On Thursday, June 22, 2017, at 9:30 a.m., in Room 1324 Longworth House Office Building, the Committee on Natural Resources will hold an oversight hearing titled “Examining the Department of the Interior’s Spending Priorities and the President’s Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Proposal.”

The Department of the Interior’s (DOI) FY18 budget request proposes to make the largest cuts to the National Park Service since WWII, push career staff out of their jobs, and eliminate key programs important for land management agencies: 

• Reduces new major federal land acquisitions and refocuses budget resources on maintaining and improving existing federal lands. 
• Increases funding for DOI programs that support environmentally responsible development of energy on public lands and offshore waters.
• Streamlines management operations to support responsible land stewardship in the National Park Service (NPS), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
• Uses funds to leverage private investment on federal lands, reducing costs to the taxpayer and creating innovative streams of revenue.
• Increases funding to address the NPS’s massive deferred maintenance backlog.
• Eliminates unnecessary, lower priority or duplicative programs.
• Provides funding for DOI’s U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to focus investments in essential science programs.

The Hon. Ryan Zinke, Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior, will testify.

Accompanied by:

Ms. Olivia Barton Ferriter
Deputy Assistant Secretary 
Budget, Finance, Performance and Acquisition
U.S. Department of the Interior

Ms. Denise Flanagan
Director, Office of the Budget
U.S. Department of the Interior