May, 23 2017, 03:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Tel: (520) 623.5252,Email:,center@biologicaldiversity.org
Trump Slashes Funds for Endangered Species, Environmental Protection
Budget Proposes $1.6 Billion for Construction of Ecologically Devastating Border Wall
WASHINGTON
The Trump administration's detailed 2018 budget proposal, released today, contains unprecedented funding cuts for the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency and increased spending for a border wall.
Trump wants to slash the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service budget by 8.6 percent and the EPA's budget by 30 percent. Meanwhile the budget proposes an additional $1.6 billion to build 80 new miles of a wall along the southern border.
"Trump's budget guts safeguards for our air, water and wildlife just so his billionaire buddies can make more money," said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Sadly this budget proposal shows that Trump is no different than the most extreme members of the Republican Party who have waged war on endangered species and environmental protection for years."
The Endangered Species Act has saved more than 99 percent of species under its protection from extinction and put hundreds of species on a path to recovery. This track record is remarkable considering Congress only provides approximately 3.5 percent of the funding that the Fish and Wildlife Service's own scientists estimate is needed to recover species, according to a Center report on endangered species spending. Roughly 1 in 4 species receives less than $10,000 a year toward recovery, so Trump's additional cuts will likely be a disaster for these and many other species.
The Trump budget cuts the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund, which allows state and federal partners to recover currently listed species, by $34 million, a 64 percent reduction. The budget also reduces funding for foreign endangered species like elephants, rhinoceros and tigers by 19 percent, and reduces the funding for the listing program by 17 percent. Currently 500 plants and animals are still waiting for consideration for protection.
"The Endangered Species Act is the world's foremost law for saving species, but Trump wants to gut funding to recover imperiled wildlife from the brink of extinction," said Hartl. "Trump squanders tens of millions in taxpayer dollars flying down to Mar-a-Lago to play golf every weekend, yet spending a similar amount to protect and recover our most endangered species is simply too much."
The EPA cuts will hamstring many programs that protect the environment. Even before these proposed cuts, the agency's programs for setting and enforcing air and water quality standards, regulating the use of toxic pesticides and other chemicals and cleaning up the worst toxic sites across the country under the Superfund program were decades behind schedule and generally out of compliance. This has real consequences for both people and the environment.
"Without question, starving the EPA of funding will mean more people get sick and die," said Hartl. "Our land, air and water will be dirtier, and we'll slide faster toward climate catastrophe. Rather than massive cuts, we should dramatically increase funding to protect ecosystems across the country and preserve our natural heritage."
In place of much-needed funding to protect the planet's future, this budget asks for massive spending on Trump's disastrous wall. Construction of the proposed wall -- along with related infrastructure and enforcement -- would have far-reaching consequences for wildlife. It would cut off migration corridors, destroy habitat and add vehicles, noise and lights to vast stretches of the wild borderlands.
According to a recent Center study, Trump's border wall would threaten at least 93 endangered and threatened species, including jaguars, ocelots and Mexican gray wolves. It would cut through several national wildlife refuges, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Big Bend National Park and many other natural areas that, besides acting as corridors for wildlife, are national treasures.
"Trump's border wall would be catastrophic for the endangered plants and animals that live along it," Hartl said. "It would almost certainly lead to the loss of magnificent species like jaguars and ocelots in the United States."
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
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"The U.S. bears responsibility for pushing these migrants back into Mexico to face unsafe conditions," argued one immigrant rights advocate.
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At least 39 migrants were declared dead Tuesday after a fire was started overnight at a detention facility in Ciudad Juárez, close to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Mexico's National Institute of Migration said in a statement that the detention center held 68 men from Central and South America.
"The National Institute of Migration strongly rejects the acts that led to this tragedy," the agency said, without elaborating.
In an address on Tuesday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the fire was sparked by migrants in protest of their looming deportation.
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Photos taken at the detention center in the wake of the deadly fire showed emergency workers on the scene and numerous bodies covered by sheets. Dozens who were injured in the fire are reportedly in serious condition.
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The Associated Press noted that "in recent years, as Mexico has stepped up efforts to stem the flow migration to the U.S. border under pressure from the American government, its National Immigration Institute has struggled with overcrowding in its facilities."
Kerri Talbot, deputy director at the Immigration Hub, argued Tuesday that "the U.S. bears responsibility for pushing these migrants back into Mexico to face unsafe conditions"—a reference to the Trump-era "Remain in Mexico" policy.
In December, a Trump-appointed federal judge blocked President Joe Biden's attempt to end the policy, which rights groups say is illegal.
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This piece has been updated with new information from the Mexican government.
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In prepared testimony for a Senate Banking Committee hearing slated for Tuesday morning, the chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation reveals that the 10 largest deposit accounts at Silicon Valley Bank held a combined $13.3 billion, a detail that's likely to intensify criticism of federal regulators' intervention in the firm's recent collapse.
When SVB was spiraling earlier this month, the FDIC, Treasury Department, and Federal Reserve rushed in to backstop the financial system and make all depositors at the California bank whole, including those with accounts over $250,000—the total amount typically covered by FDIC insurance.
"At SVB, the depositors protected by the guarantee of uninsured depositors included not only small and mid-size business customers but also customers with very large account balances," FDIC chief Martin Gruenberg writes in his prepared testimony. "The ten largest deposit accounts at SVB held $13.3 billion, in the aggregate."
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U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Monday led two dozen House Democrats in urging Congress to allocate at least $1.2 billion in humanitarian aid for Yemen—whose people have suffered eight years of U.S.-backed Saudi war—in next year's budget.
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"Yemen has the grim title of the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with over 4 million Yemenis displaced and an estimated 80% of the country's 30 million people reliant upon some form of assistance for their survival," the letter, which was first sent last week, asserts.
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