Our federal lands and wildlife belong to us. Our public tax dollars should be going towards our shared natural resources and ensuring their protection for generations to come. However, the Trump administration’s proposed 2027 federal budget fails our wildlife and us by cutting endangered species program funding by 22%.
We often hear from politicians in the Trump administration that too much federal funding goes towards unnecessary programs like protecting and recovering our endangered species. Yet in the same breath, the Trump administration is draining federal funding on handouts for private fossil fuel companies – an over $4 billion per year increase in subsidies for the fossil fuel industry came from the Trump administration in 2025 alone.
This summer, Congress is reviewing the President’s proposed budget and considering how to allocate our federal tax dollars in 2027, also called the appropriations process. Congressional committees hold hearings to discuss agency budgets and invite agency leaders to explain the President’s proposal. In June, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik, a Trump political appointee, spoke on the budget to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. When asked about cuts to endangered species recovery programs, Nesvik repeatedly said, “Our priority is to reduce federal spending.”
Yet, our federal tax dollars should be prioritized to protect our shared resources. “A mere 5 percent of mammal biomass on this planet is still wild. We are living through a biodiversity crash – often called a sixth mass extinction. This mass extinction is unique because it’s being driven primarily by human activity: climate change, deforestation, habitat destruction, pollution, overexploitation, and more. We need to do better by what wildlife remains,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. “How much of God’s creation must be a sacrifice to the worship of fossil fuels?”
Endangered species funding is a drop in the bucket
In reality, the amount of federal funding that currently goes towards endangered species programs is miniscule compared to the budgets of their agencies. Endangered species programs are essentially a rounding error in agency budgets, and government spending will not be significantly reduced by cutting these programs.
Endangered species protection is shared by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, housed in the Department of the Interior (DOI), and the National Marine Fisheries Service, within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), also called NOAA Fisheries. Programs within the Fish and Wildlife Service are only 2% of the entire DOI budget, which include the Ecological Services Program and Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund. Similarly, funding for the Protected Resources program within NOAA Fisheries is only 4% of NOAA’s budget.
The Ecological Services Program works to restore and protect fish, wildlife, and plant populations, as well as their habitats – Fish and Wildlife Service is currently working to recover over 1,700 species. Meanwhile, the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund provides grants to states and territories to implement conservation programs on non-federal lands, which are crucial for supporting conservation and species recovery.
NOAA Fisheries conserves and recovers over 150 endangered and threatened marine species and their habitats, including whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, and sea lions under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The Protected Resources fund helps support these conservation efforts, as well as supporting interagency consultations about critical habitat and recovery plans.
Endangered species funding isn’t cutting it
Over the past decade, funding for endangered species programs has seemed relatively steady at a glance, but looking more carefully, inflation and an increasing number of species in need of protection means that funding has been declining over time. With 99 additional species listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act since 2016, there is less funding per species now than ever before. And, when accounting for inflation, these programs received $100 million less in 2026 than in 2017.
Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries have worked efficiently to make these budgets stretch, but what we need at a minimum is for the funding to keep up with inflation over time. Our committed public biologists, ecologists, and program administrators need to have the proper levels of funding to do the important work of protecting and recovering our wildlife. As the effects of climate change worsen, Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries will need additional funding to protect our endangered species and their habitats under changing environmental conditions.
Proposed budget further cuts funding
The Trump administration wants to further cut endangered species funding by $117.5 million, or a 22% budget decrease, for 2027. This cut would harm our shared resources and wildlife while the Trump administration continues to give tax handouts and permits to expand development, including for the fossil fuel industry, which receives $34.8 billion per year in federal subsidies. In addition, these cuts are said to offset the huge increase in the Department of Defense budget to fund military actions– the Trump administration’s proposed budget also requests a $1.5 trillion increase for military spending, a $350 billion increase from 2026.
The Trump administration’s proposed 2027 federal budget also zeroes out key programs that provide funding for states, territories, and Tribes, such as the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants and the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund. These programs are critical for state-led, on-the-ground wildlife conservation and habitat restoration. When asked about these funding cuts during the Senate hearing, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik said that “tough decisions had to be made,” and states will have to “rely more on non-federal partners, NGOs, and private organizations” to fund conservation and endangered species recovery.
Our investment in shared resources, including wildlife and the habitats they rely on, should be publicly funded, not outsourced to private interests. While private funding sources are important contributions, we all have a stake in protecting endangered species and ensuring they are here for us and our future generations to enjoy. We can – and should be – putting our tax dollars towards public natural resources by protecting the land and wildlife that belong to us.
Take action by telling Congress to fund programs for endangered species recovery.
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