Congress is debating whether to reduce funding for conservation programs. If passed, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission could lose some grant money, compared to last year's funding level, under the FY 2003 Interior Department appropriations bill headed for a vote in the U.S. Senate.

The Senate bill would cut the state wildlife grants to $45 million this year, down from the $100 million included in the Senate's original version of the legislation and the $85 million actually appropriated in FY 2002.

On the floor of the Senate, Lincoln said the loss of the funds would endanger many programs. "These funds will enable the states to probatively plan and implement their wildlife management strategies for game and non-game species in cooperation with landowners to their mutual benefit," she said. Lincoln added that she would ask the managers of the bill "to give serious consideration to significantly increase the funding for this critical program."

In Arkansas, the proposed funding amount would be less than half from a year ago, according to the AGFC’s grants administrator Kris Rutherford. "Basically, this would mean that Arkansas would receive an apportionment of about $450,000 out of this round of grants. This is half of last year's $906,000 out of state wildlife grants and even less than our Wildlife Conservation and Restoration Program apportionment of $565,000 from two years ago," Rutherford said.

The bill under consideration does not allow education or recreation-related projects, so the AGFC may have severe federal funding cuts to research and habitat restoration projects. This would include those species that do not normally receive funding consideration under traditional federal aid programs.

A few examples of AGFC projects that were funded with last year’s grant money that could be affected by the reduced funding include studies on habitat change on the Arkansas and White Rivers, an endangered bat monitoring project and a study of songbirds.

The state wildlife grant program was part of a compromise measure Congress authorized in 2001, in what at the time was called a compromise for not passing the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA) that would have guaranteed annual conservation funding of $2 billion, the majority of it flowing directly to the states and local communities.