An Interior Department appropriations bill passed by the House of Representatives contains deep cuts for the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Environmental Protection Agency, and rolls back wildlife protections, according to advocacy groups.

As passed out of the House late Wednesday, the bill would cut the Park Service main budget by $210 million, or more than 6 percent, and the agency's budget for maintenance and repairs by more than $22 million, according to the National Parks Conservation Association. The agency's historic preservation budget would be cut by $20 million.

Not only would the Fish and Wildlife Service's budget be cut by 8.4 percent from current levels, but the legislation contains a rider that would remove federal protections for gray wolves in the lower 48 states, another would remove protections for grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and another would block a grizzly recovery program for the North Cascades Ecosystem.

"Funding cuts at this scale would devastate the National Park System at a time when so many parks are understaffed and unable to keep up with overdue maintenance and shortage of employee housing," said Kristen Brengel, NPCA's senior vice president for government affairs. "With the added challenges of managing record visitation and protecting our parks’ cultural and natural resources from increasingly worsening climate change impacts, this bill would significantly hinder the agency rather than address these critical issues. Something must change, and these funding cuts couldn’t be further from the answer.

“As if the funding cuts weren’t damaging enough, this bill also includes egregious policy proposals, such as undermining the Antiquities Act, a bipartisan tool that safeguards the places and stories that reflect our collective heritage. This bill also reverses commonsense reforms to oil and gas development meant to hold polluters accountable for the damage they cause to our national parks and communities."

At the Center for Biological Diversity, Stephanie Kurose, deputy director for government affairs, said the House measure would gut progress made by the Endangered Species Act in helping species recover and avoid extinction.

“From wolves, whales and wolverines to wildlife refuges across the country, this bill would cause irreparable harm to our natural heritage,” said Kurose. “Extremist lawmakers are hellbent on bulldozing decades of progress and steering us toward ecological disaster, damn the consequences.”

Among the anti-wildlife riders in the legislation is one that would block ESA protections for wolverines, which last fall were listed by the Fish and Wildlife Service as an endangered species. The Center said the legislation would also:

• Removing federal protections for the lesser prairie chicken, a highly imperiled ground-nesting bird
• Blocking protections for the greater sage-grouse
• Blocking increased protections for the northern long-eared bat
• Removing federal protections for the dunes sagebrush lizard
• Blocking protections for the Texas kangaroo rat and seven freshwater mussels in Texas;
• Prohibiting any federal agency from banning or restricting lead in ammunition or fishing gear

 While the measure was adopted by the House, it still must be approved by the Senate.

"The Senate must oppose these reckless cuts and harmful policies," said Brengel. "For years, NPCA and our members and supporters have fought for more park funding, and we will not stop fighting until our parks get the support they need and deserve. National parks remain one of our country’s most unifying forces. We urge members of Congress to listen to the people they represent and invest more in these places, not less.”