On December 18, Congress passed two pieces of legislation that included pluses and minuses for conservation programs, according to the Wildlife Management Institute. The omnibus appropriations bill, that funds federal government programs through September 30, 2016, provides funding boosts for some conservation programs while not including a number of legislative riders targeting natural resource policies. However, some key programs received reduced funding, and efforts to prevent borrowing for severe wildfires was not included. In addition, tax legislation, known as the Tax Extenders bill, also was enacted that includes permanent authorization for tax incentives for the donation of conservation easements.

For the Farm Bill conservation programs, the omnibus appropriations bill maintains the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Conservation Stewardship Program at its authorized funding level of 10 million acres. This program pays farmers for including practices such as buffer strips and cover crops in their operations. The administration's proposed budget would have capped new enrollment at 7 million acres and the House's proposal would have authorized 7.74 million acres. In addition, the bill included a slight increase in funding for technical assistance services to private landowners to apply conservation practices to their lands and full Farm Bill authorized funding for the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP). The technical assistance budget was bumped up from $846.4 million to $850.9 million and ACEP was funded at $450 million. ACEP replaced the Wetlands Reserve Program, the Grassland Reserve Program and the Farm and Ranch Lands Program in the 2014 Farm Bill. However, instead of providing full funding of $1.65 billion for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the legislation included $1.33 billion. This will likely have some negative impacts on projects directed at benefiting wildlife and wildlife habitat as the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program that existed before the 2014 Farm Bill was rolled into EQIP in that legislation.

The Department of the Interior will receive $12 billion for fiscal year 2016. Specific agency budgets include $1.5 billion for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service an increase of $69 million, $2.9 billion for the National Park Service an increase of $237 million for their centennial year, and $1.1 billion for the U.S. Geological Survey, an increase of $20 million. The Bureau of Land Management was allocated $1.2 billion, an increase of $117 million, which includes $79 million for Range Management efforts as well as $60 million dedicated to sage-grouse habitat improvement. One key provision was the 3-year reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) that was funded at $450 million, an increase of $150 million from last year. Of particular note, members of Congress agreed to strip most legislative riders from the bill including efforts to block Clean Water Act regulations, stop the implementation of conservation plans for greater sage-grouse, and others.

The omnibus appropriations bill directs $2.5 billion to the U.S. Forest Service for non-fire related activities which is a $35 million increase. In addition, $4.2 billion was designated for Wildland Fire Management. However, the bill did not include language to redirect firefighting costs for catastrophic fires to natural disaster budgets in order to prevent the need to borrow from other Forest Service accounts to foot the bill. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack has renewed his call for enactment of the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act citing the more than 10 million acres burned in 2015 surpassing the previous record fire year of 2006.

"While the news that more than 10 million acres burned is terrible, it's not shocking and it is probable that records will continue to be broken. By August, the Forest Service had exhausted its firefighting forces and utilized nearly every piece of equipment devoted to saving lives and protecting property, exhausting the Forest Service's budget for fire suppression and forcing the agency to begin transferring critical resources away from trail restoration, watershed management, hiring, and all other areas of its budget," commented Vilsack.

"That is why last month I directed our staff to end the practice of fire borrowing and slow the consuming growth of fire as a percentage of the Forest Service budget and, instead, ensure that all resources in the 2016 budget are spent in the manner intended, such as the important forest restoration work that helps to minimize wildfires in the first place. With a predictably long fire season on the horizon in 2016, lives, property and the future of our forests and grasslands hang in the balance. Congress must fix this issue once and for all."

Finally, in separate action Congress passed legislation known as the Tax Extenders bill that included permanent authorization of tax incentives for the donation of conservation easements. The legislation raises the maximum deduction an individual can take for donating a conservation easement from 30 percent of their adjusted gross income to 50 percent and allows qualifying farmers and ranchers to deduct up to 100 percent of their income for the donation. In addition, the bill extends the time when a landowner can carry the tax deductions for voluntary conservation agreements forward up to 15 years. These changes will affect donations made anytime in 2015 and beyond. The original conservation tax incentives were put in place in 2006 and are directly responsible for conservation more than 2 million acres of lands across the country, however the original provisions expired at the end of 2014. Many are hopeful that the permanent incentives will result in a substantial increase in the number of acres protected by easements.

"Our farmers and ranchers are some of the best stewards of our land," said Senator Debbie Stabenow (MI), a lead sponsor of the conservation provision. "That's why I led a successful bipartisan effort to make this important deduction permanent, so more landowners can take part in conserving our land, water and wildlife habitats. This is a win for taxpayers, a win for farmers, and it's a win for our environment." (pmr & jas)