Federal Regulatory Agencies
Teresa Bryant
Barry University
Public Law and Administration
PUB 647
Dr. Stephen Sussman
June 26, 2014

Federal Regulatory Agencies
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is the principal Federal agency dedicated to fish and wildlife conservation. The Service’s history spans nearly 140 years, dating from the establishment of its predecessor agency, the Bureau of Fisheries, in 1871. First created as an independent agency, the Bureau of Fisheries was later placed in the Department of Commerce. A second predecessor agency, the Bureau of Biological Survey, was established in 1885 in the Department of Agriculture. In 1939, the two Bureaus and their functions were transferred to the Department of the Interior in 1940, They were consolidated into one agency and redesignated the Fish and Wildlife Service by Reorganization Plan III (Fish and Wildlife Service, n.d., p. 1).
The Fish and Wildlife Service’s works to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats. To contact the agency or department you can access the agency website at http://www.fws.gov or http://www.fws.gov/duspit/contactus.htm. The agency is located at Fish and Wildlife Service, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20240 and the telephone number is (202)-208-5634 (Public Affairs routes all call from here) or toll free at (800) 344-9453. The parent agency is the Department of the Interior (DOI) at http://www.usa.gov/directory/federal/department-of-the-interior.shtml and another related agency is the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission which has a website located at http://www.usa.gov/directory/federal/migratory-bird-conservation-commission.shtml (USA.gov, n.d., p. 1).
The Fish and Wildlife Service’s mission is to “Work with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people.” The objective of the FWS is to assist in the development and application of an environmental stewardship ethic for our society, based on ecological principles, scientific knowledge of fish and wildlife, and a sense of moral responsibility. Guide the conservation, development, and management of the Nation’s fish and wildlife resources, and administer a national program to provide the public opportunities to understand, appreciate, and wisely use fish and wildlife resources.
A few ways that the FWS tries to achieve these objectives is to enforce federal wildlife laws, protect endangered species, manage migratory birds, restore nationally significant fisheries, conserve and restore wildlife habitat such as wetlands, help foreign governments with their international conservation efforts, and distribute hundreds of millions of dollars, through our Wildlife Sport Fish and Restoration program, in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to State fish and wildlife agencies.
The FWS manages the 150 million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System of more than 551 National Wildlife Refuges and thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. Under the Fisheries program they also operate 70 National Fish Hatcheries, 65 fishery resource offices and 86 ecological services field stations.
The vast majority of fish and wildlife habitat is on non-Federal lands. The Partners for Fish and Wildlife, Partners in Flight, Sport Fishing and Boating Partnership Council, and other partnership activities are the main ways they foster aquatic conservation and assist voluntary habitat conservation and restoration.
The Service employs approximately 9,000 people at facilities across the U.S. The Service is a decentralized organization with a headquarters office in Washington D.C., with regional and field offices across the country.
The FWS’s programs are among the oldest in the world dedicated to natural resource conservation. The history can be traced back to 1871 and the U.S. Commission on Fish and Fisheries in the Department of Commerce and the Division of Economic Orinthology and Mammology in the Department of Agriculture.
A 1940 reorganization plan (54 Stat. 1232) in the Department of the Interior consolidated the Bureau of Fisheries and the Bureau of Biological Survey into one agency to be known as the Fish and Wildlife Service. The Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife was created as a part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Department of the Interior on November 6, 1956, by the Fish and Wildlife Act of 1956 (70 Stat. 1119). That act was amended on July 1, 1974, by Public Law 93-271 (88 Stat. 92) to, among other purposes, abolish the position of Commissioner of Fish and Wildlife and designate the Bureau as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Fish and Wildlife Sevice, 2014, p. 1).
The Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs is responsible for all issues pertaining to wildlife resources, fisheries, oceanography, and insular areas. The insular areas of the U.S. include the territories of American Samoa, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Republicans on the Subcommittee are committed to implementing commonsense policies to protect wildlife and ensure public access to our public lands. The Subcommittee is also working to ensure the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have sufficient resources to effectively manage their programs and keep our ocean resources thriving and sustainably managed.
The Subcommittee consists of the following persons:
Chairman – John Fleming
Ranking Members:
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, Don Young, Eni. F. H. Faleomavaega, Rob Wittman, Frank Pallone, Jr., Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson, Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Jeff Duncan, Pedro Pierluisi, Steve Southerland, II, Carol Shea-Porter, Bill Flores, Alan Lowenthal, Jon Runyan, Joe Garcia, Vance McAllister, Peter A. DeFazio, Bradley Byrne, and Doc Hastings.
The hot topics at this time are the Endangered Species Act and National Ocean Policy. The U.S. exclusive economic zone extends 200 nautical miles offshore and is the largest in the world, spanning over 95,000 miles of shoreline and containing 3.4 million square nautical miles of ocean, larger than the combined land area of all fifty states. The U.S. marine transportation system moves over 90% of the United States overseas cargo trade (by volumn). Over 1.29 billion metric tons of cargo, valued at $1.78 trillion, shipped in and out of U.S. ports in foreign trade in 2012. Those ports support, directly and indirectly, more than 13 million American jobs. According to 2011 estimates, all coastal-related activities in the United States generated $6.6 trillion, just under half of our nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), and supported over 52 million jobs. The National Wildlife Refuge System is comprised of 561 units located in all 50 states and U.S. territories that provides hunting, fishing, wildlife observation and other recreational opportunities to the more than 47 million Americans who visit at least one refuge each year.
The jurisdiction of the Subcommittee includes all matters regarding insular areas of the United States, all measures or matters regarding the Freely Associated States and Antarctica, fisheries management and fisheries research generally, including the management of all commercial and recreational fisheries (except for the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act), interjurisdictional fisheries, international fisheries agreements, aquaculture, seafood safety and fisheries promotion, wildlife resources, including research, restoration, refuges and conservation, and all matters pertaining to the protection of coastal and marine environments, including estuarine protection, coastal barriers, oceanography, ocean engineering, including materials, technology and systems, coastal zone management, marine sanctuaries, U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, sea grant programs and marine extension services, cooperative efforts to encourage, enhance and improve international programs for the protection of the environment and the conservation of natural resources otherwise within the jurisdiction of the Subcommittee, and, general and continuing oversight and investigative authority over activities, policies and programs within the jurisdiction of the Subcommittee.
Some of the recent activity for Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs Oversight Hearing on “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Plan to Implement a Ban on the Commercial Trade in Elephant Ivory”. In June 2014, Chairman Hastings’ statement on markup of Magnuson-Stevens Legislation (H.R. 4743). In May 2014 there were hearings on “Oil and Gas Activities within our Nation’s Wildlife Refuge System”, The Department of the Interior Office of Insular Affairs’ spending and the President’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget request for the Office” and on H.R. 4296 and H.R. 4402 (Natural Resources, n.d., p. 1-2)
The most recent regulations include Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Changes to he Definitions and Regulations for Designating Critical Habitat and Policy regarding Implementation of Section 4(b)(2) of the Endangered Species Act. The Injurious Wildlife Species; listing the Reticulated Python, three Anaconda species, and the Boa Constrictor as Injurious Reptiles. Non-Federal Oil and Gas Development within the National Wildlife Refuge system, Migratory Bird Hunting; supplemental proposals for migratory game bird hunting regulations for the 2014-15 hunting season. The FWC is also working on designation of critical habitat for the Bi-State distinct population segment of the Greater Sage-Grouse (George W. Bush Whitehouse Archives, 2005, p. 1).
The purpose of the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program is, in cooperation with States, to restore, conserve, and enhance the nation’s fish and wildlife resources. The emphasis of the program is on restoring habitat and providing benefits from these resources to the public. The rating for this program is “Not Performing” which means the results were not demonstrated. Results not demonstrated indicates that a program has not been able to develop acceptable performance goals or collect data to determine whether it is performing. While the program has a clear purpose and design, the program needs to develop long-term outcome and annual output-oriented performance goals in conjunction with partners. The program needs to emphasize outcome goals that reflect on the improvement of fish and wildlife resources. Achieving these goals depends on the efforts of many partners.
Components of the program have been reviewed by outside organizations but there are no regularly scheduled non-biased, independent evaluations of the entire program. For example, the Government Accountability Office has looked at the use of Administrative funds and the management of te program but not the effectiveness of the entire program.
The program does not have a strong accountability system. Some partners are held to cost, schedule, and performance results through agreements while others are not. Similarly, while Senior Executive Service level managers currently have performance goals in their performance plans their lower level manages typically do not.
The FWS is taking the following actions to improve the performance of the program by developing long-term outcome and annual output performance goals with partners through the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement update process. They are implementing regularly scheduled non-biased independent program evaluations. They are revising individual employee performance plans to include specific, measurable annual and long-term goals (ExpectMore.com, 2005, p. 1).

References
ExpectMore.com. (2005). http://www.georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/omb/expectmore/summary/10003714.2005.html
Federalregister.gov. (1994). https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies/fish-and-wildlife-servicece 1994
Fish and Wildlife Service. (n.d.). http://fws.gov/history
Fish and Wildlife Sevice. (2014). http://www.fws.gov/help/about_us.html
Natural Resources. (n.d.). http://naturalresources.house.gov/subcommittees/subcommittee/?SubcommitteeID+5063
USA.gov. (n.d.). http://www.usa.gov/directory/federal/fish-and-wildlife-service.shtml