Any discussion about Appropriation 2027 must first begin by informing you that there is a massive “disruption factor” coming. A “discombobulator” is set to hit the process. 

Congress is already working on the federal budget for Fiscal Year 2027, even though the White House has missed the legal deadline to release the President’s budget proposal. In a typical year, that proposal is supposed to arrive in early February and helps set the overall numbers and priorities for agencies like the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). This year, that document is late and is now expected sometime late March. In the meantime, members of Congress are moving ahead and opening their portals to collect funding requests from the public and advocacy groups.

The late budget mainly creates confusion about what new proposals the administration might put on the table—such as increases for roundups, Sales without any limits, increases in sterilization tactics, or habitat work—but it does not stop Congress from writing its own plan, even if that plan has to pivot. 

When action is needed after the White House drops it’s budget request, we will update you and provide that information. 

The following is information from WHE volunteer Colette Kaluza.

She wanted advocates to have an opportunity to not only engage the process appropriately, but to understand it. 

Swasey mares, temporary holding 

Appropriations Guide – 2027 Budget (timeline)

Are you unsure how Congress funds the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro Program—or how you can influence it? The questions advocates ask us haven’t changed, but the politics and timing around the FY 2027 budget are more chaotic than ever.

You can shape decisions in both the U.S. House and Senate by asking your members to fund, defund, or place conditions on funding for specific activities in the annual spending bills—for example, by requesting a line item directing BLM to complete and implement a clear, enforceable welfare policy for wild horses and burros.

Congress not only passes laws like the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971; it also passes the annual appropriations bills that decide how much federal agencies can spend and what “authority” they have to carry out those actions.

The budget calendar – and why 2027 starts now 

The federal budget and appropriations process follows the federal fiscal year (October 1 – September 30). It normally begins with the President’s Budget Request, which lays out the administration’s proposed spending levels and priorities and often signals new initiatives or cuts; the “agenda for the administration.” That request triggers bill drafting in the House and Senate Appropriations Committees and their subcommittees.

Even though recent years have been dominated by blown deadlines, short-term “continuing resolutions,” and last-minute omnibus deals, appropriators are already soliciting Member requests for the FY 2027 budget now.

2027 WILD HORSE FUNDING 

What your members of Congress can do

Both the House and Senate have Appropriations Committees—and Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies subcommittees—that oversee spending for the Department of the Interior (including BLM) and draft the initial spending bill.

Your representative or senator does not need to sit on those subcommittees to submit a request. Every office has staff covering public lands and natural resources who can file programmatic and language requests on behalf of constituents.

Appropriations hearings, including oversight hearings and “markups” (when draft bills are debated and amended), happen throughout the spring and summer. After a bill passes subcommittee and full committee, it goes to the House and Senate floor, then to a House–Senate “conference” to reconcile differences before being sent to the President. All of this is supposed to be completed before October 1; when it isn’t, Congress passes short-term measures that temporarily extend prior-year funding.

Each member of Congress sets their own constituent request window within the broader House and Senate committee deadlines. There is no single universal calendar; instead, every office posts its FY 2027 appropriations deadline, and most fall in March 2026.

→Where we are right now:  Advocates should submit their funding and language requests to their House representative immediately.  For Senate requests, check each Senators’ official websites for instructions and deadlines.

Many of you are asking about the “Caucus Letter.” The full contents of the letter have not been posted by any of the groups asking you to sign it. None of the lawmakers have made the contents public. What we have been able to glean is that the letter focuses on 3 things:

• A request to retain long‑standing prohibitions on killing healthy wild horses and burros and on selling them for slaughter (protecting animals in off‑range holding and on the range).

• A push to direct BLM to invest more of its Wild Horse and Burro Program budget in humane, reversible fertility control and on‑range management, rather than mass helicopter roundups and long‑term confinement. (To increase the $11 million in additional funding that has been awarded every year since 2018.)

• Concern about recent presidential budget proposals that attempted to cut the wild horse program by roughly 25% and strip standard protective language, and a corresponding ask that appropriators explicitly reject any such cuts or lethal-control options (i.e. killing healthy horses or burros or selling them without limits to slaughter).

One key item has been cut and not included in the letter: funding to complete the review and public comment period on welfare standards included in CAWP (making them enforceable).

NOTE: Remind Congress that saying “must comply with CAWP” is not the same as saying “must comply with welfare standards.” CAWP is a program, not a policy. The welfare standards CAWP is supposed to monitor/enforce were never reviewed and never became an actual policy that requires enforcement. We are asking Congress to create language to bridge that gap. If you need supporting information our recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) investigation shows how BLM knew what they were supposed to do and instead polished up the “cover letter” and left the actual welfare standards unreviewed (HERE). 

Moving so fast to “get numbers,” trailer doors were not secured

How do we get important language to create enforceable welfare rules at the beginning of this process when the caucus doesn’t add it?

We’re asking advocates in every state to step up so all 50 states are represented in this first wave of “non-defense programmatic or language” requests for the 2027 appropriations bills. This action has far more impact than signing a petition but it does take more concentration and care.

If it feels like a lot, remember: this is just the first step in the appropriations process. There will be easier, high-volume actions later that many people can take—but right now we need a core group ready to carry this heavier lift. Our team is engaged. If you can make the time, please take these steps.

Subcommittee context (119^th Congress):

Both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees have subcommittees that oversee federal agency spending. BLM sits within the Department of the Interior (DOI).  Your representative does not need to be on a specific subcommittee or be a member of the caucus to submit a request.

• House Appropriations Committee subcommittees: https://appropriations.house.gov/subcommittees
• Senate Appropriations Committee subcommittees: https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/subcommittees
• Dept. of Interior (BLM) guidance for the House.  For the Senate, check your senators’ websites and search ‘FY 2027 appropriations’ or ‘congressionally directed spending’ for guidance.”

Step 1 – Find your members’ FY 2027 portals and deadlines

• Go to your U.S. representative’s and both U.S. senators’ official sites (https://www.house.gov/ and https://www.senate.gov/).
• On each site, search for “FY 2027 appropriations requests.”
• Open the posted webforms or PDF guidance and note their constituent submission deadline; this will typically fall before the relevant committee’s March submission date.

Step 2 – Submit your appropriations asks

• Programmatic Funding Request:  Designate $1,000,000. for the purpose of directing BLM to complete and formalize enforceable welfare standards as part of Comprehensive Animal Welfare Program (CAWP) as binding regulations covering gather, transport, and all on- and off-range holding facilities, with deadlines and reporting requirements to Congress.

  BLM’s internal standards are simply not an enforceable policy and are failing to provide mandated protections from abuse and neglect.

Please include the following: 

Provide dedicated funding for comprehensive, science-based welfare standards (including heat index and air-quality thresholds, facility design, and a data-based foaling season so the prohibition against helicopter capture during this time actually achieves the intended purpose).  Provide transparent, routine assessments of gathers and holding facilities, using a restored and modernized assessment tool with public reporting.  To provide meaningful inclusion of independent veterinarians, welfare experts, and public stakeholders in developing and reviewing CAWP welfare standards.

True transparency is essential for restoring public trust.  For that reason, I also urge you to ensure that any CAWP-focused line item includes requirements that:  Members of the public, press, and qualified observers have meaningful, safe, and reasonably close access to observe helicopter and bait-trap roundups.  Holding facilities (short- and long-term) are subject to regular, announced and unannounced inspections, with reasonable public access to view animals and facility conditions timely post-capture.

As your constituent, I ask that you: Support and introduce the above in the FY Interior appropriations bill to fund and direct the completion and implementation of CAWP welfare standards as outlined.  And publicly call on the Dept. of the Interior and BLM to release a concrete timetable for CAWP welfare standards rulemaking, stakeholder engagement, and implementation, and to provide Congress with regular progress updates. More information from WHE HERE.

You can also add:

• Language Request: None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to sell, transfer, or otherwise convey any wild free-roaming horse or burro, including older or “three-strikes” animals, in any transaction that results, directly or indirectly, in the slaughter of such animal or its rendering into commercial products, including through bulk, truckload, or group sales or by waiving numeric purchase limits.
• Language Request:  No funding made available by this Act may be used for sterilization of wild free-roaming horses or burros. BLM has not, in any way shape or form, demonstrated through scientific methods that this extreme action is even something that requires contemplation.
• Also, no funding may be used to research, develop, test, pilot, or implement any form of surgical or chemical sterilization of wild horses or burros, whether onrange or in offrange facilities.
• Language Request:  Maintain prohibitions on killing healthy wild horses or burros and maintain the prohibition on sales without limits (slaughter).

The chain of the original bill draft: Your Congressional Senators and House Reps make requests to specific committees.  Committee and subcommittee members begin to make formal requests as a draft bill begins to form in their respective subcommittees.  Congressional members can influence those on the committees.  Committee members have the greatest influence on the outcome of the bill. (It all usually starts with the White House agenda, that “curveball” will be dealt with later.)

As draft bills emerge and move into hearings and markups, your ask shifts to “amend the bill” to add protections or strip harmful riders. The language that will govern the Wild Horse and Burro Program in fiscal year 2027 is being shaped in 2026, while BLM is already signaling that it expects to continue large-scale removals under existing plans unless Congress intervenes. When this happens we will have faster and easier action items.

Step 3 – Call for backup

You can call the U.S. Congressional switchboard at (202) 2243121, ask to be connected to your House member and both senators, and tell them.  Ask their staff how to submit a 2027 appropriations request and what their internal deadline is. You can also go directly to each office’s website and review the guidance.

Our team will keep monitoring the FY 2027 budget debate, the President’s Budget Request, and any shifts in BLM’s on-the-ground priorities that signal where the program is headed.

We will alert you as soon as we see specific threats or opportunities for wild horses and burros in the appropriations process.

These alerts will have a simpler action item request.

Right now, hearing from people that are likely to vote in the next election is the most powerful tool we have to get Congress to make a move to gain, after 55 years of the Act, an enforceable set of welfare rules.

At any time, you can request a meeting with your congressional offices. Requesting a meeting is a powerful, overarching advocacy step: as a constituent, you can ask to speak with the aide or staffer who handles federal public lands issues (including wild horses and burros). If you’d like support, a WHE team member can join you for that meeting. Laura@WildHorseEducation.org and put “Help, Appropriations” in the subject line. We get a lot of emails and the subject line would be key to make sure we don’t miss it.

The Appropriations process is a “must pass” bill. This means it gives us a chance to gain ground in a bill that must be moved through Congress instead of a stand alone bill that can die in committee.

I find this opportunity one that we must engage. I hope you do, too.

Our teams in the field and our legal team are working on updates. More coming soon.

Every mile we travel to cover roundups or assess a herd, every court case we bring, every win, every action we take is only possible because of your support. 

Thank you for standing with us as we fight for Freedom, Mercy and Justice.