Interior
One of the biggest funding stories from the 109th Congress was the last-minute approval of legislation that opened up selected areas of the Gulf of Mexico for new drilling and dedicated a portion of those new lease revenues to Gulf Coast land conservation and the stateside Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). However, those revenues will not show up for a few years, and in the meantime the Administration continues to propose elimination of state LWCF funding.

In FY06, $27.9 million for LWCF was approved by Congress, but the Administration’s FY07 and FY08 budgets cut all funding for the program. Proposed funding for federal land acquisition remains generally stable with $22.5 million allocated in the budget, a cut of $5.8 million from the continuing resolution. Overall, the National Park Service would receive increased funding totaling $2.365 billion.

The Historic Preservation Fund is slated for a $5 million dollar increase in the FY08 budget to $63.6 million. The budget sets aside $4 million for a new national inventory of historic properties. The inventory would be maintained and managed by state and local governments, but coordinated nationally to integrate information in an accessible format. The Administration hopes the inventory would provide easier access to agencies that need information on historic properties for planning and environmental reviews.

The Interior budget also includes funding for the Healthy Lands Initiative. The Healthy Lands Initiative seeks to address challenges associated with increased energy development and other resource use activities in the West and their potential conflicts with needs for wildlife and habitat conservation. Interior requested $22 million in new funding for BLM, the Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Geological Survey to help restore up to 500,000 acres. The budget once again calls for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, but with the change in control of Congress that provision is sure to be rejected.