USFWS Appropriations Issue Paper - 2005 Hearings

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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Appropriations Issue Paper - 2005 hearings ISSUE: Loss of Platte River fundin MEMBER NAME: WY, CO, NE Dele ations Change Activity/Subactivity/Program 2004 2005 2006 from Enacted Enacted Request 2005 Enacted Endangered Species/Recovery/Platte $982K $986K 0 -$986K River ISSUEBACKGROIJND: What is the issue? Why is the Member interested? Complete elimination of funding for the Platte River Program - funded since 1998 - will preclude finalization and implementation of a multi-year, cooperative, initiative to resolve significant and long-standing ESA conflicts affecting over 100 federal and private irrigation, power generation, and municipal water supply projects over a three-state area in the Platte River basin. Members from Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska are interested in seeing this Program succeed. MAIN DECISION OR MESSAGE: What are we and other interested parties doing? What is at stake? Please use bullets. • A 1997 Cooperative Agreement (CA) between the Department of the Interior, Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska established the basis for a basin-wide endangered species recovery program for the Platte River in Nebraska. Representatives from the 3 States, water users, conservation organizations, Bureau of Reclamation, and the Service comprise a 10-member Governance Committee (GC) to implement the CA and develop a Program. • A draft EIS was issued by a joint team (Bureau of Reclamation & Service) in January, 2004, followed by an affirmative review of the Service's habitat and flow recommendations by the National Academy of Sciences in April, 2004. • A draft biological opinion shared with the GC in August, 2404 identified several deficiencies which the GC has been negotiating on to address in their Program proposal. • The joint team will begin preparing a Final EIS and the Service will prepare a final programmatic biological opinion on the Governance Committee's proposal as soon as it is complete (completion anticipated in April, 2005). • The Department's goal is to reach a Record of Decision by December 2005 and sign a Program Agreement in June, 2006, to begin implementing the Program. • Loss of funding in FY 06 will prevent completing the Final EIS and final programmatic biological opinion. • FY05 activities per se would not be affected by a cut in FY06, although the goal of Program development and implementation by FY06 would no longer be attainable. The Service would be required to reinitiate section 7 ESA consultation on numerous private and federal water projects.