The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today released a report to Congress on Federal and State government spending associated with implementation of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in fiscal year 2004. The report provides a species-by-species account of expenditures made for the conservation of endangered and threatened species.
The Service and 30 other Federal agencies reported expenditures this fiscal year and all 50 States were involved in the reporting process. Total expenditures reported for 2004 were $1.4 billion, of which $793 million was reported as expenditures for specific individual species and $60 million was reported for land acquisition.
Also included in the total was $559 million reported as "Other ESA Expenses," a category added to the report in fiscal year 2001 to better quantify the costs related to implementing the ESA that could not be allocated to individual species. This category includes those costs for activities such as law enforcement, recovery coordination, consultation and activities benefiting multiple species. Expenditures by all agencies for most staff salaries, operations, maintenance and other support services are also included under this category.
Because of improvements in reporting methods, the report cannot easily be compared to previous expenditures reports. The variability in costs is due to the following:
changes in how each agency and State calculates their expenditures;
changes in the number of agencies reporting;
changes in the number of listed species;
changes in the agencies? abilities to track expenditures.
For more information, you can find the Endangered Species Expenditures Report for fiscal year 2004 at http://www.fws.gov/endangered/pubs/expenditurereports.html
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