More than 400 business, conservation and sportsmen's groups today urged Vice President Joe Biden and lawmakers not to balance the nation's budget by slashing conservation funding.

Leading groups including the Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited and the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies said they have "deep concerns" about the fate of fish and wildlife, clean water, healthy landscapes and productive soil as lawmakers debate ways to reduce federal spending and long-term debt.

"We fear that ongoing budget negotiations could result in top line cuts that, without even considering the merits of the nation's key conservation programs, will result in devastating impacts for the future of America's environment," sportsmen wrote in a letter to Biden and Sens. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Reps. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), James Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). Conservation groups sent a similar letter to the same recipients.

They pointed to the House's passage last week of a fiscal 2012 agriculture appropriations bill that imposes severe reductions to many farm bill conservation programs.

The Republican-backed bill cut $2.7 billion from the Agriculture Department's 2011 spending plan, including a $1 billion reduction in mandatory farm bill conservation programs, which Democratic lawmakers have cautioned would make it all but impossible to craft an effective farm bill in 2012 (E&ENews PM, June 16).

"These programs help keep our citizens on working farms, ranches, and forests that produce agriculture and forest commodities while maintaining natural resources and environmental quality," the groups wrote. "Further, these programs provide benefits to the rural economy through hunting and angling opportunities provided by these private lands."

Their letter comes a day before a House Agriculture subpanel is scheduled to hold an oversight hearing into the effectiveness of farm bill conservation, part of an attempt to both prepare for the next farm bill and educate a large crop of freshman lawmakers on the committee (E&ENews PM, June 20).

Groups today warned that while conservation programs should shoulder some of the burden of reduced spending, sustained investments are needed in order to protect clean water, productive farms and recreational opportunities and to gird ecosystems against natural disasters such as fires, floods and drought.

Funding for "natural capital," for example, is an effective and low-cost way of avoiding costlier hazards, the groups said, citing the effects of forest thinning on slowing wildfires in Arizona and wetlands to mitigate the impact of floods.

"Without a robust wetlands system out there, we are going to have exaggerated flooding events," said Paul Schmidt, chief conservation officer for Ducks Unlimited. "This year is a terrible example of what can happen in the absence of a wetlands policy."

Robert Bendick, director of U.S. government relations for the Nature Conservancy, said conservation groups are willing to support spending cuts as long as they are proportional and part of a balanced plan of mandatory and discretionary spending cuts and new revenue streams.

The House-passed budget resolution for fiscal 2012 would cut all natural resource programs by 18 percent from 2010 levels and proposes cuts of 46 percent by 2016, the groups said.