Congress Advances Key Conservation Priorities in FY26 Funding Package

Final month, a bipartisan package deal of Fiscal 12 months 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 help, 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 chook funds acquired secure funding, with modest will increase in some areas and slight cuts in others, offering an vital basis for continued conservation progress. This yr’s appropriations course of additionally marked a notable shift, with Congress embedding detailed funding ranges straight in ultimate payments, which strengthens accountability, readability, and stability for company operations.

What It Means for Birds and Communities

A number of parts 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 essential 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 help for investing in America’s main watersheds that maintain birds, regional economies, and dealing landscapes. Moreover, the FY26 package deal gives 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 Seaside Wetland Restoration Undertaking at California’s Salton Sea. In partnership with Audubon and state and federal companies, this undertaking will stabilize and broaden wetland habitat, enhance circumstances for migratory birds, and scale 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 chook science applications, which was a specific precedence for Audubon’s engagement on Capitol Hill all through 2025. Earlier within the course of, each the Hen Banding Laboratory and the Breeding Hen Survey confronted proposed funding cuts with potential long-term penalties. The information from these decades-long profitable applications stays foundational to understanding chook inhabitants traits and informing conservation motion, from habitat threats and avian flu to waterfowl inhabitants traits 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 side of this yr’s appropriations course of has acquired little public consideration. For the primary time, Congress positioned detailed funding ranges for federal companies and applications straight into the ultimate payments, slightly than together with them as directions embedded in funds stories issued by Congressional committees.

That shift strengthens accountability, gives companies clearer path, and reduces uncertainty, which is especially vital for science-based monitoring applications and large-scale restoration efforts that rely upon secure funding over time. Congress additionally prioritized sustaining staffing funding throughout federal companies, recognizing that capability coupled with experience and institutional information is important 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 vital funding reductions. These cuts might gradual the tempo of grid modernization, which is required to deliver renewable vitality tasks on-line. It might 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 help.

What Lies Forward?

The wins from this yr’s appropriations course of provide 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. In addition they create new alternatives to work carefully with members of Congress to safe directed funding for critically vital group tasks, from nature facilities and pure infrastructure to essential habitat restoration tasks just like the funding within the Salton Sea included on this yr’s funds package deal. Audubon will start assembling its priorities for the following funds cycle and construct on the robust progress achieved this yr.