In the last two weeks, lawmakers in Carson City have heard testimony as various state agencies have presented budget overviews based upon the executive budget outlined by Governor Sandoval in his State of the State speech in January. Although environmental issues do not make up a significant portion of the overall budget, there are certainly impacts from the proposed budget cuts.  Legislators got a taste of these in these hearings.

One agency that is very important to conservationists are the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.  In listening to the presentation from DCNR, it was clear that these cuts will result in an increased risk of forest fires and reduced services from departments such as Water Resources.  The one bright spot was that visitorship at our Nevada State Parks is actually up, as Nevadans vacation closer to home during these tough times.  Leo Drozdoff, the department director, did a good job illustrating the negative consequences that would come from shutting down our state parks.

Nevada State Parks are an important resource to all citizens of our state.  That’s why one of our priorities this session is to create sustainable funding for the parks, so that they aren’t subject to the cutting knife every time the economy takes a downturn.

Another key agency is the Department of Wildlife.  Although NDOW receives very little general fund money, this is still crucially important as it is leveraged to get back nearly three times as much from the federal government. Unfortunately though, the Governor’s proposed budget would cut this amount by so much that the Department would no longer be able to do critical species monitoring work. Surveys and monitoring are critical to keeping species from being listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, and critical Nevada wildlife such as the sage grouse are in serious danger.

This is why one of the conservation priorities is to create more funding through an impact fee on energy development. By instituting a nominal fee, we can cover the cost of developing data for projects, increase the quality of the environmental review, and secure needed federal money to keep species from being listed.