Why You Should Care: Budget Reconciliation

January 29, 2025

Caitlin Cattelino

Congress Prepares Nightmare Bill for Wildlife

Well before his Inauguration, President Trump and his allies began developing a strategy for using a congressional process called budget reconciliation to secure passage of some of the most controversial elements of his policy agenda. This includes elements that would be disastrous for wildlife. Budget legislation is expected to be Congress’ first major bill and is a top priority for Defenders of Wildlife.

izembek — Izembek National Wildlife Refuge

What is budget reconciliation?

Reconciliation is a special congressional process used to advance certain budget-related legislation. Controversial Senate bills typically require at least 60 votes to pass. Republicans currently hold 53 seats in the Senate, which means they are unlikely to secure the 60 votes necessary to pass legislation strongly opposed by Democrats. A reconciliation bill, however, only requires a simple majority to pass.

A reconciliation bill can only include provisions that change spending, modify the debt limit or increase revenues outside of the regular annual appropriations process. Budgetary, not policy, goals are intended to be the primary focus of these bills. Budgetary changes, however, can and do have policy consequences, sometimes ones causing significant damage to wildlife.

For example, 2017 budget reconciliation legislation produced tax cuts but also opportunistically encouraged oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a vast ecological treasure conservationists have worked to protect for over half a century. The assumption of significant revenue to the United States Treasury from the refuge lease sales, which was used to justify including the provision in the reconciliation bill, never materialized. The provision’s supporters — including then President Trump — therefore, successfully used the reconciliation process to advance one of their major policy goals.

How does reconciliation work?

The first step in the reconciliation process is for both the House and Senate to pass a budget resolution. The resolution provides a framework for the annual congressional budget process. It can also provide the basis for a subsequent reconciliation bill if the resolution includes instructions to various committees of jurisdiction to develop legislation to raise revenue or cut or redirect spending. These committees typically have wide latitude to develop budget responses to the instructions in the resolution. Their work is then packaged together by the budget committees into a budget reconciliation bill and voted on by the full House and Senate.

polar bear — Polar Bear Mother With Cub, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Unlike most Senate legislation, only a simple majority is needed to pass a reconciliation bill. Senate budget legislation, however, faces an additional requirement known as the “Byrd Rule,” which is intended to ensure it does not include provisions that have no direct impact on spending, debt or revenues. In fact, during the budget reconciliation process, the Senate Budget Committee works with the Parliamentarian to review the legislation for compliance with the Byrd Rule and identifies provisions that should be removed. Congressional insiders often refer to this this review process as giving the budget reconciliation legislation a “Byrd bath.”

If there are differences between the House and Senate versions of the reconciliation bill, a conference committee will work together to agree on the final version for approval by Congress and then send it to the President for signature.

grass — Cotton Grass, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

What environmental threats appear likely in the reconciliation bill?

The exact measures in this year’s budget reconciliation bill won’t be known until the House and Senate committees of jurisdiction develop reconciliation proposals based on instructions in the budget resolution. A recent outline by the House Budget Committee of possible budget offset measures, along with public statements made by congressional leaders, however, paints a potentially nightmare-like scenario for wildlife.

The outline recommends expanding oil and gas drilling on public lands and in offshore waters to help raise federal revenue. These lands and waters provide vital habitat to wildlife, often including endangered species. It also specifically mentions requirements for additional lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as well as circumventing environmental review and permitting processes to rubberstamp potentially damaging energy and other projects. The outline even proposes the outright sale of an unspecified amount of federal land.

If enacted, these damaging proposals will significantly impact the wildlife we cherish and the wild places they need to survive and are clearly major policy changes. Congress should not attempt to mask them as budget measures and use the special expedited procedures of reconciliation to ram them through. Sneaking any of these provisions into broader budget legislation severely limits public scrutiny and allows Congress to pass controversial measures that could never be enacted through regular legislative procedures.

Defenders will work with pro-wildlife members of Congress to oppose this legislation every step of the way and do everything we can to ensure harmful attacks on our wildlife, lands and waters are not included in the anticipated reconciliation bill. Sign up here to receive action alerts and help us to oppose this and similar legislation.