Abusing the Public Trust by Theodore Roosevelt IV
(This article appeared in the Summer 1998 edition of Defenders of Wildlife magazine.)

(Editor's note: FSCR presents the following article as the best summary we have seen regarding the severe underfunding by Congress of our nation's parks, wilderness and wildlife).

As we lose more and more of our landscape - our forests, wetlands and prairies - to the encroachment of urban sprawl, the value of our remaining healthy natural ecosystems increases dramatically. They are the base from which we are trying to stanch the species loss taking place in our country. And they are a base of wilderness lands of incalculable value in protecting our arable land, our air and our water.

Our investments in these public lands should maintain and enhance the value of these assets for present and future generations. At a time when we open the paper and read about a transportation bill for highways that will cost $214 billion - $30 billion more than was provided in the balanced-budget amendment - the American people need to ask some tough questons about the level of investment being made in our environment.

The Public Lands Funding Initiative, a coalition of more than 100 conservation, sportsmen's, environmental and other organizations (including Defenders of Wildlife), in April made public a set of recommendations for addressing serious funding shortfalls for our public lands and other programs supporting wildlife, fish and plants. The significance of the document goes well beyond funding. It reaffirms our nation's duty to provide sound and adequate investment in our environment.

Up to now, fiscal conservatives in Congress seem to have opted for two management strategies for this public trust: wholesale poaching and trickle-down-to-nothing funding. Let's look at the trickle-down funding first. For this year, the total federal budget is $1.7 trillion. Of that, less than one percent is allocated to the care and upkeep of our public lands. Between now and 2002, the balanced-budget agreement projects a $3 billion decrease (adjusted for inflation) in the already starvation-level funding for public lands and other environmental programs.

Frankly, I am appalled by what Congress has wrought over the last two decades. Almost all of our national parks and refuges are ridiculously understaffed. The U.S. Forest Service has 20 full-time employees to manage 35 million acres in the national wilderness preservation system. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cannot implement habitat-restoration plans for currently listed endangered species, let alone for the backlog of about 400 species needing listing action (a backlog created partially by the infamous listing moratorium instituted by Congress in 1995-96 and partially by the severe lack of funding). Since 1978 the National Park Service budget has decreased 40 percent in constant dollars while recreational usage has increased 48 percent. The backlog in maintenance, resource management, construction and land acquisitions for the national parks alone is estimated at $6 billion to $8 billion.

Then there's the wholesale poaching approach. The Land and Water Conservation Fund, created to invest offshore drilling royalties in acquisition, consolidation and protection of our public lands, is a notorious example. The fund was an eminently fair idea: revenues from extraction of natural resoures from our public lands should be reinvested in those lands. But while the money exists in theory - nearly $22 billion since the fund's inception in 1965 - Congress has managed to allocate only about $10 billion to our public lands as intended. The other $12 billion? Diverted to other purposes.

Chronic, severe underfunding is gutting the Fish and Wildlife Service's ability to maintain and protect the 93-million-acre national wildlife refuge system created by my great-grandfather, President Theodore Roosevelt, in 1903. Congressional appropriators last year took a significant first step by providing an unprecedented $41 million increase for the system. But continued increases are sorely needed. Sadly, both the House and Senate fiscal 1999 budget blueprints passed this spring flagrantly ignore these critical needs. In its budget plan passed in April, the Senate did not approve even the modest $25 million operations and maintenance increase proposed by the Clinton administration. Meanwhile in an outrageous move some congressional leaders are poised to spend that or more to build a destructive new road through the heart of Izembek National Wildlife Refuge and Wildernes in Alaska. The road would endanger migratory habitat for the world's entire populations of emperor geese and Pacific black brant. The House budget committee in late May passed a bill that would cut $5 billion beyond the balanced budget agreement from programs that conserve the environment and natural resources.

Endangered species programs are so chronically underfunded that the Fish and Wildlife Service cannot do its job of protecting imperiled wildlife. Our coalition recommended a minimum increase of $710 million in the base for the service by 2004. The principle in protecting species is the same as in protecting public lands: invest now, save later. Improved funding would allow us to catch species early in their decline instead of waiting until recovery costs skyrocket - or we lose our investment altogether. Again, the Senate turned down even a modest increase in current endangered species programs.

It is time for Congress to begin providing the investments that would maintain the integrity of our treasured natural legacy of public lands. As a Republican myself, I invite the congressional leadership to hearken back to the strong conservation ethic pioneered by Theodore Roosevelt. Failing to do so is nothing less than an abuse of the public trust.

Theodore Roosevelt IV is a managing director at Lehman Brothers in New York. This article is adapted from an April 14 speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.