Congress Advances Key Conservation Priorities in FY26 Funding Package

Final month, a bipartisan package deal of Fiscal Yr 2026 (FY26) appropriations payments was signed into legislation, funding a number of federal companies central to Audubon’s priorities, together with the Departments of the Inside and Power, U.S. Environmental Safety Company, the Military Corps of Engineers, and NOAA. The package deal of spending payments handed Congress with robust bipartisan assist, reflecting vital alignment that conservation, science, and efficient stewardship of our pure assets stay important public investments.

Most applications that Audubon recognized as priorities in its FY26 hen funds obtained steady funding, with modest will increase in some areas and slight cuts in others, offering an vital basis for continued conservation progress. This 12 months’s appropriations course of additionally marked a notable shift, with Congress embedding detailed funding ranges instantly in remaining payments, which strengthens accountability, readability, and stability for company operations.

What It Means for Birds and Communities

A number of components of the FY26 funding package deal stand out as clear, tangible progress for Audubon priorities.

Congress sustained investments in large-scale, watershed restoration efforts which can be important to birds, communities, and regional economies. Continued funding for the Nice Lakes Restoration Initiative, the Delaware River Basin Restoration Program, the Mississippi River Basin, Everglades restoration, and the Saline Lakes Program displays long-standing bipartisan assist for investing in America’s main watersheds that maintain birds, regional economies, and dealing landscapes. Moreover, the FY26 package deal supplies continued funding for NOAA’s Coastal Zone Administration Program and the Military Corps ecosystem restoration efforts, serving to to guard and restore coastal wetlands, estuaries, and rivers which can be important for migratory birds and native economies.

The package deal additionally consists of $4 million for the Bombay Seashore Wetland Restoration Undertaking at California’s Salton Sea. In partnership with Audubon and state and federal companies, this mission will stabilize and develop wetland habitat, enhance circumstances for migratory birds, and cut back dangerous mud affecting close by communities. The Salton Sea is a part of an ecologically distinctive system of saline lakes all through the western U.S. that present critically vital habitat for migratory shorebirds. 

Congress additionally protected core hen science applications, which was a specific precedence for Audubon’s engagement on Capitol Hill all through 2025. Earlier within the course of, each the Fowl Banding Laboratory and the Breeding Fowl Survey confronted proposed funding cuts with potential long-term penalties. The info from these decades-long profitable applications stays foundational to understanding hen inhabitants tendencies and informing conservation motion, from habitat threats and avian flu to waterfowl inhabitants tendencies for searching. Given the significance of those applications for numerous companies, industries, and stakeholders, the funding for each applications was largely left intact after sustained outreach to lawmakers. 

Enhancing Price range Accountability, Certainty

One vital facet of this 12 months’s appropriations course of has obtained little public consideration. For the primary time, Congress positioned detailed funding ranges for federal companies and applications instantly into the ultimate payments, relatively than together with them as directions embedded in funds studies issued by Congressional committees.

That shift strengthens accountability, supplies companies clearer course, and reduces uncertainty, which is especially vital for science-based monitoring applications and large-scale restoration efforts that rely on steady funding over time. Congress additionally prioritized sustaining staffing funding throughout federal companies, recognizing that capability coupled with experience and institutional information is crucial for finishing up the missions of federal companies and the applications they oversee.

The place Work Stays 

Whereas the general package deal represents a robust consequence, there are areas the place Audubon’s priorities fell quick. Most notably, the U.S. Division of Power’s Grid Deployment Workplace skilled important funding reductions. These cuts may gradual the tempo of grid modernization, which is required to carry renewable vitality tasks on-line. It may even have long-term implications for emissions discount objectives and assembly the rising electrical energy wants of the U.S., which sustained funding in renewable vitality tasks helps assist.

What Lies Forward?

The wins from this 12 months’s appropriations course of supply renewed hope that investing within the stewardship of our nation’s pure assets and preserving our lands and waters for birds and folks stays a precedence. Additionally they create new alternatives to work intently with members of Congress to safe directed funding for critically vital group tasks, from nature facilities and pure infrastructure to important habitat restoration tasks just like the funding within the Salton Sea included on this 12 months’s funds package deal. Audubon will start assembling its priorities for the following funds cycle and construct on the robust progress achieved this 12 months.