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LINCOLN — A parade of wildlife groups and conservationists urged state senators Thursday to prevent “death by a thousand cuts” of the Nebraska Environmental Trust by advancing a proposal to protect the Trust against cash fund raids to help the state budget.
Gov. Jim Pillen has proposed to sweep out more than $40 million in Trust funds over the next two years to help close the state’s budget shortfall, a transfer that Trust advocates said could eventually halt the conservation and habitat grants the agency has handed out over the past three decades.
“It’s a crisis point,” said Katie Torpy, a representative of the Nature Conservancy.
The Environmental Trust distributes about $20 million a year in grants on a competitive basis from its 44.5% cut of the proceeds of the Nebraska Lottery. Most go to conservation and wildlife agencies, including Ducks Unlimited and the Sandhills Task Force or to local recycling programs. Grantees must obtain matching funds, which advocates say multiplies the impact of the grants.
But the dozen supporters who spoke in favor of a proposed constitutional amendment on Thursday said the Trust’s intended purpose, to supplement state conservation and habitat projects, had been eroded in recent years as money was siphoned off to fund normal state agency operations. The $40 million sweep proposed by Pillen, they said, could jeopardize Trust grants beginning in 2027.
To “reaffirm” the original intent of the Trust and avoid such direct diversion of its funds, State Sen. Tom Brandt of Plymouth introduced Legislative Resolution 298 CA, the proposed amendment. The change — if advanced by the Legislature and approved by Nebraska voters this fall — would ensure that Trust funds could only be awarded via competitive grants.
That would end the sort of cash transfers proposed by Pillen, as well as other fund transfers that have diverted $29 million over the past three years from the Trust to state agency operations.
Traci Bruckner of the Audubon Society of the Great Plains said public opinion surveys show “broad bipartisan support” for the work of the Environmental Trust. She said Trust money is now replacing state tax funding instead doing what voters intended and supplementing state and local conservation programs.
The Trust voted in January to award about $18 million in grants this year. But letters were sent recently to successful grant recipients warning that their funding might have to be rescinded if the Trust funds are swept away.
The Pillen administration has rejected the assertion that its fund diversions would jeopardize the Trust, arguing that the Trust has built up a surplus of funding that should be used to help water conservation projects and to help build a new, larger marina on Lewis & Clark Lake in northeast Nebraska.
Lincoln State Sen. Danielle Conrad, a cosponsor of the Brandt proposal, expressed frustration that “reaffirmation” of the Trust’s original purpose was necessary. She compared it to the controversy over changes adopted by the Legislature and executive branch to other voter-approved measures, such as medical cannabis and increases in the state minimum wage.
“How many times do the people have to vote to make their intentions clear?” Conrad asked. “The law is the law is the law. Why do we need reaffirmation?”
Brandt replied that placing the process in the Nebraska Constitution would ensure the proper use of Trust funds. He declined to say, under questioning by Conrad, if he would oppose the governor’s proposed transfers from the Trust this year.
No one testified against LR 298CA during the public hearing before the Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee on Thursday, but the committee received seven online comments opposing the idea. It received 110 online comments in favor.
Brandt made the resolution his priority measure for the 2026 session, increasing the odds that it could be debated by the full Legislature if advanced out of the committee. That appears likely. Brandt chairs the Natural Resources Committee.
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