[Senate Hearing 118-721]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 118-721
THE U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE'S
PROPOSED FISCAL YEAR 2025 BUDGET
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 12, 2024
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
61-834 WASHINGTON : 2025
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia, Ranking Member
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon PETE RICKETTS, Nebraska
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan ROGER WICKER, Mississippi
MARK KELLY, Arizona DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
ALEX PADILLA, California LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
JOHN FETTERMAN, Pennsylvania
Courtney Taylor, Democratic Staff Director
Adam Tomlinson, Republican Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
JUNE 12, 2024
OPENING STATEMENTS
Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware.. 1
Capito, Hon. Shelley Moore, U.S. Senator from the State Of West
Virginia....................................................... 3
WITNESS
Williams, Hon. Martha, Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.. 6
Prepared statement........................................... 8
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Letter from Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska to Hon. Deb Haaland,
Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior..................... 43
Fish and Wildlife Service 2025 Budget Request.................... 48
THE U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE'S PROPOSED FISCAL YEAR 2025 BUDGET
----------
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 2024
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in
room 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Carper, Capito, Cardin, Whitehouse, Kelly, Lummis,
Ricketts, Boozman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE
Senator Carper. Good morning, everyone. The hearing will
come to order.
Today, as you all know, we are here to discuss President
Biden's Fiscal Year 2025 budget request for the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service. We always appreciate the presence of Martha
Williams, the Director of the Service, before our committee.
Thank you for appearing today, and welcome back.
We have heard time and time again in our committee that
wildlife conservation works best for people and for species
when it is collaborative, when it is inclusive, when it is
proactive. Director Williams leads the Service with those
thoughts in mind.
The President's Fiscal Year 2025 budget request also
embodies, I believe, we believe, this approach, and we look
forward to hearing more about it from you today as our witness.
The President's budget request includes $1.9 billion for
the Fish and Wildlife Service. That is a 10 percent increase in
funding over Fiscal Year 2024 enacted levels. One of the things
we will get into in the course of our hearing is, 10 percent is
not an insignificant increase, as you know, but I always like
to ask, compared to what? I would like to look at the increases
in the last couple of years, or the cuts in the last couple of
years, that were proposed in this Administration and the
previous Administration.
The increase of 10 percent, coupled with the investments
that we made, in no small part from this committee room, but
through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and through the
Inflation Reduction Act, would provide the Service with the
support it needs to carry out its many important missions.
Specifically, the President's proposed budget would support
the Fish and Wildlife Service's work to conserve habitat, to
combat climate change, to address biodiversity loss, and to
maintain our national wildlife refuges, which we are all very
proud of. All of these initiatives protect our planet while
helping to drive our economy at the same time.
A reasonable question is, how would the President's budget
support these efforts? First, the budget request includes some
$602 million for the National Wildlife Refuge System. That is,
I believe, a 14 or 15 percent increase from Fiscal Year 2024's
enacted levels. This funding would support habitat conservation
as well as law enforcement and visitor services at over some
500 national wildlife refuges across the Country.
We have two of them in Delaware. How many does West
Virginia have?
Senator Capito. Wildlife?
Senator Carper. Wildlife refuges.
Senator Capito. Just one, I think.
Senator Carper. Okay. Two weeks ago, I was privileged to
visit one of Delaware's two national wildlife refuges called
the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in the central part of
our State. Imperiled species such as red knot and piping plover
birds call this refuge home.
People come literally from all over the world to see these
species in their natural habitat. They also come to hike, they
come to bicycle, and they come to hunt in these special places.
When they do, they support our local economies. I think the
same is true in refuges in every one of our other 49 States.
The Administration's budget request also includes funding
increases for programs focused on stemming biodiversity loss,
including notable increases for Endangered Species Act
planning, consultation, and recovery efforts. Why are these
investments in biodiversity important? Well, for a couple of
reasons.
One, our food system relies on biodiversity for pest
control, for pollination, and for soil fertility. When our
forests and oceans are healthy and biodiverse, they absorb more
carbon dioxide, which is a good thing. We also rely on
biodiverse ecosystems to provide us with clean water to drink.
For all of these reasons and for more, biodiversity loss
has significant economic impacts. According to a recent report
by, I believe it was J.P. Morgan, biodiversity loss costs the
global economy an estimated $20 trillion per year. When I saw
that number, I had my staff double check. I said, is that
trillion, with a ``t''? They said, that is $20 trillion, with a
``t.'' That is a ton of money.
The Fiscal Year 2025 budget request also details how the
Fish and Wildlife Service is implementing the Inflation
Reduction Act by incorporating nature-based solutions into
ecosystem restoration.
For example, the Service is working with the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, with Ducks Unlimited, and with the
Arkansas Game and Fish Commission to enhance more than 5,000
acres of wetlands in Arkansas, and I see we have been joined by
our colleague from Arkansas. Specifically, the Service will
restore the wetlands' natural ability to capture, store, and
release rainwater and mitigate the effects of severe weather
events.
We have seen firsthand in the first State, my State, and
many other States that nature-based solutions actually do work.
When Hurricane Sandy damaged the Prime Hook National Wildlife
Refuge in our State, the Fish and Wildlife Service restored the
refuge with climate resilience in mind. Not only did this
restoration effort conserve habitat and benefit endangered
species, it also addressed longstanding flooding issues in a
nearby community. We call that, in our State, a win-win
situation. That is what we are always looking for.
Furthermore, the budget request of the President builds on
our Inflation Reduction Act investments by including funding
increases for programs like Partners for Fish and Wildlife and
the Coastal Program. These programs are focused on improving
ecosystems, as well as coastal resiliency through partnerships
with States, partnerships with tribes, and partnerships with
landowners.
The President's budget request complements the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law by enabling the Service to continue
implementing successful programs like the National Fish Passage
Program. This program funds aquatic ecosystem restoration
projects while supporting local economies.
In addition to implementing the agency's own Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act funding, the
Service is faced with an increasingly heavy workload as a
result of Congress' investments in other agencies.
The Fish and Wildlife Service's role in the Federal
permitting process is especially important, given the historic
passage of these laws. As part of its congressionally mandated
responsibilities, the Service must consult with other agencies
to ensure that we are deploying the investments from the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, as well as from the Inflation
Reduction Act, and issuing permits in a way that does not
jeopardize species.
However, neither the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law nor the
Inflation Reduction Act included funding for the Service's
responsibilities relating to permitting. In other words,
Congress increased the number of environmental reviews that the
Service must complete without providing the resources necessary
to meet the increased workload.
Fortunately, the President's 2025 budget would provide the
Service with adequate resources to improve efficiencies in the
environmental review process, while also protecting species. I
would just add, I think we can do both, and I believe we must
do both.
As our colleagues on this committee oftentimes hear me say,
we need to find out what works and do more of that. Having said
that, we look forward to hearing from Director Williams today
on what is working, and perhaps what is not working, and how
the President's 2025 budget will support the Fish and Wildlife
Service's important work.
Before we do that, I want to turn to our Ranking Member,
Senator Capito, for her opening statement. Let's have a great
hearing today. Thank you.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA
Senator Capito. Well, thank you, Chairman Carper, for
holding today's hearing.
Welcome, again, to Director Williams. It is always great to
see you and your staff. I appreciate your coming before the
committee today to discuss the Fish and Wildlife budget for
2025.
In previous hearings, we have discussed my frustration that
the consultation process under the Endangered Species Act has
delayed critical projects in West Virginia and elsewhere. By
the way, thank you for coming to West Virginia very early in
your tenure. We are still very appreciative of that.
Our State department of highways has faced delays on road
and bridge projects, and our State DEP (State Departments of
Environmental Protection) has dealt with delays on active
mining permits and on projects to remediate abandoned mine
sites through the AML (Abandoned Mine Land) program.
If I sound like a broken record, I guess that is because I
am. Those statements were taken from my opening statement at a
hearing held around this time last year, and here we are again,
seemingly in pretty close to the same position.
My staff has been meeting with your staff regularly, and I
appreciate that, for 2 years now. Effective communication and
timeframes on consultations have only marginally improved.
Currently, the field office has agreements with the West
Virginia Department of Highways, the West Virginia Department
of Environmental Protection, the U.S. Forest Service, and the
Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia to fund staff
positions. Not all of those positions have been filled. The
office's work force is being supplemented considerably by
outside groups, and that was some of the substance of our
conversation 2 years ago.
State agencies in West Virginia continue to be bogged down
by a back and forth with the field office on details which at
times concern issues beyond the jurisdiction or expertise of
your agency, in some cases, requiring project details on mines
that date back to the 1950's.
In May, the West Virginia Coal Association issued a notice
of intent to sue the Service for violating the 2020 Biological
Opinion for the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and
Enforcement's Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Projects.
That is a mouthful, there.
The 2020 Biological Opinion establishes a programmatic
approach to consultation on OSMRE (Office of Surface Mining
Reclamation and Enforcement) projects and outlines coordination
and elevation procedures to expedite reviews and effectively
resolve disputes.
According to West Virginia's notice of intent to sue, the
field office has been blatantly disregarding this Biological
Opinion. Specifically, the field office is not adhering to the
30-day coordination deadlines set by that 2020 document. Just a
couple of months ago, the field office issued a permitting
template, which was intended to expedite this application
process.
However, the information required by that template goes
above and beyond the requirements of the 2020 Biological
Opinion and is almost to the level of information needed to
complete a full formal consultation or an environmental impact
statement.
Some of these projects covered by the 2020 document are as
simple as ventilation holes, and yet, the field office seems
unwilling to complete the consultation until they have studied
the history of the mine dating back decades and analyzed even
the types of construction equipment that will be used.
West Virginia DEP is having to elevate some of these
consultations as emergent just to keep the mines in the State
operating.
While my State is already facing problems with ESA
consultations, the Service in D.C. here is rolling back
commonsense reforms that were implemented in 2019 and will make
ESA implementation even more complicated. Specifically, the
Service reinstated the blanket 4(d) rule, which effectively
treats all threatened species as endangered.
The Service will no longer consider economic impacts when
making species listing decisions. The Service removed language
in its Section 7 interagency coordination process that limits
reviews to ``activities that are reasonably certain to occur,''
which allows field offices to assess activities that are well
beyond the scope of a proposed project, and the Service
rescinded the definition of habitat in determining critical
habitat designations.
So, I am a cosponsor of congressional Review Act
resolutions led my Senators Lummis, Ricketts, and Sullivan to
overrule these three regulatory actions by the Service.
I appreciate a lot the dialog that we have had between our
staff and yours over the past couple of years, but we are at
another crossroads again and I look forward to learning from
you what solutions we can use together to address these endless
paperwork exercises and delays.
With that, I will yield back.
Senator Carper. Great. We will have some time here today to
address, I hope, all the points that you have just raised.
As you know, we have a bunch of other committees that we
all serve on. Members will be coming and going. They have
already begun coming and going, and others, some of them will
come back and be part of this conversation today.
I am going to turn now to our witness. Martha Williams, as
we all know, is currently serving our Nation as the Director of
Fish and Wildlife Service. How many months now have you been in
that role? How many months?
Ms. Williams. Chairman, I have not been counting, but I at
least realize it has been over 3 years now.
Senator Carper. Does it seem longer?
Ms. Williams. No, it has been remarkably amazing. It has
been more wonderful than I would have expected.
Senator Carper. Is not that great? I feel that way about
what I do here. That is good.
Prior to your leadership role at the Fish and Wildlife
Service, you served as the Director of the Montana Department
of Fish and Wildlife and Parks. I understand you are a lifelong
outdoor enthusiast and enjoy hiking, hunting, and fishing. You
are pretty well cut out for this job.
Welcome back to our committee. Please proceed with your
statement, and we will have some questions when you are
finished.
Thanks so much for joining us.
STATEMENT OF HON. MARTHA WILLIAMS, DIRECTOR, U.S. FISH AND
WILDLIFE SERVICE
Ms. Williams. Good morning, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member
Capito, and members of the committee. I really appreciate the
opportunity to testify today on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service's 2025 budget request.
The President's budget for the Fish and Wildlife Service
totals $1.9 billion, an increase of $163.4 million above the
2024 enacted level. The budget promotes strategic investments
to conserve fish and wildlife species that face many stressors.
It connects Americans with the outdoors, facilitates economic
development, and creates good-paying jobs.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is a field-based organization
that works collaboratively and creatively to meet our
responsibilities. Our 9,000 dedicated employees carry out our
work across eight regional offices and 800 field stations
across the Country.
These biologists, refuge managers, hatchery operators, law
enforcement officers, maintenance professionals, and wildland
firefighters and more depend on relationships to help implement
our mission in ways that respect the needs of local communities
and fit the places where we work. We partner with everyone.
Although we are a relatively small agency, these many
partnerships greatly increase our effectiveness and reach. Over
the course of my career, and now as director, I have seen this
firsthand. Just last week, I saw two examples of how the Fish
and Wildlife Service is the glue to impactful partnerships
built for the places where they are.
I saw our leadership working to combat aquatic invasive
species in Lake Tahoe and to address grizzly bear conflict in
the Blackfoot Valley in Montana. Our collaborative work in the
Blackfoot, as an example, is a remarkable story of ranchers and
landowners, tribes, nonprofit organizations, State and Federal
agencies, and local communities coming together to find
solutions that keep ranchers on their land, keep their animals
safe, and simultaneously allow grizzly bears to be on the
landscape, too.
I saw innovative solutions, including technology like
electronic mats to keep livestock in or out, and virtual
fencing to control livestock movement, and then livestock
carcass management to prevent grizzlies from being attracted to
the site. These actions keep ranchers ranching and conserve
grizzly bears and a way of life, all in an effort to allow for
thriving and connected landscapes.
Through funding from USDA and the Fish and Wildlife
Service, these efforts are being scaled up across Montana and
on to other States. The work of the Blackfoot Valley stands as
a national model for successful collaboration. Such efforts
would not be possible without the years of relationship-
building and leadership of the Fish and Wildlife Service staff
on the ground.
This is where we shine. Our staff bring parties together,
bring them to the table, to work together to solve problems and
ensure durable and lasting conservation for species, and
supporting the communities in which they live. Building and
sustaining partnerships like these takes people and resources.
However, over the past 20 years, due to relentless budget
constraints, the Fish and Wildlife Service has had to
significantly reduce our work force, stretching our ability to
do our work safely and proactively to the point of snapping.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has consistently adapted and
stretched our resources. For example, we seek reimbursable
agreements to support our staffing needs because we do not have
the capacity to staff each refuge as a standalone unit. We now
administer units of the refuge system under what we call a
complex structure to achieve management efficiencies.
When Congress, though, invests in this work, as it did
under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Fish and Wildlife
Service, together with our partners, has demonstrated that we
can do great things for wildlife, local communities, and the
economy. It has given us a chance to show just what we can
achieve together.
If funded, our budget request would help restore capacity
in key areas, and, as a result, provide positive impacts to
people, communities, and habitat. We would maximize the
budget's investments by leveraging capacity of our partners and
tailoring implementation of our mission to meet the conditions
and needs of local situations.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify before you
today. I would be pleased to answer any questions that you may
have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Williams follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Great. Well, thanks for joining us, again,
today.
I am going to go back to what I said in my opening
statement. I think what I said is that the President's budget
request includes $1.9 billion for the Fish and Wildlife
Service. That is a 10 percent increase in funding over, I
think, over what was funded for the current year, 2024.
I oftentimes say, compared to what, when I am talking with
folks, including in this room with our witnesses. Ten percent
compared to what? Through the years before that, the decade
before that? Give us some ideas, so we will have some sense of
reference.
Ms. Williams. Chairman Carper, thank you for that question.
We have put, I have put a lot of thought into this question for
numerous reasons. These are, it is compared to the 2024 enacted
level, but when we look back over the last decade, the capacity
within the Fish and Wildlife Service has continued to decrease
by 20 percent.
So as we think about rebuilding and being able to meet our
statutory obligations plus being able to do the proactive work
so that, for example, species do not have to be listed, so that
we can be more efficient in our Section 7 consultation, we are
thinking about, how do we build for the future in an efficient
manner.
So we are not just looking back to the last 10 years where
we had larger capacity and saying we want it to be just like
that. Instead, what we are thinking about is, how do we build
from what we have now? How do we get through these lean years,
first, and then how do we build going forward that meets the
needs of today?
Senator Carper. I am going to ask you in a separate
question for the record, I want to make sure that I am
comparing apples to apples. The 10 percent increase being
requested, I want to be able to compare that apple to what has
gone on in recent years. That will be a question for the
record.
My next questions deal with Endangered Species Act
consultation and permitting. The Fiscal Year 2025 budget
request includes about $147 million to increase environmental
permitting capacity, which would be an increase of some $28
million. The Fish and Wildlife Service issues, as you know, a
variety of permits under its wildlife protection statutes, but
I want to focus today specifically on Endangered Species Act
consultation.
Consultation, as you know, is one of the Fish and Wildlife
Service's most important responsibilities, but I find that a
lot of people do not really know what consultation means or why
it is essential to the Service's mission.
My question is this: would you spend a minute or two
explaining for us what consultation means when the Service does
it, and how it protects species?
Ms. Williams. Thank you for that question, Chairman Carper.
I think back on the Endangered Species Act, and many people
focus on Section 4 under the Endangered Species Act, and that
is listing or the delisting process. The real heart of the
Endangered Species Act is Section 7, that when Congress passed
the Endangered Species Act, they set out Section 7 specifically
to provide a means to conserve the ecosystems upon which
endangered and threatened species depend.
There are two parts to Section 7 under the Endangered
Species Act: one that directs all Federal agencies to
participate in conserving these species, so this is not just up
to National Marine Fisheries Service and the Fish and Wildlife
Service, it is up to all of government.
The second part of Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act
specifically says that when a Federal agency takes an action
they must ensure that their activities are not likely to
jeopardize the continued existence of threatened or endangered
species.
So that is what triggers what we call Section 7
consultation. It is that requirement that Federal agencies need
to make sure any act they undertake or permit or fund do not
jeopardize these species. That is what sends in motion the
consultation process with the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Senator Carper. Thank you for that response. I am going to
yield to Senator Capito, and then I am going to come back and
followup this line of questioning. Thank you.
Senator Capito?
Senator Capito. Great, thank you. I want to talk about the
field office in West Virginia unexpectedly determined that a
formal consultation was necessary for the Roaring Run Bridge
project, which is part of the Corridor H project, but there is
an issue here. I think you are aware of it.
In order to ensure that Federal funding can still be spent
on this project this year, this consultation needs to be
completed by July. The field office and the regional staff,
including Director Weber, have committed to making this a top
priority. I have been told that the Department of Highways and
the field office had a very productive meeting last week.
Director Williams, I am just asking if you would commit to
making this a priority, because if we do not get this done by
July, it is going to be another year off.
Ms. Williams. Ranking Member Capito, absolutely. I will
make it a priority, and I understand that our West Virginia
Field Office just received the Biological Assessment from the
West Virginia Department of Transportation for Roaring Run, and
that they indeed are in line to turn it around by the end of
July.
I would love to add just a deep appreciation for your
engagement on this issue and your staff and meeting with Wendi
Weber and all of us to really find a path forward where the
Fish and Wildlife Service is not the bottleneck to these
projects. We want to help them go forward.
Senator Capito. Thank you.
So, it has been 2 years since we came. We met with the DEP
and DOH (Department of Health) and some other people, and then,
I want to give you a chance to respond to my opening statement
where I said that the Coal Association is intending to sue
because the field office is in, they believe, violation of the
2020 Biological Opinion.
We are restarting consultation on 880 mining permits with
seemingly no plan to handle the workload. DEP is experiencing
months of back-and-forth on the protection enhancement plans
that ultimately required no substantive changes, and DOH has
just decided to go to formal consultations, because the back
and forth is taking too long.
How do we resolve these challenges? We still need to, I
think, work on improvement. What are we going to do about all
these permits that are going to have to be re-looked at, as I
mentioned in my opening statement, asking for information that
goes well beyond what has been asked for in the past?
Ms. Williams. Ranking Member Capito, I wish I had an easy
one sentence answer to that, but I can speak to how we are
trying to address this challenge and get beyond it.
First off, as we recognize, we have had a 23 percent
reduction in staff regarding consultations. We have had over,
thank you to the Investment and Infrastructure, we have more
and more projects coming our way than we have ever had before,
let alone the OSMRE, these restarting these 880 permits.
We have had a decrease in staff and increase in
consultations. We have thought about it in a number of ways. We
are, first off, we have developed this innovative online system
to kick out those projects that do not even need further
discussion or consultation.
Senator Capito. Is that working now?
Ms. Williams. That is working now, and is only improving.
Fifty percent of the permits that are coming through that
system are based in West Virginia, so it is working now.
Senator Capito. Is that of the 880 permits?
Ms. Williams. That is not of the OSMRE permits.
Senator Capito. That is a separate thing.
Ms. Williams. I can speak to, first, if I can pull back and
talk about how we are trying to address Section 7
consultations, where we have had a decrease in capacity. We are
requesting more capacity. Thank you for your leadership and
others in the transfer authorities, so we can be bringing in,
as we have in the West Virginia Field Office, more staff.
We have to do it more quickly. We have to be thinking
forward and be prepared for the permits as they come in. We are
being more efficient now in weeding out those projects that do
not need formal consultation. We have had over 11,000 informal
consultations, 1,000 formal consultations.
We are just trying to, one step at a time, be more
efficient and pay attention and move our resources to where we
have those formal consultations.
With that said, for the 880 permits from the litigation
with OSMRE and the Biological Opinion, we are working
diligently with our sister bureau, OSMRE. Wendi Weber is in
constant contact with them, and as you mentioned, we had first
had this template. We are working on a better template. I am
very interested in following up on where you think we have gone
too far, and we can address those issues. I hope I am answering
your question and the big picture.
Senator Capito. You are answering the question, but as I
stated in my opening statement, DOH, the Gas and Oil
Association in West Virginia, DEP, recognizing that there is a
capacity issue here, has funded into that office positions that
have not been filled. If the argument is, we do not have the
people to do this processing, and you are given the money to do
the processing, but you are not hiring the people.
Ms. Williams. I can understand that frustration, Senator
Capito, but it does not all have, you know, had we been able to
look ahead for the increase in projects coming through the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, had we had the money and the
capacity, we could have built up ahead of time.
Senator Capito. Did you get any extra money?
Ms. Williams. Instead, we are on our back foot, and yes, we
are in the process of hiring those people, and we are very
grateful for the opportunity to.
Senator Capito. Did you get, in any of the FRAN, the IRA,
or the IIJA, did Fish and Wildlife get any additional moneys in
any of those?
Ms. Williams. Not to cover this.
Senator Capito. No, wait a minute. That is not my question.
Did Fish and Wildlife get any additional dollars in these three
bills, as a whole?
Ms. Williams. Absolutely, we got that money, but we did not
get that money to put toward the capacity and the consultation
positions. That is a very good question, because it gets to the
very heart of the challenge, is that the money that we got,
which is terrific, was not, we were not always able to put it
into the permanent staff to get these projects going.
Senator Capito. Was some of that money for Section 7
consultation? Am I saying that right? Is it Section 7? It has a
seven in it.
Ms. Williams. Senator Capito, I do not believe that any of
that money was specifically to Section 7, but I would like to
get back to you on that, because this has been the challenge we
shared in the past 3 years.
Senator Capito. Thank you.
Senator Carper. Thank you, Senator Capito.
We have been joined by Senator Ricketts, faithful in
attendance. It is great to see you. How are you today? Welcome.
Senator Ricketts. I am doing great, thank you, Mr.
Chairman, and thank you, Ranking Member Capito, for holding
this hearing today.
Thank you, Director Williams, for joining us. I want,
again, to say thank you for the work that Fish and Wildlife has
done on the Platte River recovery and implementation plan. We
discussed this yesterday. This innovative and collaborative
approach to the program has provided great benefits for the
species along the Platte River while recognizing the value of
public-private partnerships. Again, as we talked about
yesterday, I think that was a great program to highlight for
Fish and Wildlife.
Also, though, as we discussed yesterday, I have serious
concerns about the steps your agency has taken to backtrack on
some of this commonsense regulatory reform that was taken by
the former Administration. Specifically, I want to address the
changes made surrounding critical habitat designation.
The 2019 reforms updated the process to require areas where
threatened or endangered species are present to be evaluated
before unoccupied habitat can be considered critical. These
reforms set a higher bar for agencies to designate unoccupied
areas as critical habitat by requiring that unoccupied habitat
contain one or more of the features required for a species'
recovery.
Your agency is reversing this commonsense regulation.
Potentially, your agency's final rule restricts the sharing of
economic impact data, which does not align with the principles
of transparency and informed public participation in the
rulemaking process, and of course, this Administration
originally said it would be the most transparent in history. It
has turned out not to be true.
Critical habitat designation can carry major economic
consequences for landowners and project developers. Landowners
are not compensated for the lost value, and critical habitat
designation causes significant job losses.
My friends in the west vividly remember the 1990 listing of
the northern spotted owl, and the nine million acres of
critical habitat that caused the loss of 32,000 timber jobs.
These were good paying jobs in small communities, which had to
be supported by Federal dollars to keep their school systems
open following this designation.
As you are aware, I am leading a congressional Review Act
along with my colleagues, Senator Lummis and Senator Sullivan,
to overturn this rulemaking. I appreciate my Republican
colleagues' support in overturning this overreach.
Director Williams, following the reversal of the reform,
what scientific criteria will Fish and Wildlife use to
determine the necessity of designating unoccupied areas of
critical habitat under this new proposal?
Ms. Williams. Senator Ricketts, thank you again for meeting
with me yesterday. Overall, regarding these Endangered Species
Act regulations, after the last Administration promulgated
them, they were litigated. As the President asked us at the
beginning of this Administration to review the regulations, and
in so doing, it was a policy determination to adhere to the law
and the science to make these changes, including, as you asked
about, unoccupied habitat.
For example, with climate change and other stressors on
species, there are times where recovery of a species could go
faster and more appropriately in the habitat that is not
currently occupied, but is the best habitat for them going
forward. Especially when we have, as you have, a State with 93
percent private landowners, where we have landowners who want
to restore these species. We would always do this in concert
with the State and the landowners.
Senator Ricketts. Specifically, getting back to the
unoccupied areas, what criteria, what scientific criteria, are
you going to use to determine whether or not this is a critical
habitat under the new proposed rules?
Ms. Williams. It will be necessarily specific to the
specific species.
Senator Ricketts. Okay, can you give us some examples? What
are some examples then? Pick a specific species, or just give
us examples. Give me an example of what this would look like.
Ms. Williams. I am trying to think of any species that has
a largely diminished area now that we are, I can think of
actually most species that are dwindled to such small, think of
a small endemic species, that are dwindled to such small areas
that they only occupy now. If you want them to be healthy and
to the future, that they might, one valley over, or one
drainage over, be able to thrive and relieve the pressure of
the area where they are now. I would think it can apply to
myriad species, but the analysis should be specific to the
species.
Senator Ricketts. Okay, so what about, so you ca not come
up with a specific scientific thing off the top of your head.
What about economic impacts to communities? Are you going to be
looking at what may happen to those communities as a result of
mandatory designation of unoccupied habitat?
Ms. Williams. Senator, we are always interested and care
about the community health, but there are different
interpretations of the law, the Endangered Species Act, and
whether it allows us to take economic impacts into
consideration in our Section 4 analysis. I would say we will
follow the law and the science.
Senator Ricketts. You are saying, there may be cases where
you are not going to do the economic impact on communities to
determine whether or not designating the critical habitat is
going to impact them?
Ms. Williams. I am saying we will follow the Endangered
Species Act law, where there are places where we do that
economic impact, and there are times where the statute does not
allow for that.
Senator Ricketts. Again, this is part of my concerns, is
that if you are going to do the impact analysis, that is going
to impact communities. Obviously, we need to know that, so
those communities can be prepared. Will you share that data
with those communities in the cases where you are doing the
economic impact?
Ms. Williams. Yes, Senator, we are always transparent in
sharing our data through the public process, and the law
requires that, as well.
Senator Ricketts. Great. Well, I have run out of time, but
thank you, Director Williams, I appreciate you being here
today.
Ms. Williams. Thank you.
Senator Carper. I appreciate you being here today, Senator.
Thank you.
Senator Lummis, welcome. How are you today? It is good to
see you.
Senator Lummis. Very well, Mr. Chairman, thank you so much.
Thank you, Director, for coming. Nice to see you.
Ms. Williams. Nice to see you.
Senator Lummis. I noted that when you were visiting with
Senator Ricketts, you said that you will follow the law and the
science. Let us talk about grizzly de-listing, because you are
doing neither, so here we go.
In January 2022, that is two and a half years ago, the
State of Wyoming filed a petition with Fish and Wildlife
Service to establish grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone
ecosystem as a distinct population segment that is neither
threatened nor endangered, and to remove it from the Endangered
Species List. By law, your agency is required to make a
determination within 12 months of receiving the application. We
are now two and a half years out from when the petition was
submitted, and your agency has stated you will not have a
decision until July.
Further, the science established by the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service decades ago proves that the grizzly has
recovered, and is way over population criteria. Will you, geez,
will you commit to establish and delist the Greater Yellowstone
grizzly bear population?
Ms. Williams. Senator Lummis, I cannot answer that question
point blank, as we are under litigation regarding this specific
question. I, too, want to acknowledge your frustration and the
challenge that this has taken so long, and that the Fish and
Wildlife Service has not gotten this finding out in the time
with which the statute says.
I also recognize that the sheer numbers, the science shows
that the numbers of grizzly bears have been a success story.
When the Fish and Wildlife Service once petitioned, I will back
up.
When I started in this job, I met one-on-one with the three
State directors, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, to say, how can
we find a path forward regarding grizzly bears? How can we do
this together where we get to a spot where we can delist and it
will stand in court?
Then, right after that meeting, we received petitions from
the States of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming making it very
difficult for us to continue that collaborative conversation.
We were pushed right into the potential litigation.
Senator Lummis. Yes, but potential litigation, potential.
Ms. Williams. Which we were then sued, then, Wyoming did
sue us on the deadline, which we have a number of cases
regarding grizzly bears before us right now. We have the
Wyoming case; we have three petitions from the different
States; we have an Idaho case.
Senator Lummis. Are you using our litigation, Wyoming's
litigation, against you as an excuse for not following the law,
when we are suing you because you are not following the law?
Ms. Williams. No, Senator I did not mean to say that in any
way.
Senator Lummis. Well, that is what it looks like.
I am going to go on with gray wolves. Following years of
delay, your agency committed to issue a new final delisting
rule for wolves across the lower 48 by December 2024. This,
after the agency has repeatedly missed the deadlines to issue
defensible delisting rules that will hold up in court.
Then, last fall, your agency issued a half million-dollar
grant to an outside mediator to discuss how wolves and people
can coexist. This looks like political favoritism thrown at
some group to study how wolves and people can coexist, after
two decades of regulatory process, socialization of the issue,
and repeated discussions. This looks like a delay tactic and a
waste of taxpayer dollars to me.
I want to know, can you assure me this process will not
delay a delisting rule and further, that no part of this ``can
we coexist'' discussion will be part of the administrative
record?
Ms. Williams. Senator Lummis, first of all, wolves are now
delisted in the northern Rockies. The Fish and Wildlife Service
was challenged on that, and we received a petition, and in this
Administration, we issued a decision that wolves remain
delisted in the northern Rockies.
Senator Lummis. Now you are doing this proposed National
Recovery Plan?
Ms. Williams. Absolutely, yes.
Senator Lummis. You announced that? Wolves are under the
jurisdiction of the State of Wyoming, and now you want to
expand this to the whole Country?
Ms. Williams. Yes.
Senator Lummis. Oh my gosh. Will you maintain State
jurisdiction in Wyoming?
Ms. Williams. Yes, Senator Lummis. The wolf process has
nothing to do with, and does not impinge on, the State's
authorities where wolves are delisted. What we were seeing
across the Country was various litigation that I wanted to be
able to say, time out, let us focus on the real work of wolves
on the landscape, just like in the Blackfoot challenge where I
was, where we support landowners being on the land and
supporting them addressing any livestock depredations.
You are far more aware than I am of the various challenges
in the States that have wolves, and the social tolerance and
the culture wars around wolves. What I wanted this process to
do was to cut through across the litigation and get to a place
where wolves could have that quiet, where they remain delisted
in the States where they are delisted, and we have some sort of
coherent national strategy.
Senator Lummis. I think it would be better to spend half a
million dollars studying, getting a mediator to study, how
people can get along and coexist with each other. Thank you.
Ms. Williams. Thank you.
Senator Carper. Thank you, Senator Lummis.
We are back to Senator Capito. Senator Capito?
Senator Capito. Thank you, and that was a good one.
I forgot to mention at the outset, because I thought the
Chairman would be interested in this. Very sad news this
morning, but a West Virginia legend, Jerry West, died last
night.
Senator Carper. Really?
Senator Capito. He was a basketball player, very well
known. We are thinking about his family.
Senator Carper. I am trying to remember what his number
was. Do you recall?
Senator Capito. Forty-four.
Senator Carper. Forty-four, I was thinking 42.
Senator Capito. Nope, 44. He is a true mountaineer.
Senator Carper. What an icon. That is too bad. None of us
can live forever, but he made every day count.
Senator Capito. Anyway, he was good.
I want to go back to the process on timelines. We have all
been questioning, we are blowing through timelines here. What
is happening between our field office and some of our State
agencies, particularly highways, is that we are hitting pauses.
The field office is pausing formal consultations.
I am concerned that these pauses, if you pause something
and then later on restart, you can still be within the
timeline, but you still had this large pause.
Who decides when to pause the clock? Who decides when the
clock restarts, and how does the field office hold itself
accountable to meeting the timelines for formal consultations?
What constitutes a pause, and why pause, and who restarts?
Ms. Williams. Senator Capito, I would like to further look
into the pauses that have happened in the West Virginia Field
Office. I do not know.
I know that there are times where we are all challenged to
get the information we need, and I know you mentioned that
there are times where you feel that we are asking for more
information than we need. I would like to sort through that. I
can not answer your question on the fly.
Senator Capito. Okay, we will followup on that. Thank you.
You mentioned the template that you have put together as a
tool for consistency, and that you are tweaking that. We would
like to, and we mentioned that we have received complaints or
concerns that a lot of the information is information that is
extra information that is not really relevant to what we are
doing, what they are trying to achieve here.
Could we work with you on the template? Could we look at
the template? I do not think our office has seen it, but I do
not think we have asked to see it, either. I am making that
request today.
Ms. Williams. Yes, Senator Capito. I know we are still
working with the bureau on that, and we would be happy to work
with you on this, too.
Senator Capito. Thank you, thank you.
Then, it was interesting to hear Senator Lummis talk about
lawsuits, and obviously, we have those issues in West Virginia
and probably in every single State. Do you collect data on the
number of lawsuits affecting projects in West Virginia as
compared to, say, our sister States of Virginia and Kentucky
that would see, is it, well, we have had instances, and I have
had, personally, instances, where a project in coordination
maybe with the Corps of Engineers or somebody else, well, the
Ohio Fish and Wildlife, this is passing through quickly, same
kind of information. It is held up in West Virginia.
I am looking for more consistency State-to-State. I think
this is an issue. I would be interested to know, if you see on
this, how it is affecting lawsuits and the success of lawsuits
in different States with the consistency in question. Have you
looked at that?
Ms. Williams. Senator Capito, that is an excellent
question. I have not looked at or parsed out litigation and
litigation success in our various field offices. What I have
done and am interested in is finding more consistency across
the Country, and how we implement the Endangered Species Act.
It is one of the reasons behind our Section 10 regulation,
where we have more consistency and it is meant to be easier to
encourage habitat conservation plans and/or voluntary
conservation agreements.
I am very interested in following through on this and have
been, as we are in lean times at the Fish and Wildlife Service,
and we are having to think through how to get through these two
difficult budget years, 2024 and 2025, hence our budget
request. We are looking at having something like strike teams
or pulling together teams with expertise on these matters to
make sure we are covering what needs to be covered in places
where the most work is coming up, but also where we have our
best and most creative thinkers on these issues.
Senator Capito. Well, I know, for instance, in some of the
backlog that existed when we first started our conversation,
that you sent some of your experts from different States like
Kentucky or others to try to aid the West Virginia office as
they were trying to clear through a backlog.
I mentioned, and this will be my last question, I mentioned
in my opening statement specifically things that had changed,
and I think Senator Ricketts alluded to the one. You are no
longer considering economic impacts when making species listing
decisions.
Is that a blanket statement there? Is that a correct
statement, in your opinion, that you no longer are considering
economic impacts because of some of the rules that you have put
forward in making species listing decisions?
Ms. Williams. Senator, what I mean to say is that the
Endangered Species Act itself has language in it. I do not have
it in front of me. It is funny, I normally bring it to hearings
with me, I have a little packet with the Endangered Species
Act.
It is my understanding that the language of the statute
itself talks about not adding in economic impacts for Section 4
listing and delisting determinations. I will followup on that
with the exact language from the statute, but this is not just
per regulation. It is how we interpret the Endangered Species
Act itself.
Senator Capito. Okay, and then you removed language in
Section 7, interagency coordination process, that limits
reviews to activities that are reasonably certain to occur. You
took that out, which I think would allow for a wider berth of
what you could predict could happen.
Why did you do that?
Ms. Williams. Senator Capito, that was really a policy
decision also driven by our career staff on their expertise on
Section 7 consultations. It was not to make them less flexible,
but it was to follow the processes that we have had in place.
It was bringing the proposed rules back into comport with what
the Fish and Wildlife Service has done over the years, our
standard practice.
Senator Capito. My understanding is that this was in your
coordination process. It must have been within the body of
language that was guiding the Section 7 reviews, and you took
it out because you were not doing that?
Ms. Williams. Not at all, Senator Capito.
Senator Capito. I know it is complicated.
Ms. Williams. No, and I want to say this carefully, but I
would say in the previous Administration, rules were in
litigation. We looked at them with, actually, we made everybody
mad with how we moved forward with the regulations, because we
looked at them very carefully in concert with our solicitors to
what we thought adhered to the Endangered Species Act and the
science.
Senator Capito. All right, thank you.
I have to go to the Appropriations Committee, but thank
you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you again for being here.
Ms. Williams. Thank you.
Senator Capito. Thanks again for the constant contact. We
will be with you. We will be keeping that up, thank you.
Ms. Williams. Thank you, Senator. I hope to go back to
Charleston for the U.S.A. Cycling Nationals again.
Senator Capito. Oh, it was awesome. We did that.
Ms. Williams. My son raced.
Senator Capito. Oh, did he? Were you there?
Ms. Williams. Yes, I was there for the long weekend.
Senator Capito. You should have told me you were there.
Ms. Williams. I know.
Senator Capito. I walked down off the hill, and then I got
to ride with the car where they did the whole----
Ms. Williams. Oh, you did?
Senator Capito. Oh, yes.
Ms. Williams. It was incredible. Thank you for hosting us.
Senator Capito. I will get you in the car for next time.
Yes, you should have let me know. I just live like, an eighth
of a mile from, actually, they went right by my house. They
were serving beer by my house, but not me. Thank you.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. Senator Capito, thanks so much for being
with us. We will look forward to seeing you on the floor.
We have been joined by Senator Cardin. He has yielded, and
has said he is happy to wait a few more minutes before jumping
into this, but when he is ready, I will yield to him.
Senator Cardin. I will benefit from your questioning and
Senator Ricketts' questions.
Senator Carper. I am not sure how much benefit will flow
from my questioning, but hopefully, it will be of some value.
We were talking earlier about the, the Ranking Member just
mentioned that one of the all-time great basketball players in
West Virginia history, Jerry West, has passed away. What a
legendary figure. My sister and I were born in West Virginia.
We go back in the summers to visit our cousins in the State
with our grandparents. One of my grandfathers was a huge
Cincinnati Reds fan. The others were Jerry West fans, so we
note his life and his death today.
Where I am going with this is, and the first question that
I asked you today was, would you spend a few minutes explaining
what consultation is, when the Service does it, and how it
protects species. I will say that again. I will ask you to
spend a few minutes explaining what consultation is, when the
Service does it, and how it protects species.
Every now and then, I ask witnesses a question, I ask, how
would you explain this to your grandmother, or maybe my
grandmother? I want to give you another shot at this. How would
you explain this, seriously, so that lay people can understand
it, and maybe even the rest of us and our staffs? Please, what
is consultation, when does the Service provide it, and how does
it protect species? You are on.
Ms. Williams. Chairman Carper, that must mean I did not
explain that in a way that my grandmother could understand. I
will try to take another stab at that. I appreciate it.
Senator Carper. I do not want to put words in your
grandmother's mouth, but she might have been saying, ``say
what?''
[Laughter.]
Ms. Williams. No, that is a very fair question. I really
appreciate the opportunity to pull back and think about what
Section 7 means and how we implement it, especially because it
is of such interest.
Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act requires that when
a Federal agency undertakes an action, much like under, oh, my
grandmother would not like NEPA, when a Federal agency
undertakes an action, Congress and the President, when they
passed the Endangered Species Act, said, you must make sure
that that action does not jeopardize or put a species that is
of special concern, whether listed as endangered or threatened,
in jeopardy, and that its habitat needs to be in place, too.
What that has developed into, when a Federal agency takes
an action or gives money to a company to do a project or
permits that, that agency has to work with the Fish and
Wildlife Service or with NMFS to say, does this project impact
or affect that species and its habitat and if it does to a
certain threshold where it might jeopardize it, what needs to
happen to make sure that project takes into account the
species' needs?
What it was meant to do was to set up a conversation about
making sure those projects that might affect a species be put
together in a way where they no longer impact the species. It
is meant to be a conversation. There are many, many projects
that do not require that conversation back and forth, where
they can go through a system and say, they do not need to have
any more conversation or consultation with the Fish and
Wildlife Service. There are those projects that do require that
information gathering and the conversation to make sure that
the project does not jeopardize a species.
Senator Carper. think your grandmother is going to chew on
that for a while.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. We have been joined by Senator Cardin, and
I want to give him the opportunity to ask the next question, if
you would like to. If you would like to, I am happy to
recognize you for the next questions, to my Delmarva buddy.
Senator Cardin. I thought Senator Ricketts was going to ask
questions.
Senator Carper. He has already asked one set of questions.
Senator Cardin. He already asked?
Senator Carper. He will comment after you, if we are not
joined by others.
Senator Cardin. First of all, thank you for your support.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is critically important to us in
Maryland. I know you have roots in Maryland, so we recognize
your sensitivity.
I want to talk first about the neotropical bird issue,
which we just reauthorized earlier this year. We have seen a 30
percent reduction in the last 50 years in our bird population.
I think, sometimes, your agency is somewhat misunderstood as a
regulatory agency, yes, but a partner in trying to deal with
the mission of protecting fish and wildlife.
The neotropical bird issue is one that has been bipartisan
here. We have reauthorized it, and we have an extra, I think,
$100,000 in the appropriations, but it is a global issue that
affects migratory birds that come through the United States.
Can you just expand a little bit about the role of Fish and
Wildlife in trying to accomplish a mission, a partnership,
beyond just a regulatory mission, in an effort to accomplish
the objectives that we all want to see, a healthier
biodiversity species?
Ms. Williams. Senator Cardin, I really appreciate that
question, because I think it gets to the heart of just how the
Fish and Wildlife Service can be misunderstood, that while we
absolutely have a regulatory responsibility under the
Endangered Species Act, we indeed do far, far more. The work
that we do proactively, like under the neotropical work that
you have so helpfully supported and led on, we build
partnerships around the world to help prevent species being
imperiled, such that they would ever have to be listed and
getting to that regulatory component.
Our 2025 budget request includes an increase of $5.1
million for the neotropical program because, if you think about
how we, this is a really good example of how we stretch our
money so far into other countries, and absolutely everywhere
with partners, this is completely partner-driven work that you
have helped to support that allows these incredible species to
pass through our Country.
I know, I think I understand that some of your staff were
able to go on a bird walk. I would say it is one of the best
ways to start a day for me, going into work, was to go on a
bird walk on Roosevelt Island early in the morning with others,
and got to see a Baltimore Oriole right up in the top of a
tree, where you could see its color, and you could really hear
it sing.
I think that neotropical birds speak to people's sense of
wonder, of how do these species migrate so many thousands of
miles, and what they represent in our ecosystem, not only
people's health, but the health of our Country and the habitat
that we need to support them, and that they move these
thousands of miles from other countries through and into the
United States. It is an effort that we all have to address
together.
Senator Cardin. I just really want to underscore the number
of projects in 40-some countries that we have been involved
with, with the neotropical birds, the migratory birds. It is a
real testament to U.S. leadership, and partnerships with other
players, including governments, that have made a huge
difference. The Baltimore Oriole is flying high. They are on a
five-game winning streak, so it must be working well.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Williams. How about them Os?
Senator, you are correct. We have had over 747 projects in
43 countries, and those countries absolutely rely on the U.S.
Government's leadership. I have seen that firsthand as I have
traveled to Panama and other countries, to know just how they
rely on the funding that we have for these neotropical species.
Senator Cardin. I just want to thank you. I know that you
are working on the latest of our wildlife refuges in Maryland,
which we are very proud about. The report is in on that. It is
very popular in the southern part of our State. I think it is
about 40,000 acres.
This is cooperative; the governments and communities are
all in support of what we are trying to do to preserve more
land, so thank you for your leadership in that regard.
Ms. Williams. Thank you for your support, Senator.
Senator Carper. Senator Cardin, thank you for joining us.
He mentioned the Birds. He is a huge fan of the Baltimore
Orioles. As it turns out, I am a huge fan of the Detroit
Tigers. Every now and then, over the years, we have been
privileged to go to a game when the Orioles host the Tigers.
Senator Cardin. We do not have too many tigers in our
community. We have a lot of Orioles, a lot more Orioles, but
anyway, maybe we can look at cosponsoring a bill to protect the
endangered tigers in the world.
Senator Carper. Just to give you an example of what a good
friend he is, a couple of years ago, the Tigers and the Orioles
were battling for a playoff position to see who was going to go
to the World Series, and I could not go to the game.
But he was nice enough to call me from the game when the
Orioles were hosting the Tigers, had just won, and the cheering
in Baltimore, you could almost hear it without a telephone. He
held the phone out so I could listen the celebration.
Where do they play? They used to play in Memorial Stadium.
Where do they play now?
Senator Cardin. Oh wow, you are going back a long way. It
is called Camden Yards. We have to get you there more
frequently if you do not know Camden Yards, the first of the
modern stadiums.
Senator Carper. There you go. I will always remember your
thoughtfulness.
Senator Cardin. Have you been following David Rubinstein's
purchase of the Orioles?
Senator Carper. A little bit.
Senator Cardin. Good.
Senator Carper. With that in mind, I think that leads right
into Senator Ricketts for his second round of questioning. Go
ahead, Senator Ricketts.
Senator Ricketts. Great, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Director Williams, I kind of want to just pick back up,
because we were talking about the 2019, the Trump
Administration published a rule that gave Fish and Wildlife the
ability to use the economic analysis when it was looking at the
Section 7 listings, correct? That is the one you are referring
to, there was a lawsuit over. Is that accurate?
Ms. Williams. There was a lawsuit over the suite of Trump
Administration ESA regulations. Yes.
Senator Ricketts. There was, right. Then, that is what,
when the Biden Administration came in, they finalized the rule
that basically reversed those. Is that accurate?
Ms. Williams. When the Biden Administration came in, the
President asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to review those
regulations. We rescinded, and then promulgated new ones that
were not the same as prior to the Trump Administration, were
not just the same as the Trump Administration's regulations,
but instead, were a very thoughtful and measured approach
forward, I would argue.
Senator Ricketts. Getting back then, to the economic
analysis. You said that you would follow the law with regard to
the economic analysis. It is not in the original act, there.
You said, if you do the economic analysis, you share it. Do you
have any examples where Fish and Wildlife, when you ever do an
economic analysis, it had negative impact on species
conservation?
Ms. Williams. Senator, I am not sure I understand your
question. Whether a listing or delisting?
Senator Ricketts. Are there times when you did the economic
analysis, did that ever impact your ability to be able to
protect a species?
Ms. Williams. I am not following how many, it depends. We
do economic----
Senator Ricketts. If it has not harmed you in protecting a
species, then doing the economic analysis would be beneficial
to communities, so they are aware, right? We referenced the
spotted owl costing 32,000 jobs.
My point is, if you are not going to do the economic
analysis, but if you do not have any cases where the economic
analysis harmed you, why would not you do the economic
analysis?
Ms. Williams. Senator, we do an economic analysis in all of
the cases and all of the instance where we think the Endangered
Species Act allows us to, and where we should. It is just that
there is, and I do not want to go too far, because I do not
have my statute in front of me, it is only the one instance
that was my understanding of Section 4 listing and delisting,
where we feel that the statute does not allow for that economic
analysis. We absolutely do an economic analysis in other
considerations, and we do share that information.
Senator Ricketts. Getting back to the unoccupied land and
critical habitat, I believe the Trump Administration rule gave
Fish and Wildlife the flexibility with regard to the, gave you
leeway to designate only unoccupied areas as critical habitat
only if it was necessary. I think, do the new rules say that
you have to designate that unoccupied land as critical habitat?
You are not required to do it?
Ms. Williams. No, Senator, I would argue that the previous
Administration did not give us flexibility, and our current
regulation does give us flexibility. It does not require that
unoccupied habitat be designated as critical habitat.
Senator Ricketts. Let me switch up gears on you just a
little bit here, with the remaining time I have. When you are
thinking about success, and species conservation, would you,
how do you define success when you are trying to conserve a
species?
Ms. Williams. Excellent question, Senator. I think there
are different ways to think about success. I think the first
step of success is stemming the loss of the species, of
preventing extinction to begin with. Then, the next step is
getting to full recovery of that species.
Senator Ricketts. Then, full recovery meaning that you
would delist that species. Would that be accurate?
Ms. Williams. It is one method, yes.
Senator Ricketts. Okay, so again, just the logic following
that if a species, endangered or threatened, you are successful
in recovering it, then getting it off the list would show that
you have actually recovered the population, kind of what
Senator Lummis was talking about with the grizzly bears in the
Yellowstone ecosystem.
Ms. Williams. Yes.
Senator Ricketts. Since the last 51 years since Fish and
Wildlife has been working on this, there have been, I think,
about 1,300 species have been listed, but only about 100 have
delisted. That is about a 7 percent hit rate.
I would suggest that the Fish and Wildlife use that as one
of the benchmarks to say, hey, we can actually show that this
program is successful by getting more species to the point
where they are being delisted. Quite frankly, 7 percent over 51
years is not a very impressive record. That means, if I was in
school and I got a 7 percent on my grade, my parents would have
been pulling my ear and telling me to pay more attention in the
classroom.
I think that one of the things that Fish and Wildlife, and
I would encourage you to share this with everybody else, should
be thinking about is, we ought to be thinking about not just
how we can set aside this land and so forth, but how do we
actually get to the end goal of, how do we get, be more
proactive as far as delisting species, because that is really
the definition of success, is that those species are not
endangered anymore.
Ms. Williams. Senator, I agree that is our end goal, but I
do also feel that the Endangered Species Act has been
incredibly successful in stemming the extinction of species
that, when we lose them, we are poorer as a Nation.
Senator Ricketts. Great. You know, actually, that will be
one thing we will followup with, because I am out of time, is
just how many species has Fish and Wildlife assessed that we
have stopped from going extinct.
Ms. Williams. Yes, I am happy to followup.
Senator Ricketts. Great, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. Thank you very much. I have a couple more
questions. I do not know if we are going to be joined by other
members of our committee or not. If we are, then I will yield
to them as they arrive.
I want to come back and focus a little bit on capacity
building, on consultation, and also especially on partnerships.
In your testimony and as you discussed a few minutes ago with
Senator Capito, you stated, I think, over the last 20 years,
the Service's capacity has eroded significantly.
Meanwhile, costs and workloads have increased, and
challenges to wildlife conservation have become not less
complex, but more complex. I believe that we in the legislative
body in Congress have an obligation to address this problem.
Here is my question. Would you elaborate on how,
specifically, this budget request prioritizes capacity building
within the Service, particularly as it relates to consultation
and relates to permitting?
I will just say that again. Would you elaborate for us
specifically how this budget request from the Administration
prioritizes capacity building within the Service, particularly
as it relates to consultation and permitting?
Ms. Williams. Thank you, Chairman Carper. This budget
request absolutely prioritizes capacity to provide those
services that are necessary for Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
projects to go forward to allow us to meet our mission.
Specifically, the 2025 budget request includes a $146.6 million
increase in our planning and consultation under Ecological
Services, so that is specific to the consultation work.
Where the budget request also prioritizes capacity that, as
you mention, for the Fish and Wildlife Service to do its bulk
of its work that is nonregulatory, it requires people to build
those relationships and those partnerships. I think about our
Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program. I think about our
Coastal Program, as examples, where those are our people on the
ground who are working day in and day out with our partners,
with NGO's, and with landowners to piece together funding,
technical assistance, and listening to what the community wants
to build, and then working with our partners to build that.
That is an example of asking our request for the Partners
Program and for the Coastal Program.
Our request also asks for money for our refuge system. An
example is law enforcement officers, so we have a request for
an increase for law enforcement officers because, as an
example, there are seven States where we do not even have a
refuge law enforcement in the State.
In the State of Delaware, we share a law enforcement
officer with the State of Maryland. We have nine States where
we only have one law enforcement officer covering all of our
refuge systems. That is an example of capacity that we have
asked to build for the safety of our visitors, for the safety
of our law enforcement officers.
I get the question from our law enforcement officers; how
much is the life worth? Are we willing to request and put the
money forward to keep our law enforcement officers safe day in
and day out? Those are examples, but our full budget request
builds on those capacity needs for us to be able to do our jobs
and meet our statutory obligations.
Senator Carper. Okay, just repeat that for me, if you will,
I want to make sure I heard it right. How many States have no
law enforcement officers for the refuges?
Ms. Williams. Seven States do not have a refuge law
enforcement officer. Nine States, this is my understanding,
nine States have only one.
I also, Chairman Carper, I get serious incident reports, so
I am aware of all of the serious incidents that happen on Fish
and Wildlife Service-managed lands, whether it is refuge,
hatcheries, and/or where our law enforcement officers are
called to assist local law enforcement. It is pretty
remarkable, the needs out there for our enforcement officers to
step up and help visitors and communities, and that they are in
harm's way.
Senator Carper. Again, just for clarification, the
Administration's budget request, how would it affect the
population of law enforcement officers on refuges in the seven
States or the nine States that you just referenced?
Ms. Williams. Our Fiscal Year 2025 request is for $63.4
million specific to law enforcement. It would build the
capacity, it would increase to 48 Federal wildlife officers.
Senator Carper. As compared to?
Ms. Williams. As opposed to right now, we have 205, but it
would allow us, that increase of 48 Federal wildlife officers,
would allow us to cover the seven States where we do not have
law enforcement officers now.
Senator Carper. It would be in terms of actual law
enforcement officers, we are talking about a 25 percent
increase, as I understand it. Okay, thanks.
Let me move on, if I can. I want to come back. I think we
are going to be joined by Senator Whitehouse here very shortly.
Before he arrives I want to turn to, again, partnerships.
Partnerships, which as you know, are so important, but when the
Fish and Wildlife Service has more boots on the ground, how
does that improve the agency's ability to partner with States,
to partner with Tribes, to partner with local governments, and
to partner with stakeholders?
Ms. Williams. Chairman Carper, I was just in Montana last
week working with the partners around the Blackfoot Challenge
that are using grizzly bears and conflict as a way to build out
support for conservation and keeping working lands working.
They had, through the University of Montana, done a study on
the necessary capacity to be able to build partnerships, but
you have to have somebody in place to be able to build those
relationships. We have traditionally focused just on
implementing statutes without putting, investing in the people
to get the work done and to build that support.
Another example, Chairman Carper, is with the Fish Passage
Program that had a once in a generation investment from the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. What we have done in the Fish
and Wildlife Service is used our capacity there to work with
FEMA, to work with the Army Corps of Engineers, to work with
Federal Highways, to work with the USDA, to work with the
Department of Defense so that we sequence and coordinate all of
our Federal projects.
Without our Fish and Wildlife Service Capacity in that
small program, there would not have been anybody to be that
glue that pulls all the partners together.
Senator Carper. Thank you for that. We have been joined by
Senator Whitehouse. Senator Whitehouse, I know you have just
sat down, but if you are ready, I am ready to recognize you.
You are recognized. Go right ahead; thanks for joining us.
Senator Whitehouse. Great. Thank you, Chairman.
Welcome, Director Williams. Glad to have you here.
Ms. Williams. Thank you.
Senator Whitehouse. I am glad you enjoyed your visit to
Sachuest Point, one of your most beautiful locations.
Ms. Williams. I did.
Senator Whitehouse. I wanted to flag just a few things for
you. One is, I would encourage you to support as much as you
can the Invasive Species Program. I have visited, for instance,
Valley Falls Pond in Rhode Island and seen it completely
overrun by invasive water chestnut. The homeowners nearby have
a real problem on their hands, and the better we can be at
helping them, the better off.
A lot of these are historic and treasured features, and
when an invasive species comes in and transmutes them, it is
ordinarily not to anyone's advantage, so if you could help with
that, I would be grateful. I know you have a lot of different
places and a lot of different invasive species, but I wanted to
flag that in particular.
I also wanted to flag, as we discussed the other day,
making sure we are paying a lot of attention to the
Narragansett Tribe. We had a visit from the Secretary, and I
sat down with her and the Tribe leaders.
I mentioned that it had been a long time since the
Secretary of the Interior has visited the Narragansett Tribe. I
do not know exactly how long. John Brown, who is the Medicine
Man for the Narragansetts, put his hand up and said, ``I do.''
He said, the last time, I am not going to get the year exactly
right, but it is order of magnitude. He said, ``The last time
was in 1862, and it was for purposes of removal of our Tribe.''
Secretary Haaland burst into tears at hearing that. I hope
that the overlooked Narragansett Tribe is going to get a good
deal more attention and support.
The last thing I will mention is that I hope that the
department, all the way to the top, tells the White House how
important the RISE Bill is. The RISE Bill would take revenue
from offshore wind development so that local revenue, the 37
percent from GOMESA (Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act) that
you get from oil and gas offshore, is matched by offshore wind.
Because if you do not have a match, then when the
developers are going into a State legislature or a Governor and
they say, well, we can do more oil and gas, in which case, you
get 37 percent of our revenues, or we can do offshore wind, in
which case, you get the big zero, that puts offshore wind at a
very serious regulatory and political disadvantage against
further oil and gas development. We should eliminate that
disadvantage.
It is going to be very important, I believe, to offshore
wind development in the Gulf. The RISE Bill has very solid
support from Republicans along the Gulf Coast, and also the
former Democratic Governor of Louisiana was a very, very
enthusiastic supporter. We would very much like to get that
done. If we get that done, then the revenues go to the Coastal
Resilience Fund.
As you know, I have had a long problem with the Land and
Water Conservation Fund, that it should properly be called the
Inland Upland and Freshwater Conservation Fund. When you get to
the coast, there is essentially nothing there.
We can have a big old fight with Delaware and Rhode Island
quarreling with upland States about reallocating Land and Water
Conservation Fund dollars more fairly to coasts and to
saltwater. Better than fighting over that existing pie, better
to add a little sibling that would take care better of coastal
and saltwater concerns, and putting the Coastal Fund in as a,
as I said, like a kid brother to the Land and Water
Conservation Fund, so we are not trying to compete for
resources, but we are adding to the conservation resource and
doing so in a way that encourages offshore wind and is fairer
and et cetera.
Please take back that I am eager to see that become a
priority recommendation to Congress from the Administration. I
think we are there, but you are never entirely sure until it is
game day. Then, if you find out you are wrong, it is too late.
Let's try to get an enthusiastic--I do not know if you have a
response to that already.
Ms. Williams. Senator Whitehouse, what I do have a response
to is an agreement about how much the Fish and Wildlife Service
cares about coastal and marine resources. As an example, when I
traveled to New Hampshire with the Secretary, I am so sorry it
was not Rhode Island coastal area, to see the incredible
projects in marsh restoration and her full support of that.
I would add, in my travels with the Secretary, she has
taught me, as she showed in meeting with the Narragansett
Tribe, just how important our partnerships are with the tribes
and the deep connection that tribes and indigenous peoples
across the Country and even into the Pacific remote islands
have with nature. There is much for us to learn from that, and
to change our approach.
I will be happy to carry forward your messages. I know it
is something that the Secretary cares about deeply and expects
all of us too, as well. We share that. I would love to see and
continue to support coastal areas and marine resources that are
very important, as well, not just Delaware and Rhode Island,
but across our coastal areas.
Senator Whitehouse. Well, thank you. I do not mean to
suggest that the Land and Water Conservation Fund support for
coastal and saltwater projects is zero, but it is way out of
balance when you consider how much coastal land there is, how
much ocean that is the sovereign property of the United States
compared to upland freshwater. The best way to remedy that
balance is to make the pie bigger with the RISE fund, rather
than engage in a fight over where the Land and Water
Conservation Fund should be dedicated.
Let it keep doing what it is doing, but let's add in
something for our coastal and saltwater areas. Thanks very
much.
Ms. Williams. Thank you, Senator.
What I did forget, if I have a moment, I forgot aquatic
invasive species, and that our 2025 budget does have a $7.7
million increase there. Just to share how important our efforts
are to have a really early detection, rapid response. We
appreciate your support there.
Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Chairman.
Senator Carper. Thanks for bringing up the RISE Act. As a
small State, when Senator Cardin was here, we talked about
being neighbors, but we are not neighbors with Rhode Island,
but we are a small State, and we are a coastal State, and we
share a lot of the same interests, so thank you. Thanks so much
for embracing them.
I am not sure that we are going to have other members who
are going to be joining us today, but I have another question
or two, and then I am going to give you a chance to sort of
raise a question, maybe something you wish you had been asked,
but have not been asked. I will give you, at the end, a chance
to do that.
Before we do that, I mentioned in my opening statement that
biodiversity loss costs the global economy an estimated $20
trillion per year, $20 trillion, with a ``t'' per year. We have
heard from our colleagues concerns about the economic impacts
of protecting species and their habitats. Would you just
elaborate for us on how protecting species actually does have
and provides economic benefits?
Ms. Williams. Thank you for that question, Chairman Carper.
I think this goes back to the very reason for which
Congress enacted the Endangered Species Act. It was a
recognition that biodiversity and conserving these species are
key to our very survival ourselves, and that they are important
for medicinal purposes. They are important for innovation
across the board, for not just for medicine, but also we learn
from these systems.
I think science is showing us just how intertwined these
ecosystem functions are, and the importance of keeping them
with integrity. I think, also, it may not be an economic
impact, but wildlife generally provides a sense of wonder and
awe, and that most people, whatever their beliefs are, if they
see a bear on the side of the road, or they see a peregrine
falcon flying overhead, though they may not know it is a
peregrine falcon, they see a deer or something, they stop and
do not think about other things, but stop in the moment and get
solace in seeing those species. There is also tremendous
cultural significance for many people for these species.
But I think, too, that the biodiversity needs keep our food
secure. Pollinators, so many of our plants and food sources
require pollinators, require the habitat to be healthy. It also
brings in clean water, clean air, healthy soils. These are all
things that habitats and the species that depend on them are
also what support our economic wellbeing, and I think the
wellbeing, more generally, of our communities.
It is important to preventing flooding. It is important to
preventing pollution of the wetlands. We think about the
importance of wetlands as really pulling out these pollutants,
but they also prevent flooding and are critically important to
many of the species that we love and that we sustain ourselves
with.
I think about Alaska. I think about our hunters and anglers
that depend on these species as well. Coming from Montana, I
filled my freezer with an elk. I only killed it so that I would
have food for my family, and I did not buy meat.
I just think that there are so many myriad layers of
reasons why biodiversity is so essential in this Country, and
it is something we still have. Once you lose it, you can not
bring it back.
Senator Carper. That is probably worth repeating. Say that
one more time, that last sentence.
Ms. Williams. Once you lose a species, you can not bring it
back.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
I do not know that we are going to be joined by any of our
other colleagues. I have at least one more question, and it is
a short one. Would you take a minute or two and talk more about
how the Service is embracing nature-based solutions, please?
Ms. Williams. Chairman Carper, this is something that I am
incredibly proud of.
Senator Carper. I thought you might be.
Ms. Williams. I am proud of the way the Fish and Wildlife
Service has really embraced nature-based solutions, and they
have become part of the work we do.
One of the first projects where I think we really saw the
benefit of nature-based solutions was indeed, as you mentioned,
after Hurricane Sandy. We used nature-based solutions for Prime
Hook in a way that it supports the community. It restored the
marshland habitat, and it brought back the species that depend
on that place.
That is just one example that we have learned from across
the Country, and we are now working with our other sister
Federal agencies and building out those nature-based solutions
because they work, because they are cost-efficient, and because
they poise us for the future and to try to buffer from climate
impacts going forward.
I just thank you and your support for nature-based
solutions and how we have learned to build them into all of our
work now.
Senator Carper. All right. That is a pretty good example, I
think.
Ms. Williams. Have you ever been to Prime Hook?
Senator Carper. Oh yes, once or twice. Even in the last
couple of weeks, as you know. We are very grateful. I almost
feel like I am part of their family now, so thank you.
Ms. Williams. Good.
Senator Carper. The last question, I have already
telegraphed this question, but is there a question, just maybe
one question, that you wish you might have been asked, but have
not been asked? Go ahead and just briefly State that, and
answer that question for us before we close.
Ms. Williams. Thank you, Chairman.
I have thought a lot about this, and in my serving for the
past 3 years, as you know, I have traveled around the Country.
I have really dived into----
Senator Carper. Let me just say, I am mindful of your
travels around the Country and visiting States. Keep doing
that; that is a good thing. Go ahead.
Ms. Williams. Thank you. I hope to keep doing that, because
I can see the impacts on the ground. I can visit with our staff
and see the way in which we do our work.
What I have observed is that the current budget for the
Fish and Wildlife Service does not match the work that we do.
It does not always reward where our work is best.
So the 2025 President's budget request would help rebuild
the capacity where we need to be proactive and to do that
partnership-driven work. It would reward, say, for example, our
fish passage work, where we are punching so far above our
weight and bringing together many different organizations to
really solve water quality, flooding, fish passage, aquatic
connectivity issues.
I think of our coastal work, where we absolutely do
everything with partners and stitch together these efforts in
support of a community, but also for the ecosystem health and
its impact to species. I think of our Migratory Birds Program,
where we have been proactive and innovative in trying to cut
through challenges of the past and get these eagle rules
through, to be thinking about, how does the Migratory Bird
Treaty, how do we implement the treaty?
I think about our Office of Law Enforcement, people across
the world who are doing so much with so little to help allow
for legal trade, but prevent illegal trade of wildlife. I think
of all of our staff and their earnest faces, as I go across the
Country, who are trying to solve problems and are trying to be
creative and innovative with so little.
That is the question that I would love to be asked, and how
the Fish the Wildlife Service would make such good use of the
investment in our work, were Congress to pass the 2025 budget
request from the President. Thank you.
Senator Carper. We thank you, as well. Tell us again how
many national wildlife refuges there are in the Country?
Ms. Williams. There are 571 now.
Senator Carper. Five hundred seventy-one, Okay.
Ms. Williams. That should be a, that is a trivia question,
but the Secretary, I played trivia with her, and she got that
right.
Senator Carper. Okay, that is good. There are a couple in
Delaware that we are really proud of what is called Prime Hook,
and there is another one, too. What is it called?
Ms. Williams. Oh, I think there is a special visitor center
called the Thomas R. Carper Visitor Center.
Senator Carper. What an honor, what an honor. We are just
very proud of that.
We are proud of both of our wildlife refuges, but as folks
around the Country are looking for places to go visit that
maybe they have not been to before, I hope they will consider
that we have two great visitor centers, but one that is
particularly close to my heart. Thank you.
In closing, again, thank you for joining us today. Thank
you for your service. Thank you for your testimony, and we
especially appreciate your service to our Country at a time
when we face great conservation challenges.
I like to quote Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein used to
say, in adversity lies opportunity. That is true in this
instance as well, because those challenges also bring with them
some opportunities. We are mindful of that.
Before we adjourn today, some housekeeping. Let me say this
to our staffs, both majority and minority side, our thanks to
each of you for helping the members prepare for this important
hearing.
This is my favorite part of hearings, when I am the last
one here, and I get to make a unanimous consent request, and
there is nobody, none of my colleagues are here to object, but
it is something that gives me great pleasure. I want to ask
unanimous consent to submit for the record a variety of
materials that relate to today's budget hearing. Hearing no
objection, so ordered.
[The referenced information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Senators will be allowed to submit written
questions for the record through the close of business on
Wednesday, June 26th of this year. We will compile those
questions and send them on to you and your team. We will ask
you to reply to us by Wednesday, July 10th of this year.
With that, this hearing is adjourned. Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[all]