• Print
  • Share

Home > Programs and Policy > Policy and Legislation > Funding for Wildlife and Habitat > President's Budget and Congressional Action

President's Budget and Congressional Action

Every year, the President of the United States sends the administration's budget request to the Congress in early February. Congress then must consider the budget and pass funding bills for all the programs before the fiscal year ends on September 30.

The budget includes funding requests for all federal environment and natural resource programs that protect our public lands and other special places, wildlife, climate, air, water and public health.

FY 2011 Budget

On February 1, 2011, President Obama submitted his FY 2011 budget to Congress and the American people. While this year’s budget has been a delicate balancing act for the administration, it makes noteworthy advances.  The Department of the Interior’s budget proposes a $35 million funding increase for the conservation of wildlife and habitat threatened by climate change. This increase takes the total funding commitment to $171.3 million.  The funding demonstrates the president’s understanding that safeguarding wildlife and habitat from the threats of global warming and encroaching development is one of the nation’s greatest conservation challenges.

The budget also includes an important increase of over $100 million for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), another crucial tool available to the federal government to help struggling wildlife and represents an important step toward fulfilling the president’s pledge to fully fund LWCF by 2014.  With the habitats of so many species under threat from global warming and development, the LWCF strategically preserves land that is important both as habitat and to link areas of protected habitat.

Unfortunately, the president’s budget, like those of the prior administration, does not provide adequate resources to vital operating programs that support National Wildlife Refuges and other key federal lands, as well as protect endangered species and uphold wildlife conservation laws.

Response and Analysis

Interior Appropriations Testimony FY 2011
Read Defenders’ March 26, 2010 testimony before the House Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations subcommittee regarding FY 2011.

Congressional Sign On Letters

See Congressional sign on letters in support of increased funding for National Wildlife Refuges and endangered species.

Archive of past budget proposals and analysis.