoors Act and Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act.
Housing: NPCA is deeply concerned that the lack of sufficient
affordable housing for NPS personnel has reached crisis levels. There
are over 5,500 housing units throughout the system and on average the
housing units are 60 years old; many of those units need attention. We
support at least $8 million for the Housing Improvement Program as
requested in the president's budget to begin to rebuild park employee
housing. However, this is far from what is needed and only a first
step. We encourage the committee to pursue detailed, strategic
discussions with NPS about their housing needs to develop a
comprehensive strategy in an expeditious manner. NPCA stands ready to
support these efforts.
Heritage Partnership Program: NPCA remains an enthusiastic
supporter of the National Heritage Area program that protects our
cultural heritage and supports dozens of communities throughout the
country. They are effective public-private partnerships established in
support of conservation and preservation values and allow local experts
to better protect and interpret stories and resources that are both
regionally distinct and nationally significant. We applaud the
committee's increase of $3.2 million for this important program in FY22
and encourage continuing increases.
We are supporters as well of the many other deserving programs
within the Natural Recreation and Preservation account, including the
National Register of Historic Places; the Rivers, Trails, and
Conservation Assistance program; and the Japanese American Confinement
Sites program. We are also supporters of the Historic Preservation
Fund.
US Park Police (USPP): We commend the committee's FY22 investment
of $4.1 million for body-worn cameras as this is the first of several
reforms that are needed to ensure greater accountability to the public.
However, we are disappointed in the USPP's continued lack of public
transparency and responsiveness to congressional inquiries surrounding
public incidents. We ask the committee to consider report language
requesting documentation and reporting of USPP policies and procedures.
Great American Outdoors Act: We appreciate the committee's support
for the Legacy Restoration Fund and its ongoing interest in ensuring
NPS successfully invests in priority projects. Given the revised
backlog number, we hope members of the committee will support eventual
reauthorization of this fund for at least five more years. We also
applaud the committee's support for the Federal LWCF program and its
support for and interest in the Appraisal and Valuation Services
Office. In recognition of the many land acquisition needs that total
more than the $900 million in dedicated funding provided by the Great
American Outdoors Act, we would support appropriations to supplement
those funds.
Restoring the Borderlands: The construction of the border wall has
caused incalculable damage to public lands and communities along the
US-Mexico border. Sacred Tribal lands have been damaged and burial
sites have been desecrated, ancient water sources have been depleted,
and wildlife populations have been separated. To make meaningful
progress on restoring and remediating the borderlands, we urge the
committee to make funds available--either directly through your bill or
as a transfer from Homeland Security--for national parks like Organ
Pipe Cactus National Monument.
Investments are also needed for related agencies that support the
health of park resources. We commend the committee's work to better
invest in the many agencies and programs that support the wildlife,
clean air and water in our parks and help understand and address
climate change. Park resource protection and restoration is a
collaborative effort dependent on the support and partnership of the
Environmental Protection Agency, US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS),
US Geological Survey, and others. We encourage the committee to support
these agencies that benefit our park landscapes, resources, and the
health of our communities with increases in FY23.
We ask the committee to make significant investments in the
protection and recovery of our most vulnerable species with increases
for USFWS. To meet the current needs, the USFWS requires a budget of
$704 million for Endangered Species Act programs starting in FY23. We
recognize that addressing climate change also relies on accounts and
agencies in which the committee invests. For example, USGS Climate
Adaptation Science Centers are critical to support climate science that
benefits our National parks and their ecosystems. We commend the
committee's support in FY23 and recommend continuing added investments
for this scientific support. Investments in EPA's environmental
protection and public health mission are critical to our communities
and the restoration of park landscapes. We support the administration's
$11.88 billion request for EPA, within which we urge the subcommittee
fully fund EPA's Geographic Programs that are critical for restoring
and maintaining the health of the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay and other
waterways and ecosystems in and surrounding units of the National Park
System.
On behalf of NPCA and our millions of members and supporters, thank
you again for your consideration of the needs facing the National Park
Service and related agencies and programs that protect and support our
Nation's cultural and natural treasures.
[This statement was submitted by John Garder, Senior Director of
Budget and Appropriations, National Parks Conservation Association.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Park Service
This is prepared for the subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and
Related Agencies; and the testimony is addressing the National Park
Service (NPS).
I request the subcommittee to accept NPS fiscal Year 2023
Environmental Management Program Budget request (see Fiscal Year 2023
Budget Justifications) of $14.113M so NPS can further restore
contaminated lands for public use.
I see in the Fiscal Year 2022 Budget Justification, NPS requested
$14.113M for the Environmental Management Program, which is an $8M
increase over the fiscal year 2021 enacted amount of $6.113M. NPS
States in the fiscal Year 2022 Budget Request ``With 500 contaminated
sites in its inventory, EMP funding supported a prioritization
initiative designed to obtain the greatest return on investment for the
bureau and the public. The goal of this initiative is to develop the
plan, subject to funding, to reopen all blighted NPS sites by the end
of the decade. NPS estimates remaining cleanup cost of $1.5 billion
dollars (current dollars not including indirect costs) needed to reopen
the blighted sites. By fiscal Year 2027, the program hopes to have
completed studies that will define the actual dollar amount needed to
complete cleanup actions at all NPS contaminated sites, using the
authorities of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation,
and Liability Act (CERCLA) -often referred to as the Superfund
statute.''
In addition, I see that NPS Fiscal Year 2022 request for an $8M
increase for the Environmental Management Program was not accepted
either by the Senate or House. Given that NPS estimates remaining
cleanup cost of $1.5 billion dollars, I would like to know why the $8M
was not accepted.
Lastly, I request the subcommittee to accept NPS Fiscal Year 2023
Environmental Management Program Budget request of $14.113M so NPS
mover quicker to restore contaminated lands for public use.
[This statement was submitted by Stephen Mitchell.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Park Service
This is prepared for the subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and
Related Agencies; and the testimony is addressing the National Park
Service (NPS).
I request the subcommittee to accept NPS fiscal Year 2023
Environmental Management Program Budget Request of $14.113M so NPS can
further restore contaminated lands for public use.
I see in the fiscal Year 2022 Budget Request, NPS requested
$14.113M for the Environmental Management Program, which is an $8M
increase over the fiscal year 2021 enacted amount of $6.113M.
NPS States in the fiscal Year 2022 Budget Request ``With 500
contaminated sites in its inventory, EMP funding supported a
prioritization initiative designed to obtain the greatest return on
investment for the bureau and the public. The goal of this initiative
is to develop the plan, subject to funding, to reopen all blighted NPS
sites by the end of the decade. NPS estimates remaining cleanup cost of
$1.5 billion dollars (current dollars not including indirect costs)
needed to reopen the blighted sites. By fiscal Year 2027, the program
hopes to have completed studies that will define the actual dollar
amount needed to complete cleanup actions at all NPS contaminated
sites, using the authorities of the Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) -often referred to
as the Superfund statute.''
In addition, I see that the FY22 request for an $8M increase was
not accepted. Given that NPS estimates remaining cleanup cost of $1.5
billion dollars, I would like to know why the $8M was not accepted.
Lastly, I request the subcommittee to accept NPS fiscal Year 2023
Environmental Management Program Budget Request of $14.113M so NPS can
further restore contaminated lands for public use.
[This statement was submitted by Nguyet Huynh.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Trust for Historic Preservation
I appreciate the opportunity to present the National Trust for
Historic Preservation's recommendations for fiscal Year 2023
appropriations. My name is Shaw Sprague, and I am the Vice President of
Government Relations. The National Trust is a privately funded
nonprofit chartered by Congress in 1949. We work to save America's
historic places to enrich our future.
We offer our deep gratitude for the robust funding this
subcommittee provided for all historic preservation priorities during
the fiscal Year 2022 cycle. Thank you for considering recommendations
made by the National Trust. We look forward to continuing our work with
this subcommittee as you address the ongoing need for investments to
sustain our Nation's rich heritage of cultural and historic resources
that also generate lasting economic and civic vitality for communities
throughout the Nation.
For the fourth year in a row, we have also produced ``The
Preservation Budget: Select Preservation Priorities for fiscal Year
2023 Appropriations,'' \1\ which includes more information on the
programs identified below, including funding levels over time and
multiple examples of program success stories.
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\1\ https://bit.ly/3GGzENs
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National Park Service: Historic Preservation Fund. The Historic
Preservation Fund (HPF) is the principal source of funding to implement
the Nation's preservation programs. The National Trust is enormously
appreciative of the six successive historic funding levels the
subcommittee has provided to the HPF, including the fiscal Year 2022
enacted level of $173.072 million, a significant $29 million increase
from enacted fiscal Year 2021 levels. While this recent increased
investment in the HPF has facilitated innovative and impactful historic
preservation work across the country, additional appropriations are
needed to effectively tell and preserve the full American story for
generations to come.
HPF funding supports fundamental preservation activities such as
survey, nomination of properties to the National Register of Historic
Places, public education, and project reviews required for Federal
Historic Tax Credit (HTC) projects. Among many highlights, we would
like to emphasize the subcommittee's sustained support for the African
American Civil Rights grants program and for the second year its
expansion to preserve and highlight sites and stories associated with
securing civil rights for All Americans, including women, American
Latino, Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and LGBTQ
Americans. The competitive grant programs within the HPF are having a
transformative impact in communities throughout the country and these
investments are helping preserve a broader historic narrative while
revitalizing communities and creating local jobs. State and Tribal
historic preservation offices are at the forefront of protecting our
Nation's historic and cultural resources and are consistently asked to
do more with less funding. The National Trust strongly supports
addressing this unmet financial need.
We respectfully request that Congress provide a total fiscal Year
2023 HPF appropriation of $200 million. Within that funding we
recommend:
--$65 million for State Historic Preservation Officers (SHPOs)
--$34 million for Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPOs)
--$24 million for competitive grants to preserve the sites and
stories of efforts to advance African American Civil Rights
--$5 million for the History of Equal Rights Grants program to
preserve the sites and stories associated with securing civil
rights for All Americans, including women, American Latino,
Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and LGBTQ
Americans
--$12 million for grants to Historically Black Colleges and
Universities to preserve and rehabilitate historic buildings
--$35 million for Save America's Treasures grants
--$12 million for Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization grants
--$3 million for competitive grants for the survey and nomination of
properties associated with communities currently
underrepresented on the National Register of Historic Places
and National Historic Landmarks
National Park Service: Operation of the National Park System. Over
the past 25 years, more than 50 parks have been added to the System,
many of which preserve historic places and themes that have been
previously underrepresented. We encourage the Committee to provide
funding of $3.26 billion to maintain NPS operations, ensure stewardship
of historic and cultural resources and prevent reductions in visitor
services at a time when our National parks are more popular than ever.
Within this funding, we recommend robust funding for Resource
Stewardship, the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, the
African American Civil Rights Network, the Reconstruction Era National
Historic Network, and the Japanese American World War II History
Network.
National Park Service: Deferred Maintenance. The NPS is responsible
for maintaining a system comprised of more than 85 million acres that
tell stories of remarkable people and events in our country's history.
Unfortunately, after over 100 years of operation and inconsistent
public funding, the NPS faces a multi-million dollar deferred
maintenance backlog. Deferred maintenance in our National parks puts
historic and cultural sites at risk of permanent damage or loss, and in
the absence of funding, the condition of these assets will continue to
deteriorate and become more expensive to repair and preserve in the
future. We also recommend sustained increases for specific line items
to ensure the maintenance backlog continues to decrease.
--Construction. We recommend sustained robust funding for Line-Item
Construction projects that address the deferred maintenance for
the NPS' highest priority non- transportation assets with
project costs greater than $1 million.
--Repair and Rehabilitation; Cyclic Maintenance. We are enormously
appreciative of the Committee's commitment to enhancing these
accounts with significant investments since fiscal Year 2016.
We recommend additional increases for Repair and Rehabilitation
at $135.989 million and maintaining $188.184 million for Cyclic
Maintenance to ensure routine and emerging needs.
National Park Service: Cultural Programs. Within its cultural
programs, the NPS manages the National Register of Historic Places and
National Historic Landmarks, certifies Federal HTC projects,
coordinates Federal archaeology programs, and provides funding through
the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Grants,
Japanese American Confinement Sites Grants, and American Battlefield
Protection Program Assistance Grants.
The National Trust appreciates the increases Congress provided in
the past three cycles for these programs and recommends $35 million for
fiscal Year 2023. Additional increases in this account will enhance
modernization of the National Register and support sustained demands to
review and approve Federal HTC projects.
National Park Service: International Park Affairs, Office of
International Affairs. The National Trust recommends $2.250 million for
the Office of International Affairs to ensure engagement in the World
Heritage Program and support the dozens of communities and sites across
the country seeking nomination to the World Heritage List. This office
is responsible for selecting sites for the World Heritage Tentative
List and shepherding them through the detailed nomination process.
Examples of pending sites include Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks (Ohio)
and Civil Rights Movement Sites (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia,
Mississippi).
National Park Service: National Heritage Areas. We recommend $32
million for the Heritage Partnership Program and National Heritage
Areas (NHAs). This funding would provide $500,000 for each of the 55
individual NHAs in 34 States, as well as NPS administrative support for
coordination, guidance, assistance, and training.
Bureau of Land Management: Cultural Resources Management. The
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oversees the largest, most diverse, and
scientifically important collection of historic and cultural resources
on our Nation's public lands, as well as the museum collections and
data associated with them. The National Trust remains concerned with
the impact of the agency reorganization in 2019 and loss of staff
within the Cultural Resources Division. We recommend $23.6 million to
bolster this program.
The cultural resources program also supports Section 106 review of
land-use proposals, Section 110 inventory and protection of cultural
resources, compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act, and consultation with Tribes and Alaska Native
Governments. Moving forward, we recommend $1 million in dedicated funds
for the agency to enhance its National Cultural Resources Information
Management System (NCRIMS). This collaboration with state historic
preservation offices is one of the Nation's most innovative programs to
support predictive modeling and data analysis to enhance planning for
large-scale, cross-jurisdictional land-use projects.
Bureau of Land Management: National Landscape Conservation System.
The BLM's National Landscape Conservation System (National Conservation
Lands) includes approximately 37 million acres of congressionally and
presidentially designated lands, including National Monuments, National
Conservation Areas, Wilderness, Wilderness Study Areas, National Scenic
and Historic Trails, and Wild and Scenic Rivers.
We encourage the Committee to provide $78.145 million to the base
program for the National Landscape Conservation System. An increase in
funding will allow for greater inventory and monitoring of cultural
resources in this growing system, prevent damage to the resources found
in these areas, ensure proper management, and provide for a quality
visitor experience.
Department-Wide: Land and Water Conservation Fund. The National
Trust has long supported robust funding for the Land and Water
Conservation Fund (LWCF), and we look forward to the Committee's role
in implementing full dedicated funding for the LWCF. Many of the
Nation's most significant historic and cultural places have been
permanently protected through LWCF investments. In total, more than
$550 million has been invested to acquire historic sites and 137,000
acres of historically significant landscapes within 162 NPS units.
Within LWCF funding, we encourage the Committee to provide $20
million for the American Battlefield Protection Program.
Independent Agencies: National Endowments for the Arts and for the
Humanities. We urge the Committee to provide at least $201 million each
for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment
for the Humanities (NEH). NEA and NEH funding is critical to
communities around the country. It has also supported efforts by the
National Trust's Historic Sites and others to tell a fuller American
story and engage visitors in compelling ways.
Independent Agencies: Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. We
recommend $10.5 million for the Advisory Council on Historic
Preservation (ACHP). The increase would enhance the ACHP's performance
of its essential roles in ensuring that the Nation's historic and
cultural resources are protected while also advancing timely delivery
of major infrastructure projects and improving consultation with Indian
Tribes. The increase would also support the ACHPs efforts to promote
enhanced mapping and digitization of cultural resources.
We stand ready to assist the Committee in support of our
recommendations.
[This statement was submitted by Shaw Sprague, Vice President of
Government Relations, National Trust for Historic Preservation.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Wildlife Refuges
This testimony is being submitted by Marie Springer on behalf of
The Blue Goose Alliance organized in support of National Wildlife
Refuges. The Blue Goose Alliance is a national 501 (C) 3 non-profit
organization, registered in New Mexico. I appreciate the opportunity to
express our strong support for our National Wildlife Refuges and the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and for the Land and Water
Conservation Fund (LWCF).
Our 587 National Wildlife Refuges are our greatest national
treasures. Not only do they serve important conservation purposes, and
mitigation of contamination sites, but they were a great source of
recreation during the COVID shutdowns, our National Wildlife Refuges
were not closed to the public when a great many State and local public
lands were closed to the public. The National Wildlife Refuges have
served our public well in this time of great need.
We request funding at least at the level of $720 million, with the
additional amounts discussed below, for Refuge Operations and
maintenance for the fiscal Year 2023 funding. This request of $720
million, an increase of $138 million over fiscal Year 2022
appropriations, would impact our refuges with substantial and positive
benefits to the natural resources involved and for public users. There
is a need to provide attention and added staffing for refuge complexes
that include unstaffed NWRs. Over half of all National Wildlife Refuges
are currently unmanned. Funding for active management and possible
staffing for these units should receive priority with special language
in the House Appropriations Bill. This funding would contribute to the
needed personnel, operations activities and maintenance needs.
The added eight million should be directed to the enormous Marine
National Monuments for which the NWRS has been given management
responsibilities. Essentially, the FWS has not requested additional
funding for its responsibilities, even those which are currently
managed under NWRS direct authority. In addition, to those areas, over
19 million acres of Marine National Monuments are NWRS responsibility
using other authorities and in cooperation with several other agencies.
Those areas should be provided basic funding for inventory, monitoring
and to facilitate collection of basic data needed for responsible
issuance of permits for fishing and other uses of those important
areas. The added funds would ensure oversight of issued permits
including compliance with provisions and impacts on the natural fish,
wildlife and habitat resources affected by that usage.
The NWRS should be given incentive to bring all of its grazing
programs and agricultural practices up to ``Best Management Practices''
level to ameliorate Climate Change. Refuge habitat areas, particularly
native grasslands and old-growth forest habitats should receive
priority attention in order to maximize carbon sequestration
capabilities and to provide vital nesting, migrating and wintering
habitats for dependent migratory bird species.
Overall, the National Wildlife Refuge System requires at least $900
million in Operations and Maintenance Funding to be considered at
``full funding'', with all refuges staffed, with adequate maintenance,
biological programs, hunting and fishing programs, environmental
education and interpretation programs. We ask that you work towards the
overall goal of $900 million in annual funding. Currently, there are
problems with infrastructure and maintenance on all refuges. The longer
maintenance and infrastructure needs go unaddressed, the more costly
the remedies in the long run. The remedy requires increased staffing to
actually update maintenance and to keep maintenance current. Far too
much maintenance has not been carried out and has fallen farther behind
because of inadequate staffing. There is a great need for increased law
enforcement staffing, not reduced Federal refuge law enforcement, which
has been the practice for many years.
We urge the subcommittee to include ample funding for LWCF in the
fiscal Year 2023 Interior Appropriations Bill. The Great American
Outdoors Act allows for $900 million for the Land and Water
Conservation Fund: it is right and wise to reinvest proceeds from
offshore drilling receipts in the protection of natural resources and
recreational access for all Americans. The fund has only been fully
funded at $900 million once, in 1998, since 1965. We ask that the LWCF
be fully funded at $900 million for fiscal year 2023.
Recognizing the many demands this committee faces, we want to thank
the committee for its recent effort to restore much-needed funding to
the LWCF program. This wise investment in the Land and Water
Conservation Fund is one that will permanently pay dividends to the
American people and to our great natural and historical heritage. We
want to thank the Chairman and the members of the subcommittee for this
opportunity to testify on behalf of our National Wildlife Refuges.
[This statement was submitted by Marie Springer PhD., on behalf of
the Blue Goose Alliance.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Wildlife Refuge System
We deeply appreciate the tremendous efforts of the Committee to
support our Nation's natural resources and public lands. We were happy
to see the increased budget for the National Wildlife Refuge System
(System) for Fiscal Year 2022, thanks to your hard work.
Today we want to speak to the pressing needs for the System as you
work on the fiscal Year 2023 appropriations bill. As your subcommittee
develops budget items for the Interior, Environment, and Related
Agencies for fiscal Year 2023, we urge you to consider increasing the
budget for the System from its current $518 million to $712 million.
While visitors to the System have increased 38 percent since 2010 and
the effects of a changing climate are becoming more apparent, the
System's budget has remained largely stagnant. To properly fulfill its
conservation mission, hire staff to keep up with demand, and ensure
safe recreation opportunities for generations to come, the budget for
the System must grow.
Wildlife refuges are the only Federal public land that operates
with a dominant use order for conservation. All additional uses must
comply with individual refuge conservation efforts. In addition,
refuges, where compliant, support wildlife-dependent recreation
(fishing, hunting, wildlife observation and photography, and/or
environmental education and interpretation). They are also one of the
most accessible public land systems, with at least one wildlife refuge
in every State and 101 urban wildlife refuges. As such, the System is
our Nation's best path to protecting prized biodiversity, enhancing
vital habitats, including wildlife corridors, and offering nationwide
recreational opportunities.
Current funding levels have resulted in a loss of over 800 staff
positions within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the past
decade. This has impeded the ability to advance the mission of the
System and, more specifically, keep wildlife refuge Comprehensive
Conservation Plans current (around 40 percent are out of date),
maintain adequate law enforcement to ensure visitor safety and
protection of physical and natural resources, and apply up-to-date
science to refuge management policies. In some places, wildlife refuges
do not even have regular, on-site staff. These management needs extend
to recreation as well, including the need for regularly updated fishing
and hunting rules that enhance sporting opportunities.
As longtime supporters of the System and lifelong stewards of the
natural world, fishing and hunting organizations were glad to see the
President's fiscal Year 2023 budget request of $597 million for the
System. However, the System cannot perform its duties to its fullest
extent without a more robust budget. To maintain operations at a level
established 10 years ago (adjusted for inflation), keep up with visitor
demands and climate change, and lead the Nation in long-term,
responsible management of natural resources, the System's budget should
be no less than $712 million.
With a fully appropriated budget, the System can update outdated
management plans, fill essential staff positions, like law enforcement,
complete needed projects to meet conversation goals, better serve local
communities, develop resilient habitats and species through restoration
and responsible management, and ensure their 65 million annual visitors
can recreate safely.
Thank you for your consideration of this request and your ongoing
work to improve our Nation's beloved public lands and natural spaces.
[This statement was submitted by Grace Olscamp, National Campaign
Director, Trout Unlimited, John Gale, Director, Policy and Government
Relations, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Joel Webster, Vice
President of Western Conservation, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation
Partnership.]
______
Prepared Statement of National Wildlife Refuge System
The National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) plays a huge part in
wildlife conservation. It is the only set of Federal lands dedicated to
the conservation and management of America's native wildlife. The
largest and most diverse network of conservation lands in the world.
More than \1/3\ of wildlife & plant species protected under the
Endangered Species Act live only in wetlands and \1/2\ of US federally
threatened & endangered species use wetlands at some point in their
lives.
My point? A significant portion of important wetland areas are
protected by the National Wildlife Refuge System along with rivers,
coastlines, wetlands, deserts, forests, mountains, oceans. The NWRS
contains 568 units across the United States which totals roughly 850
million acres of land and marine habitat types.
The National Wildlife Refuge System needs to be funded! $712
million is a start.
As an individual, conservationist, educator and wildlife/wildlands
advocate, I embolden you to do better and approve this investment in
our National Wildlife Refuge System. NOW is the time!
We must invest in our National Wildlife Refuges now and in the
future. An estimated 59 million people used the NWRS for recreational
purposes in 2019 and unfortunately inadequate funding forces the Refuge
System to defer a range of critical services including wildlife habitat
management, conservation planning, maintenance and repairs, visitor
services and law enforcement activities.
Last month I visited five new National Wildlife Refuges across the
Midwest. It makes me so proud to know our country values these diverse
ecosystems. As a result, Chicks on a Grouse Trip, https://
chicksonagrousetrip.blogspot.com/, was created to share stories from
the field and educate the public on wildlife species who inhabit our
NWRS.
However, all of the visitor centers at the five refuges I visited
were Closed, there were NO restroom facilities open and the educational
pamphlet holders were empty. A missed opportunity to gain my
involvement and educate me on the area. Just a small face of the larger
problem our NWRS is dealing with.
[This statement was submitted by Sandy Zelasko.]
______
Prepared Statement of Native Village of Eyak
Recommendations:
1. Provide full funding and advance appropriations for the Indian
Health Service
2. Increase funding and accepted applications for the Joint Venture
Program
3. Ensure mandatory funding for Contract Support Costs and 105(l)
lease payments
4. Amend Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act to
Clarify CSC provisions
5. Fund Critical Infrastructure investments for the Indian health
system
6. Increase funding and authorize a self-governance funding mechanism
option for SDPI
7. Increase funding for Preventive Health programs.
8. Reduce dependence on competitive grants for Indian Country
Introduction. Thank you Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski,
and Members of the subcommittee for the opportunity to share our
funding priorities for the fiscal Year 2023 Federal budget. My name is
Mark Hoover and I serve as the Chairman of the Native Village of Eyak.
The Native Village of Eyak is a federally recognized Tribal government
located in Cordova, Alaska, on the southeast shores of Prince William
Sound in the North Gulf Coast. The Tribe is a co-signer to the Alaska
Tribal Health Compact with the Indian Health Service (IHS) and operates
a wide range of health care programs, including primary care services
and behavioral health. The Tribe also has a self-governance compact
under the ISDEAA with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Native Village
of Eyak focuses on self-determination and self-governance as a means of
improving the lives and health of our Tribal citizens. We are not only
responsible for providing quality, available health care services, but
also for promoting opportunities and partnerships for our citizens,
protecting our traditional land and natural resources, and for
strengthening our culture.
We are grateful that IHS received over $9 billion supplementary
appropriations to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Those resources have
been critical to ensuring that we had the means to serve our patients
and fight this terrible disease. The pandemic also gives us an
opportunity to make real, sustained investments in the Indian health
system. We believe now time to take the lessons learned from the COVID-
19 pandemic--both positive and negative--to renew the Indian health
system. Annual appropriations are essential to fulfilling the Federal
Government's trust and treaty obligations by ensuring critical programs
and services receive adequate funding to fulfill their intended
purpose. Therefore, I offer the following recommendations for your
consideration for fiscal Year 2023 appropriations for the IHS:
Provide Full Funding for the Indian Health Service. We with support
from the IHS, we strive to provide Alaska Natives and American Indians
(AI/AN) with access to high quality and comprehensive medical services,
no more so than during the ongoing pandemic. The Indian health system
has navigated unimaginable hardships related to supplies, staffing
levels, infrastructure and facilities, and high rates of underlying
conditions in serving our people at this time. We appreciate the work
that this committee has undertaken--on a bipartisan basis--to provide
funding increases for IHS year after year. However, more must be done
for the United States to honor its trust and treaty obligations to
Tribal Nations.
The IHS Tribal Budget Formulation Workgroup has calculated the need
at $49.8 billion for full funding. The Workgroup supports fully funding
this amount in fiscal Year 2023. The top priorities for program
expansion from the fiscal Year 2022 National Tribal Budget
Recommendation Planning base of $12.8 billion as follows:1 1) Hospitals
and Clinics: +$8.65 billion; 2) Purchased/Referred Care: +$5.22
billion; 3)Mental Health: +$3.59 million; 4) Alcohol and substance
Abuse: +$2.31 million; 5)Maintenance and Improvement: +$2.27 billion
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\1\ Full recommendations are available here: https://www.nihb.org/
docs/0207022/FY percent202023 percent20Tribal percent20Budget
percent20Formulation percent20Workgroup percent20Recommendations
percent20Vol percent201.pdf
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Support for Mandatory and Advance Appropriations for IHS: We
appreciate the Biden Administration's proposal to provide mandatory
funding for IHS and increase funding over 10 years. Reclassifying the
IHS budget as mandatory spending not only reflects the nature of the
trust and treaty obligations to Tribal Nations, but also will allow IHS
to be funded at a level that is necessary for providing health care to
AI/ANs. As noted in the President's budget request, ``Mandatory funding
for the IHS provides the opportunity for significant funding increases
that could not be achieved under discretionary funding caps.'' 2 The
proposal outlined in the President's Budget request is a good start,
but must be developed in partnership with Tribal Nations. We stand
ready to work with you and IHS to fully develop this proposal so that
it provides adequate funding for IHS and fully honors Tribal self-
determination and self-governance.
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\2\ Department of Health and Human Services, Fiscal Year 2023,
Indian Health Service, Justification of Estimates for Appropriations
Committees, p. CJ-3.
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However, if fully mandatory appropriations cannot be achieved for
fiscal Year 2023, we continue to support IHS advance appropriations for
the short term. For many years, Tribes have requested that IHS
appropriations be funded on an advance appropriations cycle. It has
unfortunately become the norm that IHS does not receive its full yearly
appropriation until several months (sometimes longer) after the start
of the fiscal year. These funding delays make it impossible for IHS and
Tribal health programs to plan and manage their annual budgets.
Congress recognized these challenges when it provided the Veterans
Administration with advance appropriations over a decade ago. Yet, IHS
still waits for parity. In fiscal Year 2022, we did not receive our
full funding amount until almost halfway through the fiscal year. The
practical implication of this is that our health systems do not have
the ability to plan our finances even weeks ahead, as we do not know
what our funding level will be. At a time when we are desperate for
medical professionals and when the health system is in crisis due to
the global pandemic, this is just unacceptable. Full advance
appropriations for the IHS would lead to better stability for our
health system, improve provider recruitment and retention, and improve
practices over all.
We appreciate President Biden's support for IHS advance
appropriations in his fiscal Year 2022 budget request to Congress and
the support of many members of this subcommittee on IHS advance
appropriations. We urge the Committee to take the necessary steps in
the fiscal Year 2023 appropriations bill to move/continue IHS to an
advance appropriation for fiscal Year 2023 and beyond. The time is now
to end the delay of health care for AI/ANs.
Support Expansion of the IHS Joint Venture Program. The IHS Joint
Venture (JV) program provides Tribes with a critical opportunity to
build new facilities and to enhance health services for their patients.
Under this project, Tribes and Tribal organizations build or acquire
the facility with their own or other non-IHS funds, and IHS commits to
fund the additional staffing and operations costs associated with the
new or expanded facility. The program has been a major success, with
close to 40 facilities built, acquired, or renovated since 1992. It has
been a critical, cost-effective mechanism to address the health care
facilities shortage, since funds continue to be limited for the IHS
Facilities Construction Priority List. Yet, despite the remarkable
success of this program, projects like ours remain unfunded by IHS. In
the last round, Native Village of Eyak--along with two other Tribal
health organizations in Alaska--received a high score and were on the
top 10 list of projects, but were not funded, as IHS only funded the
top 5. We request that the Committee direct IHS to fund all high-
scoring applicants for JV construction projects.
Additionally, the JV program currently leaves Tribal facilities
without necessary maintenance and replacement funds. The IHCIA requires
that the Tribe lease the facility to IHS for 20 years at no cost. The
JV facility is eligible to receive a share of IHS's perennially
insufficient Maintenance and Improvement (M&I) funding, but is not
eligible for a lease under section 105(l) of the Indian Self-
Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA).\3\ This leads to
the anomaly that non-JV facilities can be fully funded under 105(l),
receiving either fair market rental or the cost elements set out in the
regulations, while JV facilities are stuck with nothing but M&I. We
request that Congress amend the Indian Health Care Improvement Act to
correct this issue. We are happy to provide any technical assistance
you may need.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ 25 U.S.C. Sec. 5324(l); 25 C.F.R. Part 900, Subpart H.
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Mandatory Funding for Contract Support Costs and 105(l) lease
payments: If Congress is not able to enact full mandatory funding for
IHS this year, we continue to support mandatory funding for Contract
Support Costs (CSC) and 105(l) leases. We appreciate the subcommittee's
commitment to ensuring that CSC and 105(l) lease costs are fully funded
by including an indefinite discretionary appropriation in recent years
for both of these accounts. However, changing these accounts to
mandatory appropriations in fiscal Year 2023 would bring appropriations
process into line with the clear legal requirements of the authorizing
statute. CSC and 105(l) lease funds are already an entitlement under
substantive law for the ISDEAA to function as intended by Congress. It
is contradictory and problematic to appropriate funding for CSC on a
discretionary basis. A simple amendment to a permanent appropriations
statute could solve this challenge.
Amend Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act to
Clarify CSC provisions: We also request that the committee consider
amending the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act
(ISDEAA) to clarify that when agency funding paid to a Tribe for
program operations is insufficient for contract and compact
administration, contract support costs will remain available to cover
the difference. In the recent court decision Cook Inlet Tribal Council,
Inc. v. Dotomain,\4\ a Federal appeals court held that costs for
activities normally carried out by IHS are ineligible for payment as
CSC-even if IHS transfers insufficient, or even no, funding for these
activities in the Secretarial amount. Under this new ruling, if
facility costs are higher for a Tribe than for IHS, the Tribe is forced
to cover the difference by diverting scarce program dollars. Recently,
this serious misinterpretation of the ISDEAA that has been applied to
one Tribal organization resulting in a 90 percent reduction of contract
support costs reimbursement threatens Tribal self-governance and self-
determination. Therefore, we call upon Congress to provide a
legislative fix to clarify the intent on Congress for this matter, and
ensure consistency with precedent.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Inc. v. Dotomain, 10 F.4th 892 (D.C.
Cir. 2021).
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Fully fund critical infrastructure investments: As Congress
considers making dramatic investments in the country's infrastructure,
it is critical that the Indian health system not be left behind.
Therefore, we request that the subcommittee allocate funding for full
implementation of interoperable Electronic Health Records (EHR) and
tele-health. This will ensure that IHS can provide services that are
similar to other health providers. Last year, IHS said before the
Senate Committee on Indian Affairs that the current EHR ``created
significant barriers to the rapid response needed for COVID-19.'' For
Tribes and Tribal health organizations who have committed their own
resources to move away from RPMS and make their systems functional, IHS
should take this into consideration with any new resources and ensure
these programs are not only interoperable, but compensated accordingly.
We were thrilled to see that the Sanitation Facilities Construction
program received $3.5 billion in appropriations in the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law 117-58). These funds will be
especially critical in Alaska, which has a deficit of almost $2 billion
in unmet sanitation needs in Alaska Native communities. That said, it
is critical that Congress make still significant investments in Tribal
health facilities construction. IHS and Tribal facilities are some of
the oldest in the Nation, meaning that facilities are out of date, or
not appropriate for the size of the patient populations they serve.
Therefore, consistent with the Budget Formulation Workgroup's request,
we recommend $10.6 billion for facilities in fiscal Year 2023.
Staff Housing Quarters: We continue to experience challenges
finding adequate housing for staffing for health and other
professionals to serve our community. As you know, health staffing
shortages across the Indian health system are dire, and providing
adequate living spaces for professionals are directly linked with our
ability to recruit and retain staff.
Extend Self-Governance Funding Options to the Special Diabetes
Program for Indians (SDPI) and increase funding to $250 million/year.
While we understand that SDPI is not under the jurisdiction of the
subcommittee, we appreciate that Congress included a 3-year
reauthorization of SDPI in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021
(Public Law 116-260). SDPI's success rests in the flexibility of its
program structure that allows for the incorporation of culture and
local needs into its services. Consistent with this model, Congress
should authorize SDPI participants the option of receiving their
Federal funds through either a grant (as currently used) or self-
governance funding mechanisms under the Indian Self-Determination and
Education Assistance Act. This would be a natural and just extension of
SDPI in respecting Tribal sovereignty. Additionally, SDPI has not had
an increase in funding since fiscal Year 2004. Short term
reauthorizations also destabilize this health program and make staffing
and program continuity difficult. For this reason, we recommend
permanent reauthorization for SDPI at a minimum base of $250 million
per year with annual adjustments for inflationary increases. We urge
you to work with your Congressional colleagues to ensure that SDPI
receives a funding increase of at least $250 million per year.
Plan for the Future with Dedicated Funding for Preventative Health
Services. Among the many things we have learned from the COVID-19
pandemic is that basic public health functions are critical to
preserving life and overall health of Americans, yet public health
systems in most Tribal communities lag far behind systems in other
jurisdictions. Without robust public health systems in place,
responding to public health threats means that Tribal communities will
continue to be a challenge. Yet the Federal Government provides few
resources to Tribal communities for this purpose. We support long-term,
sustained, full investment in Tribal public health infrastructure so
that Tribal communities have the resources available to respond quickly
when the next crisis hits.
Reduce Dependence on Federal Grants. In addition to the critical
funding needs outlined above, we also support moving away from
competitive grants for Federal funding mechanisms. The Federal trust
responsibility does not require that we jump through a myriad of hoops
and onerous applications to see that services are provided to our
people. Grants also unfairly pit Tribes against Tribes, when all are
deserving of critical resources. Applications and reporting
requirements force our health system to divert staff time to apply and
report thereby diluting the usefulness of the resources. Instead, we
request wide-spread, formula-based funding across all programs and the
flexibility needed to respond to the specific needs of their own
communities, not those prescribed by Federal grants. A Tribal workgroup
has developed draft legislation to reduce dependence on Federal grants
by enacting Title VI of ISDEAA, which would allow for self-governance
to be extended to non-IHS programs within the Department of Health and
Human Services. We would appreciate the subcommittee's support of this
legislation.
[This statement was submitted by Mark Hoover, Chairman, Native
Village of Eyak.]
______
Prepared Statement of Natural Science Collections Alliance
The Natural Science Collections Alliance appreciates the
opportunity to provide testimony in support of fiscal year 2023
appropriations for the Smithsonian Institution and the Department of
the Interior. We encourage Congress to make new investments that
address agency backlogs and secure future efforts for the preservation,
curation, growth and study of scientific and cultural collections
within the Department of the Interior and the Smithsonian Institution.
We request that Congress provide the National Museum of Natural History
with at least $60 million in fiscal Year 2023, with new funding to
correct for a lack of adequate increases in recent years. Please
provide the United States Geological Survey (USGS) with at least $1.85
billion in fiscal Year 2023, with increased support for collections
related activities.
The Natural Science Collections Alliance is a non-profit
association that supports natural science collections, their human
resources, the institutions that house them, and their research
activities for the benefit of science and society. Our membership
consists of institutions that are part of an international network of
museums, botanical gardens, herbaria, universities, and other
institutions that contain natural science collections and use them in
research, exhibitions, academic and informal science education, and
outreach activities.
Scientific collections, and the collections professionals and
scientists who make, care for, and study these resources, are a vital
component of our Nation's research infrastructure. These collections
and their associated experts contribute to the expansion of our
bioeconomy. Whether held at a museum, government managed laboratory or
archive, or in a university science department, these scientific
resources form a coordinated network of specimens, samples, and data
(for example, genetic, tissue, organism, and environmental) that are a
unique and irreplaceable foundation from which scientists are studying
and explaining past and present life on earth.
Preservation of specimens and the strategic growth of these
collections are in the best interest of science and the best interest
of taxpayers. Existing scientific collections that are properly cared
for and accessible are a critical component of the US science
infrastructure and are readily integrated into new research on
significant questions. Specimens that were collected decades or
centuries ago are now routinely used in research in diverse fields
related to genomics, human health, biodiversity sciences, informatics,
environmental quality, and agriculture.
According to the U.S. Interagency Working Group on Scientific
Collections (IWGSC), ``scientific collections are essential to
supporting agency missions and are thus vital to supporting the global
research enterprise.'' A 2020 report by the IWGSC, ``Economic Analyses
of Federal Scientific Collections,'' highlights the long-term benefits
of scientific collections and presents a framework for estimating and
documenting these benefits, both monetary and non-monetary, generated
by Federal institutional collections. Additional recent reports have
highlighted the value of mobilizing biodiversity specimens and data in
spurring new scientific discoveries that grow our economy, improve our
public health and wellbeing, and increase our National security.
In 2019, the Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN) issued a
community informed call for the development of an Extended Specimen
Network. The report, Extending U.S. Biodiversity Collections to Promote
Research and Education, outlined a national agenda that leverages
digital data in biodiversity collections for new uses and called for
building an Extended Specimen Network: ``Science and industry rely on
physical specimens housed in U.S. biodiversity collections,'' the
report suggests. ``Rapid advances in data generation and analysis have
transformed understanding of biodiversity collections from singular
physical specimens, to dynamic suites of interconnected resources
enriched through study over time. The concept of the 'extended
specimen' conveys the current perspective of the biodiversity specimen
as extending beyond the singular physical object, to potentially
limitless additional physical preparations and digital resources.''
This endeavor requires robust investments in our Nation's scientific
collections, whether they are owned by a Federal or state agency or are
part of an educational institution or free-standing natural history
museum or other research centers.
A 2020 report by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and
Medicine (NASEM), Biological Collections: Ensuring Critical Research
and Education for the 21st Century, provided guidance to the NSF
regarding the sustainability of living stock and natural history
collections. The report argued that collections are a critical part of
our Nation's science and innovation infrastructure and a fundamental
resource for understanding the natural world.
The NASEM, BCoN, and IWGSC reports, articulate a common vision of
the future of biological collections and define a need to broaden and
deepen the collections and associated data to realize the potential for
biodiversity collections to inform 21st century science. Collections
are a critical resource for advancing the knowledge needed to address
current global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss,
and pandemics. The COVID-19 crisis has illustrated how inextricably
linked humans are to the natural world. Biological collections, their
extended data, and the experts that build and study them are globally
important for understanding where viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 exist in
nature or when they cross from their current hosts to humans.
The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History
(NMNH) is the central Federal partner in the curation and research on
scientific specimens. Scientists at the NMNH care for 146 million
specimens and ensure that the institution remains a global leader in
scientific research and public engagement. To increase the availability
of these scientific resources to researchers, educators, other Federal
agencies, and the public, NMNH is working on a multi-year effort to
digitize its collections. Funding is required to ensure this work is
completed.
The National Museum of Natural History is also working to
strengthen curatorial and research staffing and to backfill positions
left open by retirements and budget constraints. The current staffing
level is insufficient to provide optimal care for the collections.
Future curatorial and collections management staffing levels may be
further jeopardized given insufficient funding increases in recent
years. This lack of funding for collections care jeopardizes our
bioeconomy at a time when critical investments are needed to leverage
our network of collections to address the myriad issues facing the
country.
Interior is an important caretaker of museum collections as well;
the Department and its bureaus collectively manage an estimated 206
million museum items. Although many of the department's collections are
located in bureau facilities, numerous artifacts and specimens are
cared for in non-governmental facilities, such as museums and
universities. The Interior Museum Program supports these collections by
providing oversight, policy development, advocacy, technical
assistance, training, and data management support.
In addition, the USGS furthers the preservation, inventory, and
digitization of geological scientific collections, such as rock and ice
cores, fossils, and samples of oil, gas, and water. The National
Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation program helps States with
collections management, improves accessibility of collections data, and
expands digitization of specimens to ensure their broader use. One
example of the returns from this program is the potash mineral deposit
discovered in Michigan that is valued at an estimated $65 billion. Rock
samples from Michigan were entered into a national database, where
private companies discovered the deposit's existence and are now
assessing the potential for mining.
USGS supports the documentation and conservation of native
pollinators through its Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab (BIML).
Pollinators, such as bees, are critical components of ecosystems and
play an integral role in wildlife and habitat management and
restoration. Three-fourths of the world's flowering plants and about 35
percent of the world's food crops rely on pollinators to reproduce.
Given that pollinator populations are in decline globally, BIML's work
in developing a nationwide method to inventory and monitor bee
population trends on public lands is crucial.
USGS has more than a million specimens of birds, mammals,
amphibians, and reptiles that are housed at the Smithsonian's National
Museum of Natural History. The Biological Survey Unit (BSU) consisted
of USGS scientists stationed at the NMNH, where they conducted research
on USGS-specimens of fish, reptiles, birds, and mammals that are
curated at the NMNH. This arrangement went back to 1889. These
specimens, data, and the research they enable are required to inform
Department of the Interior land and natural resource management
decisions, and often also support decision-making by State and Tribal
governments. With the BSU now eliminated, it is our understanding that
the Smithsonian has taken over care of these collections. The work that
BSU supported and conducted at the NMNH was important and in the
National interest. There is a lack of clarity and understanding about
how this work is currently being sustained, given the Smithsonian's own
shrinking staff.
The Bureau of Land Management manages nearly 4 million museum
objects and archives and has a large backlog of cultural resources to
inventory on public lands. Currently, only about 11 percent of public
lands have been assessed for heritage resources. Such assessments need
to be conducted before unique resources are lost to looting, vandalism,
fire, or environmental change.
The National Park Service must continue its investments in
scientific collections into the future, which means cataloging millions
of museum objects and connecting the resulting databases to national
and global data portals. The National Park Service curates a wide range
of specimens and artifacts, from historical and cultural items to
preserved tissues from protected species and living microorganisms
collected in our National Parks. Several parks have made progress on
addressing planning, environmental, storage, security, and fire
protection deficiencies in museum collections, but much work remains,
and present and future collections will be fundamental for effective
management efforts.
conclusion
Scientific collections are critical infrastructure for our Nation's
research enterprise. They are a national treasure that help support the
Nation's bioeconomy. Research specimens connect us to the past and are
used to document and solve current problems. They allow us to predict
threats to human health, find successful methods for ensuring food
security, and address the impact of future environmental changes.
Sustained investments in scientific collections are in our National
interest. We also see these investments as critical for our efforts to
grow diversity and inclusion in the scientific workforce.
The budget for NMNH has not seen adequate increases in recent
years. We urge Congress to provide NMNH with at least $60 million in
fiscal Year 2023 to allow the museum to undertake critical collections
care, make needed technology upgrades, and conduct cutting edge
research. Please support adequate funding for programs within Interior
bureaus that support the preservation and use of scientific
collections--a truly irreplaceable resource. We encourage Congress to
provide the USGS with at least $1.85 billion in fiscal Year 2023, with
increased support for collections related activities.
Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of this request.
[This statement was submitted by Gil Nelson, Ph.D., President,
Natural Science Collections Alliance.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Nature Conservancy
Chair Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to submit recommendations
for fiscal year 2023 (FY23) appropriations. The Nature Conservancy
(TNC) is a nonprofit conservation organization working around the world
to protect ecologically important lands and waters for people and
nature. TNC appreciates Congress's work last year to pass the
bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. These investments in
our natural systems will help bolster resiliency and respond to climate
change. These investments complement but do not supplant the need for
ongoing program funding through the appropriations process. Indeed, a
robust appropriations package will serve as the foundation for
implementing the infrastructure bill and ensuring long-term successes
for critical programs under the subcommittee's jurisdiction.
Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). Passage of the Great
American Outdoors Act and the dedicated funding of LWCF positions the
program to provide more support for landscape-level conservation,
working forests and ranchlands, access to the outdoors for underserved
communities, climate resilience, conservation of historical and
cultural sites, and advancing the America the Beautiful initiative.
However, project demand in every State and county continues to far
outstrip the $900 million a year in available funding for the program.
We respectfully request an additional investment of $450 million in
discretionary funds to address the numerous ready-to-go project
opportunities across the country.
We appreciate the increased funding provided in FY22 for the Park
Service Historic Preservation Fund Tribal line item and request $34
million for the Tribal work and $10 million for the Native American
Graves Protection and Repatriation Act grant program in FY23.
Endangered Species. TNC supports continuing funding of at least $60
million for the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund. This
funding supports critical matching grants to States and territories for
conservation and species recovery efforts on non-federal lands. TNC
requests the subcommittee's continued support for Habitat Conservation
Plan (HCP) funding and HCP Land Acquisition Grants.
State and Tribal Wildlife Grants. Strong Federal investments are
essential to support strategic actions by State, Tribal and Federal
agencies, as well as the conservation community, to protect wildlife
and their habitats. TNC appreciates the continued support from members
of this subcommittee to address these significant funding needs through
passage of the Recovering America's Wildlife Act (S. 2372).
Wildlife Conservation Programs. TNC urges the subcommittee to
continue funding for North American Wetlands Conservation Act grants,
the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Fund, Migratory Bird Joint
Ventures, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Migratory Bird
Management Program and FWS Coastal Program at no less than the FY22
funding levels. Likewise, TNC supports continued strong funding for the
Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, the Cooperative Landscape
Conservation and Adaptive Science programs and the National Fish
Habitat Initiative.
International Programs. The international conservation programs
appropriated annually within the Department of the Interior (DOI) and
the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) encompass DOI's Office of International
Affairs, FWS Multinational Species Conservation Funds, FWS Wildlife
Without Borders regional and global programs, the National Park
Service's International Program and the USFS International Program. TNC
requests increases over FY22 funding levels for these programs,
including $25 million for the USFS International Program, to manifest
U.S. leadership in addressing the dual crises of biodiversity loss and
climate change globally.
National Wildlife Refuge System. Found in every State and
territory, national wildlife refuges conserve the diversity of
America's environmentally sensitive and economically vital ecosystems,
including oceans, coasts, wetlands, deserts, tundra, prairies and
forests. TNC supports increased funding for the system's operations and
maintenance accounts and an overall funding level of $600 million for
FY23.
Sage Grouse Conservation. TNC requests $85 million to support the
implementation of the Greater Sage-grouse Conservation Strategy (BLM:
$75 million, FWS: $5 million, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS): $5
million). These resources are needed to implement on-the-ground
projects and monitor habitat treatments, address rangeland fire and
noxious and invasive grasses, fund suppression and restoration efforts
and facilitate the partnership and science necessary for effective
conservation in western States. We continue to request the removal of
language that would bar FWS from proposing a rule to list the Greater
Sage-grouse under the Endangered Species Act from the FY23 bill.
BLM Land Management and Renewable Energy Development. TNC supports
ongoing work to expedite renewable energy development, including
funding to operationalize the Renewable Energy Coordination Offices and
regional clean energy plans. TNC recommends robust funding to support
BLM's smart planning and management of public lands. This includes the
National Landscape Conservation System (no less than FY22 level of $50
million), the Resource Management Planning (no less than FY22 level of
$68 million), the consolidated Wildlife and Aquatic Habitat Management
budget line ($150 million) and the Renewable Energy Development program
($35 million).
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Geographic Programs.
TNC urges the subcommittee to continue strong funding for EPA's
geographic programs, including the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative
and the Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound, Long Island Sound and Gulf of
Mexico programs, to make significant contributions to protecting
habitat, improving water quality and enhancing resilience in the large
landscapes they encompass.
Colorado River Basin Recovery Programs. The Upper Colorado River
Endangered Fish Recovery Program and San Juan River Basin Recovery
Implementation Program take a balanced approach to the recovery of four
threatened and endangered fish species in the upper Colorado River
basin. The FWS budget includes approximately $1.5 million to support
these programs as well as fish hatchery needs associated with the
recovery plans. TNC requests the subcommittee maintain this funding in
FY23.
Restoring Rivers and Streams. Removing problematic dams and
upgrading culverts can improve public safety and provide environmental
and social benefits. TNC recommends $30 million for the FWS National
Fish Passage Program and robust funding to support the USFS restoration
of streams by removing and restoring dam and culvert barriers through
programs including the Legacy Roads and Trails program, State & Private
Forestry programs and National Forest System programs such as
Vegetation & Watershed Management.
Federal Priority Streamgage (FPS) Network. USGS operates the FPS
Network to provide continuous streamflow information at over 8,400
locations across the country. TNC supports $30 million for the FPS
Network to reinstate lost gages. TNC also requests $33 million in
Cooperative Matching Funds to leverage USGS funding to expand this
program to over 5,000 gages. Lastly, TNC supports $35 million for the
Next Generation Water Observation System to expand this program and
allow USGS to modernize water data delivery systems across the United
States.
3D Elevation Program (3DEP): 3DEP sponsors satellite topographical
mapping that provides communities high-quality elevation mapping to
better understand flood risks. Knowledge of flood risks can help
prevent communities from developing in unsafe areas and allow risk
mitigation in developed areas. TNC supports continued funding of $146
million in FY23 for 3DEP to promote resilient communities and
environments.
Forest Restoration and Fire. TNC also recommends funding for USFS
AND DOI programs that address catastrophic megafires, pests and
drought--all impacts exacerbated by climate change--in our forests. We
support substantial reinvestments in programs that increase forest
resilience, specifically those that support collaboratively developed,
science-based, climate-informed and ecologically focused activities
across all forests. These programs not only contribute to forest
resilience but also create jobs, support local economies and reduce
wildfire risk to communities, among other benefits.
Our funding recommendations for the USFS are based on the modern
budgeting practices undertaken by USFS. We also recommend increased
salaries and expenses proportional to any program increases. We would
further recommend directing the USFS and DOI to identify and prioritize
projects based on best-available climate vulnerability, watershed
conditions and fire risk assessments.
Investing in Wildfire Resilience. Congress took a major step toward
stabilizing the USFS and DOI budgets with the 2018 ``fire fix,'' for
which we continue to be thankful. We continue to urge Congress to
ensure the fire fix remains durable and comprehensive. An estimated 50
million acres are in critical need of wildfire resilience treatments
across all forests due to the impacts of these challenges. A TNC report
recommends an investment surge of $5-6 billion per year over the next
10 years for the highest-priority work of increasing wildfire
resilience and providing communities with much-needed resources for
infrastructure and adaptation.
TNC recommends investing in the USFS's Hazardous Fuels Program at
$321 million and DOI's Fuels Management Program at $304 million. In
addition, TNC urges the subcommittee to repeat its fiscal year 2021
instructions for allocating funds to priority landscapes in both
wildland-urban interface and wildland settings for prescribed burning.
TNC also supports fully funding the Collaborative Forest Landscape
Restoration Program at $80 million, Vegetation and Watershed Management
at $68 million, Water Source Protection Program at $10 million, and
State Fire Assistance at $79 million. We appreciate the critical
investment in Burned Area Rehabilitation in the IIJA supporting forest
recovery. This is a significant management need and has been
historically overlooked. TNC supports an additional $30 million for
post-fire restoration or Burned Area Rehabilitation activities in FY23
and looks forward to USFS reporting as they develop this program, as
directed in the fiscal year 2021 omnibus appropriations bill.
Investing in Ecosystem Restoration, Reforestation and Planting.
Additionally, TNC recommends funding for programs that enhance water
quality, biodiversity, and forest health, including the Wildlife &
Fisheries Habitat Management at $29 million, Legacy Road and Trail
Remediation at $20 million, Federal Forest Health at $22 million,
Cooperative Forest Health at $40 million and Landscape-Scale
Restoration at $20 million.
TNC additionally recommends funding the Urban and Community
Forestry program at $40 million to support increase in tree cover in
urban landscapes and improve air quality, reduce electricity and help
cities mitigate stormwater and floodwater.
Research and Planning. TNC recommends funding research programs to
include the USFS Research and Development Program at $93.5 million
(dedicating $42.5 million for climate research and climate hubs), $32.4
million for Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA), and Joint Fire Science
at $8 million each for USFS and DOI. The Research and Development
Program offers a vital scientific basis for policies that improve the
health and quality of urban and rural communities. Advances to FIA
technology in measuring and monitoring are critical for public and
private forest carbon management. Investments in the Joint Fire Science
programs would provide competitive and focused applied science
solutions to improve the management of forests and watersheds while
protecting communities, water and air through interagency partnerships.
TNC also recommends investing in Land Management Planning, Inventory
and Monitoring at $22 million. USFS must update many outdated forest
plans and increase its efforts to appropriately incorporate climate
change into land management planning and project-level documentation
under the National Environmental Policy Act.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit TNC's recommendations for
the FY23 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations
Bill.
[This statement was submitted by Brent Keith, Senior Policy
Advisor, The Nature Conservancy.]
______
Prepared Statement of Nisqually Indian Tribe
Summary of Budget Requests:
I. Bureau of Indian Affairs--Increase funding for Western Washington
Program
II. Bureau of Indian Affairs--Increase funding for Tribal Climate
Resilience Program
III. Bureau of Indian Affairs--Increase funding for Living Languages
Grant Program
IV. Bureau of Indian Affairs--Increase funding for Missing & Murdered
Unit
V. Environmental Protection Agency--Increase funding for Puget Sound
Program
VI. Environmental Protection Agency--Funding to Address Impacts of 6PPD
Quinone
Greetings Chair Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski, and Honorable
Members of the subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related
Agencies. My name is William Frank III and I have the honor of serving
as Chairman of the Nisqually Indian Tribe. Thank you for the
opportunity to provide written testimony regarding the Tribe's funding
priorities within the subcommittee's jurisdiction. It is also an honor
to continue my father, Billy Frank, Jr's, lifetime commitment and fight
to protect our salmon, water, and environment.
The Nisqually Indian Tribe (``Tribe'') has treaty reserved rights
enshrined in the Treaty of Medicine Creek of 1854 and upheld by Federal
courts in U.S. vs Washington, also known as the Boldt Decision, in 1974
and in numerous decisions in the intervening 48 years. These rights
include, at their most fundamental of understanding, the ability to
continue to exist as the Nisqually Indian Tribe in return for allowing
the peaceful settlement of Americans in our region. The Tribal leaders
that were signatory to the Treaty envisioned perpetual survival of our
people, our traditions and cultures, our use of our homelands, and the
access and use of the natural resources that have been central to our
existence since time immemorial.
Access and use of our treaty secured natural resources has been
diminished significantly over time. Specifically, the salmon of the
Nisqually River have decreased in numbers over the past 25 years to the
point where there are two species listed as threatened under the
Endangered Species Act (``ESA''), the Fall Chinook salmon and the
steelhead trout; and there are two more candidates for future listing
considerations, the unique Nisqually late chum and the coho salmon.
As recently as the 1980's, and throughout time, Nisqually Tribal
members regularly fished 8 months a year on the river that bears our
name. By 2015, fishing time has been constrained to a mere 8 days to
conserve the diminishing resource for future generations. Eight days is
not using our homelands and waters as promised; 8 days is not
practicing our cultures and traditions; and 8 days is not honoring the
promises contained in the Treaty of Medicine Creek.
i. bureau of indian affairs: rights protection implementation-western
washington (boldt decision)
The Boldt Decision reaffirmed our Tribe's right to co-manage
fishery resources with the State of Washington. To honor this Federal
decision and many other court decisions upholding Tribal rights, the
Department of the Interior provides Tribal funding under the Rights
Protection Implementation (``RPI'') Program. Particularly, the Western
Washington Program provides specific Federal funding to meet its treaty
obligations to Western Washington Tribes, including the Nisqually
Indian Tribe.
The Nisqually Indian Tribe has utilized this vital Federal funding
to revive our precious fish resources and to build a strong and
dedicated Natural Resources Program. The Tribe has over 40 staff in
eight different programs that utilize science-based management of our
fisheries. These eight different programs include shellfish management,
environmental management, salmon hatchery operations, salmon recovery,
Geographic and Information Services, and salmon restoration and
research.
Despite the effectiveness of RPI, the funding levels are simply
insufficient. The Tribe is putting all its efforts into the survival of
our fisheries and trust resources, stretching every dollar. Our
obligations to manage under the Boldt Decision and the ESA are growing
more complicated as our world continues to change. Unfortunately, the
fiscal resources have failed to fully support the proper management of
our trust resources and treaty protected rights.
The Tribe appreciates the President requesting an increase of
$370,000 for the Western Washington Program. However, we urge the
subcommittee to provide a more substantial increase that will help
ensure that the responsibilities outlined in the Boldt decision can be
fulfilled.
ii. bureau of indian affairs: tribal climate resilience program
Climate change is real and is having dramatic and significant
impacts on our people and the resources we depend upon. As a result of
rising sea levels, we are seeing changes to the Nisqually Delta habitat
in ways that are impacting salmon survival. The culturally important
plant species that we use for our food, medicine, and crafts are
becoming scarcer as their range is being reduced with rising
temperatures and changes in the timing and magnitude of rainfall.
We have invested a tremendous amount of time and resources to
protect and restore our watershed while increasing resiliency, but the
changes are occurring at a pace that is challenging to match with our
efforts alone. We need to increase the pace and magnitude of our
efforts while working on solutions to the climate change that imperils
the very resources that we all care for and are dependent on for our
very survival.
With Western Washington Tribes being on the frontlines of climate
change, we applaud the President's proposal to increase funding for the
Tribal Climate Resilience Program (``TCRP'') by $44 million. The TCRP
is instrumental in assisting Tribal governments with climate adaptation
and preparedness, implementing strategies for resilient communities,
and encouraging cooperative solutions. The Nisqually Indian Tribe
requests that the subcommittee provides a substantial increase in
funding for the TCRP.
iii. bureau of indian affairs: living languages grant program
Our language ties us to our ancestors, our history, and our sacred
spaces. ``You don't know where you are going, if you don't know where
you've been,'' Nisqually elders used to say. With language preservation
being a top priority, the Tribe was pleased to see the development of
the Living Languages Grant Program (``LLGP''). Administered by the
Office of Indian Economic Development, the LLGP was designed to help
Tribes document, preserve, and revitalize our language. LLGP funding is
intended to focus on small or start-up programs whose objective is to
document or build the capacity to preserve Native languages that are
losing users, but whichstill have active users at the grandparent
generation.
The President's request provides for an increase of $21 million to
support Native language revitalization. The funding will allow Indian
Affairs to implement the Native American Languages Act of 1990, which
aims to preserve, protect, and promote the rights and freedom of Native
Americans to use, practice, and develop Native American languages. It
will provide much needed funding to support non-BIE Tribal language
immersion schools and programs.
The Tribe urges the subcommittee to fund the Living Languages Grant
Program, a vital program that is assisting Tribes in preserving their
languages. As Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland
stated, ``preserving Native languages is fundamental to preserving all
aspects of Tribal cultures and traditions.''
iv. bureau of indian affairs: missing and murdered unit
According to the Urban Indian Health Institute (``Institute''),
American Indian and Alaska Native women in Washington State go missing
at a rate more than four times higher than the State's white residents.
The Institute also found that Washington had the second highest number
of missing and murdered Indigenous women cases among the 29 States
surveyed. Therefore, the Tribe was pleased when Secretary Haaland
formed the Missing & Murdered Unit (``MMU'') within BIA's Office of
Justice Services. The MMU is to provide leadership and direction for
cross-departmental and interagency work involving missing and murdered
Indigenous Peoples (``MMIP'') cases. The MMU will also help put the
full weight of the Federal Government into investigating MMIP cases and
marshal law enforcement resources across Federal agencies and
throughout Indian Country.
The President's budget request includes $16.5 million to address
the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People. The MMU falls
under Law Enforcement Special Initiatives--Tribal Public Safety Missing
& Murdered Unit, for which the President proposes an increase of $5.1
million. The additional funding would add 20 investigative personnel to
the MMU. The new personnel will double the current effort dedicated to
addressing new and unsolved cases, responding to investigative
challenges, and collection and management of data across jurisdictions.
The Nisqually Indian Tribe requests the subcommittee provide
significant funding for the Missing & Murdered Unit and related
programs that seek to address the MMIP epidemic.
v. environmental protection agency: puget sound program
There are many issues challenging our salmon's very survival in the
Nisqually River and throughout Puget Sound. The Puget Sound is our
regional icon and it has been designated as an estuary of National
Significance under the Clean Water Act. The Puget Sound represents the
promise of a clean, healthy, and vital environment that is central to
our lives in Western Washington. It is as important to our region as
the Great Lakes and the Everglades are to those living in those
watersheds.
The plight of the salmon is also the plight of our people. Losing
our promised and generational connection to the salmon and the river
and our traditional practices has long lasting impacts on our
communities. When we have salmon, when we have time on our river, when
we eat our traditional foods and practice our culture, we are healthy.
When these things are lacking, we too are at risk. Our physical,
emotional, and spiritual health is directly and permanently connected
to our river and our salmon. Saving salmon is saving our people.
We are not alone feeling the impact of disappearing salmon runs.
Our brothers the Orca of Puget Sound are also struggling. The Southern
Resident Killer Whales, salmon eaters like us, are now listed as
threatened under the ESA and are slowly slipping away into extinction.
We all watched helplessly in shock and horror the vision of the mother
Orca carrying her dead baby for 18 days in Puget Sound in 2018. As go
the salmon, goes the Orca and the Nisqually People.
Under the EPA's Puget Sound Program, the Nisqually Indian Tribe
receives important funding to conduct research and implement programing
to revitalize the salmon population. Compared to other nearby bodies of
water, salmon in the Puget Sound have a much lower survival rate.
Federal funding allows our researchers to understand why this is
happening in the Puget Sound. Once we understand the cause, we can
provide the best measures to protect the salmon.
The President's budget request call for $35 million for the Puget
Sound Program, an increase of $1.2 million over the previously enacted
level. The Tribe requests that the subcommittee increase funding for
EPA's Puget Sound Program to further assist us in tackling the
complicated issues in the Puget Sound.
vi. environmental protection agency: funding to address impacts of 6ppd
quinone on salmon
The Nisqually Tribe has grave concerns regarding the deadly threat
that 6PPD Quinone is having on our salmon and treaty protected
resources. The Tribe needs the EPA to provide the critical leadership
and sense of urgency needed to immediately solve this problem. This is
a crucial issue for the Tribe and all Tribes that depend upon salmon.
We have seen our salmon populations decline dramatically over the past
30 years and the negative impacts that has had on our treaty rights,
our culture and traditions, and the health of our communities. 6PPD is
killing our fish every time it rains. The Tribe urges the subcommittee
to provide funding that will address the deadly impacts that 6PPD
Quinone is having on the salmon population.
The Nisqually Indian Tribe thanks the subcommittee for the
opportunity to share its funding priorities for Fiscal Year 2023.
[This statement was submitted by William Frank III, Chairman of the
Naisqually Indian Tribe.]
______
Prepared Statement of Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
Chair Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski, and Honorable Members of
the subcommittee, for the record my name is Ed Johnstone, and I am
Chair of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission (NWIFC). The NWIFC
is composed of the 20 Tribes in western Washington that are party to
United States v. Washington, which upheld the Tribes' treaty-reserved
right to harvest and manage natural resources on and off-reservation,
including salmon and shellfish. On behalf of the NWIFC, we are
providing testimony for the record on our natural resource management
and environmental program funding requests for the Bureau of Indian
Affairs (BIA), Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) and Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) Fiscal Year 2023 appropriations. These programs
support Tribes to carry out their natural resource management
responsibilities including the management of Pacific salmon fisheries,
which contribute to a robust natural resource-based economy and the
exercise of our treaty rights.
summary of fiscal year 2023 (fy23) appropriations requests
Bureau of Indian Affairs
--Provide $66.0 million for Rights Protection Implementation
(collective request)
--Provide $17.146 million for Western Washington Fisheries
Management
--Provide $3.557 million for Washington State Timber-Fish-Wildlife
--Provide $6.495 million for U.S./Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty
--Provide $2.4 million for Salmon Marking
--Provide $15.0 million for Fish, Wildlife & Parks Projects (non-TPA)
--Provide $953,000 for the Salmon and Steelhead Habitat Inventory and
Assessment Program within the Tribal Management/Development
Program Subactivity
--Fully Fund Contract Support Costs
--Provide $2.0 million for Western Washington Treaty Tribes' Wildlife
Management
--Provide $60.991 million for Tribal Climate Resilience
Fish & Wildlife Service
--Provide $8.0 million for Tribal Wildlife Grants
Environmental Protection Agency
--Provide $96.4 million for General Assistance Program
--Provide $50.0 million for Puget Sound Geographic Program
justification of requests
Bureau of Indian Affairs
--Provide $66.0 million for BIA Rights Protection Implementation
Subactivity
The 41 Tribes in the Great Lakes and Pacific Northwest with similar
treaty-reserved rights have collectively identified that no less than
$66.0 million for the Rights Protection Implementation (RPI)
subactivity is necessary to support essential Tribal treaty-reserved
resource management. This request is a $21.3 million increase over the
FY23 President's Budget Request (PBR) of $44.7 million and a $20.313
million increase over the FY22 enacted level of $45.687 million. The
large disparity between our collective request and the enacted level
demonstrates that the basic natural resource management functions of
the treaty Tribes continue to be underfunded. Faced with the difficult
combination of increasing natural resource scarcity and cumulative
environmental stressors, Tribal natural resource management has become
more complex and resource intensive. Considering this challenge,
additional capacity is needed to manage treaty-reserved resources and
protect Tribal rights. Unfortunately, most of the programs under RPI,
such as Western Washington Fisheries Management, have not received a
meaningful increase since FY18. A summary of the subaccounts of
importance to us within RPI are identified below, however, please note
that FY22 enacted funding levels are not yet available.
--Provide $17.146 million for BIA Western Washington Fisheries
Management
We respectfully request $17.146 million, an increase of $6.42
million over the fiscal year 2021 enacted level of $10.726 million and
an increase of $6.05 million over the FY23 PBR of $11.096 million.
Funding for this program supports the Tribes to co-manage their treaty-
reserved resources with the state of Washington, and to continue to
meet court mandates and legal responsibilities. For example, funding
supports harvest planning, population assessments, data gathering for
finfish, shellfish and groundfish, and other natural resource
management needs. This funding is critical to support the day-to-day
operations of essential fishery management. Reduced abundance and
increased regulatory scrutiny of fisheries, coupled with ongoing salmon
habitat loss, increased recreational pressures and climate change are
greatly increasing the difficulty (and cost) of co-managing salmon and
other resources.
--Provide $3.557 million for BIA Washington State Timber-Fish-
Wildlife (TFW)
We respectfully request $3.557 million, an increase of $119,000
above the fiscal year 2021 enacted level of $3.438 million and
consistent with the FY23 PBR. Funding for this program is provided to
improve forest practices on state and private lands, while providing
protection for fish, wildlife and water quality. This funding supports
the Tribes' participation in the TFW Agreement--a collaborative
intergovernmental and stakeholder process between the state, industry
and Tribes.
--Provide $6.495 million for BIA U.S./Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty
We respectfully request $6.495 million, an increase of $216,000
above the fiscal year 2021 enacted level of $6.279 million and
consistent with the FY23 PBR. This request is consistent with that of
the Pacific Salmon Commission (PSC) and is necessary to implement the
Annex chapters of the Pacific Salmon Treaty (PST). Tribes assist the
U.S. government in meeting its obligations to implement the treaty by
participating in fisheries management exercises, cooperative research
and data gathering activities. This funding also supports participation
in the PST process.
--Provide 2.4 million for BIA Salmon Marking
We respectfully request $2.4 million, an increase of $1.057 million
over the fiscal year 2021 enacted level of $1.343 million and an
increase of $ 1.011 million over the FY23 PBR of $1.389 million. This
request would support ongoing coded wire tagging and adipose fin
clipping (marking) operations at Tribal hatcheries. Marking is used to
differentiate hatchery-origin salmon from natural spawning ones. Since
2003, Congress has required that all salmon released from federally
funded hatcheries are marked for conservation management purposes.
Coded Wire Tags are used to provide a unique identifier to a particular
hatchery stock, which is then used in salmonid abundance assessments
and catch rates. The NWIFC uses automated trailers to provide efficient
centralized tagging and marking services to our 20-member Tribes. This
state-of-the-art equipment is very complex and requires expert
technicians to operate and maintain. The operations and maintenance of
the trailers, coupled with an increasing demand for these important
services, continues to increase our costs to carry out this Federal
directive.
--Provide $15.0 million for BIA Fish, Wildlife & Parks Projects (Non-
TPA) for Hatchery Operations and Maintenance
We respectfully request $15.0 million for Hatchery Operations and
Maintenance within the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Projects account, an
increase of $32,000 above the FY23 PBR of $14.968 million and $3.055
million above the FY22 enacted level of $11.945 million. More
specifically, we request $8.0 million for Hatchery Operations and $7.0
million for Hatchery Maintenance. This funding is provided to Tribal
hatcheries to support the rearing and releasing of salmon and steelhead
for harvest by Indian and non-Indian fisheries in the U.S. and Canada.
Without hatcheries, Tribes would lose their most basic ceremonial and
subsistence fisheries that are central to our Tribal culture. We
currently estimate that more than 80 percent of the salmon harvested
are hatchery-origin fish. Yet despite the central importance of these
facilities, Tribes face millions of dollars in deferred maintenance
costs and significant funding shortfalls in operations.
--Provide $953,000 for BIA Salmon and Steelhead Habitat Inventory and
Assessment Program (SSHIAP) (within the Tribal Management/
Development Program)
We respectfully request $953,000 within the Tribal Management/
Development Program for SSHIAP, an increase of $123,000 above the
fiscal year 2021 enacted level and an increase of $53,000 above the
FY23 PBR of $900,000. SSHIAP is vital to the western Washington Tribes
because it provides essential environmental data management, analysis,
sharing and reporting to support Tribal natural resource management. It
also supports our Tribes' ability to adequately participate in
watershed resource assessments and salmon recovery work.
--Fully Fund BIA Contract Support Costs
We respectfully request that Congress fully fund Contract Support
Costs (CSC) and reclassify CSC as mandatory. Funding for CSC ensures
Tribes and Tribal organizations have the capacity to manage Federal
programs under self-determination contracts and self-governance
compacts.
--Provide $2.0 million for Western Washington Treaty Tribes' Wildlife
Management
We respectfully request $2.0 million for western Washington treaty
Tribes' wildlife management programs from an account within the Bureau
of Indian Affairs Trust--Natural Resources Management Activity. The
member Tribes reserved the right to fish, hunt and gather natural
resources throughout their ceded territories. Part and parcel with the
Tribes' reserved right to hunt and gather outside of their reservation
boundaries is the need to co-manage wildlife resources with the State
of Washington. Requested funding will provide capacity to participate
in state-Tribal co-management forums, develop wildlife management
plans, develop and enhance Tribal hunting codes, and design and
implement applied research projects. These capabilities are fundamental
to the protection of our Tribes' treaty rights and there is currently
no dedicated account or funding to directly support this critical work.
--Provide $60.991 million for BIA Tribal Climate Resilience
We request $60.991 million for Tribal Climate Resilience,
consistent with the President's FY23 PBR and an increase of $29.02
million over the FY22 enacted level. Climate change is one of the
largest threats to Tribal rights and resources. Funding from this
competitive grant program will support Tribal participation in critical
issues that impact treaty-reserved resources, adaptation and promote
climate resiliency.
Fish & Wildlife Service
--Provide $8.0 million for FWS Tribal Wildlife Grants
We respectfully request $8.0 million for the Nationwide Tribal
Wildlife Grants program, consistent with the FY23 PBR and an increase
of $2.0 million over the FY22 enacted level of $6.0 million. Funding
from this competitive grant program supports the conservation of
wildlife and their habitat, including species that are culturally or
traditionally important to Tribes.
Environmental Protection Agency
--Provide $96.4 million for EPA General Assistance Program (GAP)
We request $96.4 million for the Nationwide GAP, an increase of
$11.391 over the FY23 PBR of $85.009 million and $29.65 million over
the FY22 enacted level of $66.75 million. We also respectfully request
bill or report language that would improve flexibility in the GAP to
ensure individual Tribal priorities and implementation activities would
be eligible and that newly proposed allocations will not result in a
decreased proportion of funds for EPA Region 10 Tribes and consortia.
The GAP builds essential Tribal program capacity to address
environmental issues that impact Tribes' health, safety and treaty-
reserved resources. The GAP also provides critical funding to Tribal
consortia to support interTribal coordination on environmental issues.
--Provide $50.0 million for EPA Puget Sound Geographic Program
We request $50.0 million for Puget Sound consistent with the
funding levels passed by the House for FY22, an increase of $15.75
million over the FY22 enacted level and $14.984 million over the FY23
PBR of $35.016 million. This Geographic Program provides essential
funding that will help protect and restore Puget Sound--an estuary of
national significance. Funding for this program supports Tribal
participation in a broad range of collaborative Puget Sound recovery
work, including scientific research, resource recovery planning and
policy discussions that affect our treaty rights.
conclusion
We respectfully request the subcommittee's support for these
requests. We greatly appreciate your attention to these matters and
thank you for your continued commitment to the Tribes.
[This statement was submitted by Ed Johnstone, Chair of the
Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.]
______
Prepared Statement of Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board
Greetings Chairman Merkley and Ranking Member Murkowski, and
Members of the subcommittee. My name is Nickolaus Lewis, and I serve as
Secretary on the Lummi Indian Business Council, and as Chair of the
Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (NPAIHB or Board). I thank
the subcommittee for the opportunity to provide testimony on the fiscal
Year 2023 Indian Health Service (IHS) budget and for their continual
support for increased funding for IHS every year.
NPAIHB was established in 1972 and is a Tribal organization under
the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA),
Public Law 93-638, that advocates on behalf of the 43 federally-
recognized Indian Tribes in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington on specific
health care issues. The Board's mission is to eliminate health
disparities and improve the quality of life of American Indians and
Alaska Natives (AI/AN) by supporting Northwest Tribes in the delivery
of culturally appropriate, high quality health programs and services.
``Wellness for the seventh generation'' is the Board's vision. In order
to achieve this vision, I respectfully ask that this subcommittee
consider Tribal sovereignty, traditional knowledge, and culture in all
policy initiatives and funding opportunities.
I provide the following testimony to address our long-standing
needs in the Northwest:
Health Equity. AI/ANs in the Northwest face high health disparities
compared to non-Hispanic White (NHW). AI/AN people in the Northwest
have a life expectancy that is about 7 years lower than that of NHW
people in the region. Data from the Northwest show that AI/AN people
experience disparities at all stages of life, and are particularly
vulnerable to chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes,
injuries, substance misuse and overdoses, and violence. AI/AN people in
the Northwest are less likely to have health care coverage and access
compared to their NHW counterparts.
These disparities are the consequence of centuries of neglect and
broken promises by the Federal Government to adequately fund
healthcare. IHS is chronically underfunded with the overall budget
covering only a fraction of the healthcare needs of AI/AN people.\1\
Year after year, Northwest Tribes have unmet healthcare needs due to
the chronic underfunding. The Tribes in our Area continue to face the
unprecedented COVID-19 public health emergency, as well as the impacts
of the climate crisis and opioid epidemic. Northwest Tribes lack the
necessary resources and infrastructure to appropriately respond and
provide the necessary healthcare to our people.
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\1\ U.S. COMM'N ON CIVIL RIGHTS, BROKEN PROMISES: CONTINUING
FEDERAL FUNDING SHORTFALL FOR NATIVE AMERICANS AT 19 (2018) available
at https://www.usccr.gov/pubs/2018/12-20-Broken-Promises.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Provide Advance Appropriations for IHS. We are disappointed that
the House and Senate Appropriations Committees did not include advanced
appropriations in the fiscal Year 2022 Omnibus Appropriations bill.
Previous government shutdowns have caused undue hardship to Northwest
Tribes--from Federal employees not receiving a paycheck to clinics
cutting down their hours. Some Northwest Tribes even considered closing
their clinics due to lack of funding. Our people's lives are impacted
by the shut downs. This is unforgivable treatment and must be prevented
in the future. For this reason, NPAIHB requests the subcommittee to
support the President's request for advance appropriations in
recognition of trust and treaty obligations to Tribes.
Provide Mandatory Appropriation for ISDEAA Section 105(l) Leases
and Contract Support Costs (CSC). Although we are appreciative of the
subcommittee's support in securing an indefinite appropriation for
105(l) leases and CSC, we need 105(l) leases and CSC to be moved to
mandatory appropriations. This will ensure that these appropriations
are funded year after year without impacting annual programmatic
increases to IHS and Tribal health facilities.
The Tribes in the Northwest have been relentless advocates for
Tribal Self-Determination and Self-Governance which is one of the most
successful programs funded by the Indian Health Service. However, the
Cook Inlet decision is destabilizing on our Tribal health program
operations and threaten our indirect cost recovery to support Northwest
Tribal health program operations. We urgently request the subcommittee
to support a legislative fix to the Indian Self-Determination and
Education Assistance Act to restore the longstanding interpretation of
the act.
Full Funding for IHS. We are concerned on the minimal increase of
$395 million to the IHS in the fiscal Year 2022 Omnibus Appropriations
Act. This increase does not support President Biden's historic request
for an increase of $2.2 billion, or 36 percent above fiscal Year 2021
enacted, for the IHS in fiscal Year 2022. The Northwest Tribes will
never be able to adequately address their chronic health disparities
without significant increased funding for the IHS. The National Tribal
Budget Formulation Workgroup recommended, and our Area supports, the
request of $49.8 billion in fiscal Year 2023 to fully fund the IHS.\2\
Although we support the Biden Administration putting forward a
historical request for mandatory funding, we request that the IHS and
the subcommittee works and supports the Portland Area Tribes to develop
a legislative proposal for mandatory funding for IHS.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ National Tribal Budget Formulation Workgroup Recommendation,
Indian Health Service Fiscal Year 2023 Budget, FINAL_Fiscal year 2023
Budget (nihb) (last visited Mar. 4, 2022).
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Community Health Aide Program (CHAP) Expansion. Tribal Leaders in
the Portland Area support long term sustainable solutions that build up
our communities, create opportunities for our youth and Tribal
citizens, educate our healers and train the next generation of work
force. The CHAP is vital not only to expanding access to care in our
Tribal communities but tackling important social determinants of
health. CHAP builds an accessible education ladder into the health care
professions, increases access to culturally relevant, trauma informed
primary care, and creates professional wage jobs in our communities.
However, the IHS has not provided adequate funding to expand CHAP in
the Portland Area to support education programs and member Tribes to
integrate CHAP providers into their health programs. For fiscal Year
2023, we request $60 million for continuation of the National expansion
of CHAP with $10 million for Portland Area. We request $5 million to
build clinical classrooms to train community health aide providers in
the Portland Area.
In fiscal Year 2021 and 2022, $2 million was allocated for dental
health therapy education programs educating students in Washington,
Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska. But, the IHS has not provided any of this
funding to the Portland Area and will not unless there is an
appropriation increase. For fiscal Year 2023, we request $4.2 million
for the Dental therapy education programs with a $1.7 million earmark
to Portland Area and $2.5 million to support Alaska.
Fund Purchased and Referred Care (PRC) at $5 billion. The fiscal
Year 2022 Omnibus Appropriations Act includes less than 1 percent
increase to PRC, which is even less of an increased than appropriated
in fiscal Year 2021. Our Area has to purchase all specialty and
inpatient care because there is no IHS hospital in the Portland Area.
The PRC program makes up over one-third of the Portland Area budget.
When there is no increase or consideration of population growth and
medical inflation, Northwest Tribes are forced to cut health services.
Areas with IHS hospitals can absorb these costs more easily because of
their infrastructure and large staffing packages.
When there are increases to the PRC budget, the Portland Area
Tribes receive additional funding to account for the lack of an IHS/
Tribal hospital in the Area, often referred to as the access to care
factor. However, the IHS has only ever funded this access to care
factor three times in the past 12 years-in fiscal Year 2010, 2012, and
2014. Without year to year increases to PRC to fund the access to care
factor, inpatient care for Portland Area Tribes goes severely
underfunded. For fiscal Year 2023, our Area requests a $4 billion
increase for PRC above fiscal Year 2022 enacted.
Fund Mental Health at $3 billion and Substance Abuse at $2 billion.
In our Area and nationwide, there are high rates of depression,
anxiety, and relapses because of isolation during the pandemic. Our
Tribes need funds to support mental health provider shortages,
expansion of services, and training. NPAIHB is particularly concerned
about our AI/AN adolescents and young adults. Suicide is the second
leading cause of death for AI/AN adolescents and young adults. AI/AN
suicide mortality in this age group (10-29) is 2-3 greater, and in some
communities 10 times greater, than that for non-Hispanic whites.
Mental Health and Substance Use programs could be expanded by
funding programs authorized but never funded under the Indian Health
Care Improvement Act (IHCIA), including Sections 702, 704, 705 and 715.
These programs would increase prevention and treatment services,
community mental health workers and behavioral health research. In
order to address anticipated needs and to fund much needed programs in
fiscal Year 2023, NPAIHB recommends a $3.2 billion increase for mental
health and $2.1 billion increase for substance use above fiscal Year
2021 enacted.
In addition, we recommend that all IHS Behavioral Health
Initiatives provide an option for Tribes to receive funds through
ISDEAA Title I and Title V compacts and contracts. These programs
include the Tribes know how to manage and maximize funds to best meet
the behavioral health needs of their patients. These programs include
the Substance Abuse and Suicide Prevention Program, the Domestic
Violence Prevention Program, the Zero Suicide Initiative, and may
include the recently established Special Behavioral Health Program
(opioid program).
Increase Indian Health Professions Funding by $25 million. COVID-19
has exacerbated the recruitment and retention issues our Northwest
Tribal communities face with health care providers. In order to address
these provider shortages, NPAIHB supports an increase for Indian Health
Professions to fully fund scholarships for all qualified applicants to
the IHS Scholarship Program and to support the Loan Repayment Program
to fund all physicians, nurse practitioners, physician's assistants,
nurses and other direct care practitioners.\3\ For fiscal Year 2023, we
request the subcommittee to increase the Indian Health Professions
program by $25 million.
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\3\ NPAIHB Resolution18-03-07.
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Increase Funding for Small Ambulatory Program, Joint Venture
Construction Project and New Innovative Approaches for Health Care
Facilities Construction by $21 billion. No funds have been allocated to
Portland Area Tribes for new facility construction for at least 20
years. For this reason, Portland Area Tribes only support funding for
specific construction programs and new innovative approaches for health
care facility construction. We request a program increase of $21
billion in fiscal Year 2023 to support the Small Ambulatory Program
(SAP) with funding for staffing packages, the Joint Venture
Construction Program (JVCP), and funding for innovative approaches to
address unmet construction needs for health care facilities
construction under 25 U.S.C. Sec. 1631(f).
Portland Area Regional Specialty Referral Center. The fiscal Year
2023 President's Budget Request includes $165 million in nonrecurring
expense funds for the Portland Area's regional specialty referral
center. This center is a priority of the Northwest Tribes to address
the continual barriers AI/AN face in accessing specialty care in the
Northwest. We support the $165 million in nonrecurring expense funds to
construct the center and request this subcommittee to identify
additional funding for a staffing package.
Make Information Technology Modernization Funding Available to
Tribes. Health IT modernization must be a priority of the IHS with an
expedited implementation over the next three to 5 years. Resource and
Patient Management System (RPMS) cannot meet the evolving healthcare
delivery needs of our Tribes without substantial investment in IT
infrastructure and software. Tribes in the Northwest have had to invest
significant amount of their own funds to modernize their Health
Information Technology. Yet, none of the funds appropriated for HIT
modernization has been distributed to Tribes. We request that funding
is provided to our Tribes to reimburse and provide on-going financial
support for Tribal facilities that have purchased and implemented
commercial off the shelf systems. For fiscal Year 2023, NPAIHB
recommends funding at $356 million for planning and phased-in
replacement of RPMS with $22 million for Portland Area Tribes for
reimbursement of their health IT modernization efforts.
Fund HIV at $60 million and HCV at $600 million. From 2013 through
2017 rates of new diagnosis of HIV for AI/AN people increased to 7.8
per 100,000--although rates of new HIV diagnosis decreased or stayed
stable for all other racial and ethnic groups. We thank the Committee
for the $5 million for HIV and Hepatitis C initiatives in fiscal Year
2021. For fiscal Year 2023, NPAIHB requests funding of $60 million for
HIV to support Ending the HIV Epidemic. According to the IHS National
Data Warehouse, it is estimated that there are at least 40,000 AI/AN
people with a current HCV infection being served by IHS, Tribal and
urban Indian facilities. For fiscal Year 2023, $600 million is needed
for IHS to provide the life-saving HCV treatment to the 40,000 AI/ANs
with HCV.
Special Diabetes Program for Indians (SDPI). We request permanent
reauthorization of SDPI at $250 million per year with medical inflation
rate increases annually. We also request that an option be created for
Tribes to receive SDPI funds through Title 1 or Title V compacts or
contracts. Specifically, we recommend that 42. U.S.C. Sec. 254c-3(c) be
amended with the addition of the following language: ''(2)
APPROPRIATIONS.--On request from an Indian Tribe or Tribal
organization, the Secretary shall award diabetes program funds made
available to the requesting Tribe or Tribal organization under this
section as amounts provided under Subsections 106(a)(1) and Subsection
508(c) of the Indian Self-Determination Act, 25 U.S.C. Sec. 5325(a)(1)
and Sec. 5388(c), as appropriate.''
Thank you for this opportunity to provide recommendations on the
fiscal Year 2023 IHS budget. I invite you to visit Portland Area Tribes
to learn more about the utilization of IHS funding and health care
needs in our Area. I look forward to working with the subcommittee on
our requests.\4\
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\4\ For more information, please contact Liz Coronado, NPAIHB, at
[email protected] or (559) 289-9964.
[This statement was submitted by Nickolaus Lewis, Chair, Northwest
Portland Area Indian Health Board.]
______
Prepared Statement of Norton Sound Health Corporation
The requests of the Norton Sound Health Corporation (NSHC) for the
fiscal Year 2023 Indian Health Service (IHS) budget are as follows:
--Remove IHS Sanitation Deficiency System ``Cost Caps''. The
increased cost of doing business in Alaska, makes many projects
ineligible for IHS funding.
--Recognize Alaska Native communities as Native communities in the
IHS Sanitation Deficiency System, eliminating the notion of
ineligible costs for saniation projects.
--Increase funding for behavioral health social detoxification
programs through the Preventing Alcohol Related Deaths (PARD)
program under the Snyder Act or through the creation of a
Special Behavorial Health Program for Indians, similar to the
Special Diabetes Program for Indians
--Amend the Indian Health Care Improvement Act to make newly
constructed behavioral health centers eligible for staffing
package funding and third-party billing authority
--Allow behavioral health centers newly constructed during COVID-19,
to be eligible for reimbursement through the American Rescue
Plan
--Direct IHS to use American Rescue Plan funds to designate funding
for a youth treatment facility in Alaska
--Provide full, mandatory funding and advance appropriations for the
Indian Health Service
--Ensure mandatory funding for Contract Support Costs and 105(l)
lease payments and clarify CSC provisions
Headquartered in Nome, Alaska, Norton Sound Health Corporation is
owned and managed by the 20 federally recognized Tribes of the Bering
Strait region. Our Tribal system includes a regional hospital and 15
village-based clinics, which we operate under an Indian Self-
Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA) agreement\1\. Our
rural and remote Arctic region remains unconnected by roads, and we are
500 air miles from Alaska's economic hub of Anchorage. Our service area
encompasses 44,000 square miles.
\1\ We serve the communities of: Brevig Mission, Council, Diomede,
Elim, Gambell, Golovin, King Island, Koyuk, Mary's Igloo, Nome, St.
Michael, Savoonga, Shaktoolik, Shishmaref, Solomon, Stebbins, Teller,
Unalakleet, Wales, and White Mountain.
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Funding for Water & Sewer Projects.
--Remove IHS Sanitation Deficiency System ``Cost Caps''. These
arbitrary caps determine a project's feasibility prevents a
path to service in unserved communities. The increased cost of
doing business in Alaska, makes many projects ineligible for
IHS funding.
--Recognize Alaska Native communities as Native communities in the
IHS Sanitation Deficiency System, eliminating the notion of
ineligible costs for saniation projects.
In the Bering Strait region we face a $261 million sanitation need.
Five communities in our region, Diomede, Wales, Shishmaref, Stebbins,
and Teller remain completely unconnected to running water and sewer.
Gambell is 70 percent served, with 43 homes in the village of Gambell
remaining unconnected to Water and Sewer. Ongoing sewer and water
upgrades and maintenance backlogs remain concerns in seven communities.
An estimated 520 homes in the Bering Strait region have no running
water, nor flush toilets.
In the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, Congress reaffirmed the
IHS as the agency with ``primary responsibility and authority to
provide necessary sanitation facilities'' and furthermore, ``it is in
the interest of the United States and it is the policy of the United
States, that all Indian communities and Indian homes, new and existing,
be provided with safe and adequate water supply systems and sanitary
sewage waste disposal systems as soon as possible'' (25 USC 1632).
The health impacts of a lack of sanitation and clean water
infrastructure, in combination with a shortage of housing in our
communities remains an ongoing public health crisis. The CDC has noted
that one in three infants from communities without running water are
hospitalized for respiratory infections. The communities of Diomede,
Unalakleet & Wales are on the Environmental Protection Agency's EET
list of water systems out of compliance with Federal regulations for
arsenic, uranium, and/or THMs (probable human carcinogen)- levels over
what EPA has deemed to be safe for humans to drink in the long-term.
We are opposed to the decision of the IHS to implement in the
FY2018 Sanitation Facilities Construction appropriation using a
methodology based on the premise that our Alaska Native villages are
'non-Indian'. Our unserved communities average over 90 percent Alaska
Native. The SDS policy places Indian communities in the same category
as ``non-Indian'' communities requiring that Tribes find contributions
for ineligible buildings such as public schools and teacher housing.
All community buildings are for the benefit of the Native community,
including schools which serve as in some cases the primary gathering
place for healthy community activities. Schools and teacher homes are
also often the only facilities connected to sewer and water, creating
significant sanitation inequities in a community.
We appreciate language in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs
Act (Public Law 117-58) that recognized this challenge and reserved
$2.2 billion of the $3.5 billion in IHS Sanitaition Facilities
Construction funding for ``projects that exceed the economical unit
cost.'' However, in order to fully address the sanitation crisis in our
communities, we urge that Congress formally remove the regulatory
barriers to our unserved communities, and encourage EPA and USDA Alaska
Native Village grant programs to support SDS deficiencies.
Recommend the IHS increase funding for behavioral health social
detoxification programs through the Preventing Alcohol Related Deaths
(PARD) program under the Snyder Act or through the creation of a
Special Behavioral Health Program for Indians, similar to the Special
Diabetes Program for Indians (SDPI).
As the alcohol and opioid abuse problem intensifies with the wider
availability of heroin, oxycodone, and often-lethal synthetics such as
fentanyl, the need for treatment services has grown exponentially.
National and State entities and governments have openly recognized and
called for the need to arm providers with more resources and funding;
however, despite the evidence of rampant substance use concerns, back-
logged psychiatric facilities, and reimbursements inadequate to meet
the expenses of providing services, there is an imbalance between the
magnitude of the problem and appropriate funding.
For the Bering Strait region, the substance abuse/misuse data for
2021 is staggering:
--918 unique individuals across 1,469 encounters presented at Norton
Sound Regional Hospital's emergency department under the
influence of substances. Of those, 565 had a primary diagnosis
of Alcohol Abuse; an additional 100 had a secondary substance
diagnosis, and 72 had a tertiary.
--The Nome Volunteer Ambulance Department's 7 primary volunteers
responded to 424 substance-related calls accounting for an
astounding 68.8 percent of all calls totaling 27,984 hours of
response time.
--The Nome Police Department were dispatched for 3,394 substance-
related calls in 2021, 73 percent of all arrests were
substance-related. There were 10 officers available to respond
to these calls.
--90 percent of inmates served time for substance-related crimes at
Nome's Community Residential Center (CRC) and Anvil Mountain
Correctional Center (AMCC). With 128 beds at AMCC at $168.74
per inmate per day, and 50 beds at the CRC at $117.00 a day,
the cost of substance-related incarceration was $9,004,587.
Imprisoning someone is far more expensive than funding
prevention, diversionary, and treatment services.
Because our region is remote, resources with which to work are
fewer than those in urban areas; this often results in sending our
people to Anchorage or Fairbanks for higher levels of care.
Amend the Indian Health Care Improvement Act to make newly
constructed behavioral health centers eligible for staffing package
funding and Allow behavioral health centers constructed during COVID-
19, to be eligible for reimbursement through the ARP
In May 2021, NSHC opened a Wellness and Training Center for
behavioral health services. The Center provides additional levels of
care locally, addressing substance use and behavioral health treatment
options in a culturally-sensitive manner. Services include Outpatient,
Intensive Outpatient, and Partial Hospitalization, all with a social
detox day shelter and access to cultural supports including carving and
sewing rooms.
Despite best efforts over several years to argue for inclusion as
an eligible project under the Joint Venture Construction Program,
standalone behavioral health facilities remain unsupported. As a
result, NSHC funded 85 percent of this project without the benefit of
receiving a staffing package to offset future operational costs. With a
$5.6 million annual operating budget, NSHC will provide these vital
services at a significant loss; however, support through designated
funding from IHS will ensure these services are sustainable and
patients thrive for years to come.
Substance abuse and mental health concerns are healthcare crises;
every opportunity for primary care projects supported through Joint
Venture partnerships must be extended to these treatment facilities.
NSHC will continue to ask for a staffing package and third-party
billing authority for this facility, as is the case with facilities
constructed under the IHS Health Facilities Construction Priority List
and its Joint Venture program. NSHC would also benefit from the
reimbursement of construction costs through the American Rescue Plan.
Unfortunately, there are further gaps in the continuum of care,
none more glaring than the dearth of youth psychiatric treatment
facilities across the State. With increasing frequency, NSHC is
admitting children and adolescents to its inpatient unit for psychoses,
suicidal ideation, and other behavioral concerns. During CYs 2020 & 21,
62 adolescents between ages 10 and 17 were admitted for suicide-related
diagnoses. Alarmingly, those 62 were on the unit for a combined 1,019
days. This accounts for 43 percent of the total length of stay among
all age groups 0-89 years. These 62 youth also account for 23 percent
of the inpatient census and only 347 days less than any other age group
18 years and older combined. Unfortunately, NSHC currently does not
have the capacity to provide the level of care many of these youth
need. As a result, they languish on the unit while local staff members
try to find a suitable placement out of region; however, there are only
four Residential Psychiatric Treatment Centers (RPTC) with a combined
86 beds in Alaska. Admissions to these RPTCs are compromised by bed
waits of 30+ days at times, and because the escalating behaviors
exhibited by some of these youth result in declined applications, local
providers must search for placements out of state, an unfortunate
circumstance. Additional appropriations to IHS can stand-up a new RPTC
in Alaska for Alaska Native youth with staff members skilled in
handling a variety of behaviors. This is a priority and a vital need
that will increase the psychiatric bed census and keep youth home.
Support for Mandatory Funding for IHS
We appreciate the Biden Administration's proposal to provide
mandatory funding for IHS and increase funding over 10 years.
Reclassifying the IHS budget as mandatory spending reflects the nature
of the trust and treaty obligations to Tribal Nations, and also allows
IHS to be funded at a level that is necessary for providing health
care. We will work with you and IHS to fully develop this proposal so
that it provides adequate funding for IHS and fully honors Tribal self-
determination and self-governance.
Support for Advance Appropriations for IHS
However, if full mandatory appropriations cannot be achieved for
fiscal Year 2023, we continue to support IHS advance appropriations for
the short term. Funding delays make it impossible for IHS and Tribal
health programs to plan and manage their annual budgets. We urge the
Committee to take the necessary steps in the fiscal Year 2023
appropriations bill to move/continue IHS to an advance appropriation
starting in fiscal Year 2023.
Mandatory Funding for Contract Support Costs and 105(l) lease payments
If Congress is not able to enact full mandatory funding for IHS
this year, we continue to support mandatory funding for Contract
Support Costs (CSC) and 105(l) leases. This change would bring
appropriations process into line with the clear legal requirements of
the authorizing statute.
Amend Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act to Clarify
CSC provisions
We also request that the committee consider amending the ISDEAA to
clarify that when agency funding paid to a Tribe for program operations
is insufficient for contract and compact administration, contract
support costs will remain available to cover the difference in response
to a recent court decision.\2\
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\2\ Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Inc. v. Dotomain, 10 F.4th 892 (D.C.
Cir. 2021).
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Thank you for your consideration of the concerns and requests of
the Norton Sound Health Corporation.
[This statement was submitted by Angela Gorn, President/CEO.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Oregon Water Resources Congress
The Oregon Water Resources Congress (OWRC) is highly supportive of
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Clean Water State
Revolving Fund Loan Program (CWSRF). OWRC respectfully requests fiscal
year 2023 appropriations for this program be increased to at least the
$2.75 billion authorized in the bi-partisan Infrastructure and Jobs
Investment Act (HB 3684). The CWSRF is an effective loan program that
addresses critical water infrastructure needs while benefitting the
environment, local communities, and the economy. As an existing and
proven program, it is a perfect fit for increased investment during a
time of need for climate and environmentally friendly infrastructure.
OWRC was established in 1912 as a trade association to support the
protection of water rights and promote the wise stewardship of water
resources statewide. OWRC members are local governmental entities,
which include irrigation districts, water control districts, drainage
districts, water improvement districts, and other agricultural water
suppliers that deliver water to one-third of all irrigated land in
Oregon. These water stewards operate complex water management systems,
including water supply reservoirs, canals, pipelines, and hydropower
production facilities.
fiscal year 2023 appropriations
We recognize our country must make strategic investments with
scarce resources, particularly as our economy recovers from pandemic-
related impacts. The CWSRF is a perfect example of the type of program
that should have funding increased because it creates jobs while
benefitting the environment and is an efficient return on taxpayer
investment. CWSRF projects provide much needed construction and
professional services jobs, particularly in rural areas facing economic
hardship. Moreover, as a loan program, it is a wise investment that
allows local communities to leverage their limited resources and
address critical infrastructure needs that would otherwise be unmet.
In Oregon, the CWSRF is administered by the Oregon Department of
Environmental Quality (DEQ), who responsibly maintains the program
through repaid loans, interest, fees, and available Federal
capitalization grants. According to EPA, for every $1 of Federal
capitalization funding, $3 worth of assistance is provided, leveraging
available funds to maximize benefits for local communities, the
environment, and the economy. Unfortunately, available funding for
water infrastructure projects continues be woefully insufficient to
meet the growing water infrastructure funding needs in Oregon and
nationwide. Appropriations for the CWSRF needs to be incrementally
increased to support water infrastructure projects that are addressing
these critical needs. The increasing amounts authorized in the bi-
partisan Infrastructure and Jobs Investment Act over the next 5 years
increases needed investments incrementally and sustainably.
background of cwsrf usage by oregon irrigation districts
During the programs over 30-year history in Oregon, several OWRC
member districts have successfully used CWSRF for projects that improve
water quality and water quantity associated with water delivery
diversions, canals, and pipelines throughout the state. OWRC and our
members are highly supportive of the CWSRF, including promoting the
program to our members and annually submitting Federal appropriations
testimony in support of increased funding for the CWSRF. We believe it
is an important funding tool irrigation districts and other water
suppliers are using for innovative piping projects that provide
multiple environmental and economic benefits.
Numerous irrigation districts and other water suppliers need to
pipe currently open canals, which significantly reduces sediment,
improves water temperature, and provides other water quality benefits
to rivers and streams. Piping immediately improves the efficiency of
the water delivery system and helps increase available water supplies
for aquatic life and irrigators alike. These projects also decrease
energy consumption (from reduced pumping) and have opportunities for
generating renewable energy, primarily through in-conduit hydropower.
However, the lack of robust funding for these types of worthwhile
projects has created uncertainty for potential borrowers regarding
whether adequate funding will be available in future years. CWSRF is
often an integral part of an overall package of local, State, and
Federal funding that necessitates a stronger level of assurance loan
funds will be available for planned water infrastructure projects.
Reductions in CWSRF appropriations could lead to loss of matching grant
funding and delay or derail beneficial projects irrigation districts
have been developing for years.
The success Oregon districts have had in using the loan program to
design and implement multi-beneficial projects has led to increased
applications to the CWSRF. Irrigation districts are once again eligible
for a key funding element, principal forgiveness, up to 50 percent and
capped at $500,000 for projects in a distressed community or eligible
for the Green Project Reserve designation. As a result, we expect to
see even more interest in the program. OWRC is hopeful there will be
enough funding available to complete projects that will not only
benefit the environment and the patrons served by the water delivery
system, but also benefit the rural economy.
cwsrf needs in oregon
The appropriations for the CWSRF program over the past few years
has been far short of what is needed to address critical water
infrastructure needs in Oregon and across the Nation. This has led to
fewer water infrastructure projects, and therefore a reduction in
improvements to water quality and water quantity. However, OWRC is
pleased with the 5-year commitment to increased funding authorized in
the bi-partisan Infrastructure and Jobs Investment Act. This Federal
commitment is important as infrastructure needs have become more
expensive and even more time critical.
DEQ's most recent CWSRF ``Intended Use Plan--State Fiscal Year
2022'' (July 1, 2021--June 30, 2022) dated January 12, 2022, includes
twenty-two loan applications totaling $173,820,674 in requested
funding. Currently, the loan program has $285,503,377 net available to
lend for state fiscal year 2022. DEQ can award a maximum individual
loan amount of $42,825,506.
The following two irrigation district projects are currently ranked
by DEQ in the top four by overall score and both meet the Green Project
Reserve (GPR) requirements. Increased funding will help catalyze many
more projects like the ones below in Oregon and throughout the Nation:
north unit irrigation district (deschutes county) $8,150,000 (ranked
#1)
Sec. 319, Design and Construction: Lateral 43 and Juniper Butte
Piping Project. The District's System Improvement Plan (2017) proposes
to pipe the district's open canal network, including the addition of
pressure reducing stations, reuse/retention reservoirs, and metered
turnouts for every water user. The current project proposes to start in
one portion of the district by piping laterals 31, 32, 34 and 43, which
represents a total of 8.2 miles of leaky canal and serves over 9,800
acres of agricultural land. The project will improve water quality in
the lower Crooked River, Lake Billy Chinook, and the lower Deschutes
River by removing canal seepage and minimizing and eliminating return
flow from agricultural lands. Piping of the laterals will also
encourage on-farm efficiency by providing pressurized water, which
enables the switch from furrow irrigation to sprinkler irrigation,
reducing excessive seepage and agricultural runoff from fields. The
project is consistent with Section 3.6.1 of the 2014 Nonpoint Source
Management Plan and Section 6.1 of the CWSRF.
rogue river valley irrigation district and medford irrigation district
(jackson county) $24,334,500 (ranked #4)
Sec. 319, Design and Construction, Joint System Canal Piping
Project. Rogue River Valley Irrigation District and Medford Irrigation
District jointly use the Joint System Canal to serve several thousand
customers with crop irrigation. Seepage and evaporation are occurring
along the canal, which is resulting in lost water and less water
flowing through the canal downstream to other water bodies. The
proposed project includes design and construction of piping up to 4.4
miles of canal and diversions, replacement of siphons, improvements to
water diversion structures and fish passage. The project will address
water quantity and quality for downstream streams, including South Fork
Little Butte Creek, which experience low flow in some seasons. The
project focuses on best management practices for irrigation to improve
water quality from nonpoint sources. The project is consistent with
Section 3.6.1 of the Nonpoint Source Management Program Plan and
Section 6.1 of the CWSRF.
examples of green project reserves in oregon
Oregon irrigation districts and other water suppliers are on the
forefront of innovative piping projects that provide and leverage
multiple benefits, including ``green'' infrastructure projects.
Otherwise known as Green Project Reserve (GPR), DEQ is required to use
at least 10 percent of annual Federal capitalization grants on projects
that promote water and energy efficiency, are environmentally
innovative, or include green infrastructure. In 2019, four GPR projects
were financed by DEQ for a total of $13 million, far exceeding EPA's
minimum requirement of $1.8 million for such projects in Oregon. Of
those four funded projects, three were irrigation district projects
that met several categories of the GPR requirements related to improved
water and energy efficiency.
In 2020, another three projects received awards totaling $38
million and all met the GPR criteria:
lone pine irrigation district (deschutes, jefferson, and crook
counties) $2,000,000
Sec. 319, Design and Construction, Irrigation Modernization
Project. This project will modernize district-owned canals and laterals
to conserve water, improve operational efficiency, reduce electrical
and energy costs, reduce O&M for farmers through decreased pumping and
improve habitat in the Deschutes River. The project will achieve these
goals by piping all the district's open canals using HDPE and steel
pipe. The existing suspension bridge over the Crooked River is in
disrepair and a new structure is needed to convey the irrigation water
across the river. The district will replace the bridge with a siphon
under the river.
middle fork irrigation district (hood river county) $20,000,000
Sec. 319 Design and Construction, Clear Branch Dam Rehabilitation
and Coe Branch Pipeline. The district will implement multiple projects
to improve water quality and quantity associated with its irrigation
diversions in the Middle Fork Hood River watershed. Specific projects
include installing a new deep-water outlet and improving fish passage
in Laurance Lake; installing new irrigation pipe to alleviate impacts
from current irrigation system and addressing return flows from the
irrigation system; improving the spillway at the Clear Branch Dam; and
improving irrigation efficiency by district patrons.
swalley irrigation district (deschutes county) $16,000,000
Sec. 319 Design and Construction, Irrigation Modernization Project.
This irrigation piping project includes the installation of pressurized
pipe to eliminate seepage and evaporative loss from open ditches; flow
regulating and metering devices at service connections; pressurized
delivery to eliminate individual pumps system-wide; active education;
and a sprinkler exchange program. Piping and pressurizing the
irrigation canals will result in approximately 1.1 million kWh/year in
energy conservation and conserve up to 16 cubic feet per second of
water during the irrigation season.
Providing increased appropriations for the CWSRF program will help
implement additional innovative and multi-benefit projects like these
in Oregon and across the Nation.
conclusion
In conclusion, OWRC is strongly supportive of increased
appropriations to the CWSRF program, allowing Oregon's DEQ to continue
making targeted loans that address Clean Water Act issues and improve
water quality while incentivizing innovative water management solutions
that benefit local communities, agricultural economies, and the
environment. This voluntary approach creates and promotes cooperation
and collaborative solutions to complex water resources challenges. We
respectfully request an appropriation of at least $2.75 billion as
authorized in the bi-partisan Infrastructure and Jobs Investment Act
for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Water State
Revolving Loan Fund for fiscal year 2023.
[This statement was submitted by Testimony of April Snell,
Executive Director, Oregon Water Resources Congress.]
______
Prepared Statement of Pacific Salmon Commission
Chairman Merkley, and Honorable Members of the Committee, in March
1985 the United States and Canada agreed to cooperate in the
management, research and enhancement of Pacific salmon stocks of mutual
concern by ratifying the Pacific Salmon Treaty (PST). I am Ron Allen,
the Tribal Commissioner and Chair of the Finance and Administration
Committee for the U.S. Section of the Pacific Salmon Commission (PSC).
The U.S. Section prepares an annual budget for implementation of the
Pacific Salmon Treaty. The United States and Canada completed revisions
of five of the Annex Chapters to the PST in 2019. The Annex Chapters
contain the details for operations of fisheries under the Treaty and
will be in operation for the next 10 years.
Funding to implement the PST comes from the Departments of
Interior, Commerce, and State. The integrated budget details program
needs and costs for Tribal, Federal, and State agencies involved in the
Treaty. Tribal participation in the Treaty process is funded within the
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) budget as a line item within Rights
Protection Implementation.
In order to meet the increased obligations under the Pacific
Salmon Treaty Agreement, the 25 affected Tribes identified
costs at $6,255,000 for Tribal research projects and
participation in the U.S.-Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty process.
This represents no change from current levels. The funding for
Tribal participation in the Pacific Salmon Treaty is a line
item in the BIA's budget under Rights Protection
Implementation.
Under U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service programs, the U.S. Section
identified funding needs as follows:
USFWS participation in the Treaty process is currently funded
at $372,362. In addition, the Pacific States Marine Fisheries
Commission (PSMFC) Regional Mark Center receives support from
the USFWS to provide data services to the PSC process at
$236,189 annually. The U.S. Section recommends increasing the
funding for PSMFC by $150,000. The recommended total for the
two programs for fiscal Year 2023 is $758,551. The USFWS also
received an additional $4,700,000 for Pacific Salmon Treaty
Implementation starting in fiscal Year 2020. The USFWS uses
these funds to work with State agencies on marking of
anadromous salmonids. The USFWS transfers $100,000 of the
additional funds to the BIA to support Tribal implementation of
the PST. The U.S. Section recommends maintaining that level of
funding for fiscal Year 2023.
The base funding for the USFWS supports critically important on-
going work and participation in the process. The funding for Pacific
States Marine Fisheries Commission's Regional Mark Processing Center is
utilized to meet Treaty requirements concerning data exchange with
Canada. These program recommendations are integrated with those of
participating State and Federal agencies to avoid duplication of effort
and provide for the most efficient expenditure of limited funds.
The U.S. Section of the PSC and the Treaty Tribes appreciate the
$900,000 increase in fiscal Year 2020 for the Tribes to implement the
revised chapters of the Pacific Salmon Treaty. Tribal programs are
essential for the United States to meet its international obligations.
Tribal programs have taken on additional management responsibilities
over time. The revised Chinook Chapter includes a new metric for
evaluating terminal area fisheries. The CYER (Calendar Year
Exploitation Rate) metric requires additional data collection and data
management by the affected Tribes. All participating agencies need to
be adequately supported to achieve a comprehensive U.S. effort to
implement the Treaty. The U.S. Section of the PSC is recommending an
adjustment in funding to support the work carried out by the twenty-
five Treaty Tribes' participating in implementation of the Treaty.
Programs carried out by the Tribes are closely coordinated with those
of participating State and Federal agencies.
The USFWS activities are essential, so the U.S. can maintain the
coded wire tag database necessary to implement the Treaty. The work of
the Regional Mark Processing Center includes maintaining and updating a
coastwide computerized information management system for salmon harvest
data as required by the Treaty. This work has become even more
important to monitor the success of management actions aimed at
reducing impacts on ESA-listed salmon populations. Canada has a
counterpart database. The U.S. database will continue to be housed at
the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission. The U.S. Section
appreciates the additional $4,700,000 in the USFWS budget to work with
State agencies on producing hatchery fish to mitigate for catch
reductions in the revised Chinook Chapter and for additional Tribal
support. The U.S. Section recommends maintaining that funding for
fiscal Year 2023.
Funding to support activities under the Pacific Salmon Commission
comes from the Departments of Interior, State, and Commerce. The U.S.
Section can provide a cross-cut budget summary to the Committee.
Adequate funding from all three Departments is necessary for the U.S.
to meet its Treaty obligations. All the funds are needed for critical
data collection and research activities directly related to the
implementation and are used in cooperative programs involving Federal,
State, and Tribal fishery agencies and the Department of Fisheries and
Oceans in Canada. The commitment of the United States is matched by the
commitment of the Government of Canada.
Chairman Merkley, the United States and Canada established the
Pacific Salmon Commission, under the Pacific Salmon Treaty of 1985, to
conserve salmon stocks, provide for optimum production of salmon, and
to control salmon interceptions. After thirty-seven years, the work of
the Pacific Salmon Commission continues to be essential for the wise
management of salmon in the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, and
Alaska. For example, upriver bright fall Chinook salmon from the
Hanford Reach of the Columbia River are caught in large numbers in
Alaskan and Canadian waters. Tribal and non-Tribal fishers harvest
sockeye salmon from Canada's Fraser River in the Strait of Juan de Fuca
and in Puget Sound. Canadian trollers off the west coast of Vancouver
Island catch Washington coastal Coho salmon and Puget Sound Chinook
salmon. In the Northern Boundary area between Canada and Alaska, fish
from both countries are intercepted by the other country in large
numbers.
The Pacific Salmon Commission provides a forum to ensure
cooperative management of salmon populations. The United States and
Canada reached agreements for revised Annex Chapters for management of
Chinook, Coho, Chum, Fraser River Sockeye and Pink, and transboundary
salmon populations for the next 10 years. It is critically important to
have adequate resources for U.S. participants to implement the revised
agreements and protect our Tribal Treaty resources.
Before the Pacific Salmon Treaty, fish wars often erupted with one
or both countries overharvesting fish that were returning to the other
country, to the detriment of the resource. At the time the Treaty was
signed, Chinook salmon were in a severely depressed state because of
overharvest in the ocean as well as environmental degradation in the
spawning rivers. Under the Treaty, both countries committed to rebuild
the depressed runs of Chinook stocks and recommitted to that goal in
1999 when adopting a coastwide abundance-based approach to harvest
management. Under this approach, harvest management has complemented
habitat conservation and restoration activities undertaken by the
States, Tribes, and other stakeholders in the Pacific Northwest to
address the needs of salmon listed for protection under the Endangered
Species Act. The updated Annex Chapters continue these commitments. The
combination of these efforts is integral to achieving success in
rebuilding and restoring healthy, sustainable salmon populations.
Finally, you should consider that the value of the commercial
harvest of salmon subject to the Treaty, managed at productive levels
under the Treaty, supports the infrastructure of many coastal and
inland communities. The value of the commercial, recreational
fisheries, and the economic diversity they provide for local economies
throughout the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, is immense. The Commission
funded an economic study of the fisheries and determined that this
resource creates thousands of jobs and is a multi-billion dollar
industry. The value of these fish to the twenty-four Treaty Tribes in
Washington, Oregon, and Idaho goes far beyond their monetary value, to
the cultural and religious lives of Indian people.
The Commission funded a study to capture the socioeconomic value of
the fisheries to U.S. Tribes and Canadian First Nations. A significant
monetary investment is focused on salmon due to the listings of Pacific
Northwest salmon populations under the Endangered Species Act. Given
these resources, we continue to utilize the Pacific Salmon Commission
to develop recommendations that help with the development and
implementation of solutions to minimizing impacts on listed stocks. We
continue to work towards the true intent of the Treaty, and with your
support, we will manage this shared resource for mutual enhancements
and benefits.
Chairman Merkley, that concludes my written testimony submitted for
consideration by your Committee. I want to thank the Committee for the
support that it has given the U.S. Section in the past. Please feel
free to contact me, or other members of the U.S. Section to answer any
questions you or Committee members may have regarding the U.S. Section
of the Pacific Salmon Commission budget.
[This statement was submitted by W. Ron Allen, U.S. Section of the
Pacific Salmon Commission.]
______
Prepared Statement of Parker River National Wildlife Refuge
I am pleased to submit this brief statement in support of my local
Parker River NWR and the entire national wildlife refuge system. I
strongly urge you to appropriate $712 million for US Fish and Wildlife
Service fiscal Year 2023 to benefit all.
I first encountered PRNWR in 2001 while visiting Boston to cheer my
son at a collegiate swim tournament. I can still recall seeing my life
Rough legged Hawk over Hellcat and imaging how many other life birds I
might find at the Refuge. I asked my guide about living in town and
soon began thinking seriously about possibilities. Retiring in 2010, I
readily moved from our home of 30+ years in central New Jersey (where I
regularly visited the Forsythe NWR we fondly called ``Brig,'') to
Newburyport, Massachusetts explicitly BECAUSE of the international
reputation of Parker River NWR as a birders' paradise, a very special
``hot spot.'' The varied habitats and birds did not disappoint, even
with the overall, heartbreaking decline in numbers of birds and their
food sources. The extensive variety of habitats at PRNWR attracts a
wide range of birds throughout the year. There are migrants passing
through, those who come to nest in spring or ride out the winter, and
the local dwellers as well as rarities that show up from time to time.
Parker River NWR has remained my nearly daily destination for the
past 12 years. In winters with sufficient snow cover, I ski Refuge
Road, which allows me viewing access to owl habitats on the more
southern end of the island. During the Pandemic when the Refuge was
closed to vehicles, I borrowed a bicycle to ride 10+ miles round trip
from headquarters to the Refuge and through to Sandy Point.
As a carry-over from Pandemic restrictions, I continue to bird
almost exclusively locally to conserve my use of fossil fuel out of
concern for the climate crisis. Perhaps due to my growing knowledge of
and familiarity with PRNWR, I won a seat on the Board of the Friends of
PRNWR. During this time, I developed a very protective and supportive
attitude toward the Refuge. As such, I am very concerned that without
an increase in funding, the habitats and the wildlife themselves will
be at huge risk. The Friends are very active and help greatly with
maintenance, wildlife monitoring, and educational programs as well as
funding an intern.
I personally am very concerned about the staffing on the PRNWR,
especially enforcement and the gatehouse. This is a very busy refuge,
complicated by the State operated beach at the southern end. It seems
that more and more, the attitude of visitors is similar to drivers on
the nearby interstate. They seem interested in getting from point A to
point B as fast as they can, and doing whatever they want to do.
They're not so much into the journey and observing nature--trees,
geological formations, birds and other animals, let alone thinking
about the space as a refuge for wildlife, with humans being guests. I
feel strongly that more continuous presence of enforcement staff would
be a great help. Behaviors would change if there were a real and known
risk of consequences. Enforcement and maintenance staff seem
particularly stretched thin, which affects the care of the appropriate
land and water habitats.
PRNWR is a treasure, and very important to the community. Visitors
arrive from all over and contribute to the economic well being of the
local area. Surely for local residents and visitors alike, getting
outside in such a beautiful and rich setting, and connecting with the
natural world, is beneficial for developing a sense of the
interdependence of all beings. That acknowledged relationship is
critical to our being able effectively to combat the climate crisis. If
there were a critical time to invest more deeply in our National
Wildlife Refuge system, it is now. Again, I urge you to be as generous
as possible and appropriate $712 million for US Fish and Wildlife
Service fiscal Year 2023. Thank you for your attention.
[This statement was submitted by MaryMargaret Halsey.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Partnership for the National Trails System
Thank you for the opportunity to submit written testimony on behalf
of the Partnership for the National Trails System (PNTS) regarding
Fiscal Year 2023 funding. Use of the 30 Congressionally designated
National Scenic and Historic Trails (NSHT) has grown substantially
since the onset of the pandemic and is expected to continue growing in
the future. Increased investment in our National Trails System (NTS) is
needed to meet public demands. PNTS requests at least $9.63 million for
the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to be allocated to for NSHT, as
well as a minimum of $3.15 million to operate Historic Trail
Interpretive Centers and $69.491 million for National Conservation
Lands. PNTS requests $22.18 million in National Park Service (NPS)
Operations for the NSHT, $15 million for the Rivers, Trails and
Conservation Assistance (RTCA) program, at least $8 million for
Volunteers in Parks, a minimum of $10.95 million for Visitor Services
sub-activity Youth Partnership Programs and $125 million for the
Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership (ORLP). PNTS also supports $30.51
million for Trails, with $11.957 million specifically for NSHT in the
U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Capital Improvement and Maintenance (CMTL)
account, $72 million for Recreation, Heritage and Wilderness and $100
million for Legacy Roads and Trails. PNTS also requests at least $93
million for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Refuge Visitor
Services. Additionally, PNTS supports robust funding for the Land and
Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) with $50 million allocated from the
Federal land acquisition programs of the BLM, the NPS and the USFS for
projects that complete NSHT and protect side trails and viewsheds.
Authorized through the 1968 National Trails System Act, the NTS
includes 30 National Scenic Trails (NST) and National Historic Trails
(NHT) that will eventually preserve 55,000 miles of public trails,
traversing 50 States and the District of Columbia, connecting 84
national parks, 89 national forests, 70 national wildlife refuges, over
100 public land areas and 179 national wilderness areas. The NTS
continues to grow with new trails in the pipeline to be considered by
Congress in 2022 and beyond. They represent a broad spectrum of our
Nation's iconic landscapes and its natural and cultural heritage. From
the Southern Appalachian Mountains to the wildest reaches of Alaska,
the San Francisco Bay and the breathtaking coast of the ``Big Island''
of Hawaii, they feature diverse ecosystems while shining a light on the
stories of our Nation such as the U.S. fight for independence, the
trails blazed by indigenous peoples and pioneers, the forced relocation
of Native Americans, our struggle for civil rights, and much more. NSHT
are collaboratively managed with volunteer-based, private nonprofit
partners and Federal administrators. In 2021 alone, Federal funds
invested in the trails leveraged over $20 million in private funding
and volunteer hours valued at more than $23 million.
PNTS is the only national nonprofit focused on NSHT. Our trail
organization members are the primary partners working with the Federal
agencies to cooperatively manage, construct, maintain, protect, and
promote the NTS. Our members also include affiliate members that
actively contribute to the promotion, improvement and activation of NST
and NHT.
PNTS is grateful for the expanded support for NSHT, and all trails
administered by the land management agencies, in the FY22 House passed
Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations bill and urge Congress to
quickly pass a year-long funding bill.
We thank you for providing ongoing funding for the NSHT
administered by the NPS, BLM, and USFS and for the 2020 passage of the
Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA), which includes funds to tackle
deferred maintenance on public lands and full, permanent funding of the
LWCF.
It is now up to Congress to ensure that adequate annual trail
funding needs are met, and the administration and Federal land managers
fully implement the GAOA as Congress intended. These funding streams
are vital if we are to complete and maintain our NTS and federally
managed trails to the necessary, expected and deserved standard.
land management agency staffing and workforce assessment
Funding increases for trail development and maintenance established
over the last several years will only go so far without adequate
staffing. The field staff at Federal land agencies have been severely
curtailed over years, and the lack of oversight for our NTS is evident.
For example, many USFS jobs were eliminated over the last decade
because of ``fire borrowing.'' While Congress fixed that budget problem
years ago, the results linger. The agency has not been restored to full
strength.
The Federal agency front-line managers provide crucial
administration, oversight, and expertise to nonprofit trail partners.
This guidance is key to the success of nonprofit groups as they take on
more of the management responsibility for our National Trails and
recruit, train and marshal thousands of volunteers in public service.
Staffing must be substantially increased to sustain the current NTS,
and to manage its possible expansion should Congress choose to
designate more NSHT. We urge you to increase agency capacity to manage
public lands and trails.
For greater transparency and to ensure fiscally sound management of
the NTS, PNTS requests the Committee direct the agencies the conduct a
workforce assessment to examine the actual costs to operate a NST or
NHT and the baseline level of funding needed.
As the Committee prepares the FY23 budget, PNTS requests increased
funding for Federal staffing at land management agencies to meet
recreation, trail, and conservation needs of the NTS, including at
least one dedicated superintendent or administrator per NSHT.
bureau of land management (blm)
The BLM administers and manages NSHT as part of its National
Conservation Lands. BLM protects nearly 6,000 miles of 18 designated
trails in 15 States, in addition to thousands of miles of trails under
study for potential designation. It administers the Iditarod NHT and
co-administers the Old Spanish and El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro NHT
with the NPS.
The BLM lacks a specific account in its budget for trails,
including the three NHT that it is charged by law to administer and the
portions of the 15 other national trails that it manages on public
lands. We request Congress address this lack of transparency by
instructing BLM to establish line items for trails and NSHT in its
budget to address the fragmented funding allocations across sub-
activity accounts and encourage consistent funding for trails. At a
minimum, like the guidance the subcommittee provided to the USFS in
FY20, we ask that the FY23 bill direct BLM to include unit-level
allocations within major sub-activities for each of the NSHT as BLM has
done for national monuments, wilderness, and conservation areas.
PNTS requests including at least $9.63 million for NSHT to
administer, manage, maintain and improve the Trails under BLM
jurisdiction on public lands and add or improve amenities for trails.
For example, is $900,000 requested for Iditarod NHT to support Federal
trail administrator operation costs, trail maintenance, signage,
permitting, shelter cabin maintenance, outreach and interpretation.
PNTS also respectfully requests $69.491 million for management of
the National Conservation Lands. This level of funding is needed to
properly administer the system's expansion by 18 million acres since
2000, and will permit increased inventory, monitoring and protection of
cultural resources, enhance proper management of all resources and
provide a quality visitor experience.
national park service (nps)
The NPS administers 23 NSHT established by Congress. Funding at
$22.18 million within the Park Service Operations account for the NSHT
is essential for keeping these popular trails that connect people to
iconic landscapes and the quintessential stories of the U.S. both past
and present accessible for all. This request will help the work of NPS
and its trail organization partners as they build, maintain, and
interpret the trails.
PNTS requests $1.566 million for construction projects including
two projects on the California NHT that would add visitor amenities and
new trail miles at Lake Point, UT and near Sacramento, CA as well as
projects on the Ice Age and Santa Fe Trails. Trail partners identified
the need for an additional $2.401 million for cyclical maintenance on
the tread and facilities.
In addition, continued support for the RTCA program will provide
NPS expertise in trail and other recreation access projects to
communities across the country. When a community asks for assistance
with a trail or other project, NPS staff provide critical tools for
success, on-location facilitation, and planning expertise, which draw
from project experiences across the country and adapt best practices to
a community's specific needs. Funding at $15 million will ensure these
trail planning services are available to communities in all regions of
the Nation.
u.s. forest service (usfs)
The USFS is the lead Federal agency for five NST (Arizona, Florida,
Pacific Northwest, Continental Divide and Pacific Crest), one NHT (Nez
Perce) and manages 16 NSHT in part where they are on USFS lands.
Funding for the USFS administered and managed portions of the NSHT
comes from the CMTL account. In FY22, PNTS respectfully requests an
appropriation of $30.51 million for Trails, with $11.957 million
specifically allocated to the NSHT. This funding will allow the USFS to
meet its administering agency responsibilities such as trail-wide
coordination, guidance, technical assistance, and consultation with
National Trail managers. Congressionally designated NSHT are special
places and have specific legislative requirements that are broader than
typical trail construction and maintenance activities on National
Forest System trails. These legislative requirements, particularly the
requirement for volunteer engagement and partnerships with volunteer
organizations, are unique to NSHT programs and form a core component of
their administration. Funding the USFS NSHT at $11.957 million will
assist the Service meet its management responsibilities.
Of the amount requested for trail operations, construction, and
maintenance projects, $8.845 million is for the operations of trails
that are administered by the agency, as well as for other NSHT that run
through USFS-managed lands and high impact partnerships to benefit
those trails. An additional $2.388 million is requested for two
construction projects: $1.5 million for trail and trailhead
construction on the Iditarod Trail and $888,000 for new trail
construction for priority reroute projects on the Arizona Trail. A
total of $725,000 is requested for maintenance projects that exceed
volunteer abilities on the Arizona and Pacific Crest NST.
As part of its ongoing budget simplification project the USFS
removed the salaries and travel expenses from the CMTL line. This makes
it impossible for trail partner nonprofits to track staff time
dedicated to national trails. Already, we've seen the loss of a
dedicated trail administrator position in favor of a much broader,
regional trail administrator position and consolidation of their
duties. Such a trend would further overwhelm over-extended staff in a
manner that threatens the quality and integrity of the NSHT. We
respectfully ask the subcommittee to include language in its FY23
appropriations bill that compels USFS to include staff and travel
expenses in the CMTL or otherwise delineate those expenses for NSHT in
its budget.
land and water conservation fund (lwcf)
We appreciate and look forward to a minimum of $900 million in
annual LWCF appropriations being utilized to protect public lands.
Given the healthy pipeline of forthcoming land preservation projects on
National Trails, PNTS respectfully requests Congress increase funding
to a minimum of $50 million per year for the next 3 years for NSHT. The
Appalachian NST greatly benefited from dedicated appropriations in the
3 years following passage of the National Trails System Act, as would
the System going forward. It is vital agencies prioritize NSHT projects
to complete and protect NSHT. Dedicated funding would help accomplish
this goal.
PNTS stands ready to work with you to secure critically important
programs that help fund, maintain and protect the NSHT across the
Nation. The examples provided in the testimony of how the funding will
be used represent only a small proportion of the work being done and
funding needs of the NTS. PNTS would be happy to provide additional
detailed information as needed. Thank you for the opportunity to
provide this testimony and your consideration of our request for
greater investment in our National Trails System.
[This statement was submitted by Valerie Rupp, Executive Director,
Partnership for the National Trails System.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
On behalf of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine,
thank you for the opportunity to submit this written testimony
regarding the fiscal Year 2023 Appropriations for the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA). The Physicians Committee is a 501(c)(3)
nonprofit organization supported by over 175,000 members nationwide
working for effective, efficient, and ethical medical research and
product testing.
Fundamentally, we ask the subcommittee to encourage the EPA's
further implementation of nonanimal approaches, also referred to as New
Approach Methodologies (NAMs), in chemical safety testing. NAMs are
defined by the EPA as ``any technology, methodology, approach, or
combination that can provide information on chemical hazard and risk
assessment to avoid the use of animal testing.'' \1\ These modern test
methods, including computer models and in vitro cell and tissue-based
assays, can now replace many outdated animal-based tests, which can
take years to complete and provide an incomplete picture of how
chemicals in our environment affect vulnerable people and wildlife.
NAMs can provide more accurate and relevant results more quickly, and
many NAMs are already available for regulatory use.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, New Approach Methods Work
Plan, December 2021. https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2021-
11/nams-work-plan_11_15_21_508-tagged.pdf
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As you craft the fiscal Year 2023 Interior, Environment, and
Related Agencies Appropriations bill, the Physicians Committee asks
that you please consider the following provisions to advance the
implementation of predictive human-specific science, facilitate faster
development of safe products, and reduce new animal testing. Thank you
for your consideration and please do not hesitate to reach out with any
questions.
increase funding for the pesticide licensing program to support pria
activities
Congress enacted the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act (PRIA)
in 2004, modeled after user fee programs for prescription drugs and
medical devices. The act has been reauthorized three times and
prescribes a schedule of fees charged to registrants for pesticide
registration actions; in exchange, the law establishes timelines for
those registration actions. Pesticide products that benefit from PRIA
include not only crop protection products, but biopesticides,
disinfectants, and other products that protect human health,
communities, and the environment. PRIA IV, enacted on March 8, 2019,
increased fees paid by industry for registration services by as much as
30 percent from levels enacted in 2012 and includes funding for worker
protection education programs, pesticide risk reduction programs, and
partnership grants. Overall funding for the Office of Pesticide
Programs (OPP), including PRIA activities, has fallen from a high of
$144 million in fiscal Year 2004 to current levels of $129.3 million.
Staffing has fallen more than 30 percent and, while the agency reports
completion of more actions per year, they are often far delayed--in
contradiction to the purpose of PRIA.
Further, OPP has implemented strategies and pursued work to advance
NAMs and reduce animal use where possible, such as through tiered
testing approaches, granting waivers for toxicity tests that do not
provide useful information, reducing the number of species required for
certain tests, and tracking and publicly reporting metrics on animal
test reduction and NAMs submission.\2\ However, reduced funding for the
agency and understaffing has contributed to these initiatives being
deprioritized among its other regulatory responsibilities.
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\2\ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Strategic Vision for
Adopting New Approach Methodologies--Metrics. https://www.epa.gov/
pesticide-science-and-assessing-pesticide-risks/strategic-vision-
adopting-new-approach-0
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Increased funding for the Pesticide Licensing Program, also
supported by the PRIA Coalition of industry representatives, is needed
to ensure that the EPA has the resources to meet statutory decision
deadlines that enable new products to come to market and research and
development investments to be made with confidence of market access. It
would also allow OPP to accelerate its ongoing work to advance NAMs for
regulatory use in pesticide products.
The Pesticide Licensing Program within the Environmental Programs
and Management (EP&M) account provides 85 percent of appropriated funds
counted toward the minimum appropriation required under PRIA; if
approved, the $144 million for the EP&M account, plus ongoing funding
in other PRIA areas, would result in a total funding for the OPP of
$163 million.
The Physicians Committee requests that the subcommittee appropriate
$144 million for the Pesticide Licensing Program within the
Environmental Programs and Management Account.
direct funding toward nams implementation activities in pesticide
development and review
In 2016, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act for the 21st
Century amended the Toxic Substances Control Act to prioritize
reduction and replacement of animal tests and increase the use of NAMs
by requiring industry to ``first attempt to develop the information by
means of an alternative test method or strategy identified by the [EPA]
... before conducting new vertebrate animal testing.'' \3\ In 2021, the
EPA released an updated version of its New Approach Methods Work
Plan,\4\ which provides a roadmap for evaluating and applying NAMs for
assessing health risks and pursuing its animal testing reduction and
replacement goals. It includes strategies for ensuring the regulatory
framework accommodates use of NAMs, establishing animal use baselines
and means for avoiding animal tests that do not contribute to
regulatory decisions, developing metrics for measuring progress,
establishing scientific confidence in methods, developing NAMs to fill
gaps, and engaging stakeholders in the process. Further, the
President's fiscal Year 2023 budget request for the EPA includes the
goal of reducing animal testing in its activities and performance plan
for pesticides licensing, outlining many of the NAMs efforts OPP
continues to pursue.\5\
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\3\ Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act,
Public Law 114-182. https://www.congress.gov/114/plaws/publ182/PLAW-
114publ182.pdf
\4\ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, New Approach Methods Work
Plan, December 2021. https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2021-
11/nams-work-plan_11_15_21_508-tagged.pdf
\5\ FY 2023 Justification of Appropriation Estimates for the
Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Pg.
452. https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2022-04/fy-2023-
congressional-justification-all-tabs.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Accompanying the programmatic funding request described above, it
is important that significant funding is dedicated for activities to
further implement NAMs into hazard and risk management decisions to
ensure EPA strategies for advancing NAMs can be prioritized. This
requested report language, also supported by the Humane Society of the
United States, the Humane Society Legislative Fund, and the People for
the Ethical Treatment of Animals, would provide detail on expectations
and help meet existing agency goals to assess chemical risk more
accurately and efficiently while reducing animal use.
The Physicians Committee requests that the subcommittee dedicate
funds toward activities to support the implementation of NAMs in
pesticide development and review by including the following report
language:
Implementation of NAMs in Pesticide Development and Review.- The
Committee supports increased funding for the Pesticide Licensing
Program and directs a significant portion of program funding to be
spent on activities that support the implementation of New Approach
Methodologies (NAMs) in pesticide development and review. The Committee
is aware that NAMs protect human health and the environment by
providing reliable chemical hazard information without the use of
animal testing. The application of NAMs for regulatory risk assessment
can make chemical safety testing more efficient by reducing study
lengths and costs to the Agency and industry. Allocated funds should be
used to publish updated policies outlining the acceptance of
scientifically supported NAMs for specified applications, implement
required annual trainings on NAMs for employees involved in pesticide
review, continue to engage in Federal and nongovernmental organization
collaborations, fund an additional 10 FTEs to support NAMs
implementation, and meet deadlines set in the New Approach Methods Work
Plan, in addition to other efforts.
[This statement was submitted by Kristie Sullivan, M.P.H., Vice
President for Research Policy, Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine.]
______
Prepared Statement of Pinon Community School
Pinon Community School is located on the Navajo Nation Reservation
in Pinon, Arizona. We serve as a 1st-12th grade residential community
for students who attend school at the Pinon Unified School District
throughout the School Year. We also operate a kindergarten day school
on our campus. We are a community grant school, funded by the Bureau of
Indian Education (BIE) and operated pursuant to the Tribally Controlled
Schools Act (Public Law 100-297). At Pinon Community School, we strive
to be a resource for our students, their parents, and the greater
community. Our Navajo language, culture, and values are at the heart of
what we do. Pinon Community School is also a Member of the Dine Bi Olta
School Board Association (DBOSBA), which represents all of the locally-
elected school boards within the Navajo Nation. We would like to
associate ourselves with DBOSBA's fiscal Year 2023 appropriations
testimony and tell our school's story to provide context for these
priorities. Our testimony highlights the following fiscal Year 2023
priorities:
--Increases for School Facility Construction and School Replacement
Construction;
--Increases and Forward Funding for School Facilities Operations and
Maintenance;
--COVID-19 Relief Funds Expeditiously Distributed for Ventilation
Repairs;
--Increases for ISEP Formula Funds;
--Full Funding for Teacher and Counselor Pay Parity; and
--Expanding Eligibility for Tribally Controlled Schools to
Participate in the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS).
School Facilities Improvement & Repair and School Replacement
Construction funding in the BIE's Education Construction budget not
only impacts the health and safety of our students and staff, it
impacts the useful life of our buildings. Our school was built in 1995
and is already facing significant facilities challenges: the buildings'
foundations are shifting, there are critical piping issues with our
hydraulic line, we lack a functioning HVAC system, our boiler needs
parts replaced, our alarm system is not fully functional, and various
other building renovations are needed. We have diligently logged these
pressing concerns in the MAXIMO system; hired engineers and contractors
with relevant experience to provide site assessments, designs, and
proposals; contacted the BIE; and contacted the Bureau of Indian
Affairs Division of Facilities Management and Construction (DFMC), all
to little avail. Many of these issues could have been avoided if
corners had not been cut when our school buildings were replaced in
1995 and in the following years the BIE and DFMC had properly
maintained these buildings. The DFMC when pressed, offers small,
nominal fixes for discrete building problems when comprehensive
solutions are needed. While the BIE owns the buildings we use, the BIE
and DMFC have not taken the necessary actions to properly repair and
maintain them.
School Facilities Operations and Maintenance funds also play a
pivotal role in the health and safety of our students and staff. More
funding is needed to address the BIE system-wide maintenance backlog,
to hire staff with sufficient repair and maintenance expertise, to
ensure schools have enough funding to adequately heat and cool our
buildings with adequate air circulation to reduce the risk of
coronavirus transmission, and to ensure that safety inspections are
completed and provided to schools in a timely fashion (we are still
waiting for the results of our most recent safety inspection). We also
encourage Congress to shift these two accounts to the forward funded
portion of the BIE's budget to help further insulate schools from the
disruptive uncertainties of continuing resolutions and government
shutdowns.
COVID-19 Relief Funds Must Be Expeditiously Distributed for
Ventilation Repairs. Our HVAC system is a fundamental, pressing
concern. Since 2017, Pinon Community School has requested assistance
from the BIE and DFMC for HVAC improvements to address excessive heat.
Currently on our campus, the dormitories, recreational building,
kindergarten classrooms, and cafeteria building are without HVAC units,
which provide critical ventilation and air conditioning. The Navajo
Nation is requiring all schools to conduct a walkthrough of school
facilities to assess and document findings that may impede students
from safely returning to school. Unfortunately, we have been unable to
complete the walk through due to our lack of ventilation. An improved
HVAC system is not only a critical safety measure, it is critical to
our ability to bring our students back for in-person services. A safe
and healthy in-person living and residential environment is crucial to
the well-being of our students and community. We have worked diligently
to take steps to improve the HVAC system. Recently, the DFMC began
construction on a portion of the project; however, the project is very
limited in scope and will not permit proper ventilation for the
entirety of the school campus, including the kindergarten classroom.
Despite this, we have secured design plans and estimates for what it
would take fully repair and replace the HVAC and associated hydraulic
cooling system. We have also selected contractors who are licensed to
perform this work. The estimate we were provided is roughly $4
million--far more than Pinion Community School has been allocated in
emergency COVID-19 relief funds. The DFMC's tinkering around the edges
of this problem is not acceptable, particularly when COVID-19 relief
funds have been allocated by the BIE to help schools repair, replace
and upgrade our HVAC systems.
We would like to sincerely thank Congress, and specifically these
subcommittees, for appropriating several rounds of urgently needed
COVID-19 relief funds to the BIE school system. Your support helped our
students, teachers and schools weather the worst of the pandemic and we
could not have come this far without these emergency funds. The delays
on the BIE and DFMC's implementation, however, have frustrated our
attempts to make the critical improvements to our facilities, which are
needed to safely welcome back our students.
Given the urgency of our School's needs and Congress' intent to
rapidly deploy COVID-19 relief funds, we find BIE and DFMC
implementation delays particularly troubling. We note that from the
three rounds of COVID-19 relief funds Congress appropriated ``for
programs operated or funded by the BIE'', 10 percent or $125.9 million
was set-aside for the BIE's ``national-level support/administrative
reserve.'' The BIE in subsequent webinars, communications to schools
and press releases specified that the ``national-level support/
administrative reserve'' funds are focused on the following: mental
health services; learning management system investments; HVAC & indoor
air quality improvements; emergency management and coordination;
communications outreach; system enhancements (NASIS); oversight and
records support; and ``other priorities''. Further, BIE specified that
schools wishing to access these funds should enter this into MAXIMO,
and contact the BIE and the DFMC, which we have done. While some of the
BIE's other identified uses of the ``national-level support/
administrative reserve'' funds appear to have, at best, only a
tangential impact on keeping our students and staff safe, ``HVAC &
indoor air quality improvements'' are fundamental to their health and
safety. We urgently need $4 million for our HVAC repair and replacement
project and we urge the DFMC to provide this funding without further
delay.
ISEP Formula Funds are our core operating account. The Student
Count is one of the key factors driving the ISEP distribution formula.
As a residential school, the shift to virtual learning during the worst
of the coronavirus pandemic had a significant impact on our enrollment.
We appreciate that on February 8, 2021, BIA Director Darryl LaCounte,
exercising the delegated authority of the Assistant Secretary--Indian
Affairs, issued a blanket waiver of the 25 CFR Subchapter E regulatory
requirements applicable to SY 2020-2021 for bus transportation;
commercial transportation; residential; and instructional hours. This
waiver applied to all schools in the BIE school system. This had the
effect of ensuring that schools were ``held harmless'' in the
distribution formulas for the drop in enrollment due to the pandemic.
We also appreciate that on February 2, 2022, Assistant Secretary--
Indian Affairs Bryan Newland issued a similar blanket waiver for all
schools in the BIE school system for SY 2021-2022. Because student
count is a calculated on a 3-year average, these waivers ensure that we
are held harmless 3 years into the future for the pandemic-related drop
in enrollment. We ask that prior to the end of the SY 2021-2022 waiver,
a multi-faceted assessment of pandemic recovery conditions should be
employed to determine whether to extend the waiver. Such an assessment
should also evaluate whether local concerns may warrant a school-
specific extension of the waiver.
As we prepare for our students to return in-person, we have 100
residential students enrolled for grades 1-12, when we have capacity
for 400. Meanwhile, we have 25 kindergarten students enrolled, with
capacity for 100. We are currently working to increase enrollment but
the state of our facilities and our difficulties attracting and
retaining teachers and staff is holding us back from fully realizing
our potential as a school and as a resource for our community. For
example, we are exploring the concept of offering vocational education
options for our high school students but more funding would be needed
to develop that curriculum and hire the teachers and staff to run it.
BIE-funded schools across the Nation are facing a significant teacher
shortage, but that shortage is particularly acute here on the Navajo
Nation, where many schools operate in remote locations and because
surrounding public schools in Arizona and neighboring New Mexico have
responded to the teacher shortage by substantially increasing teacher
pay. Having the resources to attract and retain quality teachers and
counselors is a significant challenge for us.
Full Funding for Teacher and Counselor Pay Parity is a critical
tool for attracting and retaining quality teachers. Federal law
requires the BIE to provide funding so that teachers and counselors in
the BIE-funded school system may be paid equivalent salaries to their
counterparts in the Department of Defense Education Activity. Federal
law also provides that, at the discretion of the local school board, a
BIE-operated school may pay salaries consistent with those paid by
public schools in the state where the BIE school is located.
We would like to thank the subcommittees for the fiscal Year 2021
House Report 116-448 and the Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying
the 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act which direct the BIE to
``clearly display funding amounts required to comply with Defense
Department-equivalent pay rates as part of future budget justifications
and to include sufficient funding in its budget request to fully fund
these requirements''. While the Administration's fiscal Year 2022
budget request for the BIE proposed an increase for ISEP Formula Funds
and included teacher and counselor pay parity among the priorities to
be funded from within this program increase, the fiscal Year 2022
budget justification failed to quantify the specific amount for this
purpose. We ask the subcommittees to continue to hold the BIE
accountable for quantifying and requesting the correct amount for
teacher and counselor pay parity and ensuring that the amounts provided
are sufficient to match the increases provided by the Defense
Department schools or are consistent with the rate of pay of public
schools in the States where our BIE-operated and tribally controlled
schools are located, whichever of these rates are higher. Given the
acute teacher shortages, this parity is essential to our school's
ability to recruit and retain qualified teachers and counselors.
Expanding Eligibility for Tribally Controlled Schools to
Participate in the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) would not
create any new costs for the Federal Government but it could
significantly bolster the efforts of tribally controlled schools like
ours to attract and retain quality teachers. Congress recently extended
eligibility for tribally controlled schools to participate in the
Federal Employee Health Benefits (FEHB) and Federal Employee Group Life
Insurance (FEGLI) programs. Extending the option of FERS participation
to us and other tribally controlled schools would strengthen this
effort.
Thank you. We would like to thank the subcommittees for your
support and partnership throughout the pandemic. The resources you
allocated for BIE system schools helped keep our students and teachers
safe and connected. We also deeply the appreciate the recent increases
provided to the key BIE accounts we depend on and for your ongoing
oversight of the BIE. We consider you our partners in this important
endeavor of preparing our students for a bright future. Thank you for
the opportunity to provide this testimony. Please consider us a
resource if you have any questions.
[This statement was submitted by Sharon Begay, Governing Board
President and Joe Benally, Principal.]
______
Prepared Statement of Preservation Action's
Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski and Members of the
subcommittee, on behalf of Preservation Action's thousands of members
and supporters, representing nearly every State, I appreciate the
opportunity to present written testimony on the Department of
Interior's fiscal Year 2023 Appropriations for the National Park
Service and its historic preservation programs. My name is Russ
Carnahan and I'm the President of Preservation Action. Founded in 1974,
Preservation Action is a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization created to
serve as the National grassroots advocacy organization for historic
preservation. We represent an active and engaged grassroots
constituency from across the country, and we appreciate the opportunity
to provide their perspective.
On behalf of members and supporters across the country, I'd like to
thank the subcommittee for their strong support of historic
preservation programs and priorities in the past several Interior
Appropriations bills, and especially for the FY22 Interior
Appropriations bill, which funded the Historic Preservation Fund at
$173.3 million. This marked the seventh consecutive year of record
funding for the program and for the first-time exceeded the program's
decades old, $150 million authorized level. Thanks to your support,
programs that have a proven track record of saving places American's
value, revitalizing communities, combating climate change by reusing
infrastructure, and helping tell the story of historically marginalized
and underrepresented groups; continue to benefit all Americans.
Preservation Action's mission is to make historic preservation a
national priority. For 48 years we've advocated for sound preservation
policy, including two of the most important tools for historic
preservation- the Historic Preservation Fund and the Federal Historic
Rehabilitation Tax Credit (HTC).
national park service: historic preservation fund
The Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) is the principal source of
funding to implement the Nation's historic preservation programs. Since
1976 the HPF has helped to recognize, save, revitalize and protect
America's historic resources. HPF funding is critical to State Historic
Preservation Offices and Tribal Historic Preservation offices (SHPO/
THPOs) to ensure they have the staffing capacity needed to review
infrastructure and green energy projects as per Congressional directive
under the National Historic Preservation Act. HPF funding also supports
critically important competitive grant programs. We especially
appreciate this committee's continued support of programs like the
African American Civil Rights Grant Program, the History of Equal
Rights grant program, the Underrepresented Communities Grant Program,
and others that are helping to tell a more diverse and inclusive
American story.
Preservation Action is extraordinarily grateful for the strong
support Congress, and especially this Committee, have shown for the HPF
in recent years, but more is needed, especially as SHPOs and THPOs are
expected to face increased workloads as the Infrastructure Investment
and Jobs Act is implemented.
Preservation Action recommends this subcommittee to continue their
strong support of historic preservation by appropriating $200 million
in funding for the Historic Preservation Fund in FY23's Department of
Interior budget. Including funding at the following levels:
--$65 million for State Historic Preservation Officers (SHPOs) for
heritage preservation and protection programs that create jobs,
economic development, and community revitalization. SHPOs carry
out the primary functions of the National Historic Preservation
Act including -finding and documenting America's historic
places, making nominations to the National Register, providing
assistance on rehabilitation tax credit projects, reviewing
impacts of Federal projects, working with local governments,
and conducting preservation education and planning.
Additionally, States are required to match at least 40 percent
of the money they receive from the HPF.
--$35 million for Save America's Treasures Program. The Save
America's Treasures grants program helps preserve nationally
significant historic properties and collections that convey our
Nation's rich heritage to future generations of Americans.
--$34 million for Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPOs).
THPOs are designated by federally recognized Tribal governments
and assume the Federal compliance role of the SHPO on their
respective Tribal lands. Tribal historic preservation plans are
based on traditional knowledge and cultural values, and may
involve projects to improve Indian schools, roads, health
clinics and housing. THPOs have been chronically underfunded.
Funding levels have not kept pace with the growing number of
Indian Tribes with THPO programs, resulting in a lower average
grants per tribe.
--$24 million for the African American Civil Rights Initiative
Competitive Grants. A competitive grant program to preserve the
sites and stories of the African American struggle to gain
equal rights in America.
--$12 million for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Funding would provide grants to Historically Black Colleges and
Universities (HBCUs) to preserve and repair historic buildings
on the campuses of HBCUs.
--$12 million for the Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization Subgrants.
Supports the rehabilitation of historic properties and fosters
economic development of rural communities through subgrants.
--$10 million for the Semiquincentennial Grants. This competitive
grant program preserves publicly owned historical sites
commemorating the upcoming 250th anniversary of the founding of
the United States.
--$5 million for the History of Equal Rights Grant Program. A
competitive grant program to preserve the sites and stories
related to the struggle of all people to achieve equal rights
in America.
--$3 million for the Under-Represented Communities Grant Program.
These competitive grants support the survey and nomination of
properties to the National Register of Historic Places and as
National Historic Landmarks associated with communities
currently under-represented.
total fiscal year 2023 historic preservation fund request: $200 million
Preservation Action also supports the bipartisan Historic
Preservation Enhancement Act (H.R. 6589) which would fully fund and
permanently authorize the Historic Preservation Fund at $300 million.
The HPF's authorization has not been increased since the program's
inception in 1976 and the program's current authorization is set to
expire in 2023. This bill would provide much needed certainty to the
States, Tribes, and local communities that rely on this Federal funding
to carry out their critical preservation work.
national park service: federal historic rehabilitation tax credit
The Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit (HTC), administered by
SHPOs, THPOs and the National Park Service, is the most significant
Federal investment in historic preservation. The HTC has been a
catalyst for development, rehabilitating of more than 46,000 historic
buildings across the Nation and leveraging over $181 billion in private
investment. Since inception, the HTC has created more than 3 million
jobs and produced over 178,300 affordable housing units. In addition to
revitalizing communities and spurring economic growth, the HTC returns
more to the Treasury than the cost of the program. The HTC has helped
to rehabilitate historic structures and revitalize communities in all
50 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S Virgin
Islands. Preservation Action also supports the bipartisan Historic Tax
Credit Growth and Opportunity Act (S. 2266, H.R. 2294), which would
increase the value of the HTC, improve access to the credit, and make
the credit more appealing for smaller projects.
Preservation Action urges the Committee to continue to support the
Historic Tax Credit by sufficiently funding SHPOs, THPOs and the
National Park Service who administer the program.
national park service: national heritage areas
We'd also like to express our support for the Preservation
Partnership Program which supports National Heritage Areas nationwide.
Designated by Congress, National Heritage Areas (NHAs) are community-
driven sites that weave cultural, natural, and historic resources
together to tell nationally significant stories. NHAs rely on public-
private funding where every Federal dollar allocated is matched with an
average of $5.50 in public and private funds.
While we appreciate Congress's support of NHAs, funding has not
kept pace with the need and popularity of the program. Since 2004 the
number of NHAs have more than doubled while funding for the program has
only increased by 33 percent. To bring funding in line with the
increased number of NHAs, Preservation Action recommends, in accordance
with the National Alliance of National Heritage Areas, $32 million for
National Heritage Areas through the Preservation Partnership Program in
the FY22 Department of Interior's budget. Preservation Action also
supports the bipartisan National Heritage Area Act of 2021 (H.R. 1316)
which establishes standardized criteria of NHAs and ensures long term
sustainability.
independent agency: advisory council on historic preservation
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) is an
independent Federal agency that promotes the preservation, enhancement,
and sustainable use of the Nation's diverse historic resources, and
advises the President and Congress on national historic preservation
policy. We appreciate the continued support of this important agency.
Preservation Action recommends the Committee support $10.5 million for
the ACHP in the fiscal Year 2023 Interior Appropriations Bill. An
increase in funding will enhance the critical functions of the agency
in ensuring the Nation's historic and cultural resources are protected,
while advancing Tribal consultation, and finding efficiencies to
deliver timely Federal review of major infrastructure projects.
conclusion
Preservation Action appreciates the opportunity to provide our
views on the FY23 Department of Interior budget. We work closely with a
broad cross-section of preservation professionals from the State and
local level and are pleased to be able to add their perspective.
Preservation Action continues to value the dedicated work of
National Park Service employees, the partnership of the Advisory
Council on Historic Preservation as well as the instrumental work of
SHPOs and THPOs in preserving America's cultural heritage.
Thank you for valuing the input of the preservation community as
you consider the FY23 Department of Interior budget and your past
support of vital historic preservation programs. We look forward to
working with the committee and are happy to answer any questions you
may have.
[This statement was submitted by Russ Carnahan, President,
Preservation Action.]
______
Prepared Statement of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
Thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony regarding
appropriations for the Department of the Interior (``DOI'') and its
agencies, namely the National Park Service (``NPS''), Bureau of Land
Management (``BLM''), and Fish and Wildlife Service (``FWS''). We
believe public land use agencies are underfunded and require increases
in staffing, particularly ranger positions.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (``PEER'') is a
nonpartisan, nonprofit, service organization for environmental and
public health professionals, land managers, scientists, enforcement
officers, and other civil servants dedicated to upholding environmental
laws and values. We work with current and former federal, State, local,
and Tribal employees who seek a higher standard of environmental ethics
and scientific integrity within their agencies.
First, PEER will address NPS. Since 1916, NPS has been charged with
an essential task: preserving the Nation's most awe-inspiring vistas
and iconic wildlife, while keeping the parks ``unimpaired for the
enjoyment of future generations.'' \1\ More than a century later,
pressures within and beyond park boundaries threaten the future of the
parks' natural beauty and ecosystems. In order to uphold the
conservation legacy of national parks, Congress must invest in agency
staffing.
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\1\ https://www.nps.gov/grba/learn/management/organic-act-of-
1916.htm#::text= percent22....to percent20conserve,of percent20the
percent20National percent20Park percent20Service.
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The current trajectory of park expansions and overcrowding, without
commensurate increases in staffing, is unsustainable. Between 2010 and
2020, NPS lost 5,935 employees, 29 percent of the 20,813 staff that
remained in 2020.\2\ Park visitation rebounded following the 2020
pandemic when many parks were closed. In 2021, the 45 most popular
parks set attendance records. Despite record levels of visitation,
increasing search and rescue operations, and rising crime, the number
of rangers in our National parks has steadily declined. Since 2005, the
ranks of permanent law enforcement rangers fell by 15 percent, while
seasonal law enforcement rangers deployed during peak seasons dropped
by 30 percent.
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\2\ https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/
Climate-Capacity-Crisis---Attrition-at-Climate-Agencies-and-Immediate-
Steps-to-Address-It.pdf.
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In 2021, PEER released the NPS Voices Tour 2018 Summary Report. The
report was compiled by Sepler and Associates and was intended to
empower NPS employees to speak out about their work environments. The
report identifies multiple issues arising from the increase in park
visitation and increase in job responsibilities and decreased budgets.
The report calls working conditions ``sub-par'' and recommends
``Alignment between Budgets and Expectations.'' ``In the face of
smaller budgets, participants urge that expectations and priorities
reflect reduced capacity. Alternatively, they call for full funding for
the priorities currently identified.'' \3\
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\3\ https://peer.org/nps-voices-summary-report-06-06-2019-pdf/at 4.
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One of the major themes that the report highlights is the issue of
staffing. ``Overwhelmingly, participants speak out about understaffing
of parks and its consequences. At all levels, they describe the parks
as stretched to breaking with workers being asked to work many
uncompensated hours and overwork causing sickness, stress, lack of
morale, and safety problems. Frequent 'acting' positions, often poorly
staffed, also disrupt any attempt at stability in the parks. Many
believe that chronic understaffing and the failure to match
qualifications to positions contribute to disrespectful, abusive, and
harassing behavior. Furthermore, the administrative demands on
supervisors prevent them from spending time interacting with and
supervising their staff.'' \4\
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\4\ Id. at 3.
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"We heard voices from people wearing thin from being asked to
perform at a high level in the face of inadequate resources, competing
demands, and in some cases work environments rendered extremely
stressful due to interpersonal behavior.'' \5\ To correct these
problems, supervisors said NPS must increase its permanent staff.
Supervisors reported perpetual turnover led to constant onboarding and
training, loss of institutional knowledge, and a lack of continuity.\6\
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\5\ Id. at 10.
\6\ Id. at 15.
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We cannot keep asking NPS staff to meet current and future
challenges without adequate resources and support. Instead, we need to
build and expand a core workforce equipped with the tools to tackle the
complex management problems parks face. The Biden administration's
proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2023 provides for a slight increase in
NPS hiring but with almost nothing targeted for its depleted ranger
force. PEER is asking Congressional appropriators to:
______
--Prioritize visitor and resource protection among NPS operational
budget increases; and
--Require NPS to implement its own policy requiring the application
of consistent standards for determining appropriate force
levels.
Next, we shift our focus to BLM. BLM manages more than 245 million
acres of public lands (10.5 percent of all land in the country, the
most of any Federal agency).\7\ Both in conserving and restoring
habitat at the surface and holding mineral prospectors to the highest
of environmental standards, BLM can protect biodiversity and slow the
climate crisis by decreasing overall U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
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\7\ https://www.blm.gov/about/what-we-manage/national.
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Like NPS, BLM is experiencing significant increases in visitation
coupled with concerning reductions in agency staff. In 2010, BLM
estimated it had 58,570,000 recreational visits \8\ on BLM-administered
lands. By 2020, that number rose to 73,110,000, nearly a 25 percent
increase in one decade. In contrast, in 2010, BLM employed just over
11,000 full time employees (FTE)\9\, but by 2020 it fell to 9,458 FTE
\10\, more than a 14 percent decrease in the same time period.
Currently, BLM employs 8,800 FTE, amounting to one employee for every
31,499 acres.
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\8\ https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/docs/2021-08/
PublicLandStatistics2020.pdf.
\9\ https://www.westernwatersheds.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/
FY2012_BLM_Greenbook-2.pdf.
\10\ https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/fy2022-blm-budget-
justification.pdf.
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An instructive example of the on-the-ground impacts of growing
visitation and reduced staff is the Red Rock Conservation Area just
outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. There, red rock formations in the
sandstone draw visitors from the sprawling metropolis to off-road,
mountain bike, and hike. Staffing levels in the conservation area have
remained flat as visitation has increased from 200,000 visitors per
year in the 1980s to 3.5 million in 2020. The acreage in the
conservation area itself has also more than doubled during that time.
As crowds and lands have grown without commensurate increases in
staffing, infrastructure and staff have struggled to match the
challenges posed by increased visitation. Unauthorized mountain bike
trails now tear through important historical and cultural sites.
Graffiti mars canyon walls. Cultural sites face an accumulation of
trash and increased looting.
Overall, the dedicated members of BLM's staff cannot be expected to
maintain their diligent oversight of the 245 million acres of public
lands in their charge with fewer employees and more responsibilities.
PEER is asking Congressional appropriators to:
--Increase BLM staffing to a total of 15,000 FTE. This recommendation
comes with the support of current BLM employees and is
supported by a former BLM Director.
Lastly, PEER will discuss FWS. FWS works to conserve, protect, and
enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing
benefit of the American people.\11\ The agency oversees more than 560
National Wildlife Refuges, 70 national fish hatcheries, numerous
regional and field offices across the country, and thousands of active
conservation projects.\12\ FWS employs over 8,400 staff members
currently.\13\ In Fiscal Year 2021, FWS employed 641 commissioned law
enforcement rangers and special agents, both permanent and seasonal.
Comparatively, FWS employed 662 commissioned law enforcement rangers
and special agents, both permanent and seasonal, in Fiscal Year 2011.
With increased visitation across all public land use agencies, PEER is
concerned about staffing decreases in FWS.
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\11\ https://www.fws.gov/.
\12\ Id.
\13\ Id.
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Overall, DOI must address the widening gap between personnel
resources and demand by increasing its staff, specifically rangers.
Rangers within the public land agencies are charged with a variety of
essential tasks, ranging from park interpretation to search and rescue
operations to investigating criminal activity. In general, they help
facilitate park enjoyment and guarantee public safety. The reduction of
rangers in our land use agencies, timed with record visitation, has
adverse public safety consequences. Across DOI, criminal referrals for
prosecution dropped 70 percent (from 6,082 down to 1,812), prosecutions
filed off those referrals fell 67 percent (from 4,233 to 1,381), and
convictions secured declined 74 percent (from 3,328 to 919).\14\ With
fewer rangers employed to patrol public lands, law enforcement and
public safety efforts fall significantly. PEER is asking Congressional
appropriators to:
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\14\ Interior Criminal Enforcement 1986-2021 (generated by TRACFED,
https://trac.syr.edu/infoTRACFED.html).
--Ensure that NPS, BLM, and FWS law enforcement staffing levels are
funded to the level they were a decade ago in 2012. This would
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be a modest but significant bump from current levels; and
--Add report language requiring the three agencies to report back to
the subcommittee on their assessment of law enforcement needs
for Fiscal Year 2024, including the specific steps they have
taken to implement the recommendations from the Government
Accountability Office report.\15\
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\15\ https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-171t.
Americans across the country have rediscovered the beauty and awe
of public lands, and with each visit they are reminded of how integral
these places are to our National identity. In order to preserve these
natural spaces for future generations, NPS, BLM, and FWS require
increases of their most important resource: people. Increased staff can
help agencies maintain their missions and support the communities that
are in and near these lands by providing local, good-paying jobs. PEER
is proud to support these efforts, and we ask Congressional
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appropriators to demonstrate theirs by:
--Granting public land use agencies the full funding that they have
requested, plus an additional 20 percent for more staffing.
Thank you for your work on this issue thus far, and for considering
this testimony regarding increased staffing in DOI's public land
agencies in Fiscal Year 2023.
[This statement was submitted by Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Public Lands Foundation
We thank you for this opportunity to present the subcommittee with
our views regarding the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) budget for
fiscal Year 2023. As a national, non-profit organization with more than
600 members, comprised principally of retired BLM employees, the Public
Lands Foundation (PLF) has a unique body of experience, expertise, and
knowledge of public land management. As retirees, we believe we offer
an objective and non-bureaucratic view of what is currently happening
on the public lands managed by the BLM. The PLF supports the BLM and
its programs, but we are independent in our views and requests. We
strive to improve the effectiveness of the BLM by: 1) encouraging
professionalism of its employees; 2) increasing the public's
understanding of and support for the proper management of the public
lands; and 3) promoting scientific management of lands administered by
the BLM.
The BLM manages the most diverse landscapes in the Nation's
portfolio; providing stewardship to approximately 247 million acres of
land and 700 million acres of mineral estate from the north slope of
Alaska to Jupiter Inlet in Florida, and from tundra to old growth
forests to desert landscapes. These lands consist of many attributes,
habitat for thousands of species of plants and animals, clean water,
cultural resources, scenic beauty, solitude, and special places. They
also provide the Nation with wealth from its many resources including
oil and gas, coal, renewable energy, non-energy minerals, all types of
recreation, forage for livestock, timber, and wild horses and burros.
The economic value of these lands to the American people is immense;
according to the BLM: A Sound Investment for America 2020 report,
during Fiscal Year 2019 these lands generated combined revenues in
excess of $111 billion and supported over 498,000 jobs. These lands are
important economically to the United States as a whole. They are
especially vital to the many rural communities throughout the West that
are intermixed with these lands and whose citizens work and recreate on
the lands. These uses and values can only be achieved when there is
some balance between energy development and other programs, such as
wildlife, livestock grazing, forest management, and recreation to
provide for the diversity of uses and the maintenance of healthy,
resilient landscapes.
Last year Secretary Haaland made the decision to move the BLM
Headquarters back to Washington, D.C. The PLF strongly supports that
decision. This decision places the leadership of the BLM where it can
better work with the Department, other agencies, OMB and Congress, and
National constituencies, while maintaining its western presence through
its state and field office organization. The reorganization in 2019 and
2020 resulted in the loss of a large part of the senior level staff of
the agency through reassignments to other agencies or retirements. This
along with other factors such as Covid-19, resulted in a huge number of
vacancies across the Bureau, estimated to be at least 20 percent of the
full-time positions. These vacancies affect the Bureau at all levels of
the organization and the loss of capacity is impacting the BLM in
efficiently meeting its multiple use and sustained yield mission, along
with the additional workload that goes with implementing new
initiatives such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).
The leadership of BLM is currently working on filling these vacancies
and providing the necessary training of employees. The reality is that
unless the Bureau can successfully fill a significant number of these
vacancies, it will be impossible to carry out the priority work of the
Administration and this Congress.
The BLM estimates that the fiscal Year 2023 proposed budget will
support some 10,592 FTE positions and has also proposed an increase of
$8.1 million from fiscal Year 2021 and fiscal Year 2022 funding levels
for workforce and organizational support. The PLF is concerned that the
proposed budget may not meet the needs of the Bureau to reestablish the
leadership and refill vacant positions of the organization and requests
that Congress appropriate sufficient funding to the BLM to regain lost
capacity and add capacity to meet new initiatives such as the IIJA.
Funding must cover workforce planning, hiring, and training.
The PLF recognizes and appreciates the difficult decisions that
must be made by the Congress and the Administration to allocate scarce
dollars to programs that generate the best economic and social returns
to the American taxpayers. The PLF believes the budget should
prioritize programs that provide for healthy, resilient landscapes
capable of withstanding the impacts of a changing climate; the
conservation of species dependent on the diverse habitat the BLM
manages; economic benefits to the Nation and to the rural communities
dependent on the BLM-managed public lands; all forms of energy and
associated transmission; and the safety of communities these lands
surround and the public that lives near and uses them.
The BLM fiscal Year 2023 proposed budget of $1.6 billion includes
$1.4 billion for the Management of Lands and Resources appropriation
and $128.7 million for the Oregon and California Grant Lands
appropriation. This is a $238 million increase from fiscal Year 2021
and fiscal Year 2022 funding levels or approximately a 17.5 percent
increase in funding. This compares to a proposed funding increase of
24.5 percent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a proposed
funding increase of 15.8 percent for the National Park Service.
The PLF is supportive of the Oil and Gas Management ($115.8
million), Oil and Gas Inspection and Enforcement ($51 million), Coal
Management ($16.5 million), and Renewable Energy ($49.7 million) budget
requests for the BLM that support the sustainable and balanced
development of both traditional and renewable energy resources,
including solar, wind, and geothermal energy resources on the public
lands. Funding should also support the needs for the associated
infrastructure related to pipeline and transmission development on the
public lands necessary for the development of these energy resources.
Energy and infrastructure development on the public lands is part of
the multiple-use mandate for the BLM under the Federal Land Policy and
Management Act (FLPMA) and supports economic growth, energy
independence, jobs in our rural communities, and generates revenues for
Federal and State treasuries and local economies. It is critically
important that sufficient funds are provided to not only support the
leasing and permitting activities to facilitate environmentally
responsible energy development and associated infrastructure needs, but
that sufficient funds are also provided for land use planning, other
resource assessments, NEPA reviews, program management, and inspection
and compliance activities to assure that development is complying with
laws, regulations, and lease terms. Adequate dollars to cover Resource
Management Plans and activity-level plans must be available or the
permitting of any of these activities will be threatened by continuing
litigation. It should be recognized, however, that the development of
energy resources and associated infrastructure on the public lands also
affects other resources and must be balanced as to time and scale of
development. Funding for other high value resource programs can help
mitigate and offset some of the effects on these other resources and
the landscape. An example would be the proposed $158.5 million funding
in the Wildlife Habitat Management program, which includes support for
the implementation of conservation practices for sage-grouse under the
west-wide sage-grouse habitat management plans, currently being
revised, that are potentially affected by energy and infrastructure
development.
An area of great interest to the PLF is the management of habitat
for species across the diverse habitats of BLM managed public lands.
Habitat for the greater sage-grouse is one species of particular
concern because its management affects vast areas of the West. As the
West has become urbanized over the last 100 years,
large areas of sagebrush have been impacted and this medium-sized
bird has suffered population declines. Although it is a State-managed
species that depends on the sagebrush-steppe habitat to survive, the
BLM manages large areas of the habitat across the Western States and
must be in lock step with management strategies of the western States.
The PLF supports the proposed funding in the Wildlife Habitat
Management program to coordinate activities on public lands with State
agencies, stakeholders, and partners to improve and restore habitat
that has been damaged by wildfire, weed invasions, and development.
Conserving and restoring habitat for sage-grouse will also enhance
populations of elk, mule deer, golden eagles, and hundreds of species.
Healthy sagebrush habitats also maintain vibrant ranching communities
dependent on these habitats and a thriving outdoor recreation economy.
Another area of concern is one that the PLF has spoken to for many
years. The overpopulation of wild horses and burros on the range is
past the critical point and is doing irreparable harm to the land,
vegetation, wildlife, livestock, and the horses and burros themselves.
In the past we have requested that BLM receive significant increases in
this program so that the agency can aggressively address the
overpopulation issue through removals and fertility control. Last
fiscal year's appropriations included significant increases in this
program and BLM has been working to reduce the population. However, as
you well know, this program is not without controversy, and it will
take several years of work to address the imbalance between the horse
population and the health of the land. We ask that Congress support the
$153.1 million funding request for fiscal Year 2023 to allow the BLM to
implement their strategic management plan, consistent with the May 2020
Report to Congress on the BLM wild horse and burro program.
The BLM has proposed a $110 million funding level for the Rangeland
Management program for fiscal Year 2023, however has not addressed the
ever-increasing backlog of grazing permit renewals on the public lands.
The BLM administers approximately 18,000 grazing permits on nearly
22,000 grazing allotments. Grazing permits are generally renewed every
10 years. A proper renewal requires an appropriate level of NEPA
analysis to ensure healthy rangelands and conserve and protect lands
and other important resources. There is already a backlog of these
permit renewals and the analyses required for these renewals. As of
February 2022, the agency had 10,522 unprocessed permits and in fiscal
Year 2023 approximately 1,800 additional grazing permits are scheduled
to expire. A priority needs to be placed on the funding for the
analysis and review of those permits impacting riparian areas and those
permits not meeting rangeland health standards. Some reports have
indicated that 54 million acres, or half of the 108 million acres of
BLM grazing leases, do not meet rangeland health standards. If the BLM
is unable to conduct the reviews and analyses necessary to administer
these permit renewals, it will not only affect the range management
program but also all other programs. This backlog of permit renewals
also creates another additional problem, namely the potential for
litigation that will consume more manpower and financial resources of
the agency. The BLM needs additional funds in order to properly
administer the current and future backlog of permit renewals. The PLF
strongly urges Congress to appropriate an additional $8 million
specifically for the analyses and administration of grazing permit
renewals for each of the next 3 years, starting in fiscal Year 2023.
The BLM has proposed a $68.2 million funding level for the
Recreation Resources Management program for fiscal Year 2023, however
this funding level will not be sufficient to meet the dramatic increase
in the recreational use of the public lands. Recreation use throughout
the West has expanded significantly. Western communities are growing
and recent national trends toward more remote workforces has allowed
more and more employees to locate nearer public lands. One of the
attractions of the public land is the broad spectrum of recreation
activities that the public lands support, both dispersed recreation and
developed recreation sites. In 1993, the BLM recreation program budget
was $47 million. Adjusted for inflation, the fiscal Year 2021/FY 2022
budget should have been at $86 million, however the fiscal Year 2021/FY
2022 budget was only$58 million (a $28 million deficit). The BLM's
proposed fiscal Year 2023 budget has identified an increase of only
$9.7 million to enhance recreational opportunities and improve
infrastructure. This increase is insufficient. Without adequate and
sustained increases, the adverse impacts on the public lands from ever-
increasing recreation use will continue to be significant and the
recreational visitor will have less than positive experiences.
Several Administrations and Congresses have recognized that
catastrophic wildland fires continue to be a serious issue across all
land ownerships. These fires are the result of several conditions
across the landscape including climate change, deteriorating forest and
rangeland health, increased recreational use, and increased development
within the wildland-urban interface. Providing adequate funding for
wildfire preparedness and suppression is critical. Equally important is
the need to reduce wildland fuel loads and improve forest and rangeland
health and resiliency through active management. The land management
agencies have been working to reduce wildland fire risks over the past
few decades; however, there has not been adequate funding for the
agencies to address the problem at the pace and scale needed. Congress
recognized this issue and authorized additional funding through the
IIJA to help increase the pace of this work. The PLF requests that the
BLM and other land management agencies be fully funded for wildland
fire suppression and landscape health and resiliency projects.
One way to aid in the funding of BLM forest health projects is to
reauthorize the BLM's Forest Ecosystem Health and Recovery Fund
(FEHRF). In 1992, Congress established the FEHRF (Public Law 102-381)
to authorize the BLM to recover dead and dying timber rapidly and
restore the forested area quickly. This Fund was later broadened to
include forest health treatments. The Fund provided that the Federal
share of monies received from the disposal of the timber from these
treatments would remain available, without further appropriation, for
the BLM to conduct similar treatments. Since that time, the BLM has
successfully treated tens of thousands of acres using this authority.
It has been an important source of funds on the O&C lands, but in
particular on the Public Domain forestlands to restore the health of
forests. Authority for this fund has sunset; however, it has been
reauthorized through this fiscal year as part of the Continuing
Resolution. We strongly encourage the Congress to restore authority for
this important funding tool permanently, or in the alternative, for a
period of not less than 10 years.
While authorized by Congress in 2017, the current Administration
has just recently established the Foundation for America's Public
Lands. This Foundation is being tasked with providing supplemental
resources and support to the BLM, which will benefit all Americans who
value and use BLM-administered public lands. The Covid-19 pandemic
underscored just how important public lands are to this country. The
BLM has requested $1 million to support the Foundation in fiscal Year
2023 and Congress needs to provide sufficient funding to allow the
Foundation to continue its work on behalf of the BLM.
We appreciate the hard choices that this subcommittee has before
it. The Nation faces many challenges, all of which require funds. The
public lands managed by the BLM are a good investment that can provide
positive returns to the Treasury as well as many amenities that
contribute to the wellbeing of the American people. These lands are the
lifeblood of many communities that provide economic development in
commodities, recreation, cultural identity, and many other benefits.
Thank you for the opportunity to share the PLF's priorities for the
BLM fiscal Year 2023 Budget.
[This statement was submitted by Mary Jo Rugwell, President, Public
Lands Foundation.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Puyallup Tribe
The is an independent sovereign nation having historically
negotiated with several foreign nations, including the United States in
the Medicine Creek Treaty of 1854. This relationship is rooted in
Article I, Section 8, of the United States Constitution, Federal laws
and numerous Executive Orders. The governing body of the Puyallup Tribe
of Indians is the Puyallup Tribal Council which upholds the Tribe's
sovereign responsibility of self-determination and self-governance for
the benefit of the 6,000 Puyallup Tribal members and the 25,000 plus
members from approximately 355 federally recognized Tribes who utilize
our services.
The Puyallup Tribe operates healthcare, social services, law
enforcement and corrections, education, and a myriad of other programs
and services for our Tribal citizens and individuals within our program
and service areas. These programs depend on continued resources and
support through Federal appropriations--which reflect the Federal trust
and treaty obligations to American Indian and Alaska Native people and
Tribes.
department of health and human services--indian health service
The Puyallup Tribe has operated a healthcare program since 1976
through the Indian Self-determination Act, Public Law 93-638. The
Puyallup Tribal Health Authority (PTHA) operates a comprehensive
ambulatory care program serving the Native American population in
Pierce County, Washington. The current patient load exceeds 9,000, of
which approximately 1,700 are Tribal members.
There are no Indian Health Service hospitals in the Portland Area,
so all specialties and hospital care have been paid for out of our
contract care allocation. This the full funding of the Purchased and
Referred Care (PRC) program is critical to ensuring that Indian people
in the Northwest receive adequate health care. The Pandemic highlighted
this need, because the hospitalized care our COVID-19 patients needed
was paid for by PRC.
The Puyallup Tribe strongly supports the proposal for advance
appropriations for the Indian Health Service. The fiscal Year 2020
government shutdown underscored the need for this change. The delays in
funding had deeply-felt impacts in Tribes' ability to provide health
care to our people.
We also strongly support the initiative to make contract support
costs and 105(l) lease costs mandatory costs so that they do not
continue to stress the limited funding allocation that the subcommittee
receives. This is the first important step to making all the Indian
Health Service's funding mandatory.
Regarding Contract Support Costs, we remain concerned that the
Indian Health Service is seeking to undermine its obligation, which has
now been confirmed twice by the U.S. Supreme Court, to pay full
contract support costs, by categorizing certain necessary costs/
activities as ``Secretarial activities,'' and refusing to pay contract
support costs for these activities, which are and have always been
considered contract support cost activities for which Tribes have
received CSC payment. We would ask the Committee to include language in
its appropriations bill that would require the Indian Health Service to
compute fiscal Year 2023 CSC consistent with computations undertaken in
fiscal Year 2021. We appreciate the direction to the Agency on this
matter in the fiscal Year 2023 Committee Conference Report.
department of interior--bureau of indian affairs
We strongly support increased funding for the Bureau of Indian
Affairs and Bureau of Indian Education. This funding is to focus on the
most critical needs of Indian country, the safety of our children, our
families, and our environment.
Public Safety & Justice: The Tribe's top priority is public safety
and justice. The lack of financial resources is a significant barrier
to the provision of effective public safety services in Indian country.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs only provides $588,000 for our Tribal law
enforcement services contract, this amounts to 8 percent of the Tribe's
total level of need. The Tribe can supplement these resources, so that
we are able to have a Chief of Police, and thirty commissioned officers
and two (2) reserve officers.
These officers are charged with the service and protection of the
entire 40 square miles of the Reservation and the usual and accustomed
areas where we exercise our Treaty protected hunting and fishing
rights. The Puyallup Reservation encompasses most of the City of
Tacoma, as well as parts of five other different municipalities (Fife,
Milton, Puyallup, Edgewood and Federal Way). Furthermore, Interstate 5
runs through the Puyallup Reservation and is a known drug and human
trafficking corridor. Our officers are tired, and they need
reinforcements.
Detention and corrections funding remains of critical importance to
the Puyallup Tribe. The Puyallup Tribe has a 28-bed adult corrections
facility. Again, we worked closely with the OJS on an agreed upon
operating cost of this facility at $2.7 million. However, the BIA
provides only $725,000, approximately 26 percent of what the Tribe
needs to run the facility.
In addition, we operate a Tribal Court program. Our base BIA
funding for this program has remained at $194,996 since fiscal Year
2015. Like the Law Enforcement and Detention funding, this amount
represents only a small amount of the Tribe's needs to fully operate
the Tribal Court program. Increased funding for Tribal courts is
critical as we are working to exercise our jurisdiction over non-
Indians who commit domestic violence and other violent crimes against
native women.
Natural Resources Management: The Puyallup Tribe is the steward for
the land and marine waters of our homeland, including our usual and
accustomed fishing places and shellfish and wildlife areas. The United
States has treaty, trust, and governmental obligations and
responsibilities to manage natural resources for uses that are
beneficial to the Tribal membership and regional communities. Our
resource management responsibilities cover thousands of square miles in
the Puget Sound with an obligation to manage production of anadromous,
non- anadromous fish, shellfish and wildlife resources. Unfortunately,
despite our diligent program efforts, the fisheries resource is
degrading, causing economic losses on Native and Non-native fishermen,
as well as the surrounding communities.
Existing levels of appropriations are simply inadequate to reverse
the trend of resource/habitat degradation in Puget Sound and other
areas. A minimum funding level of $17.146 million is necessary for the
BIA Western Washington (Bolt) Fisheries Management program, and we urge
the subcommittee to meet or exceed this amount for fiscal Year 2023
appropriations. Any increase in funding would provide new monies for
shellfish, groundfish, enforcement, habitat, wildlife and other natural
resource management needs. As the aboriginal owners and guardians of
our lands and waters, it is essential that adequate funding is provided
to allow Tribes to carry out our inherent stewardship of these
resources.
The Puyallup Tribe also operates several salmon hatcheries in our
territory. These hatcheries benefit both Indian and non-Indian
commercial and sport fisheries. We work cooperatively with the
Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, neighboring Tribes, Federal
agencies and state fishery managers to ensure the success and
sustainability of our hatchery programs. We urge Congress to increase
funding to these important facilities. And finally, the Timber, Fish
and Wildlife (TFW) Supplemental and U.S./Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty
programs have allowed for the expansion of Tribal participation in the
state forest practice rules and regulations, as well as allowed Tribes
to participate in inter-Tribal organizations to address specific
treaties and legal cases relating to multi-national fishing rights,
harvest allocations, and resource management practices. This funding
must be continued.
One area of critical importance is the need to provide additional
resources to fund natural resource infrastructure to ensure that our
Natural Resource Programs have the facilities they need to operate.
Operations of Indian Programs & Tribal Priority Allocations: The
Tribal Priority Allocations (TPA) account within the Operations of
Indian Programs include the majority of funding used to support ongoing
services at the ``local tribal'' level, including natural resources
management, child welfare, education, and other Tribal government
services. These functions have not received adequate and consistent
funding to allow Tribes the resources to fully exercise self-
determination and self-governance. Further, the small increases TPA has
received over the past few years have not been adequate to keep pace
with inflation. The Puyallup Tribe requests that the subcommittee
increase funding for the Operation of Indian Programs and TPA to ensure
program stability and operations as the needs of our Tribal members
increase.
Bureau of Indian Education. We celebrate the Administration's
emphasis on the Tribal Schools. The Puyallup Tribe operates the pre-K
to 12 Chief Leschi School, including the ECEAP and FACE programs, with
an enrollment of 640 + students. The costs of operating this school--
including staff, supplies, and student transportation--continue to
increase. Unfortunately, the amounts that Congress has appropriated are
not keeping-up with inflation, let alone sufficient to allow us to
dedicate additional resources to improving the education outcomes for
our children. We are treading water and if more assistance is not
provided, we may begin to drown.
[This statement was submitted by Bill Sterud, Chairman of the
Puyallup Tribe of Indians.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Ramah Navajo School Board
Honorable Chair, Ranking and subcommittee Members, Ya'aht'eeh. My
name is Martha Garcia, President of the Ramah Navajo School Board, Inc.
(RNSB). Together with the other four members of the Board of Trustees
and on behalf of the Ramah Navajo people, we are grateful to all the
members of the U.S. House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees on
Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies for the opportunity to
share our testimony.
RNSB operates a complex of Head Start, Elementary, Junior High and
High Schools, as well as the Pine Hill Health Center and Behavioral
Health and Social Services programs on the Ramah Navajo Reservation in
New Mexico. In 1970, RNSB established the Ramah Navajo High School, the
first Indian community school governed by an all-Indian, locally
controlled school board. Our efforts were a model for the
groundbreaking 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Educational
Assistance Act, PL 93-638 (ISDEAA). Today, RNSB provides quality
services and programs to address our community's needs and uplift their
economic conditions.
RNSB's priority budget concerns include line items in the Bureau of
Indian Education (BIE), Bureau Indian Affairs (BIA), and Indian Health
Service (IHS) budgets. We also have significant facility and
infrastructure challenges that must be addressed to be able to deliver
our programs and services safely and without disruptions. Our pressing
infrastructure needs include the renovation and replacement of school
buildings, completing the replacement of our electrical system, and the
replacement of our water and wastewater systems.
Our priority budget line items in the BIE and BIA budgets are:
--Increases for ISEP Formula Funds;
--Full Funding for Teacher and Counselor Pay Parity;
--Expanding Eligibility for Tribally Controlled Schools to
Participate in the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS);
--Increases for Road Maintenance for School Bus Routes and Student
Transportation;
--School Facility Replacement Construction and Oversight of the
Division of Facilities Management and Construction (DFMC);
--Emergency Repair and Support for Essential Infrastructure Systems;
and
--Reduce Unnecessary and Burdensome Reporting to the BIE.
Our priority budget line items in the IHS budget are:
--Advance Appropriations; and
--Increases for the Hospitals and Health Clinics line item in the IHS
Services Budget.
education
ISEP Formula Funds is the core BIE account, which funds our
school's operations. ISEP funding increases are vital to enhancing
learning opportunities for all of our students through the training,
development and retention of excellent teachers. Schools across the
Nation are facing a significant teacher shortage but that shortage is
particularly acute here in more remote communities like ours on the
Navajo Nation. New Mexico has responded to the Nationwide teacher
shortage by significantly increasing teacher pay. RNSB does not have
the budget to compete with the salaries being offered by public schools
here in New Mexico. In order to effectively address this problem, we
need ISEP increases paired with Full Funding for Teacher and Counselor
Pay Parity, and opportunities to expand the benefits package we can
offer our teachers and staff as discussed below.
Full Funding for Teacher and Counselor Pay Parity is a critical
tool for attracting and retaining quality teachers. We ask the
subcommittees to continue to hold the BIE accountable for ensuring that
the amounts requested for pay parity are sufficient to match the
increases provided by the Defense Department schools. Given the
significant salary increases for public school teachers in New Mexico,
RNSB also encourages consideration for pay rate increases that would
keep pace with either the Defense Department schools, or the rate of
nearby public schools, whichever of these rates is higher. Given our
acute teacher shortage, these requested increases to provide pay parity
are essential.
Expanding Eligibility for Tribally Controlled Schools to
Participate in the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) would
significantly bolster the efforts of tribally controlled schools like
ours to attract and retain quality teachers, but would not create any
new costs for the Federal Government. We thank Congress for recently
extending eligibility for tribally controlled schools to participate in
the Federal Employee Health Benefits (FEHB) and Federal Employee Group
Life Insurance (FEGLI) programs. Extending the option of FERS
participation to us and other tribally controlled schools would provide
a competitive benefits package that will enhance our ability to recruit
and retain teachers.
Increases for Student Transportation in the BIE Budget and Road
Maintenance Funding for School Bus Routes in the BIA Budget are of
particular importance to RNSB. Our experience is consistent with what
the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in 2017: poor road
conditions on school bus routes present safety concerns and pose
obstacles to student attendance. Many of our students travel long
distances on unpaved (gravel) and unimproved earth roads. A strong rain
or snowstorm can render our school bus routes impassible and disrupt
learning for days. Also, as the GAO pointed out, our geographically
dispersed locations and poor road conditions result in increased
transportation costs for fuel (especially now as gasoline prices are
skyrocketing), additional vehicle maintenance, and the increased bus
driver pay associated with our rural and isolated routes.
RNSB is greatly concerned by the increased costs for student
transportation and the continued deteriorating conditions of the roads
serving our communities. RNSB has been troubled by the BIE's outdated
and incomplete student transportation funding formula, which currently
operates to underestimate student transportation needs. Most BIE-funded
grant schools on the Navajo Nation exhaust their student transportation
allocation by February of each school year. The BIE's school
transportation funding formula does not consider the higher maintenance
costs for vehicles traveling on rutted, washboard gravel roads.
Additionally, many necessary transportation expenses are not eligible
for funding under the formula. These include trips made for fuel or
maintenance services; transportation necessary for medical or other
emergencies; transportation associated with after-school programs (such
as athletics, band, detention, tutoring and study hall, arts and
crafts, special classes, and other extra-curricular activities). Given
that after-school programs are a vital part of the curriculum we offer,
RNSB views after-school student transportation as an essential student
service that should be included in the BIE's funding formula to better
respond to the actual needs and costs for student transportation in the
BIE-funded school system. For these reasons, continued increases for
Student Transportation and Road Maintenance funding targeted to school
bus routes remain essential.
School Facilities Improvement & Repair and School Replacement
Construction in the BIE's Education Construction budget significantly
impacts the health and safety of our students and staff. RNSB is
grateful to the subcommittees for the increasing levels of support you
have provided for the improvement and replacement of school facilities.
In our prior years' testimonies, RNSB has documented the significant
health, safety and learning challenges our students have faced as a
result of the chronically delayed and piecemeal approach the Indian
Affairs Division of Facilities Management and Construction (DFMC) takes
with respect to the repair and maintenance of our facilities. Through
our testimony before the subcommittees and the strong support of our
Congressional Delegation, RNSB has able to address part of our
education facilities concerns through an agreement with DFMC to
replace, renovate and repair certain school buildings. RNSB is very
concerned, however, by the lack of progress being made by the DFMC. In
April 2019, DFMC anticipated a 30-month period for the completion of
both the renovation and new construction phases of the project. Today,
more than 30 months have passed and the project has not even reached
the 20 percent design phase. RNSB looks forward to the moment when we
can report to the subcommittees that the project is completed and we
have provided our students with a learning environment where they can
excel, with healthy indoor air and water quality, reliable internet
connectivity and IT features-all unhindered by disruptions caused by
power outages, leaking pipes or other health and safety hazards.
Emergency Repair and Support for Essential Infrastructure Systems.
The Ramah Navajo community celebrated RNSB's 50th anniversary in 2020,
just before the COVID-19 Pandemic began. After 50 years of operation,
however, RNSB has been experiencing significant facility and
infrastructure needs as critical systems, such as our water and
wastewater systems, have exhausted their design life, or have
deteriorated due to insufficient inspection and maintenance activities
by the BIA. Power and water service outages and broken pipes disrupt
the delivery of services and can pose serious risks to health and
safety. RNSB has sought DFMC assistance with respect to emergency
repair for our water system as water samples have exceeded the
Environmental Protection Agency Maximum Contaminant Levels for arsenic,
lead, radionuclides and endocrine disrupting phthalates water. RNSB
also sought DFMC emergency repair assistance with respect to the
failure of our electrical system. Both the water system and the
electrical system failures have posed immediate threats to life,
health, and safety. In the case of our electrical system, the DFMC
failed to conduct a site visit and indicated that since the repair at
RNSB exceeded the Agency's $250,000 program funding limit for emergency
repairs, it would not treat the matter as an emergency repair.
Meanwhile, RNSB's wells and water pipes are 45 years old and need
replacing. The system has grown over the years and serves not only our
school building, but also our IHS-funded clinic, and other facilities
that are needed by the community. Safe, clean water is one of the most
pressing of RNSB's priorities.
As a matter of oversight and accountability, we ask the
subcommittees to inquire with DFMC regarding its emergency repair cap
and call upon the DFMC to engage in meaningful consultation with the
requesting Tribe or Tribal organization on emergency repairs whenever
facility conditions present a threat to life, health, and safety.
Furthermore, as the subcommittees consider facility funding
requirements for BIE-funded schools, RNSB encourages the subcommittees
to ensure those budget requests include amounts necessary for periodic
inspection, maintenance and upgrades of essential supporting
infrastructure.
Reduce Unnecessary and Burdensome Reporting to ensure the effective
implementation of Indian education programs and the efficient use of
Federal resources. RNSB has concerns regarding BIE actions that have
undermined self-determination in Indian education and distracted our
teachers and administrators from focusing on providing quality
educational services to our students. When Congress drafted the
Tribally Controlled Schools Act (TCSA), it included an express
limitation on tribally controlled schools' reporting requirements and
what authorities apply to them. Yet, the BIE often attempts to subject
tribally controlled schools to additional reporting that duplicates
information already available in the existing reports that tribally
controlled schools provide. When RNSB personnel are used to gather,
format, and submit information in response to the BIE, they are not
available to focus their efforts on providing educational services to
our students. We ask that the subcommittees express awareness of
concerns in the appropriations instructions that will be provided to
the BIE and that those instructions request a report or response from
the BIE.
Thank you. Before turning to our health priorities, we would like
to extend our gratitude to the subcommittees for the role you played in
ensuring that schools in the BIE school system were included in the
COVID-19 relief laws in a robust and equitable manner.
health
Support for Advance Appropriations for IHS. Funding delays make it
impossible for IHS and Tribal health programs to plan and manage our
annual budgets. At the time of this writing, fiscal Year 2022 is almost
halfway over, and we are still waiting to understand our full
appropriation. We urge the subcommittees to take the necessary steps in
the fiscal Year 2023 appropriations bill to move IHS to an advance
appropriation starting in fiscal Year 2024.
Increases are needed for the Hospitals and Health Clinics line item
in the IHS Services Budget. Our Pine Hill Health Center services three
counties in NM, and one county in Arizona. Cibola, McKinley, Catron,
and Apache. Services are provided to 19,023 residents of the four
counties. Over the past year we have experienced a 10 percent per
capita increase in healthcare spending, attributed to these several
factors: inflation, increases in staff salaries, and additional costs
associated with treating patients with long COVID. More funding is
needed to keep pace with these increased costs.
[This statement was submitted by Ramah Navajo School Board, Inc.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians
I am Dr. Aaron Payment. As the elected Chairperson of the Sault
Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, I am speaking on behalf of my
Tribe. My testimony today will focus upon Federal recognition of Tribal
sovereignty rights; Federal treaty and trust obligations to the Tribes;
the need for mandatory funding; and advance appropriations. Throughout
all of my testimony, I will use data from my own Tribe, as well as
national statistics.
The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians is located in the
Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The Tribe administers 23 governmental
divisions and manages over 75 federal, State, local and tribally funded
programs across our seven-county service area-Alger, Chippewa, Delta,
Luce, Mackinac, Marquette and Schoolcraft counties. We have a Tribal
membership of 43,376. Our territory includes 2,800 acres of trust land
and our ceded territories throughout Michigan where we exercise our
Treaty reserved rights to fish, hunt and gather. For almost fifty years
the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe has built its governmental capacity to
provide the full range of services to its members including health
care, education, elder services, law enforcement, housing, family and
social services, and cultural programs.
The Tribe operates 8 health clinics across our seven-county service
area. In these clinics we offer a wide range of services including
medical, dental, behavioral health, special diabetes, nutrition,
pharmacy, wellness programs, and traditional medicine. We are proud of
our work in this space, but it is time to fully fund Indian Health
Services.
We strongly support Indian Programs Advance Appropriations Act.
This legislation is modeled after the Veterans Health Care Budget
Reform and Transparency Act of 2009 and the Surface Transportation and
Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015. We also strongly
support making the Indian Health Service mandatory federal. Overall,
this will insulate funding that helps fulfill trust obligations,
provide for seamless operations across fiscal years and advance
fairness and parity.
indian health services
The pandemic made clear that there is no more critical need in
Indian country than competent health care. People's lives are literally
at stake. Poor living conditions contribute to the Native health
crisis, but so too, does the Federal Government's failure to adequately
fund Tribal health programs. National health care spending in 2016 was
$9,990 per capita, while Indian Health Service spending was only
$2,834. American Indians and Alaskan Natives are much harder hit by
disease, chronic illness, and injury than other Americans. Native
Americans are 450 percent more likely to die of tuberculosis; 520
percent more likely to suffer from alcohol-related deaths; 368 percent
more likely to die from chronic liver disease and cirrhosis; 207
percent more likely to die from motor vehicle crashes; 177 percent more
likely to die from diabetes complications; and our youth are 2.5
percent times more likely to commit suicide than other populations.
Cancer rates in Indian Country are 12 percent higher than the rest of
the US, and Native Americans with cancer are 26 percent more likely to
die compared to non-Natives. The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa
Indians Tribal clinics are only funded at approximately 50 percent
capacity which means that we are unable to provide adequate treatment
for our People. Thus, we need additional resources across the full
spectrum of the Indian Health care system.
Hospitals and Health Clinics: We fully support the Bemidji Area's
recommendation for a 12.7 percent increase in the Health and Health
Clinic line item will allow Area and Tribal programs to apply funding
in a targeted and program specific manner; at the same time, it
supports the direct care needs unique to each Tribal community.
Certainly, funding for the Indian Health Care Improvement Fund must be
used to ensure that each reach has funding parity.
Indian Health Facilities: In the Bemidji Area, we need a regional
opioid addiction recovery treatment facility. In February, 2019 we
announced a collaboration with the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation to
expand our substance abuse treatment and recovery services and enhance
our integrated health and wellness center to build a true team based
facility to support those in our community and throughout the Region
who are in the throes of addiction.
The Recovery Hospital and Campus is a product of the Tribe's Tribal
Action Plan, approved in 2016 by the Tribe, with the input from the
membership. From this process we heard the membership's demand for a
Recovery Hospital close to home, with Traditional Medicine at its core.
We have learned that incorporating traditional beliefs and culture are
critical to combatting the cultural identity crisis that has plagued
Tribal communities since the 1800's. Our idea is to incorporate
culturally traditional and modern treatment modalities, while working
not only with the addict but his family as well. Only through family
support and healthy living, will be able to effectively combat this
plague. As we have started the journey to make this dream a reality, we
have been confronted by many who tell us this kind of facility has
never been built in Indian country. Therefore, it cannot be done. My
ancestors overcame too much for me to give up simply because something
has never been done before. I believe we can do it and I am asking for
your help to make our dream a reality.
Health IT Modernization: We support the increase of $750 million
for Electronic Health Records. In addition to ensuring electronic
health record stabilization, it will be imperative to have a system
that ``talks'' with other systems, including those associated with the
Veterans Administration, Federal prisons, and Tribal and Urban Indian
facilities. For this to happen in our Area, Bemidji needs broadband and
technological infrastructure support. The same kind of support will be
needed throughout Indian Country.
Purchased and Referred Care (PRC): We support the 11.1 percent
requested increase for Purchased and Referred Care. While primary and
direct care programs exist in some areas of Indian Country, access to
more advanced care is still needed and PRC funding increases will
assist with this need along with augmenting direct care services. The
need for full funding of Purchased and Referred Care was made critical
by the pandemic, as many patients needed to be treated in hospitals
with ICU units or acute respiratory care units, which impact PRC
dollars.
Dental Services: The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe supports the requested
4.9 percent increase for Dental Services. Dental services are a growing
need in the Area and a recent analysis of the funding received showed
that the current level of funding equates to only $20 per individual in
the Bemidji Area. Increased money and resources are necessary to meet
the dental needs of Indian Country.
bureau of indian affairs
Tribal Natural Resources Programs: The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of
Chippewa Indians are co-managers of a large part of lakes Michigan,
Huron, and Superior as we hold Treaty protected rights to fish in these
lakes pursuant to the 1836 Treaty. Thus, it is critical that the
Congress provide full funding for the Chippewa Ottawa Resource
Authority to ensure proper management of the resource consistent with
the court approved consent decree.
On November 15th, 2021 the Secretaries of the Interior and
Agriculture issued a Joint Secretarial Order on Fulfilling the Trust
Responsibility to Indian Tribes in the Stewardship of Federal Lands and
Waters. This order was issued to ``ensure that the Department of
Agriculture and the Department of the Interior (Departments) and their
component Bureaus and Offices are managing Federal lands and waters in
a manner that seeks to protect the treaty, religious, subsistence, and
cultural interests of federally recognized Indian Tribes [...]; that
such management is consistent with the Nation-to-nation relationship
between the United States and federally recognized Indian Tribes; and,
that such management fulfills the United States' unique trust
obligation to federally recognized Indian Tribes and their citizens.
Also on November 15th, 2021 the President's Office of Science and
Technology Policy issued a memorandum to the heads of all departments
and agencies instructing them to ``recognize Indigenous Traditional
Ecological Knowledge (ITEK)-a form of Indigenous Knowledge-as one of
the many important bodies of knowledge that contributes to the
scientific, technical, social, and economic advancements of the United
States and to our collective understanding of the natural world.''
The Bureau of Indian Affairs appropriations are the primary funding
mechanism for the Sault Tribe Natural Resources Programs to engage our
Federal Partners in ensuring that ITEK is incorporated and that our
collective treaty and subsistence are properly accounted for and
communicated in pursuit of these Federal policies. We ask Congress to
provide support for Tribal natural resources programs to develop and
integrate this information into our work to better protect treaty
protected natural resources.
The BIA's Natural Resources Management Endangered Species program
is an important program, vital to the maintenance of important
threatened and endangered species. Since 2012, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe
of Chippewa Indians has identified several endangered species needs and
submitted requests for funding. To date however, our funding requests
have not been granted. This is due to the competitive nature of limited
funds available to the Midwest region. My Tribe recommends full funding
for the program.
The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians has relied on the
BIA Forestry Program for several planning and management of forestry
projects on the Reservation. While my Tribe does not have substitutive
commercial forest resources, we do have over 1,500 acres of forest
lands that are maintained. The management of these acres are dependent
on the Forestry Program funds and the BIA staff that work on our
behalf. Additionally, we have a strong interest in developing forest
resources in the future. We see this as an opportunity for the Tribe to
create new jobs for Tribal members and increase access to natural
resources for subsistence harvest. We strongly recommend full funding
of the BIA Forestry Program.
Tribal Court Programs: Our Tribal Court program, an integral
component to our Tribe's sovereignty, is significantly underfunded. In
fact, the Federal Government provides only 3.76 percent of base need
funding necessary to operate a Tribal Court capable of meeting our
Tribe's service population needs. In fact, Federal base funding for our
Tribal Court program has only increased a total of $3,000 in the past
21 years. In the end, our Tribe provides additional funding necessary
to meet the needs of basic needs of our government, but that money is
taken from other governmental programs, such as health, education, and
care for the elderly.
Even with this strong Tribal support for our program, our courts
are still lacking. Our most recent BIA assessment of our courts
identified the need to upgrade the Court's technology, improve the
Tribal Court building's security. We recommend Congress fully fund
Tribal Courts base funding levels to meet the budget model provided by
the BIA.
[This statement was submitted by Dr. Aaron A. Payment, Chairperson
of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.]
______
Prepared Statement of Seattle Indian Health Board
Chair Pingree, Ranking Member Joyce, and members of the House
Committee on Appropriations--Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and
Related Agencies, my name is Esther Lucero. I am Dine, of Latino
descent, the third generation in my family to be living outside of our
reservation, and I strongly identify as an urban Indian. I serve as the
President & Chief Executive Officer of the Seattle Indian Health Board
(SIHB), one of 41 Indian Health Service (IHS) designated urban Indian
organizations (UIO) nationwide serving the 76 percent of American
Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) people residing in urban areas.\1\ I
have had the privilege of serving SIHB for 6 years and have been
providing testimony to this subcommittee for the past 4 years. I am
honored to have the opportunity to submit my testimony today, including
a request of $949.7 million to the Urban Indian Health line item to
address the chronic underfunding of the Indian healthcare system and
support our communities' adjustments to live alongside the COVID-19
pandemic.
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\1\ U.S. Census Bureau. (2021). County Population by
Characteristics: 2010-2020. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/
popest/technical-documentation/research/evaluation-estimates/2020-
evaluation-estimates/2010s-county-detail.html
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supplemental funding for urban indian organizations
I would like to extend our gratitude to the subcommittee for the
record investments in the Indian healthcare system through COVID-19
supplements, which included $414 million for the 41 UIOs nationwide.
SIHB was awarded $37 million in COVID-19 supplements captured by a
diverse stream of funding from the Public Health Service and Social
Services Emergency Fund, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA), and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).
As you know, UIOs have historically never received facilities dollars.
These investments supported SIHB's ability to enhance our facility to
create a COVID-19 safe environment for our relatives (patients) and our
staff. We are also proud to say that we did not have to furlough or
layoff staff through the pandemic and we have kept our services open to
meet the needs of our people. We have been identified as true leaders
in our community-centered approach to COVID-19 testing and vaccination
distribution, which never would have occurred without these
supplemental funds.
Additionally, I would like to thank the subcommittee for the
passage of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) which included the
temporary extension of 100 percent Federal Medical Assistance
Percentage (FMAP) to UIOs, amended the UIO line item for funds to be
utilized for minor renovations, and addressed the ``Four Walls'' issue
to allow for services outside of Tribal facilities. These inclusions
are critical to improving the quality of healthcare service delivery to
AI/AN communities nationwide. In Washington State, we successfully
advocated to have the 100 percent FMAP cost-savings allocated into a
budget line item that will support our work in documenting our
Traditional health services as billable services. This allows us to
serve our relatives in a culturally attuned manner and ensures that our
Indigenous epistemologies are treated in parity with western care
methods.
advance appropriations & mandatory spending for the indian healthcare
system
I am thankful for members of the subcommittee for supporting S.
2985 Indian Programs Advanced Appropriations Act, to authorize advance
appropriations for IHS. This can mitigate the potential for unsavory
administrations to inflict us with government shutdowns. However, IHS
has failed to submit a budget proposal to Congress, creating an
administrative barrier to moving forward with this legislative act.\2\
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\2\ To accompany H.R. 4372-117th Congress. (July 6, 2021).
Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
Appropriations Bill, 2022. https://www.congress.gov/117/crpt/hrpt83/
CRPT-117hrpt83.pdf
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To address this concern, I would like to request Congressional
advocacy to immediately appoint an IHS Director capable of submitting a
budget proposal that outlines the necessary structure and incremental
funding approaches for the Indian healthcare system to reach full
funding levels. In previous recommendations to the subcommittee, SIHB
had requested the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) oversee
IHS submitting the budget proposal. In combination, the IHS budget
proposal and advanced appropriation bill will strengthen the Indian
healthcare system to avoid susceptibility to Continuing Resolutions
(CR) and government shutdowns.
I also urge the subcommittee to support the proposed President's
Budget for Fiscal Year 2023 which includes $9.1 billion in mandatory
spending for IHS. Historically, the Indian healthcare system has been
significantly affected by CRs and government shutdowns. In the midst a
pandemic, I find it frustrating that we were dependent on a CR for
fiscal Year 2022 until March 2022. CRs harm the daily operations of
UIOs and threaten the continuation of our services, programs, and
activities offered to our relatives. In the previous administration,
the government shutdowns closed IHS facilities, delayed our relatives'
access to critical healthcare services, and in some cases resulted in
death of community members. If we had not received generous donations
from community partners, we would have had to close our entire Elders'
program. Mandatory spending and advance appropriations can support the
long-term planning and quality of healthcare delivery provided by the
Indian healthcare system at large.
optimizing 100 percent federal medical assistance percentage (fmap)
I encourage the subcommittee to support permanent reauthorization
of urban Indian health parity. Congress recently passed a 2-year
temporary extension of 100 percent FMAP to UIOs through ARPA. Through
our collaborative efforts with Tribal and state partners, Federal cost
savings have been captured into Washington State's Indian Health
Improvement Reinvestment Account. The 2-year pilot will bring in an
estimated $18 million for health programs, activities, and services
provided to AI/AN communities.
Following the overwhelming success of the FMAP reinvestment, SIHB
received SAMHSA Block Grant funds to implement a first-of-its-kind
Traditional Indian Medicine (TIM) Parity Pilot. The pilot program seeks
to demonstrate TIM's impact on improving health outcomes and increasing
cost savings when sufficiently integrated into a blend of Western and
culturally attuned services. SIHB's pilot will credential and privilege
our TIM practitioners and assign Electronic Health Record (EHR) codes
for TIM services within existing behavioral health billing models. TIM
encounters will be documented within our EHR system and evaluated by
our research division--Urban Indian Health Institute (UIHI). Our final
report on the pilot will be shared with Tribal, government, and
community partners to encourage the reimbursement of traditional
programs nationally.
Blending TIM services with Western healthcare is essential to
improving our relative's health outcomes and reducing health
disparities. In 2021, our TIM services had over 39,000 encounters with
the highest service areas including blessings, educational and cultural
programing, and group talking circles. Despite the positive health
impacts of TIM services, the absence of third-party reimbursement or
other funding mechanisms continues to be a substantial barrier to AI/
ANs accessing TIM services.
increased demand for behavioral health access & workforce development
I applaud President Biden's recent recommendation to increase
funding for behavioral health prevention, treatment, and harm reduction
services, including targeted investments in culturally attuned
services.\3\ AI/AN people are disproportionately represented in poor
behavioral health outcomes, including higher rates of behavioral health
conditions such as mental health, substance use, and suicide.\4\
Mounting stressors and grief related to COVID-19, have shown increasing
national rates of substance use disorder (SUD) before and during the
pandemic \5\ yet the access to behavioral health providers is lacking,
especially in AI/AN communities. I ask the subcommittee to support
workforce initiatives that support the Indian healthcare system
including dual credentialing of our behavioral health providers and
increasing administrative activities under the IHS Loan Repayment
Program (LRP).
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\3\ President Biden's State of the Union Address. (March 2022).
Retrieved from: https://www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-union-2022/
\4\ U.S. Department of Health and Human Services--Office of
Minority Health. (2021). Mental and Behavioral Health - American
Indians/Alaska Natives. Retrieved from: https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/
omh/browse.aspx?lvl=4&lvlID=39
\5\ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (December 2020).
COVID-19 and People at Increased Risk. Retrieved from: https://
www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/resources/covid-drugs-QA.html#risk-severity
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To address the shortage of behavioral health providers, I would
like to request Congressional support to mirror the Veterans Benefits
Administration (VBA) dual certification process of behavioral health
and mental health providers for the Indian healthcare system. I have
recently spoken to IHS, who has stressed this is a legislative fix that
can increase incentives for providers to join the Indian healthcare
system. To address the growing need for SUD treatment, SIHB offers out-
patient behavioral health services and is in the process of acquiring a
facility for a 92-bed in-patient facility. Dual certification can
support our soon to open in-patient facility that will increase the
local behavioral health workforce and include services for pregnant and
parenting adults, offer Medically Assisted Treatment, operate a full-
service clinic with pharmaceutical services, and offer culturally
attuned services for whole-person care.
I also believe adjusting the IHS LRP can increase leadership skills
for providers. Currently, IHS LRP contracts outline clinical practice
as. 8 Full Time Employee (FTE) practicing direct inpatient or
outpatient care and. 2 FTE performing practice-related administrative
activities. Many times, participants in the IHS LRP go on to fill
critical leadership roles within the Indian healthcare system but feel
unprepared to fulfill the required roles and duties of leadership
positions. To address this gap, I suggest increasing administrative
activities to. 3 FTE and reducing clinical time to. 7 FTE to ensure
providers learn how to manage clinical operations.
Collectively, these two initiatives can address the Indian
healthcare systems vacancies and provide necessary incentives to
support recruitment and retention of healthcare professionals. I also
support the National Tribal Budget Formulation Workgroup recommendation
to invest $1 billion to the Indian healthcare workforce development
program to address the chronic and pervasive health care provider
shortages.
infrastructure for the indian healthcare systems
I am grateful for the facilities fix in ARPA allowing UIOs to
utilize our single line item for facility improvement, but this
amendment is not enough. Recently, the Indian healthcare facility
construction need grew from $14.5 billion in 2016 to $23 billion in
2021.\6\ UIOs continue to face severely aged, inefficient, and
overcrowded healthcare facilities that are not equipped to meet the
rising healthcare demands.
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\6\ Indian health Service. (2021). Indian Health Service All Tribal
and Urban Indian Organizations Leader Call presentation. Retrieved
from: https://www.ihs.gov/sites/newsroom/themes/responsive2017/
display_objects/documents/2021_Speeches/
IHSJulyTribalLeaderandUIOLeaderCallJuly2021.pdf.
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I want to echo our UIO partner's request \7\ and encourage Congress
to invest $100 million in future infrastructure packages to address the
immediate needs of UIO facilities including construction, maintenance,
equipment, and other facility needs.
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\7\ NCAI. (April 13,2021). RE: Indian Country Infrastructure
Legislative Proposal. Retrieved from: https://ncai.org/
NCAI_Indian_Country_Infrastructure_Letter---FINAL_Update-.pdf.
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improving health equity through urban confers
Lastly, I would like to request members of the subcommittee support
of H.R. 5221 Urban Indian Health Confer Act. H.R. 5221 will allow UIOs
to be part of the decision-making process with Federal health agencies,
while increasing transparency between UIOs and HHS. Urban confers
address key challenges for AI/AN and have the potential to increase
culturally responsive services and quality of health service delivery
to AI/AN populations. Urban confer mechanisms can also guide preventive
measures to address chronic health conditions, diseases of concern, and
public health emergencies. The passage of H.R. 5221 will support the
requests made in this testimony including advocacy for 100 percent
FMAP, behavioral health workforce initiatives, infrastructure, and
support equitable decision-making on the allocation of resources
provided to the Indian health care system.
[This statement was submitted by Esther Lucero (Dine), President &
CEO, Seattle Indian Health Board.]
______
Prepared Statement of Self-Governance Communication & Education Tribal
Consortium
On behalf of SGCETC, I am submitting this written statement
regarding funding priorities for the fiscal Year 2023 budgets for the
Departments of the Interior's (DOI) Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA),
Health and Human Services' (HHS) Indian Health Service (IHS) and
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The fiduciary responsibilities of the United States to Tribal
Nations arise from commitments made in treaties and agreements, in
exchange for which Indians relinquished vast tracks of homelands and
resources.\1\ More than 380 Tribal Nations have entered into Self-
Governance agreements with the DOI and/or IHS to transfer Federal
resources and programs from Federal to Tribal administration to better
serve the needs of their citizens and communities. Tribal Nations that
elect to administer Federal programs through Self-Governance agreements
know that increased Tribal control and decision-making authority
results in improved social and economic wellbeing at the local level.
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\1\ Pub. L. No. 114-178, Sec. 101, 130 Stat. 432 (2016) (codified
at 25 USC Sec. 5601).
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Tribal Nations assuming administration over programs once
administered by Federal agencies, do so knowing that this does not
abrogate the Federal Government's treaty and trust obligations. It
empowers Tribal governments as sovereign nations to best determine the
needs of their citizens and communities while bolstering Tribal
economies and job creation for Indian country and surrounding non-
Native communities. As such, we offer the following recommendations:
increase base budgets and recurring funding for indian programs and
reduce reliance on grant funding
Across the board, Federal Indian programs are significantly
underfunded. The lack of adequate funding puts the lives of Tribal
citizens at risk and limits the services provided by Tribal
governments. Increases in base budgets for Indian programs will allow
Tribes to fund core Tribal government programs and will provide an
opportunity for additional Tribal Nations to participate in Self-
Governance.
SGCETC supports the growing sentiment expressed by Tribal Nations
that we do not want our funding sources to be increasingly supplemented
by grants. Short-term competitive grants hinder Self-Governance because
it creates uncertainty in planning, imposes extensive regulations and
reporting requirements, and restricts the use of indirect costs. Tribal
Nations are not non-profit organizations and should not be treated as
such. The signers of the over 400 treaties between Tribal Nations and
the United States did not sign with the intent of being dependent on
grants. Lives were not lost, nor land ceded for our needs to be
dependent on a successful grant application package review.
reclassify section 105(l) lease costs as mandatory spending
Pursuant to the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance
Act (ISDEAA), most Tribal Nations now administer programs that were
previously administered by the Federal Government, which results in the
need for Tribal facilities to house these programs. Section 105(l) of
the ISDEAA, 25 USC Sec. 5324(l), provides that the Secretaries of DOI
and HHS must enter into leases with an Indian Tribe or Tribal
organization for the administration and delivery of services under the
ISDEAA. Section 105(l) requires both Secretaries to compensate each
Indian Tribe or Tribal organization for lease costs, including rent,
depreciation, operation and maintenance, and other reasonable expenses.
The Maniilaq Assn's v. Burwell decisions in 2014 (72 F. Supp. 3d 227
(DDC 2014)) and 2016 (70 F. Supp. 3d 243 (DDC 2016)) upheld this
Federal responsibility, and Tribal Nations are now entering into lease
agreements with both DOI and HHS to compensate for the use of Tribal
facilities for ISDEAA services.
Tribal Nations commend the Federal Government's recognition of its
obligation to fully fund 105(l) leases. The next step in fostering this
progress is by reclassifying Section 105(l) lease funding from
discretionary to mandatory spending.
reclassify contract support costs (csc) as mandatory spending
ISDEAA obligates the Federal Government to provide Tribal Nations
with the necessary funding to ensure that a Tribal Nation has the
resources to contract or compact Federal programs. In 2005 and 2012,
the Supreme Court confirmed that the ISDEAA requires full payment of
CSC to each contractor even when Congress caps CSC appropriations at a
level insufficient to fully pay all contractors.\2\
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\2\ Cherokee Nation of Okla. v. Leavitt, 543 US 631 (2005); Salazar
v. Ramah Navajo Chapter, 567 US 182 (2012)
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Despite the progress realized, Congress still funds CSC as a
discretionary appropriation which creates an environment of competition
with other programs funded in the agencies' discretionary budget.
Additional progress cannot be achieved, in this matter, until CSC is
not required to compete against funding for Indian programs. The way to
remove this element of competition is to appropriate CSC on a mandatory
basis.
institute advance appropriations for the indian health service (ihs)
The Indian Health Service has historically operated in an
environment of unpredictable funding. This instability has proven to be
an obstruction to the delivery of high-quality, treaty obligated
services to citizens of many Tribal Nations. Despite funding
uncertainties, the individuals operating the healthcare delivery system
comprised of the IHS, Tribal health programs, and urban Indian health
organizations have been relentless in their efforts to provide high-
quality, comprehensive services. Just imagine what they could do with
access to predictable funding that allows for them to plan service
delivery more effectively.
Funding predictability can be provided by offsetting the fact that
these services are funded on an annual basis through the appropriations
process with authorizing advance appropriations for the IHS. One of the
most recent examples of unpredictable funding is the partial shutdown
which occurred from late 2018 to early 2019. There is no doubt that the
35-day disruption in critical services and employee pay exacerbated the
state of the already fragile healthcare services provided throughout
Indian Country.
During this trying time, citizens who depend on the Indian health
system, whether IHS or Tribal, for care experienced negative health
outcomes, including premature death. Additionally, Indian health system
employees faced the emotional distress associated with loss of wages
during furlough. Some employees were directed to work without pay
because they have been classified as ``essential'' employees. These
types of work environments create an elevated level of stress for
employees, which, without a doubt, has a severe and detrimental impact
on the quality of care provided to patients.
As a matter of fact, on September 13, 2018, the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report titled ``Indian Health
Service: Considerations Related to Providing Advance Appropriation
Authority'' (GAO-18-652). This report confirms the challenges the
current IHS appropriations process has on the delivery of health care
to American Indian and Alaska Native populations and how advance
appropriations can alleviate these challenges.
GAO notes in their report that the IHS budget has been enacted by
the start of the fiscal year only four times in the last 40 years. This
means that IHS and Tribal health providers are left scrambling to
manage budgets with only short-term funding through continuing
resolutions. Advance appropriations will allow IHS and Tribal health
programs the assurance of funding to effectively administer health
programs, thereby increasing access and improving the quality of care
provided to American Indian and Alaska Native populations. Advance
appropriations for the Indian health system would promote greater
stability in services and facilities management and improve budgeting,
retention, and recruitment of health professionals.
These types of worst-case scenarios can be avoided, and lives can
be saved by authorizing full advance appropriations for the Indian
health system.
Therefore, we humbly request your support for IHS advance
appropriations for fiscal Year 2024 in the fiscal Year 2023
appropriations bill. We request support for standalone legislation that
would establish advance appropriations for the IHS.\3\
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\3\ See HR 5549 (sponsored by Rep. Young (R-AK)). Two other bills,
HR 5567 and S. 2985 would create advance appropriations for IHS and the
Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Indian Education.
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support the expansion of tribal self-governance authority in epa
Tribal Nations have proven their ability and effectiveness
administering Federal programs that provide services to their citizens
and communities. Now is the time to support expansion of this
successful approach for the delivery of Federal programs and resources
to Tribal communities beyond just the Department of the Interior, IHS,
and Department of Transportation. We request that the Committee
includes funding for a Tribal-Federal workgroup on the feasibility of
expanding Self-Governance to EPA and how such authority would be
implemented, possibly as demonstration projects.
Thank you for the opportunity to share our recommendations with the
subcommittee.
[This statement was submitted by W. Ron Allen, President, Board of
Directors, Communication & Education Tribal Consortium (SGCETC) and,
Tribal Chairman/CEO, Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge
This testimony is being submitted on behalf of the Amigos de la
Sevilleta, which was formed in 1997 to support the Sevilleta National
Wildlife Refuge.
The Amigos de la Sevilleta appreciates the opportunity to offer
comments on the fiscal Year 2023 Interior Appropriations bill.
We would like to focus our testimony on the value that increased
Refuge funding would bring to the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge
(which is of course just one of many spectacular National Refuges).
Sevilleta is one of the largest Refuges in the lower 48 States. Its
230,000 acres include four different biomes that intersect and support
a high level of biological diversity. The Refuge is unique in that it
was set aside ``to preserve and enhance the integrity and the natural
character of the ecosystems of the property by creating a wildlife
refuge managed as nearly as possible in its natural state.'' The Refuge
is not managed for specific wildlife species, but instead focuses on
restoring natural processes by means of controlled burns of invasive
vegetation, and tree restoration, and removal of domesticated animals
that still can be found on the refuge.
This huge Refuge is currently operated by only 5 people: the Refuge
Manager, a Biologist, a Visitor Services Manager, and two maintenance
workers. The Amigos helps by providing volunteers to supplement the
staff, as well as contributing limited funds. We also organize events
to introduce the public to the trails and Visitor Center.
Unfortunately, due to limited refuge staff, the Visitor Center is only
open three days a week, disappointing visitors who travel to the refuge
when the Center is closed.
The Amigos therefore urge that the National Wildlife Refuge System
be fully funded, with adequate maintenance, biological, hunting,
fishing, environmental education, and interpretation programs. Our
testimony reflects our desire to reach this full funding goal over the
next few years, and we ask that you work towards $712 million in annual
funding. $712 million reflects the loss of over 1,000 staff in the last
decade from the System.
[This statement was submitted by Colin Barnett, President, Amigos
De La Sevilleta.]
______
Prepared Statement of Shoalwater Bay Tribe
recommendations
1. Provide increased funding for climate change mitigation efforts
including community relocation programs in fiscal Year 2023
2. Work with others in Congress and the Administration to facilitate
the mandatory trust acquisition of fee lands where a Tribe is
undergoing forced relocation due to climate change and other
threats
3. Create funding opportunities for Tribal and intergovernmental
agreements for infrastructure between federal, State, local and
Tribal governments
4. Provide full funding and advance appropriations for the Indian
Health Service (IHS).
5. Fund Critical Infrastructure investments for the Indian health
system
6. Ensure mandatory funding for Contract Support Costs and 105(l)
lease payments
7. Amend Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act to
Clarify CSC provisions
Thank you Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski, and Members
of the subcommittee for the opportunity to share our funding priorities
for the fiscal Year 2023 Federal budget. My name is Charlene Nelson,
and I am the Chairwoman of the Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe on the
beautiful north shore of Willapa Bay, facing out to the Pacific Ocean.
Similar to most coastal Tribes, we are stewards of the great ocean. As
the Chairwoman of the Tribe, and in my former career as an educator and
commercial fisherman, I have learned firsthand that vibrant and
successful Indian communities are not possible without first attending
to the human health of the community members and also ensuring the
health of the environment. The following testimony will provide
information about our community's urgent need to relocate in the face
of the climate crisis, and support additional funding for climate
resiliency programs. The testimony also outlines priorities for the IHS
budget in fiscal Year 2023. Like many Tribal communities we continue to
be impacted by the growing challenge of climate change on our
environment. Threats such as flooding, erosion, ocean acidification,
increased wildfires, extended drought, and changes in seasons all
contribute to the serious challenges that Tribal communities currently
face. We encourage the committee to provide increased funding for
climate change activities targeted at Tribal communities in fiscal Year
2023.
We appreciate $32 million in Tribal Climate Resilience funding
contained in the fiscal Year 2022 omnibus appropriations legislation
(H.R. 2471), which includes $8 million for Tribal relocation grants. We
also appreciate the $216 million in funding provided to the BIA in the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law 116-58) for ``Tribal
climate resilience, adaptation, and community relocation planning,
design, and implementation of projects which address the varying
climate challenges facing Tribal communities across the country.''
However, while these opportunities are appreciated, they are limited.
The problems facing Tribal communities due to climate change are
immense. We appreciate the $21 million proposed by the Bureau of Indian
Affairs for fiscal Year 2023 for those with need to relocate. We urge
this Committee to provide significantly increased funding for climate
change resilience and mitigation in fiscal Year 2023, as the challenges
we--and many Tribal communities--face will require significant
investment. To fail to do so, is tantamount to being complicit in the
disappearance of our lands, our people, and our way of life.
shoalwater bay tribe and climate change
Indian Tribes and Alaska Natives are on the front lines of climate
issues because, unlike many others in our society, we are rooted to our
ancestral homelands. Our lands are us, and we are our lands and waters.
If things change due to climate instability-flooding, habitat loss,
diminished drinking water, incapacity to engage in subsistence
activities-we have nowhere else to go.
We are a Pacific Northwest coastal Tribe and all of our housing and
government buildings are just 15 feet above sea level. Partial Federal
funding, and a Tribal relationship with the Army Corps of Engineers,
has led to construction of an embankment in the tidal zone portion of
our Reservation, and adjoining lands, but was constructed using native
sand and earthen materials, and is now washing away. We are told that
with the advent of climate change, and the varying weather patterns and
tidal effects, everything has been sped up. A single tsunami event
would take out every home, our government, our economic development
opportunities, and what defines us as Shoalwater people.
We need to move to higher ground to survive as a Tribe. Other
coastal Tribes in our region have been in similar circumstances and
Congress has come through with funding for relocation, recognizing the
Federal trust responsibility. We have committed a lot of our limited
resources--both financial and time--to planning for and preparing for
the necessary changes to keep our people alive. Fortunately, some of
the land adjacent to our reservation is suitable for this. Using Tribal
funding, we have purchased 1,200 acres of land at 250 feet above sea
level for the relocation of our Tribal village. But this is raw land
and there are only dirt roads. We are tapping out our only reserves to
meet these exigent needs. Based on erosion and other projections, this
needs to happen immediately.
This support will not just impact our Tribal community, but will
support the two counties in our area, both of which have some of the
highest rates of poverty in the state. The Shoalwater Bay Tribe is now
one of the biggest employers in the county, so support for our Tribe
equals support for the entire area. Many of the current key roads are
merely a few feet above sea level, so planning for alternate roads is
already a critical need for the whole area. The Tribe has formal
support for this project from the Pacific Board of County
Commissioners; Economic Development Council of Pacific County; and
Tokeland-North Cove Chamber of Commerce.
I would urge the Committee to consider the Federal trust
responsibility to Tribes and make a commitment that there if and when
there are Tribal climate refugees-dispossessed of their lands and
waters by climate change-Congress will use its plenary power over
Indian and Alaska Native matters to rebuild ancestral homelands. The
Shoalwater Tribe can be a test case, establishing how Tribal and
Federal resources can relocate a Tribal community to a new, more
resilient location.
congressional assistance
Our Tribe does not have the land base we will need to support us
indefinitely. We will need Federal funding for land acquisition,
replacement of roads, utilities, three essential government buildings,
and 80 homes. In total, we believe the project would cost approximately
$120 million. This total includes $70 million for roads and utilities,
$17 million for government buildings and $33 million for homes.
But we do not just need funding. We urge you to work with your
colleagues in Congress and the Administration to facilitate the
mandatory trust acquisition of fee lands where a Tribe is undergoing
forced relocation due to climate change, erosion, flooding, tsunami,
and other threats to its existing Reservation and trust land base.
Tribes should not have to go through a lengthy and expensive fee to
trust process for relocation land acquisition, which, by definition
will be an off-reservation acquisition for most Tribes. We are
encouraged by recent actions of the Department of the Interior and
Bureau of Indian Affairs to examine the land into trust process,
especially when it comes to issues around climate change for Tribal
communities. However, Congressional support for such actions is
critical.
Congress can also create legislation and funding opportunities for
Tribal and intergovernmental agreements for infrastructure between
federal, State, local and Tribal governments to make the changes needed
to help our communities survive in the face of climate change. The
Department of Transportation, for example, will often not release
emergency funding for road infrastructure until an existing road
completely fails. If that occurs with Washington SR 105, which runs
through our Reservation, it will cut the Tribe off from its schools,
banks, closest groceries, and many of its employees from their homes,
among other impacts. Congress can change these rules to allow for
substantial road replacement funding in advance of an existing route
becoming impassable. Any funding of this nature should be non-
competitive, and be provided directly to Tribal governments without
matching fund requirements.
Infrastructure investment for land acquisition, road and building
construction, and rebuilding economic development opportunities will
not only assist the Tribe, but will also support the local economies of
Pacific and Grays Harbor counties. A new road system will be a
resilient, and necessary coastal connection for the two counties, so it
will be a true investment that will create returns. The cost of us not
finding the support to relocate our village is the highest cost any
community can pay--sea level rise will mean the annihilation of our
Tribal community and culture. Even if we physically survive as
individuals by relocating off of traditional lands, it will mean the
erasure of our Tribal culture.
indian health service priorities
Full Funding for the Indian Health Service. We with support from
the IHS, we strive to provide Alaska Natives and American Indians with
access to high quality and comprehensive medical services, no more so
than during the ongoing pandemic. The Indian health system has
navigated unimaginable hardships related to supplies, staffing levels,
infrastructure and facilities, and high rates of underlying conditions
in serving our people at this time. We sincerely appreciate the work
that this committee has undertaken--on a bipartisan basis--to provide
funding increases for IHS year after year. However, more must be done
for the United States to honor its trust and treaty obligations to
Tribal Nations.
The IHS Tribal Budget Formulation Workgroup has calculated the need
at $49.8 billion for full funding. The Workgroup supports fully funding
this amount in fiscal Year 2023.\1\
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\1\ Full recommendations are available here: https://www.nihb.org/
docs/02072022/FY percent202023 percent20Tribal percent20Budget
percent20Formulation percent20Workgroup percent20Recommendations
percent20Vol percent201.pdf
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Support for Mandatory and Advance Appropriations for IHS. We
appreciate the Biden Administration's proposal to provide mandatory
funding for IHS and increase funding over 10 years. Reclassifying the
IHS budget as mandatory spending not only reflects the nature of the
trust and treaty obligations to Tribal Nations, but also will allow IHS
to be funded at a level that is necessary for providing health care to
AI/ANs. As noted in the President's budget request, ``Mandatory funding
for the IHS provides the opportunity for significant funding increases
that could not be achieved under discretionary funding caps.''\2\ The
proposal outlined in the President's Budget request is a good start,
but must be developed in partnership with Tribal Nations. We stand
ready to work with you and IHS to further develop this proposal so that
it provides adequate funding for IHS and fully honors Tribal self-
determination and self-governance.
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\2\ Department of Health and Human Services, Fiscal Year 2023,
Indian Health Service, Justification of Estimates for Appropriations
Committees, p. CJ-3.
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However, if full mandatory appropriations cannot be achieved for
fiscal Year 2023, we continue to support IHS advance appropriations for
the short term. For many years, Tribes have requested that IHS
appropriations be funded on an advance appropriations cycle. Funding
delays make it impossible for IHS and Tribal health programs to plan
and manage their annual budgets. Congress recognized these challenges
when it provided the Veterans Administration with advance
appropriations over a decade ago. Yet, IHS still waits for parity. In
fiscal Year 2022, we did not receive our full funding amount until
almost halfway through the fiscal year. The practical implication of
this is that our health systems do not have the ability to plan our
finances even weeks ahead, as we do not know what our funding level
will be. Full advance appropriations for the IHS would lead to better
stability for our health system, improve provider recruitment and
retention, and improve practices over all. We appreciate President
Biden's support for IHS advance appropriations in his fiscal Year 2022
budget request to Congress and the support of many members of this
subcommittee on IHS advance appropriations. We urge the Committee to
take the necessary steps in the fiscal Year 2023 appropriations bill to
move/continue IHS to an advance appropriation for fiscal Year 2023 and
beyond.
Mandatory Funding for Contract Support Costs and 105(l) lease
payments: If Congress is not able to enact full mandatory funding for
IHS this year, we continue to support mandatory funding for Contract
Support Costs (CSC) and 105(l) leases. We appreciate the subcommittee's
commitment to ensuring that Contract Support Costs (CSC) and 105(l)
lease costs are fully funded by including an indefinite discretionary
appropriation in fiscal Year 2021 for both of these accounts However,
changing these accounts to mandatory appropriations in fiscal Year 2023
would bring appropriations process into line with the clear legal
requirements of the authorizing statute. CSC and 105(l) lease funds are
already an entitlement under substantive law for the ISDEAA to function
as intended by Congress. It is contradictory and problematic to
appropriate funding for CSC on a discretionary basis.
Amend Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act to
Clarify CSC provisions: We also request that the committee consider
amending the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act
(ISDEAA) to clarify that when agency funding paid to a Tribe for
program operations is insufficient for contract and compact
administration, contract support costs will remain available to cover
the difference. In the recent court decision Cook Inlet Tribal Council,
Inc. v. Dotomain,\3\ a Federal appeals court held that costs for
activities normally carried out by IHS are ineligible for payment as
CSC-even if IHS transfers insufficient, or even no, funding for these
activities in the Secretarial amount. Under this new ruling, if
facility costs are higher for a Tribe than for IHS, the Tribe is forced
to cover the difference by diverting scarce program dollars. Recently,
this serious misinterpretation of the ISDEAA that has been applied to
one Tribal organization resulting in a 90 percent reduction of contract
support costs reimbursement threatens Tribal self-governance and self-
determination. Therefore, we call upon Congress to provide a
legislative fix to clarify the intent on Congress for this matter, and
ensure consistency with precedent.
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\3\ Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Inc. v. Dotomain, 10 F.4th 892 (D.C.
Cir. 2021).
[This statement was submitted by Charlene Nelson, Chairperson,
Shoalwater Bay Tribe.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Society for American Archaeology
The Society for American Archaeology (SAA) once again appreciates
this opportunity to present its recommendations for Fiscal Year 2023
cultural resources program appropriations for the Department of
Interior and USDA Forest Service. I am Dr. Deborah Nichols, president
of the Society.
The SAA is an international organization that, since its founding
in 1934, has been dedicated to research about and interpretation and
protection of the archaeological heritage of the Americas. With more
than 5,500 members, the SAA represents professional and avocational
archaeologists, archaeology students in colleges and universities, and
archaeologists working at Tribal agencies, museums, government
agencies, and the private sector. The SAA has members throughout the
United States, as well as in many nations around the world.
The members of the SAA thank the subcommittee for supporting an
increase in funding for Federal cultural resources programs in fiscal
Year 2022. These Federal and federally supported programs, created
under the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and other key statutes and funded
through annual appropriations, constitute the foundation of historic
and cultural preservation activities in the United States. These
activities comprise the principal means of preserving and protecting
our Nation's irreplaceable historic, archaeological, and cultural
treasures. In addition to ensuring Americans can learn about and enjoy
the artifacts and knowledge of America's history, funding Federal
archaeology programs facilitates economic growth and infrastructure
project delivery.
Given the above, our testimony for fiscal Year 2023 emphasizes the
message that we have expounded on over the past several years-in order
for federally based historic preservation to work effectively, it must
have the necessary staffing and resources. This year, several
circumstances expand the need for funds.
department of the interior-increased archaeologist staff: $10 million
As we noted last year, Federal archaeologists perform a huge number
of important tasks, including reviews under Section 106 of the NHPA for
federally funded projects, projects requiring a Federal permit, or
projects on Federal lands; conducting surveys for historic and cultural
resources under Section 110 of the NHPA; protection of archaeological
sites and materials under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act
(ARPA); preservation and repatriation of highly sensitive cultural and
spiritual Tribal objects under the Native American Graves Protection
and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA); consultation with Indigenous and
descendant communities on the effects of Federal actions on their
cultural resources; development of contracts and cooperative agreements
between Federal agencies and private firms or universities; technical
assistance on archaeological matters; coordination and management of
volunteers helping to preserve cultural sites; and curation of Federal
archaeological collections.
At present, the Federal archaeological workforce, across many
departments and agencies, lacks a sufficient number of people on staff
(fewer than 1,400 in all) to carry out its current and future
statutorily required responsibilities. The situation will become even
more serious when you factor in the skyrocketing increase of projects
authorized under the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) and the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Another concern must be addressed-
climate change threatens archaeological sites. For instance, Jamestown,
the first English settlement in North America, is experiencing flooding
due to rising coastal water levels. The multiyear drought in the West
has severely depleted many federally controlled reservoirs such as
Lakes Mead and Powell. Lower water tables expose many previously
submerged archaeological sites to the danger of erosion from the
elements, as well as the threat of looting. ARPA, the NHPA, and NAGPRA
require the protection and proper management of these sites and
whatever objects they contain. The NPS, the Bureau of Reclamation, and
other DOI agencies need more archaeologists to protect these vulnerable
public cultural resources.
The SAA recognizes that correcting the situation will require a
multiyear effort. It is critical that this begin sooner rather than
later. We request an additional $10 million in fiscal Year 2023 for
Interior archaeologist positions.
national park service-national recreation and preservation cultural
programs: $36 million
When most people picture our National parks, they envision the
parks' natural and recreational aspects. Though less visible, but
equally vital to the public mission, we urge you to remember that the
overwhelming majority of our Nation's parks also contain historical and
cultural sites, including sacred lands of deep meaning to Indigenous
Americans and places that tell the story of America's development and
more recent past. NPS National Recreation and Preservation Programs are
vital for the technical assistance and other support they provide for
resource protection within National Parks, to other Federal agencies,
and to state, Tribal, and private sector stakeholders. These programs
assist communities in preserving their significant historical and
archaeological properties. The archaeological component identifies,
documents, and inventories archaeological resources in parks; produces
archaeological technical and programmatic publications; implements
regulations for protecting archaeological resources; and assists other
agencies through program development and training. The SAA appreciates
the increase of $2.4 million in the final fiscal Year 2022 bill. In
order to keep up with the rising cost of inflation, and to ensure that
these programs keep pace with the compliance workload increases brought
by the GAOA and the infrastructure law, the SAA requests a total of $36
million for fiscal Year 2023, an increase of $1.6 million.
national park service-historic preservation fund (hpf): $200 million
The Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) provides crucial support to
State (SHPO) and Tribal (THPO) Historic Preservation Offices and
matching grants to nonprofits and local governments to preserve and
document historic resources. Your local communities rely on these
grants to attract tourism, retain a unique sense of place, and promote
economic development. The HPF (among other programs) plays a crucial
role in the ability of States and local municipalities to comply with
the preservation system established by the NHPA-particularly with
regard to Section 106 consultations. SHPOs and THPOs constitute the
``front line'' in the effort to preserve our cultural heritage. Their
workloads have grown and will continue to expand.
We need to shine a spotlight on an especially dire shortfall.
THPO's are particularly hard-pressed because there are 210 offices, and
the fiscal Year 2022 omnibus bill appropriated a totally insufficient
average of just $75,000 of annual funding per office. The HPF overall
saw a record level of funding in the final fiscal Year 2022 bill, but
SHPOs received only a $2 million increase. THPOs fared even worse ($1
million). These increases did not even account for the erosion of
spending power due to inflation. We urge more resources for these
offices to rectify this situation. The SAA strongly endorses the
recommendations put forward by the preservation community for a total
of $200 million for the HPF in fiscal Year 2023, of which $65 million
would go to SHPOs and $34 million to THPOs.
bureau of land management (blm)-cultural resources management: $21.8
million
The BLM manages 245 million acres, which makes the agency the
largest land manager in the United States. These lands contain an
enormous number of known and as-yet-undiscovered cultural resources. To
date, only 10 percent of BLM lands have been surveyed for cultural
resources. As with the other programs mentioned here, the BLM needs
resources so it can fulfill its statutory requirements to research,
inventory, and protect the cultural resources under its control. In the
fiscal Year 2022 final omnibus bill, the BLM Cultural Resources
Management program received $20 million, an increase of $422,000. While
appreciated, the many activities of BLM staff archaeologists require
more funding so that this personnel may better continue their work to
survey the lands they administer and identify the cultural resources
therein, conserve archaeological sites and materials, and integrate
cultural resources data through the National Cultural Resources
Information Management System. In particular, new funding will enable
the BLM to finally resolve the disruption and dysfunction that occurred
in the cultural resources program under the last administration due to
the relocation of many headquarters staff to offices in the West. That
action resulted in the retirement or resignation of many staff members
and was only reversed by Secretary of the Interior Haaland last year.
The SAA requests an increase of $1.8 million for BLM Cultural Resources
Management.
bureau of land management-national landscape conservation system: $65.1
million
The National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS), first
established in 2000 and authorized by Congress in 2009, contains more
than 35 million acres of National Monuments, Wilderness Areas, Wild and
Scenic Rivers, and other sensitive lands. They include an extensive and
diverse array of the Nation's archaeological and cultural resources.
While the System received a much-needed increase of $3.4 million in
fiscal Year 2022, more needs to be done to provide the level of
preservation management and sound stewardship of the lands in the
system. Investigation, research, and preservation needs remain great.
In order to provide adequate management of these lands and the cultural
resources they contain, the SAA strongly supports an allocation of
$65.1 million for the program. This substantial increase would restore
the NLCS to its record fiscal Year 2006 funding level, address the rise
in inflation, and allow the BLM to bring to bear the resources
necessary to carry out this essential mission.
native american graves protection and repatriation act grants: $2.3
million
We reiterate the importance of the NAGPRA Grants Program to
restoring culturally affiliated human remains, funerary objects, sacred
objects, and objects of cultural patrimony to affiliated Native
American Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations. It serves a key role
by helping facilitate cooperation between Tribes and museums to
document covered items and realize their repatriation under the NAGPRA
statute. The increase in the fiscal Year 2022 final bill, to a total of
$2.1 million, was helpful. Nevertheless, with increasing numbers of
THPOs and increasing numbers of Federally Recognized Tribes, demand for
these grants is also surging, and inflation must also be taken into
account. Given these realities, and the fact that some repositories
still have not completed their inventories, the SAA urges another
increase. We respectfully request that the National NAGPRA Grants
Program receive $2.3 million for fiscal Year 2022, an increase of
approximately $200,000.
us forest service-recreation, heritage and wilderness: $115 million
Most of the work carried out by the USFS heritage activities
involves Section 106 compliance on Federal forest land. The Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law will reportedly increase that workload by a factor
of four. In order to address the situation, the USFS-apparently alone
among Federal agencies-began the process of hiring archaeologists to
ensure that these new undertakings comply with historic preservation
statutes. It will take at least the next 4 years to bring this effort
to a successful conclusion. Therefore, we recommend that $115 million
be allocated to the Recreation, Heritage and Wilderness account, with
$6 million dedicated to making these new archaeological positions
permanent.
The SAA greatly appreciates your time and consideration of these
important issues. Please contact us if you have any questions or
concerns.
[This statement was submitted by Dr. Deborah Nichols, President of
the Society.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Society of American Foresters
The Society of American Foresters (SAF) appreciates the opportunity
to submit written public testimony to the Senate Committee on
Appropriations, subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related
Agencies regarding fiscal year 2023 appropriations. SAF recommendations
focus on supporting programs at the USDA Forest Service (USFS) and the
Department of the Interior (DOI), including the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM).
saf's top federal priorities for fiscal year 2023
(1) Increased investment in the USFS Forest Inventory and Analysis
(FIA) program to at least $32.4 million and the addition of a budget
line item for FIA salaries and expenses.
(2) Increased investment in the USFS Research and Development
programs to $82 million and continued support for the Joint Fire
Science program.
(3) Increased investment in the Forest Products program to $47
million and the Roads program under Capital Improvement and Maintenance
to $86 million to better support National Forest System lands and rural
economies.
(4) Fully funding the Landscape Scale Restoration program at $20
million and increased investment in the Forest Stewardship program to
$22 million.
(5) Permanently authorizing BLM's Forest Ecosystem Health and
Recovery Fund.
Founded by Gifford Pinchot in 1900, SAF is the premier scientific
and educational organization in the United States advancing and
promoting science-based, sustainable management and stewardship of the
Nation's public and private forests. SAF has over 9,000 members
including public and private sector natural resource professionals,
researchers, CEOs, administrators, investment advisors, educators, and
students. As the professionals who study, manage, and care for our
Nation's forest resources, we have a vested interest in ensuring their
long-term health and sustainability.
Americans rely on the 751 million acres of public and private
forests in the US to provide clean and abundant air and water, forest
products, fish and wildlife habitat, recreational opportunities, carbon
sequestration and storage, forage and range resources, energy, and
scenic beauty. Continuing to sustainably manage our forests for these
diverse benefits has become increasingly challenging due to
unprecedented environmental threats. In particular, the climate change
and biodiversity crises illustrate the need for continued investment in
the forest sector.
While wildfires and carbon storage are likely the most topical
issues in the public discourse surrounding forests today, a myriad of
challenges faced by forestry professionals are intensifying under
changes in climate (e.g., invasive pests, disease, species migration,
water availability). In the face of these challenges, forestry
professionals continue to create an adaptive suite of forest management
solutions that balance resilience, ecological integrity, and natural
resource economies. Implementing these solutions and ensuring the
sustainability of our forests requires continued investment in our
forestry professionals.
Healthy, viable forests are long-term investments. Funding for
research, science, and technology is essential to building effective
programming with sufficient workforce capacity to protect our forests
for the future.\1\ Furthermore, breaking the pattern of unresolved
funding bills and continuing resolutions would be of tremendous help to
our land managers. A commitment to consistent and timely budget and
appropriations cycles from Congress and the Administration provides the
certainty required for resource managers to plan for the upcoming field
season and consider future years as well. This certainty will dictate
management activities and allow managers to provide direction and
instruction on deployment of resources to address critical needs.
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\1\ Society of American Foresters. Forest Sector Research and
Development. Last updated April 30, 2021.
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specific fiscal year 2023 requests
Forest and Rangeland Resources
Advances in research have highlighted the instrumental role that
forests continue to play in mitigating the effects of climate change.
For example, US forests and associated harvested wood products
sequester nearly 15 percent of economy-wide CO2 emissions each year and
store more than three decades of CO2 emitted from fossil fuels.\2\ USFS
Forest and Rangeland Resources is one of the critical bodies ensuring
the longevity and resilience of our forests by advancing climate-
smart, ecological management strategies across the landscape.\3\
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\2\ USDA Forest Service. Forest Inventory and Analysis National
Program: Forest Carbon Science and Reporting. Retrieved March 3, 2022,
from https://www.fia.fs.fed.us/forestcarbon/#::text=In percent20the
percent20United percent20States percent2C percent20forests,CO2
percent20emitted percent2 0from percent20fossil percent20fuels.
\3\ United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service,
Research & Development (2021). Research Improves Climate-Smart
Management of America's Forests and Grasslands (Report No. FS-1175).
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forest inventory and analysis
Forestry professionals and a diverse array of stakeholders rely on
the inventory data and analysis of America's forests provided by the
Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program. This critical information
is needed to support sound policy and forest management decisions, both
public and private, and is increasingly important for decisions
regarding carbon stocks, sustainability, and new and expanding markets.
The needs of our Nation's forests, coupled with the policy priorities
of this Congress, make this an ideal time to significantly increase
investment in this critical program. SAF recommends at least $32.4
million in program funding for FIA in fiscal Year 2023 and supports
adding a budget line item that includes FIA salaries and expenses.
research and development
Investments in forestry research are essential for the future
health and sustainability of the Nation's forests. Research conducted
at the five USFS research stations, the International Institute of
Tropical Forestry, and in the Forest Products Laboratory is crucial to:
(1) developing new products and practical innovation; (2) identifying
forest ecosystem disturbance responses and forest resilience; (3)
responding to shifting social demands and demographic changes; (4) and
quantifying the contributions of forests to air and water quality.
Without USFS leadership, investigation of these critical research needs
would largely be left unfulfilled. Using Federal investments that are
leveraged in partnership with universities and private-public
consortiums, important research questions, emerging threats, and
potential opportunities are thoroughly researched and vetted. SAF
recommends $82 million for the Research and Development program in
fiscal Year 2023.
joint fire science
SAF appreciates this subcommittee's commitment to continuing the
important work of the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP). SAF recommends
funding for the JFSP at or above fiscal Year 2022 levels and asks the
subcommittee to encourage active participation by DOI and USFS in
prioritizing investment in fire research and decision support.
Capital Improvement and Maintenance
roads
Roads on National Forest System lands are vital infrastructure
facilitating the use, enjoyment, protection, and long-term health of
Federal lands. Properly maintained roads enable the agency to meet
critical natural resource needs and provide safe access to public
lands. Unfortunately, with annual appropriations not nearly matching
the need, properly maintaining this vital infrastructure has become
increasingly challenging. Deteriorating roads reduce access for
recreation, firefighting, and resource management. Investments in these
critical assets will create jobs in rural communities while also
improving wildlife habitat, hunting and fishing opportunities, public
safety, and resource management. SAF recommends $86 million for the
Roads program in fiscal Year 2023.
National Forest System
forest products
The Forest Products program supports the agency's goals to foster
resilient ecosystems, mitigate climate change and wildfire risks, and
strengthen rural communities through timber sales and other removals of
forest products. Increased investment would not only support a
sustainable flow of wood fiber to markets but also launch more projects
focused on removing small diameter, low-value material, and understory
trees that are not commercially viable but need to be removed to reduce
the risk of wildfire or improve forest health conditions. SAF
recommends $47 million for the Forest Products program in fiscal Year
2023.
State and Private Forestry
landscape scale restoration
Landscape Scale Restoration (LSR) projects are key tools for
States, in collaboration with the USDA Forest Service and other
partners, to address the most critical forest priorities identified in
each State's Forest Action Plan. The competitive grant process ensures
innovative approaches to restoration work are proposed and priority is
given to projects that further the advancement of State Forest Action
Plans. Therefore, LSR contributes to achieving results across the
landscape and making meaningful local, regional, and national impacts.
SAF recommends full funding for the Landscape Scale Restoration program
at $20 million in fiscal Year 2023.
forest stewardship
The Forest Stewardship Program (FSP) equips private forest
landowners with the unbiased, science-based information they need to
sustainably manage their forests now and into the future, helping to
keep forests as forests. On average, state forestry agencies and other
partners match Federal investments 2:1, which means the impact of
Federal dollars delivered through the FSP have amplified on-the-ground
impacts. Increased Federal funding for FSP will allow state forestry
agencies and forestry professionals to ramp up outreach efforts and
provide additional technical assistance to landowners to ensure that
private forestland acres are maintained and continue to provide a
myriad of public benefits. SAF recommends $22 million for the Forest
Stewardship program in fiscal Year 2023.
Department of the Interior-Bureau of Land Management
forest ecosystem health and recovery fund
Managing BLM forestlands is an important element of maintaining and
improving the health and productivity of our Nation's public lands. The
Forest Ecosystem Health and Recovery Fund (referred to as the 5900
Account by BLM) was originally established in 1993 to help BLM rapidly
respond to forestlands damaged by wildfire, insects, and disease. Over
the years, the authorization has expanded to include a wide range of
proactive forest health treatments to reduce the risk of future damage
as well as a variety of recovery activities including salvage and
replanting.
The Forest Ecosystem Health and Recovery Fund is self-funded with
receipts generated from the sale of forest products resulting from
projects planned and executed to meet the purposes of the fund. Since
its creation, the fund has provided an additional $4-10 million
annually to improve forest health and resilience on BLM forestlands.
SAF believes that the justification for this fund is stronger than
ever. Given hotter and drier summers, our forests are subjected to
increased insect and disease damage and longer and more extreme
wildfire seasons. Public land managers-including BLM foresters-need
proper resources to manage forests to reduce fuel loads, salvage
damaged timber, and make forests more resilient to disturbances. SAF
requests that the subcommittee consider permanent or long- term
authorization for the Forest Ecosystem Health and Recovery Fund (PL
102-381).
[This statement was submitted by Terry Baker, Chief Executive
Officer, Society of American Foresters.]
______
Prepared Statement of Southcentral Foundation
My name is April Kyle, and I am the President and CEO of
Southcentral Foundation (SCF) and an enrolled Ninilchik Tribal member.
SCF is the Alaska Native Tribal health organization designated by Cook
Inlet Region, Inc. and 11 federally-recognized Tribes--the Aleut
Community of St. Paul Island, Igiugig, Iliamna, Kokhanok, McGrath,
Newhalen, Nikolai, Nondalton, Pedro Bay, Telida, and Takotna--to
provide health care services to beneficiaries of the Indian Health
Service (IHS) pursuant to a government-to-government contract with the
United States under authority of the Indian Self- Determination and
Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA), Public Law 93-638. SCF is a two-time
recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for health
(2011 and 2017) and one of the largest 10 employers in Alaska.
SCF, through our 2,500 employees, provides critical health
services, for the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wellness
of 65,000 Alaska Native and American Indian people. This includes
52,000 people living in the Municipality of Anchorage and the
Matanuska-Susitna Borough, and 13,000 residents of 55 rural Alaska
Native villages. SCF offers over 85 programs including primary care,
dental, behavioral health, and addiction treatment as well as co-owning
and co-managing the Alaska Native Medical Center with our partner the
Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC). Our service area
encompasses over 100,000 square miles, an area the size of Wyoming.
1. Advance Appropriation is critical to the stability of the Tribal
health care delivery system.
SCF strongly supports advance appropriations for the Indian Health
Service. The fiscal Year 2020 government shutdown underscored the need
for this change. The delays in funding had dire impacts in Alaska
Native and American Indian communities across the country. As
Congresswoman McCollum has said, ``[d]uring the government shutdown,
basic everyday needs like health clinics, Tribal justice services, and
social services for children, families, and seniors went unfunded,
putting Native American communities at risk.'' We completely agree that
``[t]hese programs are critical to life, health, and safety in these
communities, and the Federal Government has a legal and moral
responsibility to ensure funding for our trust and treaty
responsibilities is not interrupted. Advance appropriations for Indian
Country is a promising avenue for making good on our commitments to our
Native American brothers and sisters.''
Much has been said in this subcommittee, year after year, about how
the programs and departments subject to this appropriations process are
reflections of the trust relationship the Federal Government has with
American Indian and Alaska Native people. The problems that arise from
shutdowns and other delays in the context of a lack of advance
appropriations exacerbate the problems caused by the funding shortfalls
and disparities.
2. Continue to Provide Increases for Behavioral Health Programs
We cannot state strenuously enough how important it is to increase
available funds for behavioral health. Alaska Native and American
Indian people are disproportionately represented in substance misuse,
especially opioid addiction, and suicide statistics. According to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Alaska Native and
American Indian people had the highest drug overdose death rates for
the last 3 years. This death rate has risen by almost 10 percent since
2018. The CDC also found the suicide rate among Alaska Native people is
almost three times the U.S. general population rate and at least six
times the National average in some parts of Alaska.
Behavioral health funds are critical to our most vulnerable
population--our youth. SCF operates several programs that provide
mental health care for Alaska Native youth which go beyond individual
and group therapy to include programs that build academic, vocational
and leadership skills through culturally appropriate methods. It is our
firm conviction that only by addressing the root causes that drive
individuals to drug misuse and addiction, domestic and child abuse,
poverty, and unemployment--can we help them heal.
SCF is also standing up services dedicated to serving individuals
experiencing behavioral health crisis. Together with our partners at
Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, we are on our way to opening a
short-term crisis stabilization center on the Alaska Native Health
Campus, and we are planning work on a crisis residential center. These
facilities will serve Alaska Native and American Indian individuals in
Anchorage and across the State. However, Federal investment in
behavioral health facilities is desperately needed to help build out
these areas of the behavioral health continuum of care in Alaska.
We also support specific appropriations for an Opioid Prevention,
Treatment and Recovery program for Alaska Native and American Indian
people. We recommend that all behavioral health funding increases be
distributed among Tribes and Tribal organizations as additions to our
self-governance compacts and contracts. The Indian Health Service
practice of creating competitive grant programs for behavioral health
services has created access barriers for many Tribes and unnecessarily
increased the administrative burden of Tribal organizations. Alaska
Native health care providers like SCF recognize that the size of the
opioid and substance abuse problem in Alaska demands resources.
However, with insufficient funds to address behavioral health
challenges, we cannot adequately reach those who suffer from addiction,
those struggling with PTSD, our military veterans, or victims of
violent crime. Prevention, education, and timely medication-assisted
treatment (MAT) programs remain our most potent tools to raise a new
generation of Alaska Native people who practice positive, life-
affirming behaviors and who will, in turn, pass on these life skills to
their children and grandchildren.
Unfortunately, recent appropriations have only provided a modest
increase for mental/behavioral health, and it did not increase funding
for the behavioral health integration initiative or for suicide
prevention, or the amount available for alcohol and substance misuse
programs. More is needed.
3. Health Workforce Development
The pandemic highlighted the drastic shortage of health care
workers in America. The need is at every clinical level from doctors,
nurses, dentists, mental health specialists, to medical assistants, and
other medical technicians. We have worked to build systems that
recruit, train, and develop not only our clinical staff but our
executive staff as well. We firmly believe that solving this workforce
crisis is a mission-critical priority and we are exploring all avenues
for recruiting talent and developing our own employees.
We have had tremendous success in training Tribal members as dental
health aide therapists, behavioral health aides, and community health
aides. We have also had great success in executive training programs to
ensure we have a high level of competency in managing our health
system.
While we appreciate that the funding for Indian Health Professions
has increased in the last 2 years, we think more must be done to
recruit and retain health care professionals to serve in Tribal
communities.
4. Section 105(l) Lease Payments and Contract Support Costs
We appreciate the committee's careful attention to the issue of
105(l) leases. We also continue to strongly support that these costs
remain an indefinite appropriation, but with the goal to make sure
these costs (along with contract support costs) are made mandatory
costs so that they do not continue to stress the limited funding
allocation the subcommittee receives.
Regarding Contract Support Costs, we remain concerned that the
Indian Health Service is seeking to undermine its obligation, which has
now been confirmed twice by the U.S. Supreme Court, to pay full
contract support costs, by categorizing certain necessary costs/
activities as ``Secretarial activities,'' and refusing to pay contract
support costs for these activities, which are and have always been
considered contract support cost activities for which Tribes have
received CSC payment. We would ask the committee to include language in
its appropriations bill that would require the Indian Health Service to
compute fiscal Year 2023 CSC consistent with computations undertaken in
fiscal Year 2021. We appreciate the direction to the Agency on this
matter in the fiscal Year 2023 Committee Conference Report.
5. Conclusion
Thank you again for the opportunity to provide testimony on behalf
of Southcentral Foundation and the people we serve.
[This statement was submitted by April Kyle, President and CEO of
Southcentral Foundation.]
______
Prepared Statement of Squaxin Island Tribe
On behalf of the Squaxin Island Tribal Leadership and citizens, it
is an honor to provide our funding priorities and recommendations for
the fiscal Year 2023 Budgets for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA),
Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), and Indian Health Service (IHS) and
related agencies. We request that Tribal program funding throughout the
Federal Government be exempt from sequestrations, rescissions, and
disproportionate cuts. We support Advance Appropriations for the IHS
and BIA to prevent funding lapses and other unintended consequences
associated with short-term funding measures from disrupting critical
services to American Indians and Alaska Natives provided by the Federal
Government. Thank you for fully funding Contract Support Costs (CSC)
and 105(l) leases as indefinite line items but we ask that you re-
classify both as mandatory spending to ensure Tribal Nations have the
tools for effective governance critical in fulfilling the promise of
the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act. Squaxin
Island is one of the first 30 Federally recognized Tribes to enter a
Compact of Self-Governance with the United States in both the
Departments of the Interior and Health and Human Services.
SQUAXIN ISLAND TRIBE Specific Requests:
1. $13 million Construction of New Health Center
2. Northwest Indian Treatment Center (NWITC) Residential Program in
IHS
A. $1.5 million--Medicine Building
B. $250,000--Sustain Operations
3. $500,000 Shellfish Management Program--BIA
Support National and Regional fiscal Year 2023 Budget Requests and
Recommendations for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian Health Service
and Bureau of Indian Education--by the National Congress of American
Indians, National Indian Health Board, National Indian Education
Association, Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians and the Northwest
Indian Fisheries Commission
squaxin island tribe background
We are native people of South Puget Sound and descendants of the
maritime people who lived and prospered along these shores for untold
centuries. We are known as the People of the Water because of our
strong cultural connection to the natural beauty and bounty of Puget
Sound going back hundreds of years. The Squaxin Island Indian
Reservation is in southeastern Mason County, Washington and the Tribe
is a signatory to the 1854 Medicine Creek Treaty. Our treaty-designated
reservation, Squaxin Island, is approximately 2.2 square miles of
uninhabited forested land, surrounded by the bays and inlets of
southern Puget Sound. Because the Island lacks fresh water, the Tribe
has built its community on roughly 26 acres at Kamilche, Washington
purchased and placed into trust. The Tribe also owns 6 acres across
Pickering Passage from Squaxin Island and a plot of 36 acres on
Harstine Island, across Peale Passage. The total land area including
off-reservation trust lands is 1,715.46 acres. In addition, the Tribe
manages roughly five hundred acres of Puget Sound tidelands.
Our Tribal governance combines our sovereign powers as well as U.S.
Congressional acts related to treaties, statutes, and public law. The
Squaxin Island Tribe, like all Tribal Nations, continues to work
through the impacts of the pandemic. Prior to COVID-19, the Tribal
government and our economic enterprises constituted the largest
employer in Mason County with over 1,250 employees. The Tribe has a
current enrollment of 1,123 and an on-reservation population of 426
living in 141 homes. Squaxin has an estimated service area population
of 2,747; a growth rate of about 10 percent, and an unemployment rate
of about 30 percent. We continue to need the assistance of
Congressional relief funds to mitigate the ongoing challenges to
recovery. We are grateful for the support we have received so far.
squaxin island tribe specific requests/justifications:
1. $13 million--Design and Construct New Squaxin Island Health
Center--IHS Division of Facilities Planning and Construction
In 1995, under a Self-Governance compact with the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services' Indian Health Service, the Squaxin Island
Tribe began construction of the Tribally owned Sally Selvedge Memorial
Health Center (the Center). The original 8,000 square foot facility
housed the primary care, dental, mental health, contract health
services and community health and served an estimated 770 users. The
Center consolidated health programs into one facility and expanded new
services not previously available due to the lack of space and
resources. We remain proud of this accomplishment and what we were able
to offer our citizens using and leveraging funds as we saw fit to meet
our local needs.
On June 17, 2021, IHS testified before the House Committee on
Natural Resources on the status of IHS and Tribal facilities,
``Disparities in the health status of American Indians and Alaska
Natives are directly affected by access to health care services. Health
care services are constrained by the limited capacities of existing
Indian Health Service and Tribal health care facilities. There is a
significant need for expansion, renovation, or replacement of many
buildings.''\1\
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\1\ https://www.hhs.gov/about/agencies/asl/testimony/2021/06/17/
examining-federal-facilities-indian-country.html
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Thirty years after the Center was built, the Squaxin Island Health
and Human Services (HHS), located in the Center now provides 9,000
patient/clinic visits with over 17,000 pharmacy encounters taking place
each year to 905 AI/AN patients as well as other family members of
those patients. We can no longer accommodate all of our mental health
and substance use disorder programs in the same facility. Our Health
Promotion/Disease Prevention and HIT programs are also located in
another site. Medical services have outgrown our existing space and our
ability to address the public health emergency has been hindered
because our facility was unable to accommodate any increases to medical
or administrative staff. The Tribe bills Medicare, Medicaid and other
third-party payers but the buying power we once had to build a new
health center in 1995 has diminished in 2022, even more so because of
inflation caused by the pandemic. Our American Indian/Alaska Native
patient population has increased over 25 percent since 2012. Current
medical, dental, and behavioral services are insufficient for our
current population. Laboratory and lab services are severely under
built and would not be able to meet accreditation standards. The recent
pandemic spotlighted our need for basic health care delivery
infrastructure improvements, in both staffing and buildings, required
to address communicable viruses. The potential consequences on our
Tribal members and families with underlying health conditions remains a
concern for us. We can no longer continue to provide good care in
facilities that have met their maximum remodeling capacity. Squaxin
Island Tribe is in desperate need of Congressional appropriations to
construct a new facility.
Since 1993 and continues today, the Healthcare Facilities
Construction Priority System (HFCPS) is the methodology that the IHS
uses to identify and prioritize the need for IHS and Tribal healthcare
facilities. Prior to Squaxin Island building the Center, the IHS, in
collaboration with Tribal representatives, used the HFCPS to prioritize
major health facilities' needs. The IHS projects were ranked based on
the population served, the condition of health care facilities,
remoteness, and barriers to care. The total need for the HCFC Program
in 2016 was approximately $14.5 billion for expanded and active
authority facility types according to the 2016 IHS and Tribal Health
Care Facilities' Needs Assessment Report to Congress.\2\ An update to
the needs assessment report to Congress is in progress. However, early
drafts report an increase in the need is up to approximately $22
billion.
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\2\ https://www.ihs.gov/sites/newsroom/themes/responsive2017/
display_objects/documents/RepCong_2016/
IHSRTC_on_FacilitiesNeedsAssessmentReport.pdf.--PDF
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The President's fiscal Year 2022 Budget Request for Health Care
Facilities Construction is $266 million to boost the line item to an
historical $526 million. However, the final fiscal Year 2022 budget
amounts remain uncertain. The Squaxin Island facility is operating
beyond capacity and the operational and maintenance costs continue to
soar. Health care needs are becoming more challenging every day and we
are not winning the battle.
In March 2020, pre-pandemic, we were in the process of rolling out
the Squaxin Island Tribe Strategic Health Plan; a robust health program
plan which includes all the details about a new facility and expanded
services. Today there is approximately 12,000 square feet that houses
the entire HHS department. Using estimates of current building sizes,
or comps, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
recently built a 64,000 square foot health center with a user
population of 3,331. Medical facilities average $500 per square foot.
Squaxin Island's user population is approximately 28 percent the size
of Umatilla. We estimate we need a minimum of 25,000 square feet based
on the Indian Health Care Services' Healthcare Systems Planning tool,
which calculates the current user population and projections of growth
out to 2034. Estimated total cost for the design and construction of
the Squaxin Island Health Center is $13,000,000.
2. $1.750 Million Increase for Northwest Indian Treatment Center
(NWITC) Residential Program--IHS--H"D3WXbi Palil'' meaning ``Returning
from the Dark, Deep Waters to the Light"
The Squaxin Island Tribe's Northwest Indian Treatment Center, D3f
bi Pa lil, is a residential treatment facility that serves Native
Americans with chronic substance abuse patterns related to unresolved
grief and complex trauma, including generational trauma. The Center is
Commission on Accreditation of Facilities accredited and a recognized
national model of treatment for treating trauma in the presence of
addiction, uniquely integrating the Best Practice of Dialectical
Behavioral Therapy (DBT) with Plant Medicines. This culturally infused
use of a Best Practice, based on this NWITC program, has been adapted
in many Tribal communities since its development. DBT is a model of
treatment with good research results for the treatment of substance
above and mental health conditions.
In recognition of NWITC's unique model of treatment, the State of
Washington Health Care Authority has requested NWITC to create a video-
documentary describing the key elements. They have provided over
$82,000 to fund this video-documentary which can be used as a model by
other Tribes to help understand the benefits and requirements of the
facility. NWITC has these urgent needs:
A. Medicine Building--this project is shovel ready cost estimated
at $1.5 million. This building will support and expand the reach of the
activities of the DBT/Plant Medicine program. It will be a place of
medicine making, but also have video capacity linking this program to
other Tribal medicine programs and creating a library available to
Tribal behavioral health programs and NWITC alumni. The result will be
better support for alumni, but also will help build capacity in Tribal
communities in the Northwest.
B. Because of the pandemic, the relapse rate in Tribal communities
served by NWITC are high. To better support NWITC alumni, it is
necessary to provide more support. Even though the NWITC has a Recovery
Support Team who actively supports alumni for 1-year post treatment, in
the current environment this is insufficient. NWITC requires a staff
position to provide the DBT/Plant Medicine training/coaching in the
Tribal communities in which alumni live. Costs include a position to
implement this, plus expenses of alumni to participate, including
hotel, food, etc. In past events NWITC has verified this as the most
successful approach for teaching/coaching alumni. Budget for this is
$250,000.
1. $500,000--Shellfish Management--BIA
The Squaxin Island Tribe faces an ongoing budget deficit to
maintain and operate the shellfish program at its current level of
operation-a level that leaves 20 percent of treaty-designated state
lands and 80-90 percent of private tidelands unharvested due to lack of
funding. To address this shortfall and enable effective growth and
development of the program, an annual minimum increase of $500,000 is
requested. Shellfish have been a mainstay for the Squaxin Island people
for thousands of years and are important today for subsistence,
economic and ceremonial purposes. The Tribe's right to harvest
shellfish is guaranteed by the 1854 Medicine Creek Treaty. Today, we
are unable to fully exercise our treaty rights due to lack of Federal
support for our shellfish management program.
[This statement was submitted by Kristopher K. Peters, Chairman,
Squaxin Island Tribe.]
______
Prepared Statement of Tanana Chiefs Conference
The Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC) appreciates the opportunity to
submit written testimony to the subcommittee regarding fiscal Year 2023
appropriation priorities for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and
Indian Health Service (IHS). TCC urges the subcommittee to continue in
fiscal Year 2023 to prioritize funding increases for the BIA and IHS
appropriation accounts that provide critical housing, Tribal Courts,
public safety, social services, subsistence, and healthcare needs to
rural, isolated communities such as the Alaska Native villages TCC
serves.
We are grateful to the subcommittee and Congress for the bipartisan
support it has shown for Alaska Native villages, especially since the
Coronavirus pandemic swept across the Nation and into Alaska Native and
Tribal communities. Federal funds have often spelled the difference
between the success or failure of Tribal programs and, in turn, the
wellbeing of the indigenous peoples of this great country. This remains
true today as Alaska Natives face continued challenges concerning
inadequate infrastructure, healthcare, public safety, food insecurity,
and the impacts of climate change.
TCC is a non-profit interTribal consortium of 42 communities,
including 37 Federally recognized Indian Tribes, located across
Alaska's interior. TCC serves approximately 18,000 Alaska Natives in
Fairbanks, where our headquarters is located, and in the rural villages
located along the 1,400 miles of the Yukon River and its tributaries,
and the upper Kuskokwim River drainage, in Alaska's interior.
housing
On average, TCC receives about 280 eligible applicants each year
for the BIA Housing Improvement Program (HIP) (funded at $11.7 million
in fiscal Year 2021). Due to funding restrictions, only the top scoring
applications are awarded. Since 2018, we received HIP funds to rebuild
eight homes in five villages. If HIP continues to be funded at this
level, it will take 140 years to meet the housing needs of the low-
income individuals in Interior Alaska. The lack of housing for low-
income Alaska Native families continues to be a priority for TCC.
Approximately 23 percent of Tribal households in our region (381
households) are dealing with overcrowding. The COVID-19 pandemic
highlighted the health disparity resulting from overcrowding in Alaska
Native villages and Tribal communities. The region's average per capita
income is $26,366 per year, which is approximately 25 percent lower
than the average per capital income for Alaska. HIP assistance is the
only assistance very low-income families qualify for. HIP is not
duplicative of NAHASDA's grant program. We urge the subcommittee to
significantly increase this ``neediest of the needy'' housing program
for fiscal Year 2023 at levels well above the fiscal Year 2021 enacted
level to improve housing conditions for low-income Alaska Natives.
tribal courts (public law 280 states)
We urge the subcommittee to establish permanent and recurring funds
for Tribal Courts within BIA's Public Safety and Justice account for
Tribal Courts (TPA) in Pub. L. 280 States like Alaska. We also ask to
increase Tribal Court funding to $20 million per year. Since receiving
BIA Pub. L. 280 Tribal Court funds, TCC Region Tribes have expanded
their caseloads, case types, and have improved outcomes for minor
Tribal members normally involved in the State child welfare system.
Tribes now having funding to ensure Indian Civil Rights Act applies in
all cases through full time Tribal court clerks, administrators, and
training of Tribal judges. These changes have improved Tribal Court
approaches to families struggling with addictions, domestic violence,
and mental health issues. Due to Alaska Native villages not receiving
BIA public safety funds, the role of Tribal Courts in Alaska Native
villages is critical. It allows our villages to address public safety
concerns at the community level in a culturally appropriate manner that
is responsive to local concerns. Trained Tribal Court personnel make a
difference.
Tribal and Wellness Courts are tangible evidence of our sovereign
status and promote healing and reduce criminal activity through a
holistic approach, rather than through arrest, prosecution, and
incarceration far from family and Tribal services. Tribal Courts have
been using their affirmed authority under VAWA to issue and enforcement
domestic violence protection orders and address minor crimes through
tribal/state diversion agreements. Tribes in the Region are currently
working to develop a regional interTribal court for Healing to
Wellness, and hope to help serve families and individuals that need
additional supports through the diversion courts.
public safety
TCC appreciates the leadership of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland
and this subcommittee concerning Missing and Murdered Indigenous women
and the creation of new unit to investigate and solve these cases
within the BIA's Office of Justice Services. Living in rural
communities with little or no local law enforcement often means that
rural Alaska Natives are 2-4 times more likely to be the victim of
crime compared to living in an urban center such as Anchorage. TCC
currently has 10 Village Public Safety Officers (VPSOs) funded by the
State and one Tribal Peace Officer to provide public safety and other
first responder services to our region. Our villages have 11 officers
to cover a service area that is slightly smaller than the state of
Texas. Our Tribes continue to call for increased public safety
resources for Alaska Native villages to keep our communities safe and
to break the cycle of abuse, trauma, and suffering.
icwa & social services
TCC receives ICWA funding to allocate $24,000 to our eligible
villages. This covers one-half of the cost for an ICWA advocate paid
$14/hr. for a 40-hour work week. Interior Alaska Tribes need $100,000
annually (a four-fold increase to the current assistance level we can
provide based on an appropriation of $17 million for ICWA). If our
Tribes are to end the cycle of abuse and trauma to young Native
children, we need qualified staff to monitor ICWA cases and ensure that
the children are kept safe and whenever possible reunited with parents
or guardians. The Tiwahe Program is a successful model that better
integrates social services, ICWA, Tribal Courts, counseling, and job
training. Please expand this culturally-rooted and holistic program
beyond its pilot Tribes so that this proven model can be replicated
among all Tribes. Tiwahe Program funds should be allocated equally to
all Tribal human services programs. It will save lives, money, and
build strong Native communities that raise healthier and more confident
Native children.
Unfortunately, rates of child abuse and neglect in Alaska are above
the National average. Alaska's physical abuse investigations during the
COVID pandemic have increased by 200 percent. This is a significant
increase and yet the BIA funds to prevent child abuse are consistently
inadequate. While funding increases for costs to implement the Indian
Child Protection and Family Violence Prevention Act are important,
Congress should also increase welfare assistance, ICWA, and social
service funds.
realty
The funding for the realty program has not matched the increased
demand for services. Our realty program started with under 3,000
landowners and today we are serving nearly 12,000. Since the passage of
the 2019 Dingell Act, Veterans are eligible to apply for allotment
lands with support from their local Tribal realty providers. This work
is an unfunded mandate.
Historically, record keeping funding was sent to regional BIA
offices and then distributed as end of year monies to Tribes, which was
approximately $500,000 per year. Over the last decade, TCC has not
received these funds, yet our landowners continue to increase and the
BIA shifted more record keeping responsibility onto Tribes. Probates
are becoming more complex. As land ownership becomes fractionated, more
individuals are named in probate cases and aging probate backlogs
increase. The volume and difficulty of work has increased, yet the
funding has not. In 2012, we had 3 realty specialists, 2 archeologists,
2 appraisers, 3 surveyors, and 3 probate specialists. We now have 1
realty specialist, 2 probate specialists, 1 appraiser, 1 surveyor and 1
archeologist/environmental officer due to funding constraints.
Surveys to partition/subdivide restricted lands is critical for
landowner use and is one of the most effective ways to combat
fractionation. We have an incredible need for survey with nearly 100
requests for survey that are unmet. We receive no funding for
surveying. The number of trespass complaints has quadrupled in the last
5 years. Fractionation, road construction for resource development,
outside hunting/fishing pressures, and climate change contribute to the
increase in trespass complaints.
public law 102-477 program
TCC has successfully operated a 477 program since late 1990s,
currently with 12 programs consolidated under the plan. 477 programs
allow TCC to provide wrap around services to our clients to help them
achieve their self-sufficiency goals. In the past 3 years, TCC served
6,664 adults, 633 youth, and 2,489 cash assistance recipients. TCC
appreciates the work by BIA AS-IA Newland for prioritizing the
Department of the Interior's MOA with other agencies to expand the 477
Program. With an update MOA that compliments the law, TCC plans to
expand consolidated programs. TCC views the 477 program as providing an
excellent model of how increasing Tribal flexibility with funding can
improve successful outcomes for our beneficiaries.
tribal management/development program and co-management
TCC seeks permanent and recurring funding for Inter-Tribal Fish
Commissions and Tribal Wildlife Co-Management Organizations. TCC uses
funds received within the TM/DP account to support the work performed
by the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission that works to unify the
Yukon River Tribes, advocate for Tribal management, build capacity and
address food security challenges with the decline of salmon runs due to
climate change. We need permanent and recurring funding for Inter-
Tribal Fish Commissions and Tribal Wildlife Co-Management Organizations
to continue this work. Harvesting salmon is vital to the health and
wellbeing of Tribal members. There is no culturally acceptable and
economical feasible substitute for this subsistence practice. Fisheries
management decisions on the Yukon River are made using fish counts from
two sonars operated by the State near Pilot Station at river mile 123
and the other more than 1,000 miles upriver at Eagle. On average, it
takes 27-40 days for salmon to travel between the two sonar sites. The
past 3 years, the counts at the Pilot Station sonar have overestimated
the run size, with up to 40,000 king salmon ``unaccounted'' for between
the two sonar sites. With an increase of $500,000 in our fiscal Year
2023 TM/DP funding, TCC can purchase a sonar midriver near Galena to
count salmon in the Yukon River earlier. A midriver sonar could impact
and create more equity of salmon harvest opportunities for the entire
population that lives on the Yukon River watershed, which is about
126,000 people. The resource management system does not acknowledge
traditional knowledge unless supported by data. A mid-river sonar at
Galena would give Tribes critical data to influence more accurate and
fair management decisions. This is an important step toward co-
management of our traditional resources.
TCC urges the subcommittee to instruct the non-BIA bureaus of the
Interior Department to honor the legal authority to enter self-
governance contracts for the stewardship of traditional territories
with Tribes (ISDEAA Title IV), recognizing the capacity and capability
of Tribes and Tribal organizations to assume co-management of public
lands and resources that are critical to the maintenance of our hunting
and fishing stewardship practice, and meeting national climate change
and conservation goals.
healthcare
In the late 1980's TCC assumed management of the Alaska Native
Health Center in Fairbanks and renamed it the Chief Andrew Isaac Health
Center after the Traditional Athabascan Chief from Dot Lake who led TCC
from 1972 to 1991. The Chief Andrew Isaac Health Center is an
accredited ambulatory health care facility providing comprehensive
outpatient services to eligible beneficiaries in our region. We
strongly support advance funding of IHS appropriations in the fiscal
Year 2023 appropriation bill and making IHS funding mandatory.
We urge the subcommittee to increase Services funds well above the
fiscal Year 2021/FY 2022 enacted levels to address the historic and
continuing inequitable and unequal funding for Alaska Native and
American Indian healthcare. If we are to end health disparities between
indigenous and non-Native people, address behavioral health needs, the
unacceptable high rate of infant mortality, the opioid epidemic, and
suicide among Native people, we need recurring funding increases in IHS
Services and Facilities programs commensurate with our needs and the
Federal Government's trust obligations to provide health care to Alaska
Natives and American Indians.
This subcommittee knows well our lack of infrastructure and the
negative health consequences that result to Native people from too few
health facilities, inadequate housing and transitional housing, lack of
qualified health professionals, long waiting lists for alcohol,
substance abuse, and mental health treatment programs, and long travel
distances to health facilities. Tribal organizations like TCC need
Federal appropriations across a broad array of Federal programs to
build more ambulatory health clinics, rehabilitate or construct housing
and transitional housing, recruit and hire qualified and dedicated
health professionals, staff, operate, and maintain substance abuse
treatment centers, and increase public transit. With more funds, we can
better ensure access to life- saving medical care and mental health
treatment services for Alaska Natives and beneficiaries.
The Pub. L. 102-477 Program is an excellent model that breaks down
arbitrary and harmful ``silos'' of Federal funding that deprive Tribal
organizations like TCC the flexibility we require to address multiple
needs in a holistic and culturally appropriate manner. It is in our
mutual interest for the Federal Government to afford Tribal
organizations the flexibility we require to do the most with what we
are given. Congress should trust Tribal organizations and let us
demonstrate what we can achieve for our members if we collaborate and
work together toward these shared goals.
Thank you for the opportunity for us to share our funding
priorities with you.
[This statement was submitted by Brian Ridley, President, Tanana
Chiefs Conference.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Urban Indian Health Institute
Members of the Senate Committee on Appropriations subcommittee on
Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, my name is Abigail Echo-
Hawk, and I am an enrolled citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma,
currently living in an urban Indian community in Seattle, Washington. I
am the Executive Vice President of the Seattle Indian Health Board
(SIHB) and Director of the Urban Indian Health Institute (UIHI), an
Indian Health Service (IHS) designated Tribal Epidemiology Center
(TEC), where I oversee our policy, research, data, and evaluation
initiatives. To ensure adequate resources and research can be conducted
by TECs, I request $474.4 million to the IHS Hospitals and Clinics:
Tribal Epidemiology Center line item to improve culturally attuned
research, data, and evaluation services for the over 7 million American
Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) people across the country.
I am an American Indian health researcher with more than 20 years
of experience in both academic and non-profit settings. I am part of
numerous local, State, and Federal efforts to support AI/AN communities
in research, including serving on the Tribal Collaborations Workgroup
for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) All of Us precision
medicine initiative. I am also a recent member of the NIH Office of
AIDs Research Advisory Council as the only Native representative. I am
a co-author to four groundbreaking research studies on sexual violence
and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) where I
have called national attention to the institutional barriers in data
collection, reporting, and analysis of demographic data that perpetuate
violence against AI/AN people. I am a member of the National Academies
of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Standing Committee for
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Center for
Preparedness and Response (SCPR). And I was a committee member for the
NASEM: Framework for Equitable Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccine.\1\ As
the only representative from the Native community, I worked to ensure
the needs of our Indian healthcare system, Tribes, AI/AN rural and
urban were appropriately included to inform States and policymakers
nationwide.
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\1\ National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
(2020). A Framework for Equitable Allocation of Vaccine for the Novel
Coronavirus. www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/a-framework-for-
equitable-allocation-of-vaccine-for-the-novel-coronavirus#sl-three-
columns-ae9c516d-4db7-4a55-be7a-9cc567aa561b
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support advanced appropriations for tribal epidemiology centers
I would like to thank the subcommittee for hosting a hearing on A
Review of the Fiscal Year 2023 President's Budget for the Indian Health
Service held on May 11, 2022. I was pleased to hear the subcommittee
raising the concerns of Indian Country, including IHS failing to submit
a budget proposal to support our efforts in reaching advanced
appropriations for the Indian healthcare system. I was also pleased to
hear Congresswoman Murkowski advocating for IHS to receive a permanent
director capable of submitting this budget proposal. Through collective
advocacy, I am confident in the Indian healthcare system receiving
equitable funding to uphold obligated trust and treaty responsibilities
to AI/AN populations.
continued institutional barriers on data access
I would like to thank the members of the subcommittee for their
support on S.1397 Tribal Health Data Improvement Act of 2021,\2\ which
passed the House and was heard in the Senate in late March. The act
addresses many of the concerns and recommendations issued by the
Government Accountability Office (GAO) report Tribal Epidemiology
Centers: HHS Actions Needed to Enhance Data Access.\3\ The act expands
an Indigenous Data Sovereignty framework \4\ by reaffirming TECs access
to public health data, encouraging the IHS to share public health data
with Tribes, Tribal organizations, urban Indian organizations (UIOs),
and improving the quality and accuracy of public health data.
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\2\ H.R. 3841 (2021). Tribal Health Data Improvement Act of 2021.
www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3841?s=1&r=70
\3\ United States Government Accountability Office. (March 2022).
Tribal Epidemiology Centers: HHS Actions Needed to Enhance Data Access.
Retrieved from: https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-104698.pdf .
\4\ United States Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network. (2021).
usindigenousdata.org/policy-briefs
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UIHI's work continues to highlight the ongoing undercount,
misclassification, and gaps of information collected on AI/ANs,
signifying the erasure of health inequities experienced in Indian
Country. On February 19, 2021, UIHI released a national report card,
Data Genocide \5\ to the House Select subcommittee on the Coronavirus
Crisis, that analyzed the collection and reporting of COVID-19 case
surveillance data for AI/ANs by State. The report revealed the Nation
receive a grade of D+ for our ability to track and report on racial
demographic COVID-19 data for AI/ANs. To provide our community with
accessible and reliable AI/AN data, UIHI maintains two data dashboards,
COVID-19 \6\ and Community Health Profiles \7\, on AI/ANs across the
country. These dashboards are the first-of-its kind and provide viable
data to service providers to support program planning, identify gaps in
data and research, and support decision-making for our community.
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\5\ Urban Indian Health Institute. (February 15, 2021). Data
Genocide of American Indians and Alaska Natives in COVID-19 Data.
www.uihi.org/download/data-genocide-of-american-indians-and-alaska-
natives-a-report-card-grading-u-s-States-quality-of-covid-19-data-and-
their-effectiveness-in-tracking-it-for-american-indian-and-alaska-
native-p/?wpdmdl=17709&refresh=62165c5d26f381645632605
\6\ Urban Indian Health Institute. (2021). COVID-19 Data Dashboard.
www.uihi.org/covid-19-data-dashboard/
\7\ Urban Indian Health Institute. (2022). Community Health
Profiles. www.uihi.org/urban-indian-health/data-dashboard/
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Despite the Affordable Care Act authorizing public health data to
TECs, the IHS continues to deny TECs with necessary data. As recently
as January 19, 2022, UIHI was denied county-level STI and HIV data
stratified by race. Additionally, the CDC has not improved our ability
to access the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS)
and National Data Warehouse with the CDC simultaneously holding back on
releasing COVID-19 data to the public.\11\ We are actively pursuing and
requesting public data across the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) with the Administration and Congress to oversee the CDC
fulfilling our data requests.
We request Federal agencies establish data sharing requirements
with TECs which uphold Congressional intent and recommendations by the
GAO report. The lack of investment affects the quality of data reported
out, inter-operability between public health agencies, and limits our
ability to analyze data in a timely manner. Increased funding for data
modernization supports TEC's provide information to Tribes, Tribal
organizations, UIOs, and government agencies and inform decision-making
for the equitable distribution of resources as well as robust policies,
planning, and programming to address social determinants of health
experienced in Indian Country.
prioritizing maternal health under the biden administration
In 2021, the Administration announced initial actions to address
the Indigenous maternal health crisis.\8\ However, the future of
maternal and infant programming is severely lacking within IHS
programming. Nationally, CDC data shows that AI/ANs have almost twice
the infant mortality rate \9\ and three to four times the maternal
mortality rate \10\ as compared to non-Hispanic whites. Significant
investments must be made for maternal and infant health delivered under
the Indian healthcare system.
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\8\ The White House. (April 13, 2021). Fact Sheet.
www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/13/fact-
sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-initial-actions-to-address-
the-black-maternal-health-crisis/.
\9\ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020). Infant
Mortality in the United States, 2018: Data From the Period Linked
Birth/Infant Death File. www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr69/NVSR-69-7-
508.pdf
\10\ Petersen EE, Davis NL, Goodman D, et al. (2019). Vital Signs:
Pregnancy-Related Deaths. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm68181
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https://www.nationalpartnership.org/our-work/resources/health-care/
maternity/american-indian-and-alaska.pdf
Currently, there are only 10 IHS obstetric facilities available
nationwide to support infant and maternal health.\11\ In 2020, the
Phoenix Indian Medical Center abruptly closed their inpatient
obstetrics services due to outdated equipment and staffing
shortages.\12\ On average, IHS spends $3,332 per patient compared to
the National average of $9,207 per patient.\13\ Urban AI/AN women rely
on Medicaid as their primary insurance compared to only 27.2 percent of
non-Hispanic white women.\14\ Despite the expansion of Medicaid in the
Affordable Care Act, 21 percent of AI/AN women remain uninsured or
underinsured.\15\ These types of ramification have resulted in over 90
percent of AI/AN births occurring outside of IHS facilities.\16\
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\11\ IHS. Locations. https://www.ihs.gov/babyfriendly/locations/
\12\ Indian Country Today. (October 23, 2020). Birthing center
closure: 'My baby and I felt abandoned'. https://
indiancountrytoday.com/news/birthing-center-closure-my-baby-and-i-felt-
abandoned?redir=1
\13\ National Congress of American Indians. (2020). Healthcare.
https://www.ncai.org/07_NCAI-FY20-Healthcare.pdf
\14\ Urban Indian Health Institute. (2021). Community Health
Profile. https://www.uihi.org/download/community-health-profile-
national-aggregate-of-urban-indian-organization-service-areas/
?wpdmdl=19113&refresh=62570f7186e871649872753
\15\ National Partnership for Women & Families. (October 2019).
American Indian and Alaska Native Women's Maternal Health.
\16\ IHS. Maternal Mortality and Morbidity in Indian Country.
https://www.ihs.gov/sites/dccs/themes/responsive2017/display_objects/
documents/IHSmaternalmortalityfsfinal.pdf
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While not under the IHS, the National Institutes of Health--Healthy
Native Babies Program (HNBP) was the only national AI/AN educational
campaign for infant and maternal health which expired on May 5, 2022.
HNBP provides culturally attuned programming and trainings to address
infant health disparities including high rates of Sudden unexplained
infant death (SUID) through materials, community stipends, and
culturally attuned training. With the ending of this program, the
subcommittee must advocate for increased initiatives to address the
maternal and infant health crisis or find HNBP a new home within a
Federal agency like IHS.
holistic gender-based violence services
The pandemic has stressed the need for additional resources to
reach AI/AN survivors, victims, families, and communities affected by
the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People (MMIWP) crisis.
During the pandemic, gender-based violence incidents increased by 8.1
percent,\17\ yet we know this is a severe undercount for AI/AN
populations who are difficult to reach. IHS must receive additional
funding to support prevention and intervention of violence for our
loved ones.
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\17\ National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice (February
2021). Domestic Violence During COVID-19: Evidence from a Systematic
Review and Meta-Analysis.
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In response, UIHI has released a number of reports including:
Sacred: Womxn of Resilience,\18\ a report on the COVID-19 impact on
Native femme-identify Native survivors of sexual violence; Service as
Ceremony: A Journey Toward Healing,\19\ a national study interviewing
gender-based violence direct service providers; and Building the
Sacred: An Indigenous Framework for Programs Serving Native Survivors
of Violence. \20\ These reports are critical to understanding where
continued investments and policy change are needed so we may move
towards healing.
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\18\ Urban Indian Health Institute. (September 2020). Sacred: Womxn
of Resilience. www.uihi.org/download/supporting-the-sacred-womxn-of-
resilience/?wpdmdl=18261&refresh=6217b40a4ce3e1645720586
\19\ Urban Indian Health Institute. (February 17, 2022). Service as
Ceremony: A Journey Toward Healing. www.uihi.org/download/service-as-
ceremony-a-journey-toward-healing/
?wpdmdl=19563&refresh=621d39d2458ae1646082514XX
\20\ Urban Indian Health Institute (February 17, 2022). Building
the Sacred. www.uihi.org/download/building-the-sacred-an-indigenous-
evaluation-framework-for-programs-serving-native-survivors-of-violence/
?wpdmdl=19565&refresh=6216aacc3cca61645652684
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Sacred: Womxn of Resilience was a grant opportunity for Native
femme-identifying survivors of sexual assault who had been impacted by
the pandemic. The report recommended funding for housing stability,
legal representation, behavioral health, and strengthening community
support to reduce unmet needs, support providers, promote self-
determination and healing, and honor Tribal sovereignty. The report
also found the relationship between law enforcement, providers, and
survivors could be improved through culturally responsive training and
authentic relationship-building.
Service as Ceremony: A Journey Toward Healing details stories and
experiences of gender-based violence direct-service providers in urban
and rural Native communities. The report found culturally attuned
programing that holistically address physical, psychological, and
spiritual impacts, while responding to community needs, were essential
to building resiliency and responding the spectrum of violence. The
providers' stories revealed six areas of unmet needs: centering culture
as a core part of service; improve flexibility of State and Federal
grants; increased access to housing and stability; and expanded
LGBTW2S+ services in community prevention.
As a compliment to Service as Ceremony, we released Building the
Sacred: An Indigenous Evaluation Framework for Programs Serving Native
Survivors of Violence. UIHI's framework supports building the patient-
provider relationship and culturally attuned responses to MMIWP. These
reports make three key recommendations 1) fund TECs to conduct research
by and for Indigenous people 2) Assure funding is non-competitive,
multi-year, and provides flexible spending, and 3) Include UIOs in
grant carve outs in bills like the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
The subcommittee and IHS must implement policies, programming, and
activities to support a multipronged approach to address the MMIWP
crisis. Federal agencies have a fiduciary obligation to protect AI/AN
populations across the Nation and must do everything in their statutory
limits to combat MMIWP.
[This statement was submitted by Abigail Echo-Hawk, MA, Director of
the Urban Indian Health Institute.]
______
Prepared Statement of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony regarding Fiscal
Year 2023 (FY23) appropriations. Our organizations share a commitment
to collaborative, landscape-scale conservation. This work brings people
together across geographies, sectors, and cultures to restore
fragmented landscapes and seascapes, safeguarding the ecological,
cultural, and economic benefits provided by intact and connected
habitat. We therefore support the President's FY23 Budget Request of
$57.5M (an increase of approximately $27.7M over FY22) for the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service's (USFWS) Science Applications Program.\1\
This funding is critical for effectively coordinating collaborative,
large landscape conservation, climate resilience, and habitat
connectivity efforts across the Federal Government-and with state,
Tribal, and non-governmental partners nationwide. Furthermore, we urge
you to provide an additional $2.5M ($60M total for Science
Applications) in order to begin implementing the consensus
recommendations that emerged from the recent Future of Conservation
Forum \2\ (led by USFWS) and the recent congressional briefing on
``Building a Durable National Framework for Large Landscape
Conservation.'' \3\
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\1\ https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2022-03/presidents-2b-
service-budget-request-prioritizes-conservation-key
\2\ https://www.futureofconservation.earth/forum.html
\3\ https://www.eesi.org/briefings/view/032922fed
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As described in the USFWS FY23 Budget Justification,\4\ Science
Applications ``addresses complex, multi-jurisdictional conservation
challenges across large landscapes using a collaborative approach to
develop shared conservation priorities, actions and outcomes'' (SA-1,
emphasis added). Science Applications achieves this by convening
federal, state, Tribal, and non-governmental partners to identify and
implement durable, inclusive, and landscape-scale conservation
solutions. The Science Applications Cooperative Landscape Conservation
\5\ and Science Support \6\ activities provide the coordination,
scientific expertise, and technical tools needed to tackle challenges
that transcend the management authority, resources, and scope of any
single entity. Investing in the collaborative processes and Landscape
Conservation Designs \7\ of these multi-stakeholder conservation
partnerships is necessary to adequately address pressing threats to
American livelihoods and ecosystems, such as climate change, habitat
fragmentation, biodiversity loss, and environmental injustice-key goals
of the Biden administration's America the Beautiful initiative.
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\4\ https://www.fws.gov/media/fiscal-year-2023-fish-and-wildlife-
service-budget-justification
\5\ The FY23 budget request for Cooperative Landscape Conservation
is $19,013,000 and 85 full-time employees (FTEs), an increase of
$6,102,000 and 25 FTEs over the 2022 annualized level provided by the
continuing resolution (SA-1).
\6\ The FY23 budget request for Science Support (including Adaptive
Science and Service Science, combined) is $38,482,000 and 49 full-time
employees (FTEs), an increase of $21,215,000 and 26 FTEs over the 2022
annualized level provided by the continuing resolution (SA-1).
\7\ USFWS defines Landscape Conservation Designs as ``blueprints
that guide partners in targeting their management efforts to areas they
collectively identify as having high conservation value'' (USFWS FY23
Budget Justification, SA-8).
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Effectively synchronizing landscape conservation, habitat
connectivity, and climate adaptation efforts across Federal agencies
and coordinating these efforts with non-federal partners requires
investing in a new durable, comprehensive, and inclusive national
structure for and approach to landscape conservation. That is why a
group of experts published a report in 2021 calling for renewed Federal
leadership and resources to address large-scale conservation challenges
and to support and connect regional conservation partnerships across
the Nation.\8\ This perspective is shared by many prominent leaders in
the conservation community, as articulated in an op-ed published in The
Hill last year by former U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI)
officials.\9\
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\8\ https://largelandscapenews.org/2021/05/17/national-landscape-
conservation-framework/
\9\ https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/549729-21st-
century-conservation-a-vision-of-collaboration-across
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Given this clarion call for a coordinated strategy, and growing
public attention to the issue, the non-partisan Environmental and
Energy Study Institute (EESI) held a congressional briefing on large
landscape conservation in March (summarized in Appendix 1 of this
testimony). Expert panelists-representing USFWS, the Native American
Fish and Wildlife Society, conservation organizations, and
environmental foundations-discussed opportunities to coordinate and
catalyze collaborative conservation efforts through a locally-led,
nationally-scaled strategy and approach. A key theme that emerged was
the need for funding, policies, and processes that elevate shared
conservation priorities from the bottom up, and that weave together
conservation efforts into a cohesive network of landscape-scale
partnerships and programs.
Recognizing this need, Science Applications has stepped up to
launch the ``next generation of collaborative conservation,'' in
partnership with State and Tribal agencies, Federal counterparts, and
stakeholders on the ground (USFWS FY23 Budget Justification, SA-4).
Ultimately, these efforts aim to build an inclusive, ``durable
conservation framework to promote biodiversity, climate adaptation and
mitigation, and racial equity'' (USFWS FY23 Budget Justification SA-7).
To achieve this ambitious and important goal, USFWS convened over 200
federal, state, Tribal, and non-governmental partners in January to
prioritize actions to better coordinate conservation efforts and build
a unifying national framework. Science Applications took the lead on
summarizing these recommendations into a report, the executive summary
of which is included as Appendix 2 to this testimony. To begin
implementing the actions-which echo the recommendations of the
aforementioned landscape conservation framework report,\10\ op-ed by
former DOI officials, and EESI briefing-Science Applications needs
funding beyond the $57.5M in the budget request.
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\10\ https://largelandscapes.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/
Landscape-Conservation-Framework.pdf
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An additional $2.5M (for a total FY23 appropriation of $60M for
Science Applications) is necessary to collaboratively develop a new
national framework for conserving a network of healthy and productive
lands and waters that sustain our Nation's unique natural and cultural
resources. In particular, greater direct investments in building and
sustaining the collaborative capacity of landscape conservation
partnerships across the country are critical (as recognized in Theme 3
of Appendix 2). In the USFWS FY23 Budget Justification, Science
Applications recognizes ``[c]apacity for coordination and collaboration
is essential for maintaining [the] partnerships'' that underlie their
work (SA-3). USFWS also notes that fostering the strong working
relationships at the heart of collaborative conservation requires
reliable funding over the long-term (SA-3). Once a solid foundation of
trust and a shared conservation vision are in place, then USFWS and
their partners can successfully ``work within their respective
authorities and priorities to deliver conservation actions that are
collectively greater than the sum of the parts'' (SA-3).
Ultimately, Science Applications is uniquely positioned to provide
``Federal support to local, State, and regional conservation efforts
that contribute to creating a more inclusive and enduring conservation
framework by bringing people and organizations together to accomplish
shared conservation priorities.'' (SA-7). To play this vital support
and catalyst role, the program needs robust congressional
appropriations. We appreciate your consideration of our testimony and
would be happy to provide additional information.
appendix 1
building a durable national framework for large landscape conservation
environmental and energy study institute briefing series agencies in
action: federal programs that deliver climate mitigation and adaptation
benefits every day
The final briefing in the series focused on landscape conservation.
Ecosystems often span county, state, Tribal, and national borders. Wide
swaths of area must be managed across jurisdictions and in
collaboration with stakeholders on the ground to maximize social and
environmental benefits, including ecosystem services such as water
filtration and carbon sequestration. Furthermore, networks of intact
and connected core habitats, working lands, and open space facilitate
the migration of species, which is especially important for allowing
animals to adapt to climate and land use changes, as well as for
reducing human-wildlife conflict and wildlife-vehicle collisions.
Panelists dove into the benefits of coordinating conservation
efforts at the scale of large landscapes and showcased opportunities to
advance an inclusive and durable national framework for landscape
conservation.
Key Takeaways
--No single entity alone has the authority or the ability to address
conservation challenges across the United States. A coordinated
national effort by the conservation community is required. This
effort, due to its scale and scope, would be best supported by
Federal leadership.
--A national framework for landscape conservation should not be a
top-down regulatory approach. Rather, it should be a set of
conditions that would elevate shared conservation priorities
and challenges from the bottom up. It could also include a
national network of collaborative conservation partnerships.
--A national survey by the Network for Landscape Conservation
identified 122 collaborative landscape conservation initiatives
in the United States. The projects are locally focused, but
they achieve significant regional and national outcomes.
--The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law 117-58)
provides $400 million in ecosystem restoration grants to
States, Tribes, and territories. Continued engagement with
States and Tribes on implementation is critical.
--There is no guaranteed funding for Tribal fish and wildlife
programs. Tribes must cobble together funds piecemeal for their
programs through multiple funding sources. The Recovering
America's Wildlife Act (H.R.2773) would be a great way to work
with Tribes. For the first time, Tribes were included in the
development of this conservation bill from the beginning. The
Tribal title would provide base funds for Tribal fish and
wildlife programs.
appendix 2
the future of conservation forum: creating and implementing a
collaborative national framework
draft summary of recommended actions
Executive Summary
Stemming the biodiversity crisis and mitigating climate impacts
requires us to rally together to create a network of connected lands
and waters that can support healthy wildlife and thriving human
populations. Fish and wildlife agencies have the important role and
unique responsibility to conserve fish, wildlife, and their habitats
yet the agencies also recognize the need to adapt to a changing society
to increase the relevancy of conservation. An overarching challenge to
conservation is how we weave disparate efforts together to create a
durable and unifying national framework for conservation.
In January 2022, the Future of Conservation Forum brought together
over 200 professionals to discuss and begin to prioritize the actions
needed to ensure a durable future for conservation. Participants
included representatives from federal, provincial, and State
governments, Indigenous groups, non-governmental organizations,
philanthropies, businesses, landowners and others. Forum participants
were divided into working groups that generated ideas in one of seven
areas:
--Collaboration
--Private Lands
--Biodiversity
--Climate Change
--Urban Landscapes
--Coordination across Governments
--Integrating Science and Traditional Ecological/Indigenous
Knowledges in Conservation Planning
The report summarizes cross-cutting themes and their respective
actions that surfaced across many or all of the working groups during
the forum. It also includes actions around each of the seven working
group areas. We consider this report a ``living document'' that we
expect to evolve with additional input. It is hoped that this summary
and the report will be used by agencies and organizations as they work
collaboratively towards defining and developing a national framework
for landscape-scale conservation.
Cross-cutting themes emerging from the forum are:
1) Build Trust to Strengthen Collaboration and Achieve Greater
Impact
2) Inventory Approaches to Landscape Conservation and Collaboration
3) Establish Support for Critical Functions
4) Advance A Framework That Increases Equity and Inclusion
5) Secure New Funding and Develop A Comprehensive Funding Approach
6) Develop and Deliver Robust Communication, Outreach, and
Education
[This statement was submitted by Center for Large Landscape
Conservation.]
______
Prepared Statement of the WateReuse Association
Thank you for the opportunity to present our fiscal Year 2023
funding requests for programs administered by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA). The WateReuse Association (WateReuse) urges
you to meet the President's fiscal Year 2023 Budget Request of $25
million for the Pilot Program for Alternative Water Source Grants (33
U.S.C. 1300).
WateReuse is a not-for-profit trade association for water
utilities, businesses, industrial and commercial enterprises, non-
profit organizations, and research entities that engage in and on water
reuse. WRA and its state and regional sections represent more than 200
water utilities serving over 60 million customers, and over 300
businesses and organizations across the country. WRA's mission is to
advance safe and sustainable water supplies, to promote acceptance and
support of recycled water, and to advocate for policies and funding
that increase water reuse.
As climate change accelerates, and its associated impacts on water
resources increase, the Nation must invest in water recycling to build
resilience, manage energy demands, support public and environmental
health, and ensure America's economic prosperity. Investments in water
recycling ensure reliable and resilient community water supplies,
support sustainable economic development, and help protect our rivers,
lakes, streams, aquifers and wetlands. Moreover, water recycling
projects often using less energy, imposing a smaller carbon footprint,
and generating fewer air pollution emissions than other options for
providing new water supplies.
To address this urgent need, Congress authorized the Pilot Program
for Alternative Water Source Grants as part of the recently enacted
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. Through the program,
EPA would make competitive grants to state, interstate, and intrastate
water resource development agencies to engineer, design, construct, and
test alternative water source systems, including water reuse systems.
The program will ensure that communities in all 50 States plus the
District of Columbia and Puerto Rico can access water recycling tools
to solve local water challenges.
We strongly supported Congress' decision to reauthorize the Pilot
Program for Alternative Water Source Grants as part of the
Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act, and we urge you to provide
first-time funding for the program in fiscal Year 2023.
examples of water recycling from around the country
In Virginia's tidewater region, Hampton Roads Sanitation District
is pursuing a multi-benefit water reuse program called the Sustainable
Water Initiative for Tomorrow (SWIFT). HRSD's SWIFT project treats
wastewater effluent to drinking water standards and reuses it to
recharge the regional aquifer. The investment of $1.1 billion in
capital outlays provides critical public health, environmental and
economic benefits by replenishing the overdrawn Potomac Aquifer,
recharging 100 million gallons per day (MGD) of fresh water at full
implementation, providing a reliable safe water supply to support the
region's population and the Nation's critical military assets, and
generating nutrient credits that HRSD can trade--providing an estimated
savings of $1.5 billion for 11 counties across the region. EPA
investment programs have provided critical capital to help move this
large project forward.
In Florida's Tampa Bay Region, Hillsborough County's Saltwater
Intrusion and Aquifer Recharge Program (SHARP) is creating a hydraulic
barrier to saltwater intrusion between the Bay and the region's
drinking water aquifer. At a cost of $20 million, SHARP is yielding
significant climate-resiliency benefits by protecting the region's
freshwater aquifer from sea level rise and saltwater intrusion,
reducing pumping costs and energy use by raising groundwater levels and
increasing pressure in the potable freshwater aquifer, generating water
supply credits that offset the project's cost, and supporting seagrass
and fishery recovery efforts by reducing nutrient and other effluent
loadings.
In Texas, El Paso Water is using water recycling and saline
groundwater desalination to produce a drought-resilient, cost-
effective, and reliable water supply to support a vibrant local
economy. Compared to the next best alternative (importing groundwater),
El Paso's water reuse program is reducing energy use by 3.6 million MWH
over the planning period, shrinking the agency's carbon footprint by
nearly 700,000 MT of carbon emissions over a 50-year period, and
addressing affordability challenges related to imported water by saving
more than $1.2 billion, or 74 percent.
In Southern California's Chino Basin, local leaders developed the
Optimum Basin Management Program (OBMP) to address the region's water
challenges. At its core, the OBMP is a water reuse program with other
key components facilitated by water recycling. The OBMP generates
energy savings in excess of 5.8 Billion kWh over 30 years by relying on
local resources rather than energy intensive water imports, saves
ratepayers an estimated $2.4 billion in water supply costs (a 153
percent return on investment), and restores instream flows and water
quality in the Santa Ana River, returning a surface water supply to
downstream Orange County and replenishing and improving water quality
in the Chino Groundwater Basin.
[This statement was submitted by Greg Fogel, WateReuse
Association.]
______
Prepared Statement of Western Governors' Association
Chair Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski, and Members of the
subcommittee, the Western Governors' Association (WGA) appreciates the
opportunity to provide written testimony on the appropriations and
activities of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service (FWS), National Park Service (NPS), U.S. Forest
Service (USFS) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). WGA is an
independent organization representing the Governors of the 22
westernmost States and territories. The Association is an instrument of
the Governors for bipartisan policy development, information sharing
and collective action on issues of critical importance to the western
United States.
The agencies within the subcommittee's jurisdiction wield
significant influence over vast areas of the American West. Ninety-four
percent of all Federal lands are located in the western States, and the
Federal Government owns over 46 percent of the land within active WGA
States. The work of this subcommittee is of vital importance to Western
Governors, as it affects public lands management and Federal agency
interaction with other levels of government and the public.
There is a natural tension between State and Federal Governments
that is embedded in the fabric of the U.S. Constitution. These
sovereign governments must have a close and productive working
relationship to promote efficiency and maximize returns on taxpayer
investments. Improving the partnership between States and the Federal
Government is central to the mission of WGA and is reflected in WGA
Policy Resolution 2021-01, Strengthening the State-Federal
Relationship.
In last year's House committee report accompanying the Interior,
Environment, and Related Agencies Fiscal Year 2022 appropriations bill
(H. Rpt. 117-83), the Federal agencies funded by the Interior bill were
directed to provide appropriate feedback on Tribal input received by
agencies through meaningful consultation in their decision-making
processes. Similar direction to Federal agencies for government-to-
government consultation with States, which is required pursuant to
Executive Order 13132, Federalism, would improve the co-sovereign
relationship between States and the Federal Government.
Federal agencies should provide state, territorial, local, and
Tribal government officials with accessible and clear information on
available Federal resources and programs and the most effective
utilization of those resources in disaster recovery. WGA has worked
with Federal partners to improve interagency coordination on post-
wildfire restoration work, including a roadmap of assistance available
to communities affected by wildfire and identification of
``navigators'' to help communities prioritize post-wildfire restoration
needs. Western Governors urge the Federal Government to prioritize the
funding of these important efforts, as they should have a positive
effect on maximizing the value of restoration work and, more
importantly, addressing the needs of communities affected by wildfire.
Western Governors are proud of the 2018 Shared Stewardship
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between WGA and the U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA). The MOU has led to collaborative engagement on
several cross-boundary, cross-jurisdictional issues, including post-
wildfire interagency coordination, cheatgrass infestations, and
vegetation management in utility corridors. It has also led to positive
engagement between individual States and the Department: USDA has now
executed Shared Stewardship agreements with 28 States, 15 of which are
within the WGA footprint. These agreements provide States a useful tool
to discuss land management priorities and coordinate on priority land
management projects.
Responsible land management can only occur when federal, State and
local stakeholders collaborate to improve the health and resilience of
our lands. Likewise, proactive fish and wildlife conservation is most
effective when leveraging the cooperative efforts of State and Federal
officials across multiple disciplines. To this end, Western Governors
support all reasonable proactive management efforts to conserve
species, including engaging stakeholders to implement early, voluntary
conservation measures. WGA also believes the Services should explore
expanded use of detail positions and shared staff between State and
Federal agencies to increase interagency coordination.
States possess primary authority to manage most fish and wildlife
within their borders, and they receive economic benefits associated
with healthy species and ecosystems. At the same time, species listings
can dramatically affect the efforts of western States to promote
economic development, accommodate population growth, and maintain and
expand infrastructure. Western Governors believe that States should be
full partners in listing, critical habitat designations, recovery
planning, recovery efforts, and delisting decisions. State agencies
often have the best available science, expertise and other scientific
and institutional resources such as mapping capabilities, biological
inventories, biological management goals, state wildlife action plans
and other important data. All listing, recovery and delisting decisions
made by the Federal Government should recognize, consult, and employ
these vast state resources and utilize objective, peer-reviewed
scientific literature and scientific observations.
Fish and wildlife migration corridors and habitat are necessary to
maintain healthy populations of species in the West. Western Governors
applaud the additional funding for Federal agencies to advance state-
supported programs and projects promoting voluntary migration corridor
and habitat conservation and request that you continue to appropriate
these funds. Governors note that any Federal efforts to identify,
regulate or conserve wildlife migration corridors through
administrative or legislative action must involve coordination and
consultation with States and should advance collaborative, locally
driven initiatives to conserve key wildlife corridors and habitat.
WGA applauds the full funding for the Payment in Lieu of Taxes
(PILT) program administered by the Department of the Interior for
fiscal year 2021 and recommends the enactment of a permanent and stable
funding mechanism for the program. PILT funding does not represent a
gift to local jurisdictions; rather it provides important compensation
for the disproportionate measure of non-taxable Federal lands in the
West. Similarly, payments under the Secure Rural Schools and Community
Self-Determination Act (SRS) compensate communities whose timber
industries have been negatively affected by actions and acquisitions of
the Federal Government. Western Governors request that you continue to
appropriate full funding annually for both PILT and SRS in the future.
Western Governors continue to be concerned about the number of wild
horses and burros on BLM lands. This number is presently estimated to
be more than triple the current Appropriate Management Level (AML).
Overpopulation has resulted in the degradation of rangeland, negatively
affecting wildlife and domestic livestock as well as the habitat of
threatened and endangered species. WGA supports a process to establish,
monitor and adjust AMLs for wild horses and burros that is transparent
to stakeholders, supported by scientific information (including state
data), and amenable to adaptation with new information and
environmental and social change. Western Governors recognize BLM's 2019
Path Forward for Management of BLM's Wild Horses and Burros and 2020
Analysis of Achieving a Sustainable Wild Horse and Burro Program as
examples of sensible alternatives to current wild horse and burro
management practices. WGA encourages the subcommittee to continue
funding the BLM's implementation of the recommendations contained in
these proposals.
WGA remains concerned about the spread of invasive mussels in the
West and has highlighted this issue through the Western Governors'
Biosecurity and Invasive Species Initiative. Of particular concern are
invasive quagga and zebra mussels, which continue to be a major threat
to western water resources. To combat this threat, Western Governors
request that the BLM, FWS and NPS continue to be provided with the
resources necessary to implement mandatory inspection of all high-risk
watercraft and decontamination of watercraft infested with quagga and
zebra mussels leaving waterbodies under their jurisdiction. Outside the
jurisdiction of the subcommittee but relevant to this matter, Western
Governors support legislation that would clarify Federal authority to
conduct inspection and decontamination procedures and manage invasive
species on lands and waters under their jurisdiction.
Western Governors applaud NPS for its efforts to preserve iconic
landscapes, habitats and cultural resources. WGA is concerned, however,
about the significant maintenance backlog affecting National Parks. WGA
appreciates the funding authorized by the Great American Outdoors Act
for priority deferred maintenance projects administered by Federal land
management agencies and supports ongoing NPS operations to address
critical infrastructure needs.
Data for water management and drought response planning is critical
to western States. Western Governors request continued funding for the
Groundwater and Streamflow Information Program administered by the U.S.
Geological Survey. The data generated by the program is integral to
water supply management decisions of States, utilities, reservoir
operators and farmers. It is also essential for risk management,
disaster mitigation, and drought and flood forecasting throughout the
West.
Infrastructure management is another crucial element of drought
response, and Federal investments in our Nation's aging water and
wastewater facilities are essential to our Nation's continued economic
prosperity and environmental protection. EPA'S Clean Water and Drinking
Water State Revolving Funds (SRFs) provide necessary support for
communities to maintain and enhance their water infrastructure. Western
Governors' Policy Resolution 2021-10, Water Quality in the West,
encourages adequate funding for SRFs. Western Governors appreciate the
SRF appropriations and authorizations included in the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act and encourage the subcommittee to strongly
support these programs. Western Governors similarly support the funding
of Federal programs that promote non-federal water infrastructure
investment, such as the Water Infrastructure Finance Innovation Act
program. This important program provides flexible long-term, low-cost
supplemental credit assistance for projects of national and regional
significance.
States have exclusive authority over the allocation and
administration of rights to groundwater located within their borders
and are primarily responsible for protecting, managing, and otherwise
controlling the resource. The regulatory reach of the Federal
Government was not intended to, and should not, be applied to the
management and control of groundwater resources. WGA encourages
Congress to include express and unambiguous language protecting States'
authority over groundwater resources in any water-related legislation,
as well as clear direction to administrative agencies to respect such
authority. WGA appreciates the language included by the subcommittee in
prior Appropriations Acts addressing existing statutory authorities for
groundwater protection. Federal agencies should work within existing
State authorities to address their groundwater-related needs and
concerns. WGA urges you to ensure that Federal efforts involving
groundwater recognize and respect state primacy and comply with all
statutory authorities.
States also possess delegated authority from EPA to manage air
quality within their borders. Congress and EPA should recognize state
authority under the Clean Air Act (CAA) and accord States sufficient
flexibility to create air quality and emissions programs tailored to
individual state needs, industries and economies. State CAA programs
require financial support from Congress, yet funding has declined since
the CAA's enactment. In addition, given the unique character of the
West and the region's attainment challenges, funding should be
appropriated for EPA to assist western States in research on
background, interstate and transported ozone. This is especially
critical as more frequent and intense wildfires are steadily reducing
the West's gains in air quality improvement. Smoke from wildfires
causes exceedances under National Ambient Air Quality Standards for
particulate matter and ozone, negatively affecting public health,
safety and transportation. Prescribed fire can reduce these effects but
is currently underused in many areas due to concerns about how it may
affect compliance with CAA State Implementation Plans.
Western Governors and Federal land management agencies deal with a
complex web of interrelated natural resource issues. It is an enormous
challenge to judiciously balance competing needs in this environment,
and Western Governors appreciate the difficulty of the decisions this
subcommittee must make. The foregoing recommendations are offered in a
spirit of cooperation and respect, and WGA is prepared to assist you in
discharging these critical and challenging responsibilities.
[This statement was submitted by James D. Ogsbury, Executive
Director, Western Governors' Association.]
______
Prepared Statement of Western States Arts Federation
Thank you for providing the opportunity to submit outside witness
testimony as you consider investments in vital Federal agencies,
including the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The Western States
Arts Federation (WESTAF), a regional partner of the NEA, and the
Western Arts Advocacy Network (WAAN) write to affirm the integral role
the NEA plays in communities throughout the region.
As we know, arts and creativity strengthen our Nation. They make us
stronger-as individuals, families, communities, States and as a
country. They are a backbone of innovation, prosperity, and thriving
people and places. Public funding for arts and creativity is a high
return investment that benefits every American in every city, town and
rural community nationwide. Federal support of the arts is uniquely
valuable because the ratio of private and other public funds matching
every NEA grant dollar is about 9:1, far surpassing the required non-
federal match of at least 1:1 (NEA, 2021).
We urge you to continue bipartisan support and fund the National
Endowment for the Arts in the fiscal Year 2023 Interior Appropriations
bill at no less than $203.55 million to broaden access to the cultural,
educational, and economic benefits of the arts and to advance
creativity and innovation in communities across the United States.
Because of the leadership of Congress, this increase will mean expanded
support of arts and culture across the West driven by decisions made at
the community level. We encourage the subcommittee to build a specific
path to index funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) at $1 per capita. Each
agency is currently funded at about .54 cents per capita. We also
encourage continued parity between NEA and NEH funding. We further
request you to support the recovery of the arts sector by allowing the
NEA to provide general operating support funding as the sector recovers
from the Omicron variant to COVID-19.
We understand the importance of the NEA's leadership in the West
and would like to point out the following:
1. NEA is a significant funder and a positive force for arts
development in the West, a fast growing and exceptionally diverse
region that is home to nearly a quarter of the U.S. population.
2. NEA funds reach every congressional district in the West and
throughout the United States (435 congressional districts). NEA support
is a critical component in ensuring that arts funding reaches every
community in the U.S.
3. In the West, the NEA has awarded more than $25 million in grants
annually to arts efforts in recent years. In 2022, the NEA awarded
$11.2 million to support state arts agencies in the West, and across
the region the Endowment's federal-state partnership is absolutely
essential.
4. Every dollar of Federal funding invested in the National
Endowment for the Arts leverages $9 of additional funding nationally.
Investment into state arts agencies in our region alone provides a
nearly 12:1 return on investment based on 2022 data (see table below).
National Endowment for the Arts Contribution to State Arts Agency Revenue in the West FY22
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
% of Total
State Total Agency Arts Endowment Funding From
Revenue ($) funds ($) Arts Endowment
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alaska.......................................................... 3,852,107 726,807 18.9
Arizona......................................................... 4,378,732 942,732 21.5
California...................................................... 179,027,900 1,305,900 0.7
Colorado........................................................ 2,907,265 808,1000 27.8
Hawai'i......................................................... 8,507,889 750,700 8.8
Idaho........................................................... 1,712,755 828,460 48.4
Montana......................................................... 1,923,508 879,900 45.7
Nevada.......................................................... 2,815,976 772,700 27.4
New Mexico...................................................... 2,189,200 771,200 35.2
Oregon.......................................................... 7,022,195 841,600 12.0
Utah............................................................ 12,165,900 799,700 6.6
Washington...................................................... 6,703,449 922,200 13.8
Wyoming......................................................... 1,786,200 743,483 41.6
WESTAF region................................................... 234,993,076 18,366,382 23.72
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, 2022
Arts and creativity are an American economic engine. Based on 2020
data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the arts and culture sector
experienced substantial losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Between
2019 and 2020, the U.S. arts economy shrank at nearly twice the rate of
the economy as a whole: arts and cultural production fell by 6.4
percent compared with a 3.4 decline in the overall economy. In spite of
these challenges in 2020, arts and culture still added $876.7 billion,
or 4.2 percent, to national GDP (Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2022).
The size and diversity of the arts and culture sector helped it to
remain a major contributor to the economy.
The sector provides people with the foundation for creativity,
equipping an innovative workforce, generating new ideas in every field,
and keeping our Nation globally competitive. Arts and creativity
strengthen economic health by creating jobs in multiple industries,
driving tourism, and providing opportunities for young people. In the
West, jobs in creative occupations, creative industries earnings, and
cultural nonprofit revenues were all on an upward growth trajectory
prior to the pandemic according to WESTAF's Creative Vitality Suite
data.
creative industries earnings growth in the west, 2011-2020
Helping the creative economy to get back on track will reap rewards
for the region and the Nation as a whole. The National Endowment for
the Arts acts as the flag bearer for this vital industry in our Nation
that in the West alone grew by 85 percent between 2011 and 2020
(Creative Vitality Suite, 2022).
New research shows that the arts can accelerate State and local
economic turnarounds. A first-of-its-kind empirical analysis conducted
by Douglas Noonan at Indiana University studied the role of the arts in
economic recovery after the Great Recession, and the data reveals that
the creative sector grew more quickly than the general economy in those
years. Unlike conventional industrial supply chains, the arts often
grow independently from other sectors, which helps to diversify state
economies. States with varied arts ecosystems (including the
performing, visual, media, design and publishing subsectors) posted
bigger economic gains after the Great Recession than their less-
diversified neighbors. Creativity stimulates economic development while
bolstering civic engagement, making the arts a powerful catalyst for
building economic strength.
In addition to economic benefits, the NEA is an example of
impactful federal-state partnership. Effective federal-state
partnership is what allows the Endowment to continue its long standing
focus on the ``underserved.'' Thanks to Congressional leadership, the
NEA can continue to support the work of local communities across the
West. Recent examples of the Arts Endowment's direct support in the
West ranges from support of organizations such as Art Access who
provides visual and literary arts programs for veterans in Utah to
Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts whose vision is to help creative
people on the Confederate Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in
Pendleton, Oregon. The Arts Endowment invests in projects that
represent all communities in the West, but the agency's support has
been particularly important to engaging rural communities, indigenous
communities, young people, and the full range of communities that make
up the West in terms of race and ethnicity.
Public funding for arts and creativity is a high-return investment
in every town and rural community nationwide, not only in the biggest
cities. It improves the lives of all Americans, equips an innovative
workforce, and keeps us competitive globally. It is a great example of
government done right that fuels public-private partnerships, leverages
considerable additional public and private investment far surpassing
the required Federal match of 1:1, and puts tax dollars and decision-
making authority into State and local hands. The NEA's fiscal Year 2022
budget is $180 million, just 0.004 percent of the Federal budget. The
Administration's fiscal Year 2023 budget request for the NEA is $203.55
million. A more robust agency budget would not only help to support the
recovery of one of the most devastated, yet resilient industries
emerging from the pandemic but also move us toward ensuring that the
arts contribute to the present and future strength, pride, cohesion and
economic success of every community in the United States.
Sincerely,
[This statement was submitted by WESTAF and the Western Arts
Advocacy Network.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Wildlife Conservation Society
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) would like to thank
Chairman Merkley, Ranking Member Murkowski, the members of the
subcommittee for providing this opportunity to submit testimony in
support of funding in the FY23 Interior, Environment Related Agencies
Appropriations Act for the Multinational Species Conservation Fund
(MSCF), Office of International Affairs (IA), Office of Law Enforcement
(OLE), Endangered Species Recovery Grants Program accounts at the U.S.
Fish Wildlife Service (FWS), the International Forestry program at the
U.S. Forest Service (USFS), the Climate Adaptation Science Centers at
the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
WCS was founded with the help of Theodore Roosevelt in 1895 with
the mission of saving wildlife wild places worldwide. Today, WCS
manages the largest network of urban wildlife parks in the United
States, led by our flagship, the Bronx Zoo. Globally, our goal is to
conserve the world's most important wild places, focusing on 14
priority regions that are home to more than 50 percent of the world's
biodiversity. We have offices field programs in more than 60 countries
work with our partners to manage more than 200 million acres of
protected areas around the world, employing more than 4,000 staff
including about 200 Ph.D. scientists 100 veterinarians.
The world faces three existential crises, all caused by humankind:
a pemic of zoonotic origin, the loss of biodiversity, climate change.
These crises are interrelated, with many of the same causes solutions.
We know that pemics of zoonotic origin (passed between animals people)
such as COVID-19 are directly tied to wildlife trade the breaching of
the human-wildlife interface through deforestation forest degradation.
We also know that deforestation forest degradation are major causes of
carbon emissions, that more than a third of the answer to climate
mitigation can come from nature-based solutions. Protected conserved
areas are at the heart: they protect biodiversity, mitigate climate
change, prevent future pemics of zoonotic origin. Ecologically intact
areas in between protected areas support the well-being of millions,
including Indigenous Peoples, are critical to achieving the UN
Sustainable Development Goals. Additional funding in the FY23 Interior
appropriations bill for international conservation programs will be
critical to address these crises reassert U.S. leadership in the world.
FWS-Multinational Species Conservation Fund-$30 Million: Global
priority species, such as tigers, rhinos, African Asian elephants,
great apes, turtles, tortoises, face constant danger from poaching
(particularly for illegal trade purposes), habitat loss degradation,
other serious threats. MSCF programs have helped to sustain recover
wildlife populations by combating poaching trafficking, reducing human-
wildlife conflict, protecting essential habitat-all while promoting
U.S. economic security interests across the globe. These programs
efficiently use taxpayer dollars, granting them an outsized impact
because they consistently leverage two to four times as much in
matching funds from organizations like WCS, foreign governments, local
NGOs, private foundations.
Funding from the MSCF provides front-line protection against
zoonotic disease by supporting projects that prevent or reverse the
conditions that lead to pathogen spillover events. These events
increase when humans come into closer contact with wildlife through the
destruction degradation of wildlife habitats, particularly forests, or
at live wildlife markets where animals are crowded for sale slaughter.
In both situations, wildlife is likely to be severely stressed, which
further increases the potential for pathogen spillover to occur for
human disease outbreaks. Biodiversity loss, in itself, can also
contribute to zoonotic disease spillover by removing buffer species
that protect against diseases jumping into human populations.
WCS has had great success on projects using funds from the MSCF.
One ongoing Great Ape award to WCS is supporting a 5-year project to
secure the Cross River gorilla population in Nigeria Cameroon. WCS has
established an effective network of core protected areas corridors
linking habitat between the two countries is working with local
communities to protect the intact, old growth forest that is their home
critical to the survival of the fewer than 300 remaining gorillas.
FWS-International Affairs-$35 Million: The FWS IA program supports
efforts to conserve our planet's rich wildlife diversity by protecting
habitat species, combating illegal wildlife trade, building capacity
for lscape-level wildlife conservation. The program provides oversight
of domestic laws international treaties that promote the conservation
of plant animal species by ensuring that international trade other
activities do not threaten their survival in the wild. Within IA, the
FWS Regional Programs for Africa, Eurasia, the Western Hemisphere seek
to address grassroots wildlife conservation problems from a broad,
lscape perspective, building regional expertise capacity while
strengthening local institutions. The IA program works with the MSCF,
supporting the conservation of species that are not specifically
addressed by the Fund funding conservation of entire habitats, even in
cases where they cross political boundaries.
WCS asks that the subcommittee increase funding for the program to
$35 million so that it can continue to support efforts to conserve
lscapes vulnerable species better address the crises facing the planet.
In addition to this, increased funding is also needed to mitigate the
impacts that the pemic is having on revenues that normally fund
conservation, particularly those from ecotourism. Some of the most
highly successful wildlife conservation programs, including those that
the U.S. has supported for decades, work with developing countries
local communities to combine sustainable management conservation of
wildlife with new economic opportunities incomes derived from wildlife-
based tourism. In some African countries, parks protected areas are a
major driver of tourism a substantial contributor to their national GDP
sustainable development. In many of these countries' community-managed
``conservancies'' wildlife is the foundation of tourism models that
have generated millions of dollars in benefits for local communities
supported successful, locally run conservation. With these revenues
still recovering due to the pemic, support is needed to ensure
conservation activities can continue.
The final FY20, fiscal year 2021 FY22 bills included report
language directing the Department of the Interior to develop policies
procedures for the execution oversight of international conservation
programs to ensure that grant recipients have policies in place that
safeguard the rights of Indigenous peoples the human rights of
individuals communities in around protected areas supported by grant
monies. WCS has worked with the Department FWS on the development of
these guidelines urges the Committee to include funding to support
their continued implementation enforcement.
FWS-Office of Law Enforcement-$152.5 Million: The U.S. remains one
of the world's largest markets for wildlife wildlife products, both
legal illegal. A small group of dedicated officers at OLE are tasked
with protecting fish, wildlife, plant resources by investigating
wildlife crimes-including commercial exploitation, habitat destruction,
industrial hazards- monitoring international trade to intercept illegal
products like wildlife timber facilitate legal commerce. As the United
States developed implemented a comprehensive strategy to combat the
growing crisis of wildlife trafficking over the last several years,
most of the new responsibilities placed on FWS are enforced by OLE, WCS
supports increasing funding for the agency to $152.5 million. A primary
need for additional funding is to strengthen OLE's presence at the U.S.
border to protect against the importation of wildlife that may serve as
a host of pathogens that could cause dangerous diseases of zoonotic
origin.
Recent increases in the OLE budget have enabled the agency to
deploy 12 FWS attaches in targeted U.S. embassies overseas in countries
including Tanzania, Gabon, Peru, China, Thail, where wildlife
trafficking has proven to be a serious problem. Law enforcement
attaches are experienced criminal investigators who specialize in
wildlife natural resource investigations have provided extensive
support to local authorities engaged in wildlife trafficking
investigations. Several investigations of transnational organized crime
networks involved in the trafficking of elephant ivory, rhino horn,
reptiles, other wildlife wildlife parts between Africa Asia have been
initiated as a direct result of attache intervention, attaches have
assisted extensively in fostering intelligence sharing investigative
support between affected countries. The House has twice passed parts of
the Preventing Future Pemics Act, most recently as part of the America
COMPETES Act, which would authorize $150 million for the deployment
support of additional OLE attaches. This language has bipartisan
support in the Senate. As part of this request, WCS urges the Committee
to include $37.5 million-one quarter of the authorization-to enable OLE
to begin sting up this expected authorization.
FWS-Endangered Species Recovery Challenge Grants-$15 Million:
Funding provided to the USFWS for recovery efforts of endangered
species has been limited for decades. although the Service has
accomplished some great successes-recovery of the bald eagle the brown
pelican, for example-hundreds of species are in desperate need of help
to prevent extinction. The Recovery Challenge Grants program provides
matched funds from USFWS to support projects conducted by outside
partners like zoos aquariums accredited by the Association of Zoos
Aquariums to develop implement recovery plans high priority recovery
actions for endangered species. With limited funding for recovery, it
is more important than ever to invest Federal funding in programs that
leverage the significant resources expertise of outside partners to
help the USFWS accomplish its objectives in the most effective way.
Increasing funding for endangered species through the Recovery account
the Recovery Challenge Grant program specifically would recognize the
positive impact this funding has had on recovery goals encourage the
continued prioritization of these important functions.
USFS-International Forestry-$20 Million: With estimates ranging
broadly from $51 billion to $150 billion, the trade in illegal timber
threatens the world's forests, reduces biodiversity, severely impacts
countless local communities that rely on forests for food, employment,
wealth. The trade also affects the U.S. economy, which has lost
approximately $1 billion per year over 200,000 jobs due to illegal
logging. The International Forestry program (FS-IP) works to level the
playing field by reducing illegal logging improving the sustainability
legality of timber management overseas, translating to less underpriced
timber undercutting U.S. producers. Through partnerships with USAID the
Department of State, FS-IP helps to improve resource management in
countries of strategic importance to U.S. economic national security.
This work maintains biodiversity in important natural strongholds helps
some of the world's last intact forests continue to play a key role in
sequestering carbon, reducing the effects of climate change.
With technical financial support from FS-IP, WCS has been
conserving the biologically rich Southern Forest Complex in the
southern part of Myanmar. The region comprises tropical rain forests
inhabiting globally endangered species like Indochinese tiger, Asian
elephant, Malayan tapir. Furthermore, about 600 kilometers of coastline
edged with mangrove forests allows for a considerable variety of
biodiversity, including marine species such as sea turtles cetacean
species such as whales dugong. In this lscape, WCS promotes a
participatory approach to lscape level l-use planning advocating for
the establishment of a Community Based Conservation Corridor along the
Myintmoletkhet range, supporting local communities to conduct
biological monitoring surveys within their traditional village
boundaries, within or around protected areas.
USGS-Climate Adaptation Science Centers-$97 Million: The USGS
Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CASCs) collaborate with cultural
natural resource managers other stakeholders of public ls to develop
research, data, scientific resources to respond to the effects of
climate variability change on fish, wildlife, ecosystems, the
communities they support. The National CASC manages nine Regional
CASCs, which serve every State in the Nation connect decision makers to
science by educating conducting actionable research to answer common
concerns about how climate extremes trends affect human populations,
wildlife, forests, grassls, rivers, coastlines, other natural
resources.
Sea-level rise, changing stream ocean water temperatures, extreme
weather events are causing Federal, State, local governments,
businesses, Indigenous peoples to face new damages incur new costs to
prepare for new conditions. As the challenges faced by these entities
worsen, CASCs are deploying their research, education, outreach
capacities to provide science data to make strong decisions. But given
accelerating dems, additional resources are required to provide the
assistance to anticipate adapt to these changing circumstances. Looking
to the future, there are opportunities for CASCs to: exp strategic
partnerships with other government offices agencies, private-sector
partners, community groups to increase understing implementation of new
practices informed by sound science; exp CASCs role in generating
knowledge the future workforce to build the capacity of DOI managers,
their partners, to access apply climate science; increase development
of data research that addresses the increasing informational needs of
natural cultural resource managers; better inform the DOI strategic
priorities mission areas with their supporting goals.
WCS appreciates the opportunity to share its perspective to make a
case for modest increases in Federal investments in conservation in the
FY23 Interior, the Environment Related Agencies Appropriations Act.
Conservation of public ls is an American tradition, as far back as
1909, Theodore Roosevelt recognized that the management of our natural
resources requires coordination between all nations. Continued
investment in conservation will reaffirm our global position as a
conservation leader, while improving national global security building
capacity good governance in developing countries.
[This statement was submitted by Colin Sheldon, Director of Federal
Affairs.]
______
Prepared Statement of Wild Horse Management
The below-signed national and state organizations concerned for
public land health request your support for adequate funding to enable
the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to achieve a sustainable program
addressing the urgent need to manage wild horses and burros for the
protection, restoration and conservation of our lands and the multitude
of wildlife species that depend upon them.
The Wild and Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971 mandates that
wild horses and burros shall be managed to achieve and maintain a
thriving natural ecological balance. Compliance with this mandate can
only be accomplished by management of wild horses and burros to the
number that sustains the carrying capacity of the land. Unfortunately,
in the 50 years since enactment of the act, this mandate has rarely
been achieved.
The current estimated population of over 86,000 wild horses and
burros is more than three times greater than the carrying capacity of
BLM-managed public lands, undermining the health of public rangelands,
adversely affecting other uses of the lands and the species that depend
on them. In turn, this necessitates emergency gathers of horses and
burros to prevent them from dying of dehydration and starvation. Direct
removal of excess wild horses and burros from the range is the only way
to protect and improve the health of the land, wildlife and of the
those remaining wild horses and burros themselves before irreversible
ecological damage occurs. As importantly, removal programs stop the
needless, preventable suffering of the removed animals due to effects
of this overpopulation on the landscape. Without a continuing increase
in the rate of removal of horses and burros, populations will continue
to expand. As a result, our Nation will witness not only growing
degradation to its rangeland ecosystem, wildlife and these horses and
burros, but also exponential growth in restoration costs to its
taxpayers.
As a result of the continued growth of wild horse and burro
populations in the West, habitat is declining in quality across many
areas, which is being further exacerbated by warmer and drier
conditions, wildfire, and nonnative invasive plants. Native wildlife
species that millions of Americans care about-including bighorn sheep,
sage grouse, pollinators, and a multitude of other species large and
small- are being negatively impacted across most of their range.
BLM has seen their budget annually boosted over the last few years,
enabling them to begin effective and humane proactive management
actions to reduce wild horse and burro numbers on the range, thus
moving toward the restoration our lands.
We urge this committee and other members of Congress to support the
continuation of additional capacity for BLM to address this increasing
problem for our Nation's valuable public lands. By continuing to
provide sufficient annual funding for effective management of wild
horse and burro populations we can achieve appropriate management
levels to retain the health of our land. Sufficient funding now, saves
far more taxpayer monies than allowing horse populations to continue to
increase at the current rate of 20 percent per year.
Thank you for your consideration of this urgent request of our
broad coalition of concerned entities. We invite your questions and
welcome the opportunity to discuss this ongoing issue and possible
solutions.
Sincerely,
Arizona Wildlife Federation
Backcountry Hunters & Anglers
California Bowmen Hunters/State Archery Association
California Chapter--Backcountry Hunters & Anglers
California Chapter of the Wild Sheep Foundation
California Deer Association
California Rifle and Pistol Association
California State Chapter, National Wild Turkey Federation
Coalition for Healthy Nevada Lands
Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation
Ducks Unlimited
Friends of Nevada Wilderness
Houston Safari Club
Idaho Wildlife Federation
Inland Northwest Wildlife Council
Izaak Walton League
Lander County Conservation District
Mule Deer Foundation
National Deer Association
National Wildlife Federation
Nevada Association of Conservation Districts
Nevada Association of Counties
Nevada Bighorns Unlimited
Nevada Cattlemen's Association
Nevada Coalition for Wildlife
Nevada State Chapter, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers
Nevada State Chapter, National Wild Turkey Federation
Nevada Waterfowl Association
Nevada Wildlife Federation
New Mexico Wildlife Federation
North American Grouse Partnership
Northern Nevada Safari Club International
Oregon Anglers Alliance
Oregon Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers
Oregon Chapter of Safari Club International
Oregon Pack Works
Oregon State Chapter, National Wild Turkey Federation
Oregon Wild Sheep Foundation
Orion, the Hunters Institute
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
Safari Club International
San Diego County Wildlife Federation
San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of Safari Club International
Sierra Front Chapter- Muley Fanatic Foundation
Sportsmen's Alliance
Southern Nevada Coalition for Wildlife
Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
Washington Hunters Heritage Council
Wildlife Management Institute
Wyoming Wildlife Federation
[This statement was submitted by John Gale, Conservation Director--
Backcountry Hunters & Anglers.]
______
Prepared Statement of the Wildlife Society
The Wildlife Society (TWS; wildlife.org) appreciates the
opportunity to provide testimony concerning the fiscal Year 2023
budgets for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service (FWS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and U.S. Forest Service
(USFS). Founded in 1937, TWS represents approximately 15,000 wildlife
biologists and managers with a mission to inspire, empower, and enable
wildlife professionals to sustain wildlife populations and habitat
through science-based management and conservation.
Appropriations for the following programs within the jurisdiction
of the subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies will
affect the current and future status of wildlife and wildlife
professionals in North America. To enable the appropriate use of
science within these programs and beyond, TWS respectfully requests the
following programmatic funding in fiscal Year 2023.
FY 2023 Interior Appropriation Requests--The Wildlife Society
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FY 2022
Agency Program Enacted FY 2023 TWS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
USGS Climate Adaptation Science 51.9 M 85.74 M
Centers.
Cooperative Research Units...... 26 M 28.2 M
National Wildlife Health Center .............. \*\82 M
Infrastructure Improvements.
-----------------------------------
FWS National Wildlife Refuge System. 519 M 712 M
State and Tribal Wildlife Grants 72.6 M 100 M
Ecological Services............. 277 M 356.2 M
NMBCA........................... 5 M 7.9 M
Partners for Fish and Wildlife.. 57.7 M 68 M
Migratory Bird Joint Ventures... 15.6 M 25 M
-----------------------------------
BLM Wildlife and Aquatic Habitat 197.7 M 239.1 M
Management.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\*\no-year funding request appropriated until expended
u.s. geological survey (usgs)
Within the Ecosystems Mission Area, the Climate Adaptation Science
Centers program responds to regional wildlife, ecosystems, and
community-based stakeholder needs in the face of a changing climate.
Minor funding increases in recent fiscal years have allowed for
increased program responsiveness through the launch of the Midwest
Climate Adaptation Science Center and additional capacity in ensuring
Tribes have proactive opportunities to shape projects and distribution
of associated resources. However, funding has not kept pace with
identified needs, particularly in ensuring USGS has the resources to
communicate scientific outputs to stakeholders to act on project
findings. In fiscal Year 2023, we recommend full implementation of the
Administration's proposal, with a goal of reaching no less than $85.74
million.
The USGS will also play a critical role in providing the Nation
with the tools needed to avoid the next pandemic. The Survey-wide
National Wildlife Health Center located in Madison, WI is the Nation's
only Federal BSL-3 facility exclusively dedicated to scientific
investigation and research on wildlife diseases that threaten human,
animal, and environmental health. The COVID-19 pandemic heightens the
need for completing a long-proposed modernization of the facility to
ensure early detection of biological threats and robust bio-
surveillance for high-consequence pathogens in wildlife. TWS thanks
Congress for providing $55 million in funding for phase one
improvements to the National Wildlife Health Center in fiscal Year
2021. However, an estimated $82 million is still required for project
completion. TWS requests the remaining $82 million in funding,
appropriated until expended, to complete these much-needed
infrastructure improvements.
The USGS is also uniquely positioned to provide a scientific basis
for understanding implementation mechanisms for the Administration's
America the Beautiful initiative. The USGS Cooperative Fish & Wildlife
Research Units (CRUs), which fosters federal, state, NGO, and academic
partnerships to provide actionable science tailored to the needs of
natural resource managers, will be vital to robust, stakeholder driven
implementation of these efforts. The support of many State agencies,
universities, and non-government organizations has allowed the program
to be a model for cooperative natural resource science programming and
leverage an average of three dollars in outside funds for every Federal
dollar invested. The Wildlife Society thanks appropriators for their
understanding of this need and associated funding increases provided in
fiscal Year 2021 and continued in fiscal Year 2022. The program has
been able to fill a majority of vacant positions with this funding, and
has been able to forge new partnerships with States and organizations
not presently working with the program. The Wildlife Society requests a
small increase in funding to the Administration-requested $28.2
million, which will allow the CRUs to build on these new partnerships
and establish units in States that have long requested one.
u.s. fish and wildlife service (usfws)
With over 850 million acres of lands and waters, the National
Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) will also play a key role in
implementation of the America the Beautiful initiative. Unfortunately,
the current NWRS operations and maintenance (O&M) budget is nowhere
close to meeting the moment. In order to adequately conserve NWRS lands
and align with the multiuse goals of America the Beautiful, significant
investment in O&M programming is required. Conservation planning, a
core O&M subactivity that deals with the creation of multistakeholder
comprehensive conservation plans for refuge system units, has been
chronically underfunded. As a result, 40 percent of these
congressionally mandated plans are either out of date or do not exist.
In addition to inadequate funding for long-term planning, the NWRS has
lacked funding to meet their own identified needs in bringing diverse
audiences into NWRS and USFWS programming. The Urban Wildlife Program,
housed under NWRS O&M, seeks to target USFWS investments to underserved
communities to bolster recreational access and conservation outreach.
This program will be well-positioned to support DEI efforts outlined in
America the Beautiful, but is not able to meet identified needs with
the $5.5 million currently allocated.
While Congress did provide a minimal increase across operations and
maintenance accounts in fiscal Year 2022, this increase did not even
cover the cost of the baseline 2.2 percent salary increase scheduled
for Federal employees. TWS urges Congress to consider the significant
shortcomings of the operations and maintenance accounts of the Refuge
System in fiscal Year 2023, and provide at least $712 million in
operations and maintenance funding to begin making inroads on adequate
visitor services, habitat management activities, and long term
conservation planning.
The State and Tribal Wildlife Grants Program (STWG) is the Nation's
only program that encourages developing and implementing State Wildlife
Action Plans, thereby directly supporting States in preventing wildlife
from being listed under the Endangered Species Act. Collectively, STWG
funds support strong partnerships among federal, state, Tribal,
private, and nonprofit entities that enable wildlife professionals to
implement on-the-ground conservation activities that benefit over
12,000 at-risk species. In fiscal Year 2010, appropriations were at $90
million for the program--allowing States to complete more of the
projects deemed necessary for monitoring and recovery of at-risk
species. Subsequent budget reductions in STWG, however, have not
allowed this highly successful program to reach its full potential. TWS
requests that Congress once again work to increase funding for the
program to at least $100 million annually.
Through the Ecological Services Program (ESP), USFWS works with
diverse public and private partners to help identify species facing
extinction, reduce threats to their populations, and return species
back to the public trust responsibilities of States and Tribes.
Wildlife professionals in USFWS are working on new strategies to
increase efficacy of ESP, though the primary impediment to
effectiveness remains inadequate funding. To effectively move species
through all components of the ESA listing and delisting process, TWS
requests full implementation of the Administration's fiscal Year 2023
request of no less than $356.2 million for all subactivities.
Since 2002, the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act (NMBCA)
has provided more than $75 million in grants to support over 600
projects in 36 countries that enable partner entities and wildlife
professionals to conserve approximately 400 migratory bird species on 5
million acres in the U.S., Mexico, Central America, South America, and
the Caribbean. Moreover, NMBCA has achieved a partner match ratio of
nearly 4:1 despite requiring only a 3:1 match. The needs of U.S.
migratory bird species and conservation efforts to keep these species
common extends to landscapes far beyond U.S. borders. As a result, TWS
recommends Congress increase funding to no less than $7.9 million in
fiscal Year 2023 to achieve greater proactive conservation results
under the NMBCA program.
Further promoting FWS' partnership with non-federal stakeholders is
the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program. This program allows
voluntary habitat restoration goals, aligned with identified strategic
priorities, on private lands to be achieved through cost-efficient
financial and technical assistance. If adequately funded, this program
has the potential to serve as a vital tool in implementing private land
conservation efforts as sought in the America the Beautiful initiative.
TWS supports an increase in Partners for Fish and Wildlife program
funding to no less than $68 million in fiscal Year 2023.
The Migratory Bird Joint Ventures (MBJV), part of USFWS' Migratory
Bird Management program, are locally-directed partnerships that develop
and implement science-based habitat conservation strategies for all
species of birds across North America. These partnerships have
leveraged Federal funds at 31:1 to enhance and conserve over 27 million
acres of avian habitat. TWS supports $25 million for enhancing and
promoting the highly effective and collaborative partnerships of the
Migratory Bird Joint Venture.
bureau of land management (blm)
The Wildlife and Aquatic Habitat Management program maintains and
restores fish, wildlife, and their habitat across a large portion of
America's western landscapes. This includes projects to balance effects
of multiple public land uses, such as energy development and livestock
grazing, with needs of native species. This program also includes
management of approximately 300 listed species under the Endangered
Species Act. TWS recommends Congress support the Wildlife and Aquatic
Management program with no less than the Administration request of
$239.1 million in fiscal Year 2023--with robust funding applied to the
Threatened and Endangered Species management subactivity.
The Wildlife Society recognizes free-ranging horses and burros in
the U.S. as ecologically invasive, feral species. Free-ranging, legally
designated ``wild'', horse and burro populations on BLM lands were
estimated at over 82,000 individuals in March of this year, only the
second estimated population decrease in a decade. While TWS has been
pleased to see the BLM's increased use of gathers and adoptions,
population estimates still exceed the agency's threshold for ecological
sustainability by more than 55,000 animals. By the BLM's own estimates,
it will take hundreds of millions of dollars and several years more to
reach ecologically sustainable levels. TWS recommends continued
financial support for the BLM in their efforts to employ all the tools
at their disposal to achieve ecologically sustainable levels.
Additionally, TWS requests the elimination of an annual appropriations
rider limiting sale and/or destruction of unwanted or unadoptable
horses and burros. This will allow for the flexibilities and long-
standing protections to herd health as outlined in the 1971 Wild Free
Roaming Horses and Burros Act to be implemented as originally outlined
by Congress.
u.s. forest service
Improving the future health and sustainability of the Nation's
forests and grasslands in line with the goals of America the Beautiful
requires a strong investment in USFS Research and Development (R&D).
Through long-term monitoring and collaborative research efforts with
States and other partners, USFS R&D generates broad environmental and
societal benefits, including an understanding of wildlife-habitat
relationships for multiple species and ecological communities that
enables informed land management decisions. Further, providing adequate
resources for effective science-based wildlife habitat management is
central to balancing the multiple uses of public forests and
grasslands. TWS requests robust funding for the program in fiscal Year
2023 to ensure cooperative research on our Nation's lands and forests
can continue.
[This statement was submitted by Gordon Batcheller, President, The
Wildlife Society.]
______
LIST OF WITNESSES, COMMUNICATIONS, AND PREPARED STATEMENTS
----------
Page
Alliance:
For:
The Great Lakes, Prepared Statement of the...............
183....................................................
To:
Save Energy and Partners, Prepared Statement of the......
184....................................................
American:
Alliance of Museums, Prepared Statement of the...............
186........................................................
Bird Conservancy, Prepared Statement of......................
188........................................................
Hiking Society, Prepared Statement of the....................
191........................................................
Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), Prepared
Statement of the...........................................
194........................................................
Institute of Biological Sciences, Prepared Statement of the..
198........................................................
Lung Association, Prepared Statement of......................
200........................................................
Animal Welfare Institute, Prepared Statement of..................
203............................................................
Appalachian Trail Conservancy, Prepared Statement of.............
206............................................................
Assiniboine and Sioux Rural Water Supply System, Prepared
Statement of...................................................
208............................................................
Association of:
Air Pollution Control Agencies (AAPCA), Prepared Statement of
210........................................................
Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, Prepared Statement of.........
216........................................................
Black Mesa Community School Board, Prepared Statement of.....
218........................................................
Bloom, Mr. David, Chief Financial Officer, Enviromental
Protection Agency..........................................
69.........................................................
Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation, Prepared Statement of...
221........................................................
Business Council for Sustainable Energy, Prepared Statement
of.........................................................
224........................................................
Clean Water Administrators, Prepared Statement of the........
211........................................................
Zoos and Aquariums, Prepared Statement of the................
213........................................................
Capito, Senator Shelley Moore, U.S. Senator From West Virginia...
113............................................................
Center for Invasive Species Prevention, Prepared Statement of the
226............................................................
Central Arizona Water Conservation District, Prepared Statement
of.............................................................
228............................................................
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Prepared Statement of................
229............................................................
Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Prepared Statement of................
232............................................................
Chugach Regional Resources Commission, Prepared Statement of
Coalition:
For:
American Heritage, Prepared Statement of.................
240....................................................
Of:
Refuge Friends and Advocates, Prepared Statement of......
245....................................................
To:
Protect America's National Parks, Prepared Statement of..
243....................................................
Colorado River:
Basin Salinity Control:
Forum, Prepared Statement of.............................
248....................................................
Program, Prepared Statement of
Board of California, Prepared Statement of...................
249........................................................
Conservation Fund, Prepared Statement of the.....................
230............................................................
Council of Infrastructure Financing Authorities, Prepared
Statement of...................................................
252............................................................
Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge, Prepared Statement of.....
277............................................................
Curtis, Jillian, Chief Financial Officer, Indian Health Service..
39.............................................................
Defenders of Wildlife, Prepared Statement of.....................
255............................................................
Dine Bi Olta School Board Association,,Prepared Statement of.....
258............................................................
Ding Darling Wildlife Society, Prepared Statement of.............
260............................................................
Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle Community School, Prepared Statement of.....
261............................................................
Ecological Society of America, Prepared Statement of.............
264............................................................
Entomological Society of America, Prepared Statement of the......
266............................................................
Feinstein, Senator Dianne, U.S. Senator From California,
Questions Submitted by
Fish and Wildlife Service Prepared Statement of..................
269............................................................
Flanagan, Denise, Director, Office of Budget, Department of the
Interior.......................................................
115............................................................
Florida Keys Wildlife Society, Prepared Statement of the.........
270............................................................
Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Prepared Statement of
the............................................................
271............................................................
Fort Peck Reservation, Prepared Statement of the.................
273............................................................
Fowler, Hon. Elizabeth, Acting Director, Indian Health Service:
Prepared Statement of........................................
45.........................................................
Statement of.................................................
39.........................................................
Summary Statement of.........................................
43.........................................................
Friends of:
Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge, Prepared Statement
of the.................................................
275....................................................
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Prepared Statement of
the....................................................
278....................................................
Mid-Columbia River National Wildlife Refuges, Prepared
Statement of the.......................................
278....................................................
Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge, Prepared Statement
of the.................................................
279....................................................
Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, Prepared Statement
of.....................................................
281....................................................
Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, Prepared Statement of
the....................................................
282....................................................
Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, Prepared
Statement of...........................................
285....................................................
Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge, Prepared Statement of
the....................................................
287....................................................
Tampa Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Prepared Statement of
the....................................................
288....................................................
Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge, Prepared
Statement of...........................................
290....................................................
Wertheim Prepared Statement of...........................
292....................................................
Geological Society of America Prepared Statement of..............
292............................................................
Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Prepared Statement of the.....
295............................................................
Haaland, Hon. Deb, Secretary, Department of the Interior:
Prepared Statement of........................................
125........................................................
Statement of.................................................
115........................................................
Summary Statement of.........................................
123........................................................
Hagerty, Senator Bill, U.S. Senator From Tennessee, Questions
Submitted by...................................................
172............................................................
Healthy Schools Network Prepared Statement of....................
297............................................................
International Fund for Animal Welfare Prepared Statement of......
300............................................................
Interstate Mining Compact Commission Prepared Statement of the...
303............................................................
Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe Prepared Statement of..................
306............................................................
Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, Prepared
Statement of...................................................
309............................................................
Leahy, Senator Patrick J., U.S. Senator From Vermont, Questions
Submitted by
League of:
American Orchestras, Prepared Statement of...................
311........................................................
Conservation Voters, Prepared Statement of...................
314........................................................
Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians, Prepared Statement of the
315............................................................
McConnell, Senator Mitch, U.S. Senator From Kentucky, Questions
Submitted by...................................................
35.............................................................
Methane Action, Prepared Statement of............................
317............................................................
Methane Action and Remineralize the Earth, Prepared Statement of.
320............................................................
Metlakatla Indian Community Prepared Statement of................
323............................................................
Merkley, Senator Jeff, U.S. Senator From Oregon:
Opening Statement of
Moore, Hon. Randy, Chief, United States Forest Service:
Prepared Statement of........................................
8..........................................................
Statement of.................................................
1..........................................................
Summary Statement of.........................................
6..........................................................
Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, Prepared Statement of the..............
326............................................................
Murkowski, Senator Lisa, U.S. Senator From Alaska:
Questions Submitted by
Statement of
National:
Association of:
Abandoned Mine Land Programs, Prepared Statement of......
328....................................................
Clean:
Air Agencies, Prepared Statement of..................
330................................................
Water Agencies, Prepared Statement of................
333................................................
State:
Energy Officials, Prepared Statement of..............
336................................................
Foresters, Prepared Statement of.....................
338................................................
Tribal Historic Preservation Officers, Prepared Statement
of.....................................................
341....................................................
Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, Prepared
Statement of...............................................
344........................................................
Congress of American Indians, Prepared Statement of..........
347........................................................
Council of Urban Indian Health, Prepared Statement of........
350........................................................
Endowment for the Arts, Prepared Statement of................
353........................................................
Fire Protection Association, Prepared Statement of...........
353........................................................
Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Prepared Statement of..........
354........................................................
Humanities Alliance, Prepared Statement of...................
357........................................................
Park:
Service, Prepared Statement of
Parks Conservation Association, Prepared Statement of........
359........................................................
Trust for Historic Preservation, Prepared Statement of.......
362........................................................
Wildlife
Refuges, Prepared Statement of...........................
365....................................................
Refuge System, Prepared Statement of
Native Village of Eyak, Prepared Statement of....................
367............................................................
Natural Science Collections Alliance, Prepared Statement of......
370............................................................
Nature Conservancy, Prepared Statement of the....................
373............................................................
Nisqually Indian Tribe, Prepared Statement of....................
375............................................................
Northwest:
Indian Fisheries Commission, Prepared Statement of...........
378........................................................
Portland Area Indian Health Board, Prepared Statement of.....
381........................................................
Norton Sound Health Corporation, Prepared Statement of...........
384............................................................
Oregon Water Resources Congress, Prepared Statement of the.......
387............................................................
Pacific Salmon Commission, Prepared Statement of.................
390............................................................
Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, Prepared Statement of.....
392............................................................
Partnership for the National Trails System, Prepared Statement of
the............................................................
393............................................................
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Prepared Statement
of the.........................................................
396............................................................
Pinon Community School, Prepared Statement of....................
397............................................................
Preservation Action's, Prepared Statement of.....................
400............................................................
Public:
Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Prepared
Statement of...............................................
403........................................................
Lands Foundation, Prepared Statement of the..................
405........................................................
Puyallup Tribe, Prepared Statement of the........................
408............................................................
Ramah Navajo School Board, Prepared Statement of the.............
410............................................................
Regan, Hon. Michael, Administrator, Environmental Protection
Agency:
Prepared Statement of........................................
75.........................................................
Statement of.................................................
69.........................................................
Summary Statement of.........................................
73.........................................................
Rubio, Senator Marco, U.S. Senator From Florida, Question
Submitted by...................................................
36.............................................................
Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, Prepared Statement of
the............................................................
413............................................................
Seattle Indian Health Board, Prepared Statement of...............
415............................................................
Self-Governance Communication & Education Tribal Consortium,
Prepared Statement of..........................................
418............................................................
Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, Prepared Statement of the....
420............................................................
Shoalwater Bay Tribe, Prepared Statement of......................
421............................................................
Society:
For:
American Archaeology, Prepared Statement of the..........
424....................................................
Of:
American Foresters, Prepared Statement of the............
427....................................................
Southcentral Foundation, Prepared Statement of...................
429............................................................
Squaxin Island Tribe, Prepared Statement of......................
431............................................................
Tampa Bay National Wildlife Refuges, Prepared Statement of.......
289............................................................
Tanana Chiefs Conference, Prepared Statement of..................
434............................................................
Tester, Senator Jon, U.S. Senator From Montana, Questions
Submitted by...................................................
167............................................................
Urban Indian Health Institute, Prepared Statement of the.........
437............................................................
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Prepared Statement of the........
440............................................................
Van Hollen, Senator Chris, U.S. Senator From Maryland, Questions
by
WateReuse Association, Prepared Statement of the.................
443............................................................
Western:
Governors' Association, Prepared Statement of................
445........................................................
States Arts Federation, Prepared Statement of................
447........................................................
Wild Horse Management, Prepared Statement of.....................
453............................................................
Wildlife:
Conservation Society, Prepared Statement of the..............
450........................................................
Society, Prepared Statement of the...........................
454........................................................
SUBJECT INDEX
----------
UNITED STATES FOREST SERVICE
Page
Additional Committee Questions...................................
33.............................................................
Highlights From the President's fiscal year 2023 Budget Request
for Specific Priorities........................................
10.............................................................
Legislative Proposals and Administrative/General Provisions......
11.............................................................
__________
INDIAN HEALTH SERVICE
105(L) Tribal Leases.............................................
64.............................................................
Additional Committee Questions...................................
68.............................................................
Advance Appropriations...........................................
49, 59.........................................................
Albuquerque IHS System...........................................
55.............................................................
American Indians in Urban Areas..................................
56.............................................................
Appropriations Committee Oversight...............................
53.............................................................
Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill...................................
60.............................................................
Change in IHS Budget Proposals...................................
51.............................................................
Closing..........................................................
49.............................................................
Contract Support:
Costs........................................................
63.........................................................
Costs (CSC)..................................................
53.........................................................
Congressional Oversight..........................................
49.............................................................
Covid:
Prevalence...................................................
50.........................................................
Vaccines and Therapeutics....................................
50.........................................................
Covid-19 Response and Future Emergency Preparedness..............
48.............................................................
Electronic Health Records (EHR)..................................
66.............................................................
Follow-up IHS Mandatory Proposal Briefing........................
63.............................................................
IHS:
Budget Proposal Change.......................................
66.........................................................
Facilities...................................................
58.........................................................
Management...................................................
62.........................................................
Mandatory Funding Proposal...................................
44.........................................................
Staffing.....................................................
57.........................................................
Long-Term Funding Solutions......................................
45.............................................................
Mandatory Funding Legislative Proposal...........................
52.............................................................
Modernizing Critical Infrastructure..............................
47.............................................................
Prioritizing High Quality Health Care............................
46.............................................................
Provider Abuse...................................................
61.............................................................
Purchase and Referred Care.......................................
66.............................................................
Sanitation and Facilities Projects...............................
54.............................................................
Student Loan Repayment Program...................................
60.............................................................
Supporting Self-Determination....................................
48.............................................................
Supreme Court Decision on Roe v. Wade............................
57.............................................................
Timeline for Project Construction................................
55.............................................................
Urban Indian Organizations.......................................
60.............................................................
Warm Springs Water Infrastructure................................
51.............................................................
__________
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Achieving Clean and Safe Water for All Communities...............
77.............................................................
Additional Committee Questions...................................
104............................................................
Bay Delta Watershed..............................................
105............................................................
Burlington High School Contamination.............................
108............................................................
California Coast Dumping Cleanup.................................
104............................................................
Chesapeake Bay...................................................
109............................................................
Clean Air........................................................
110............................................................
Elevating Environmental Justice..................................
76.............................................................
Enforcing Environmental Laws.....................................
76.............................................................
Ensuring:
Clean and Healthy Air for All Communities....................
77.........................................................
The Safety of Chemicals for People and the Environment.......
78.........................................................
Full-Time Equivalents Staffing...................................
113............................................................
Lake Champlain...................................................
108............................................................
Basin Program................................................
109........................................................
PFAS.............................................................
112............................................................
Renewable Fuels..................................................
106............................................................
Restoring EPA's Core Capacity and Following the Science..........
78.............................................................
Safeguarding and Revitalizing Communities........................
78.............................................................
South Coast Air Quality District.................................
105............................................................
Stakeholder Meetings.............................................
113............................................................
Tackling the Climate Crisis......................................
75.............................................................
The fiscal year 2023 President's Budget Request..................
75.............................................................
Wildfires........................................................
107............................................................
__________
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Additional Committee Questions...................................
165............................................................
Addressing Climate Challenges and Building Resilience............
128............................................................
Advancing:
And Incorporating Science Across Interior....................
134........................................................
Indian Education.............................................
127........................................................
Balancing:
Development and Conservation.................................
133........................................................
The Nation's Energy Portfolio................................
132........................................................
Building:
Agency Capacity..............................................
136........................................................
A More Inclusive Agency......................................
135........................................................
Resilient Communities........................................
129........................................................
Civilian Climate Corps...........................................
134............................................................
Clean Energy Jobs of the Future..................................
131............................................................
C&O Canal........................................................
168............................................................
Creating Jobs to Meet Environmental and Energy Challenges........
130............................................................
Glen Echo........................................................
168............................................................
Infrastructure...................................................
133............................................................
Investing in Tribal Communities..................................
126............................................................
Landsat..........................................................
169............................................................
Land and Water Conservation Fund.................................
170............................................................
Leveraging Technology and Information............................
137............................................................
Monarch butterflies..............................................
170............................................................
Migratory Bird Treaty Act........................................
171............................................................
Overview of Interior's Budget....................................
125............................................................
Promoting Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion of Underserved
Communities....................................................
135............................................................
Reclamation Jobs in Energy Communities...........................
132............................................................
Resource Stewardship.............................................
129............................................................
Strengthening:
Interior's Commitment to Diversity and Equity................
135........................................................
Tribal Nations...................................................
126............................................................
The America the Beautiful Initiative.............................
130............................................................
Water Challenges.................................................
128............................................................
Workforce and Operational Improvements...........................
136............................................................
Wildland Fire Management.........................................
128............................................................
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