(RALEIGH) -- The current state budget eliminates some programs as part of roughly $23 million in environmental program cuts.  Molly Diggins, State Director of the Sierra Club said lawmakers are moving in the wrong direction.

"We probably get more calls from private property owners who are upset and angry, not because there's too much regulation but because they can't believe there are not regulations on the books to protect them from something that's happening in their community," said Diggins.

The budget passed by the legislature this year cuts environmental programs ranging from landslide mapping in the mountains to oyster sanctuaries on the coast.