About this Collection
The Endangered Species Act (Section 18) requires the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to submit to Congress (through the Secretary of the Interior) an annual report of a cost analysis of expenditures that were made for the conservation of threatened and endangered species. The reports include what the federal government and state governments spent during the preceding federal fiscal year. Congress uses the reports to compare how the money is distributed across the species. They are not used to determine appropriations nor do they show how much was appropriated for each species. The reports are available to the public, and the information is often used by environmental organizations to assist with conservation and by the media.
To gather the information, the Director (through the Ecological Services Program) sends out a request for data each year to all federal agencies that may have a connection with a federally listed species and, therefore, a need to spend money to uphold the ESA. The same request is also sent to the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, which gathers the data from the individual states and territories. The Ecological Services Program then compiles the data and prepares the annual "Report to Congress on Federal and State Endangered and Threatened Species Expenditures."
The reports are available to the public, and the information is used by the media, environmental organizations, and other interested parties.