WASHINGTON (CN) — With budget season well underway on Capitol Hill, a coalition of environmental groups renewed calls for lawmakers to commit a significant chunk of funding to federal programs aimed at marine wildlife conservation.
Writing in a letter last week to leaders of the House and Senate appropriations committees, the 80 or so conservation advocates led by the Center for Biological Diversity sounded the alarm about the Protected Resources Science and Management Program, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service.
The protected resources subprogram, which is responsible for overseeing the welfare of marine mammals such as whales and dolphins as well as sea turtles and other species, has been “underfunded for decades and desperately needs more funding to protect, conserve and recover our nation’s imperiled marine species,” the groups wrote.
In its 2025 budget request, NOAA asked Congress for roughly $266 million for its Protected Resources Science and Management Program, which it said aims to “assess, understand and conserve the health of protected species, the ecosystems that sustain them and the communities that value and depend on them.”
The lion’s share of the program’s budget already goes to its marine mammal and sea turtle conservation work, according to the budget documents. NOAA requested around $178 million for that line item for the 2025 fiscal year. By comparison, the agency asked for $74 million for its Pacific salmon subprogram and just about $7 million for its Atlantic salmon management efforts.
But the 2025 request for the marine mammals program remains about flat from levels authorized by Congress for the current fiscal year. Under the budget plan approved earlier this year, the line item was appropriated about $175 million. In 2023, it received more than $200 million.
Those levels aren’t acceptable, the environmental groups told Congress.
Lawmakers should hike the 2025 budget for the marine mammals conservation program by as much as $300 million, they said, bringing the line item’s total appropriation to roughly $475 million.
That modest increase would “make up for lost ground and put species on the path to recovery,” the letter said.
Endangered marine species will be in dire straits without that extra funding, the groups contended, pointing to threatened wildlife such as the North Atlantic right whale — which they said could be “functionally extinct” by 2040 without prompt action.
The population of North Atlantic right whales has been in freefall over the last decade. According to a July report from NOAA, increased mortality rates thanks to net entanglements or collisions with vessels have dwindled their numbers down to just 350 whales.
NOAA documented as many as 114 whale deaths from various causes from 2017 to 2023. Just 12 North Atlantic right whale calves were born last year, the agency said.
To turn things around, the conservation groups told congressional appropriators, lawmakers should authorize $50 million within the marine mammals program specifically for North Atlantic right whale recovery efforts.
NOAA should also dedicate an additional $75 million to help fisheries transition away from the types of fishing gear that the agency has repeatedly found contributes to the deaths of right whales and other marine wildlife, the letter said.
“While Congress has provided some modest funding increases for North Atlantic right whales in recent appropriations bills,” the conservationists wrote, “it has also hamstrung NMFS’s ability to administratively address one of the deadliest threats to the whale — entanglements in fishing gear.”
The groups urged lawmakers to take action as soon as possible.
“Conserving our planet’s natural heritage is a monumental challenge, but we can do more,” they said, “and we know what to do for our most imperiled species."
Stephanie Kurose, deputy director of government affairs for the Center for Biological Diversity, said Congress has so far refused “to do more than the bare minimum to save” marine mammals, more than one-third of which face extinction.
“Extinction is forever,” she said in a statement. “Time is running out, and we need bold commitments from our leaders to do whatever it takes to bring these species back from the brink.”
So far, though, there’s been little indication from lawmakers that a funding hike for NOAA’s marine mammals conservation work is on the horizon.
Washington Senator Patty Murray, who chairs the Senate Committee on Appropriations, did not immediately return a request for comment on the conservation groups’ request. Nor did Oklahoma Representative Tom Cole, chair of the House Committee on Appropriations.
The lower chamber’s appropriations panel is scheduled next week to examine 2025 budget requests from the Commerce Department, NOAA’s parent agency.
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