Fish and Wildlife Service: Agency Needs to Inform Congress of Future
Costs Associated With Land Acquisitions (Testimony, 02/15/2000,
GAO/T-RCED-00-89).
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed its recent report on
how the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) decides to establish and expand
refuges, focusing on: (1) the financial effect of establishing refuges
by means other than appropriations; and (2) differences in the
priority-setting processes for acquiring land using the land and water
and migratory bird funds.
GAO noted that: (1) even when FWS establishes refuges without the need
for appropriated funds, these actions have usually been followed by
requests for appropriations to expand the refuges and have always
resulted in the need for future appropriations to operate and maintain
them; (2) from fiscal years 1994 through 1998, FWS established 23
refuges, 15 of which were established with land that was donated,
transferred, or exchanged; (3) after establishing these refuges, FWS
subsequently used $29 million in appropriated funds to acquire more land
to expand them and plans to request another $786 million to acquire
additional land for them; (4) furthermore, FWS will incur operations and
maintenance costs for these refuges, which will be funded through
appropriations, but it is unable to estimate how much these costs will
be; (5) FWS uses separate and dramatically different priority-setting
processes to decide which lands to acquire with its two funding sources;
(6) for land and water funds, FWS used the Land Acquisition Priority
System (LAPS), which is a centralized, automated system that generates a
single national priority list; (7) in contrast, for migratory bird
funds, FWS' regional offices develop their own priority lists, based on
FWS' criteria for managing waterfowl habitat and on the likelihood of
purchasing the land within a year of receiving funds; (8) LAPS has
shortcomings that limit its usefulness in deciding which of FWS' land
acquisitions to fund; (9) it uses subjective criteria, differentiates
little between refuges, and does not provide a true relative ranking;
(10) FWS is working to revise LAPS; (11) FWS does not provide Congress
with information on its plans to acquire refuge lands with migratory
bird funds; and (12) as a result, Congress does not know what these
plans are and cannot factor this information into its decisionmaking.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: T-RCED-00-89
TITLE: Fish and Wildlife Service: Agency Needs to Inform Congress
of Future Costs Associated With Land Acquisitions
DATE: 02/15/2000
SUBJECT: Internal controls
Funds management
Wildlife conservation
Real property acquisition
Appropriated funds
Management information systems
Migratory birds
Land management
Prioritizing
IDENTIFIER: Migratory Bird Conservation Fund
Land and Water Conservation Fund
National Wildlife Refuge System
FWS Land Acquisition Priority System
FWS Lands Legacy Initiative
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Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies,
Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives
For Release on Delivery
Expected at 10 a.m. EST
Tuesday
February 15, 2000
FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE
Agency Needs to Inform Congress of Future Costs Associated With Land
Acquisitions
Statement of Jim Wells, Director,
Energy, Resources, and Science Issues,
Resources, Community, and Economic
Development Division
GAO/T-RCED-00-89
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
We are pleased to be here today to discuss how the Department of the
Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) decides to establish and
expand refuges. The Service currently has more than 500 refuges on more than
90 million acres and plans to continually increase its holdings. Its plans
are constrained primarily by funding limits. To date, the Service has
identified almost 3 million acres of land that it wants to acquire at a cost
of almost $4 billion in future appropriations. The Service has one main
source of appropriated funds to buy land-the Land and Water Conservation
Fund. It can also acquire land without appropriations by (1) using the
Migratory Bird Conservation Fund (distributed by the Migratory Bird
Conservation Commission), (2) accepting donations of land from nonfederal
entities or transfers of land from other federal agencies, or (3) exchanging
federal land parcels for nonfederal land parcels. For today's hearing, you
asked us to focus our testimony on two issues: (1) the financial effect of
establishing refuges by means other than appropriations and (2) differences
in the priority-setting processes for acquiring land using the land and
water and migratory bird funds. Our comments are based on the report we
prepared for this Subcommittee, which we are issuing today.
In summary:
* Even when the Service establishes refuges without need for appropriated
funds, these actions have usually been followed by requests for
appropriations to expand the refuges and have always resulted in the
need for future appropriations to operate and maintain them. For
example, from fiscal years 1994 through 1998, the Service established
23 refuges, 15 of which were established with land that was donated,
transferred, or exchanged. After establishing these refuges, the
Service subsequently used $29 million in appropriated funds to acquire
more land to expand them and plans to request another $786 million to
acquire additional land for them. Furthermore, the Service will incur
operations and maintenance costs for these refuges, which will be
funded through appropriations, but it is unable to estimate how much
these costs will be.
* The Service uses separate and dramatically different priority-setting
processes to decide which lands to acquire with its two funding
sources. For land and water funds, the Service uses the Land
Acquisition Priority System (referred to as LAPS), which is a
centralized, automated system that generates a single national priority
list. In contrast, for migratory bird funds, the Service's regional
offices develop their own priority lists, based on the Service's
criteria for managing waterfowl habitat and on the likelihood of
purchasing the land within a year of receiving funds. LAPS has
shortcomings that limit its usefulness in deciding which of the
Service's land acquisitions to fund. For example, it uses subjective
criteria, differentiates little between refuges, and does not provide a
true relative ranking. The Service is currently working to revise LAPS.
The Service does not provide the Congress with information on its plans
to acquire refuge lands with migratory bird funds. As a result, you do
not know what these plans are and cannot factor this information into
your decisionmaking.
In our report, we recommended that the Service annually provide you and
other congressional committees with a list of all approved and proposed
refuges and expansions of refuge boundaries and, for each refuge, estimate
future requests for land and water funds and future costs for operations and
maintenance. This information would help you to make better informed
decisions concerning Service funding requests for land acquisitions and
refuge operations and maintenance. The Service agreed with this
recommendation. We also recommended that the Service quickly improve its
priority-setting system for land and water funds to help you identify and
fund those projects that are the most important on the basis of objective
criteria. The Service also agreed with this recommendation, although it does
not currently plan to integrate the two priority-setting processes into a
single system.
Background
The National Wildlife Refuge System is dedicated primarily to the
conservation of animals and plants. The Service acquires land for the system
under 20 different legislative authorities, through purchase, donations,
exchanges, and transfers of lands. The Service's decision to acquire land to
establish or expand a refuge typically occurs when field staff identify
specific tracts of land that meet resource objectives. Generally, a team of
Service biologists, researchers, planners, and realty specialists proposes
refuge boundaries, considering factors such as data on the population
density of a certain species, its habitat, and its nesting patterns;
existing land uses and values; the area's economy; and the needs of nearby
residents and others. The Director (or regional directors in the case of
smaller acquisition decisions) must approve proposals to establish a refuge
or expand its boundaries.
The Service primarily has two sources of funding to purchase land for the
refuges. The migratory bird fund, established in 1934, has three revenue
sources (the sale of duck stamps purchased by hunters and certain refuge
visitors, import duties on arms and ammunition, and a portion of certain
refuge entrance fees) that produce roughly $40 million annually for land
acquisitions. About half of these funds are used to acquire land for
refuges; acquisitions must be approved by the Migratory Bird Conservation
Commission, which meets three times per year (or as needed) to consider and
approve acquisitions proposed by the Secretary of the Interior. In addition
to the Commission's approval, the governor or appropriate state agency in
the affected state must approve acquisitions using migratory bird funds. The
Service tries to spend the migratory bird funds within 1 year of receiving
them.
The other source of funding, the land and water fund, created in 1964, also
has multiple funding sources (revenues from offshore oil and gas leasing,
federal user fees for outdoor recreation activities, the federal fuel tax on
motorboats, and the sale of federal surplus property). But unlike the
migratory bird fund, the Congress must authorize appropriations from the
land and water fund for land acquisitions for both establishing and
expanding refuges.
In addition to acquiring refuge land through purchases, the Service can
acquire land from donations, land from nonfederal entities, transferred land
that other federal agencies have acquired, or land withdrawn from the public
domain. The Service can also exchange similarly valued tracts of land with
other entities. The Service is not required to inform the Congress of
acquisitions by donation or transfer.
Establishing Refuges by Means Other Than Appropriations Has Financial
Effects
During 1994 through 1998, the Service established 23 new refuges. Fifteen of
these were established without federal funds. Of the 15, 12 were established
with donations, 2 with private land exchanges (one for federal land and the
other for timber located on federal land), and one with a land transfer
involving agencies in the Department of Defense.
Service officials told us that donations offer several benefits to the
Service and landowners. These include allowing the Service to acquire land
at no initial cost to the agency or the taxpayer and providing greater
flexibility to acquire land because the process for donations can be easier
and less time-consuming than the process for obtaining appropriated funds.
Furthermore, donors of land can receive public relations and/or tax
benefits. It should be noted that, for about half of the refuges established
by donation, at the time the Service accepted the donation, the Congress had
also appropriated land and water funds for the refuge. For these refuges,
the Service used, or plans to use, the appropriated funds to acquire other
land at that same refuge. When appropriated funds are used in this way, the
Service is not required to inform the Congress of the change, although we
understand that the Service may talk with appropriate congressional staff
about such transactions.
For 3 of the 15 refuges established without federal funds, the Service had
earlier requested but had not received appropriated land and water funds.
The Assistant Director for Refuges and Wildlife told us that if the Congress
decides not to fund a Service request for a specific acquisition, the
Service's practice is to still move forward with that acquisition using
means other than land and water funds. He said the Service would do so only
if the acquisition was important enough to the Service's mission.
Furthermore, he added, when the Congress has not wanted the Service to
pursue specific acquisitions, the Congress has explicitly directed the
Service not to proceed.
Land and Water Funds Were Used to Expand Most New Refuges
While the Service established a number of refuges at no initial cost to the
agency or the taxpayer, we found that the Service subsequently used
appropriated funds to expand them. The Mashpee National Wildlife Refuge,
located in Massachusetts, is an example of how this happens. In September
1995, the Service established this refuge with a 54-acre donation from the
town of Mashpee. The Service subsequently received land and water funds for
this refuge and used about $2.8 million to expand it by purchasing another
278 acres. The Service plans to acquire an additional 5,600 acres for this
refuge using future land and water funds estimated at $42.5 million. In
total, we documented that the Service anticipates seeking about $630 million
in additional land and water funds to purchase about 260,000 more acres for
10 of the 15 refuges that were established without federal funds. It plans
to seek $2.7 million from the migratory bird fund to purchase about 2,500
more acres for one of them.
Future Appropriations Will Be Needed to Operate and Maintain Refuges
In addition to the above acquisition costs, the Service will also incur
costs to operate and maintain these refuges (as it does for many other
refuges)-costs for which it must also request annual appropriations. While
the Service estimates these costs when it assesses potential donations, the
Assistant Director for Refuges and Wildlife told us the Service may,
depending on the circumstances, accept donations because of perceived
biological values regardless of the size of potential future operations and
maintenance costs. The overall operations and maintenance costs, however,
are not insignificant: for example, in fiscal year 1998, the Service
obligated about $2.6 million for operations and maintenance expenses for
nine of the refuges created from fiscal year 1994 through 1998.
In light of a large operations and maintenance backlog at existing refuges,
the Congress has expressed concerns about Service efforts to acquire land
for new refuges. Service officials acknowledged that, historically, the
Service has focused on acquiring lands-to meet its land protection
mission-without adequately considering whether funds will be available for
future operations and maintenance expenses. While the Service does not now
report estimated future operations and maintenance costs to the Congress
when it establishes refuges, the Service wants to do better in this regard.
We were told that the Service is modifying its existing systems for tracking
operations and maintenance cost estimates and hopes, in 3 to 4 years, to be
able to provide the Congress with estimates of future operations and
maintenance costs for each new refuge.
Priority-Setting Processes for Land and Water and Migratory Bird Funds
Are Dramatically Different
The Service uses very different processes to set priorities for using land
and water funds and for using migratory bird funds. The Service is currently
revising its system for setting land and water fund priorities to make it
more objective.
Service's Priority-Setting Process for Land and Water Funds Results in a
National List
Since 1986, the Service has used LAPS to develop its request for land and
water funding. This automated system generates a single national priority
list following a complicated three-step process, which results in two
different scores for each refuge and ultimately a national priority ranking.
To develop the first score, the Service assigns refuges to one of six
categories. The categories reflect the Service's statutory purposes for
acquiring land: (1) endangered species, (2) fisheries resources, (3)
nationally significant wetlands, (4) nationally significant wildlife
habitat, (5) significant biodiversity, and (6) migratory birds. Proposed
refuges that address any one of the first five categories are generally
eligible for land and water funds, and those that address the last are
generally eligible for migratory bird funds. Each category has different
criteria, requires different information, uses different types of measures,
and relies on the judgment of local field staff to assess the fish and
wildlife resources on the proposed refuge. Field office staff also decide
which one of the categories to place multipurpose refuges into in order to
obtain the best score-that is, the score that shows the highest need.
However, because these five lists of scored refuges are not comparable, the
Service must develop a second score for each refuge, which allows it to
merge the five lists into one single national priority list. The Service
develops this second score using seven additional factors. The system then
uses a complicated methodology to merge the five different lists using the
two scores assigned to each refuge. This merger step results in a single
national list of refuges ranked in priority order with the highest-priority
refuge ranked as number one.
Recently, a team of Service headquarters and field staff evaluated the
system and identified several shortcomings. First, because the system uses
the five separate lists, it does not fully account for the multiple purposes
of individual refuges, such as endangered species and nationally significant
wildlife habitat. Second, the criteria used in the system to evaluate
refuges are too subjective. This subjectivity leads to many refuges having
such similar scores that there is little measurable dispersion between them.
In fact, the national priority list represents, at best, groupings of
refuges that are of similar value-not a true relative ranking. In addition
to these concerns, we found, as did Service managers and staff, that the
system's complicated methodology is difficult to understand and explain.
Despite these problems, in recent years, the Service followed its rankings
on the national priority list for about three-quarters of the refuges. That
is, in developing its annual requests for land and water funds for fiscal
years 1994 through 1998, the Service generally selected refuges in
sequential order, beginning with the number one priority refuge-the refuge
at the top of the national priority list. Exceptions occurred for individual
refuges when, for example, there were no willing sellers, there was an
administration initiative, or there was congressional interest. We also
noted that Congress sometimes funded refuges that the Service did not
request-some of which were of low priority on the national list.
The Service Is Revising the Priority-Setting Process for Land and Water
Funds
The Service is revising the priority-setting system for land and water funds
to fully account for the multiple purposes of refuges, reduce the
subjectivity in the criteria the Service uses to evaluate refuges, provide
measurable dispersion in the refuge scores, and overall to simplify the
methodology. It proposes assessing all refuges using a single set of
criteria. The Service tested the system by scoring 38 refuges using these
new criteria. The Service believes the test was successful and showed the
desired dispersion between refuges. Service officials believe that this
system will more accurately assess proposed refuges' national importance
than does the current system and that the priorities of individual refuges
will be different. For example, the proposed acquisition for the Grand
Kankakee Marsh National Wildlife Refuge received the highest score in the
test, but it is a low priority under the current system.
The system being designed has raised concerns and has not been fully
implemented. For example, some regional offices are concerned about their
refuges' receiving lower priority under the revised system and not being
funded. To address these and perhaps other concerns, we understand the
system is still subject to change.
Service's Priority-Setting Process for Migratory Bird Fund Reflects Regional
Priorities
For migratory bird funds, the Service uses an entirely different
process-each of the Service's regional offices sets its own priorities, not
national priorities, for these funds. This process does not require regions
to use the migratory bird category-the sixth category in the land
acquisition priority system we just discussed-to set their priorities.
Instead, each region develops a migratory bird acquisition plan on the basis
of criteria for managing waterfowl habit and uses the plan to set
acquisition priorities. At the beginning of each year, Service headquarters
reviews the regional offices' priority lists of migratory bird projects and
the funds needed for each and recommends budget amounts. Prior to each
meeting of the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission, the Service provides
the Commission with detailed information on the specific tracts of land that
it wants to acquire. According to Service officials, the Commission
generally approves the purchase prices and areas to be acquired for all
requested projects, subject to budget limitations.
Service officials said that the most important consideration in setting
priorities for migratory bird funds is the opportunity to acquire specific
tracts of land. In fact, only those potential acquisitions that have
preliminary purchase contracts can go to the Commission. The Service does
not provide the acquisitions' priority rankings to the Commission, and
officials told us that the Commission has not requested the Service to have
a national priority system for the projects it submits. Finally, Service
officials noted that the Commission's priority has traditionally been to
approve projects that provide habitat for ducks and geese (game birds).
- - - -
In closing, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, in recent years
the Service has relied on means other than appropriated funds to establish
refuges-primarily donations-but then has subsequently sought and obtained
land and water funds to expand them. These refuges-like many refuges
established with appropriated funds-will require subsequent federal
appropriations to operate and maintain. The Service is not required to
inform the Congress when it establishes refuges without appropriated funds,
nor is it required to provide estimates of future operations and maintenance
costs at the time it establishes a new refuge. Finally, the Service's
current system for setting priorities for land and water projects is based
on subjective criteria and does not represent a true relative ranking of
refuges. The process for setting priorities for migratory bird projects is
different; a key difference is that regions set their own priorities and
there is no national priority list.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes our testimony, and we would be happy to respond
to any questions that you and the Members of the Subcommittee may have.
Contact and Acknowledgments
For further information, please contact Jim Wells at (202) 512-3841.
Individuals making key contributions to this testimony were Arleen Alleman,
Sue Ellen Naiberk, and Cynthia Rasmussen.
(141409)
*** End of document. ***