As I write this, President Bush is about to sign a continuing resolution, which will keep the government operating into the new fiscal year. The CR would fund at current levels the budgets of most departments and federal agencies until March 6, 2009 — after a new administration has been sworn in.
Meanwhile, national wildlife refuges [...]

The National Wildlife Refuge Association has just put out this important announcement regarding an upcoming congressional vote on refuge funding for recovery from natural disasters, including the recent Hurricane Ike:

Dear Friends,
A few weeks ago, Hurricane Ike battered refuges along the Gulf Coast and before that, refuges in Florida, the Midwest and the east coast were [...]

The call is going out to Refuge Friends groups — and any concerned citizens who are reading this — to urge their representatives and senators to fight for passage of the “No Child Left Inside Act” (H.R. 3060 and S. 1981).
The more well known “No Child Left Behind Act” (NCLB) has had the unfortunate [...]

The National Wildlife Refuge Association recently reported the latest news regarding the Fiscal Year 2009 budget process that is now ongoing in Congress. Not surprisingly, it seems that Congress will likely pass a Continuing Resolution, which will freeze the Refuge System budget at current levels until a new budget can be voted on next year.
From [...]

In past blog posts, I’ve discussed the raging controversy that currently exists along the U.S./Mexico border where the Bush administration has waived countless federal laws in order to rush the construction of a poorly planned and largely ineffective border wall that is supposed to enhance our national security.
On June 27, the Texas Observer provided some [...]

The National Wildlife Refuge Association announced today that the House Appropriations subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies has passed a proposed Fiscal Year 2009 budget increase of $35 million for the National Wildlife Refuge System, which would take the operating budget up to $469 million, or approximately $4.69 per acre for the 100 million-acre [...]

Yesterday the Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement released a report highlighting the massive problems national wildlife refuges face due to underfunding and loss of valuable staff:

America’s 548 National Wildlife Refuges Under-Funded By 43 Percent
One in Three Refuges Fully Unstaffed - 300 Staff Lost, 250 More At Risk
Washington, DC - A new report released to Congress [...]

As we’ve noted on Refuge Watch, the Bush administration — with power given to it by the former Republican-controlled Congress — is waiving numerous environmental and land use laws in order to rush the building of a border fence along the Mexico border, despite the recognized fact that the wall, as it is being built, [...]

The National Wildlife Refuge Association has announced an alert regarding budget talks in the Senate. Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), are sending a letter to the Senate Interior and Environment appropriations subcommittee urging them to increase funding for the National Wildlife Refuge System to $514 million for Fiscal Year 2009. This level [...]

The National Wildlife Refuge Association is reporting that the Co-Chairs and Vice Co-Chairs of the House Wildlife Refuge Caucus are now circulating a sign-on letter that will ultimately go to members of the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee urging them to fund the National Wildlife Refuge System at $514 million for Fiscal Year 2009. Representatives who [...]