The Endangered Species Act - Endangered Species Act Spending

Various federal agencies spend money in support of the ESA. The primary spending agency is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a division of the Department of the Interior. For accounting purposes the federal government operates on a fiscal year that begins in October and runs through the end of September. Thus, fiscal year 2007 covers the time period of October 1, 2006, through September 30, 2007. Each year by the first Monday in February the President of the United States must present a proposed budget to the U.S. House of Representatives. This is the amount of money that the president estimates will be required to operate the federal government during the next fiscal year.

In February 2006 the president proposed a $10.5 billion budget for the Department of the Interior for fiscal year 2007. This amount is 3% less than the amount funded to the DOI for fiscal year 2006. Just under $1.3 billion was requested for the Fish and Wildlife Service for fiscal year 2007. An additional $808 million is available under permanent appropriations. (This is money allocated to the agency on a continuing basis, not requested each year). According to the FWS, most of the permanent appropriations for fiscal year 2007 will be turned over to the states for restoration and conservation of fish and wildlife resources.

A breakdown by FWS mission goal for the nearly $1.3 billion budget for fiscal year 2007 is shown in Figure 2.3. More than half the money is devoted to sustaining biological communities. Budget appropriations specific to endangered species are shown in Table 2.6 for fiscal years 2005 through 2007. For fiscal year 2007 FIGURE 2.3 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service budget request for fiscal year 2007 Adapted from "Appendix B. 2007 Request by Mission Goal," in "Bureau Highlights: Fish and Wildlife Service," The Department of the Interior Fiscal Year 2007 Interior Budget in Brief, U.S. Department of the Interior, February 2, 2006, http://www.doi.gov/budget/2007/07Hilites/BH55.pdf (accessed February 10, 2006)just over $141 million is requested for endangered species programs. Most of the money is allocated to recovery programs ($65.9 million), followed by consultations with other agencies and groups ($49 million), listing activities ($17.8 million), and candidate species conservation ($8.1 million).

The Endangered Species Act requires the Department of the Interior to file an annual report detailing certain expenditures made for the conservation of threatened and endangered species under the act. The most recent report available was published in January 2005 and is titled TABLE 2.6 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service budgets for endangered species program, fiscal years 2005–07 "Highlights of Budget Changes: Appropriation: Resource Management," in "Bureau Highlights: Fish and Wildlife Service," The Department of the Interior Fiscal Year 2007 Interior Budget in Brief, U.S. Department of the Interior, February 2, 2006, http://www.doi.gov/budget/2007/07Hilites/BH55.pdf (accessed February 10, 2006)Federal and State Endangered and Threatened Species Expenditures: Fiscal Year 2004. The DOI collects spending data from other federal agencies and states receiving certain federal grants. The report indicates that $1.4 billion was spent during fiscal year 2004, broken down as follows:

TABLE 2.6
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service budgets for endangered species program, fiscal years 2005–07
[In thousands of dollars]
Appropriation: resource management, Change from by appropriation activity/subactivity	2005 actual	2006 enacted	2007 request	Change from 2006 enacted
SOURCE: "Highlights of Budget Changes: Appropriation: Resource Management," in "Bureau Highlights: Fish and Wildlife Service," The Department of the Interior Fiscal Year 2007 Interior Budget in Brief, U.S. Department of the Interior, February 2, 2006, http://www.doi.gov/budget/2007/07Hilites/BH55.pdf (accessed February 10, 2006)
Ecological services
Endangered species
Candidate conservation	9,142	8,619	8,063	−556
Listing	15,710	17,630	17,759	+129
Consultation	47,281	47,997	49,337	+1,340
Recovery	69,270	73,562	65,879	−7,683
Subtotal, endangered species	141,403	147,808	141,038	−6,770

• Specific individual species—$793 million
• Land acquisition—$60 million
• Other ESA expenses—$559 million

Other ESA expenses include salaries, operational expenses, and maintenance costs that are not assignable to a particular species. Total ESA expenditures for fiscal years 1994 through 2004 are shown in Figure 2.4 along with the number of listed species for each year.

Expenditures by Agency

The Department of the Interior reports that thirty-three federal agencies had ESA expenditures during fiscal year 2004; however, only thirty-one of the agencies were able to provide details on spending, as shown in Table 2.7. The federal agencies with the highest expenditures were the Department of Energy's Bonneville Power Administration ($309 million), FWS ($247 million), and the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA ($197 million). The National Marine Fisheries Service is an agency of NOAA and handles ESA management of marine mammals, such as whales and seals, and anadromous fish (which migrate between ocean and fresh waters). State spending under the Endangered Species Act during fiscal year 2004 amounted to $205 million.

The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) operates an extensive electric transmission system throughout the northwest United States that provides electricity generated at federal dams and nonfederal facilities, FIGURE 2.4 Number of listings and expenditures under the Endangered Species Act, fiscal years 1994–2004 Adapted from "Table C. Summary of Expenditures and Associates Statistics from FY 1994–2004," in Federal and State Endangered and Threatened Species Expenditures: Fiscal Year 2004, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, January 2005, http://www.fws.gov/endangered/expenditures/reports/FWS%20Endangered%20Species%202004%20Expenditures%20Report.pdf (accessed February 11, 2006)including one nuclear power plant and a number of hydroelectric and wind energy plants. BPA is headquartered in Portland, Oregon. It is not funded by tax dollars, but by proceeds from the sale of electricity. Most BPA power comes from dams operated in the Columbia River basin. These waterways are also home to many endangered and threatened freshwater and anadromous fish species. BPA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Bureau of Reclamation operate the Federal Columbia River Power System and coordinate competing river uses, such as power generation, irrigation, flood control, navigation, recreation, and aquatic habitat.

Expenditures by Species

Table 2.8 shows the ten species with the highest reported expenditures under the Endangered Species Act in fiscal year 2004. The list is dominated by fish species. More than $161 million was spent on the Chinook salmon, followed by $117 million for the steelhead. Both species are anadromous and found in the waters of the Pacific Northwest. There are two marine (ocean-based) mammals on the top-ten list: the Steller sea lion and the right whale. The red-cockaded woodpecker is the only nonaquatic species in the top ten.

Table 2.9 shows the ten entities (species, subspecies, distinct population segment or evolutionarily significant unit) with the highest reported expenditures during fiscal year 2004. Eight of the ten entities are anadromous fish. The exceptions are the western population of the Steller sea lion and the bull trout (a freshwater fish) found in the coterminous United States. Anadromous fish are often designated by their season of upriver migration and the primary body of water in which migration takes place. The entity with the highest expenditure ($40.6 million) during fiscal year 2004 was the population of Chinook salmon that migrate up the Snake River from spring through summer.

How best to use the funds allocated to endangered species has been a contentious issue for years. Approximately half of the money allocated to individual species in fiscal year 2004 was spent on only about 1.5% of the TABLE 2.7 Expenditures under the Endangered Species Act, fiscal year 2004 "Table 4A. Species and Land Expenditures, Including Other ESA Expenses and Foreign Species, by Reporting Agency for FY2004," in Federal and State Endangered and Threatened Species Expenditures: Fiscal Year 2004, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, January 2005, http://www.fws.gov/endangered/expenditures/reports/FWS%20Endangered%20Species%202004%20Expenditures%20Report.pdf (accessed February 11, 2006)listed species. In general, this disproportionate spending occurs because Congress and some states appropriate money for specific species. The DOI report Federal and State Endangered and Threatened Species Expenditures: Fiscal Year 2004 notes the following benefits from this practice: "State and Federal natural resource managers use the public interest in these high-profile species to help protect other species in the same habitats or imperiled by the same threats. The species identified by Congress as deserving of specific appropriations are the same species that drive interest and participation in the considerable State and private sector efforts on behalf of all listed species."

TABLE 2.7
Expenditures under the Endangered Species Act, fiscal year 2004
Agency	Species total	Land total	Total
aDHS is Department of Homeland Security.
bDOC is Department of Commerce.
cDOD is Department of Defense.
dDOE is Department of Energy.
eDOI is Department of the Interior.
fDOT is Department of Transportation.
gUSGA is United States Department of Agriculture.
SOURCE: "Table 4A. Species and Land Expenditures, Including Other ESA Expenses and Foreign Species, by Reporting Agency for FY2004," in Federal and State Endangered and Threatened Species Expenditures: Fiscal Year 2004, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, January 2005, http://www.fws.gov/endangered/expenditures/reports/FWS%20Endangered%20Species%202004%20Expenditures%20Report.pdf (accessed February 11, 2006)
DHSa Coast Guard	$33,090,997	$17,114	$33,108,111
DHS Customs and Border Protection	$334,000	$0	$334,000
DOCb National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration	$197,158,000	$0	$197,158,000
DODc Air Force	$12,293,047	$0	$12,293,047
DOD Army	$26,539,300	$0	$26,539,300
DOD Army Corps of Engineers	$83,107,413	$0	$83,107,413
DOD Defense Logistics Agency	$131,005	$0	$131,005
DOD Marine Corps	$1,943,062	$0	$1,943,062
DOD Navy	$4,988,842	$0	$4,988,842
DOEd Bonneville Power Administration	$309,004,814	$50,271	$309,055,085
DOE Southwestern Power Administration	$13,500	$0	$13,500
DOE Western Area Power Administration	$6,492,268	$0	$6,492,268
DOIe Bureau of Indian Affairs	$2,327,681	$0	$2,327,681
DOI Bureau of Land Management	$21,153,074	$412,170	$21,565,244
DOI Bureau of Reclamation	$93,786,700	$1,851,000	$95,637,700
DOI Minerals Management Service	$2,707,347	$0	$2,707,347
DOI National Park Service	$10,902,792	$0	$10,902,792
DOI US Geologic Survey	$14,200,585	$0	$14,200,585
DOTf Federal Aviation Administration	$202,295	$0	$202,295
DOT Federal Highway Administration	$31,792,297	$6,484,000	$38,276,297
Environmental Protection Agency	$5,262,500	$0	$5,262,500
Federal Communications Commission	$27,500	$0	$27,500
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission	$226,800	$0	$226,800
Nuclear Regulatory Commission	$143,800	$0	$143,800
Smithsonian Institution	$994,200	$0	$994,200
Tennessee Valley Authority	$105,500	$0	$105,500
USDAg Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service	$6,580,276	$0	$6,580,276
USDA Farm Service Agency	$64,250	$0	$64,250
USDA Forest Service	$35,652,300	$0	$35,652,300
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service	$30,016,143	$19,798,572	$49,814,715
US Fish and Wildlife Service	$217,050,166	$30,083,961	$247,134,127
State governments	$127,719,076	$77,594,400	$205,313,476
Total	$1,276,011,530	$136,291,488	$1,412,303,018

The number of species being added to the federal threatened and endangered species list is likely to continue to grow. Although vertebrate species dominated the list during the first years of the act, plants and invertebrate animals now make up a much greater proportion of listed species. (See Table 1.2 in Chapter 1.) These species are politically more difficult to defend than either mammals or birds, which are more inherently appealing to most Americans because of the "warm and fuzzy" factor. These circumstances raise questions about the continued feasibility of a species-by-species preservation strategy, and the FWS struggles under intense legal and political pressures to decide which species to protect first.