Why It Matters: Habitat is the driving force behind healthy fish and wildlife populations. At a time when fish and wildlife habitats across the nation continue to become fragmented and degraded, the America’s Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act authorizes funding to conserve species before more costly measures are necessary. This legislation also codifies existing partnerships and strategies to conserve fish and wildlife habitat while simultaneously creating new, innovative solutions to better address habitat conservation.
Highlights:
- Last week, the House Natural Resources Committee passed the America’s Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act (R. 7408), a comprehensive fish and wildlife habitat bill led by Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus (CSC) Co-Chair and Chairman of the Natural Resources Committee Rep. Bruce Westerman.
- This legislation includes a number of provisions that will provide flexibility to federal agencies, state agencies, private landowners, among others to restore and conserve fish and wildlife habitat across the nation.
Last Tuesday, the America’s Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act, a comprehensive bill that seeks to enhance fish and wildlife habitat across the nation, was passed by the House Natural Resources Committee.
The America’s Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act would authorize $300 million in annual funding to bolster the ability of state fish and wildlife agencies to restore, manage, and conserve habitat for fish and wildlife including at-risk species and species listed as threatened and endangered. As part of the funding language contained in Title I of the America’s Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act, the legislation requires that 10% of the funding be made available for an innovative grant program to incentivize tools and strategies to improve fish and wildlife habitat across the nation. The Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF) thanks the Chairman for including language that will ensure hunting and fishing organizations have a seat at the table when reviewing the apportionments for the competitive grants section of this legislation. CSF is also pleased to see this bill respects the management of state fish and wildlife agencies, our nation’s primary and best managers of fish and wildlife.
Of critical importance to the sportsmen’s community is the inclusion of provisions to bolster active management of our nation’s lands and waters. For example, the America’s Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act will establish an innovative program to establish “Good Neighbor Authority” within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which will be similar to the Good Neighbor Authorities provided to the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. The Good Neighbor Authority language contained in this legislation will allow states, counties, and tribes who have a vested interest in the lands managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct active management and restoration projects on FWS lands.
Additionally, CSF is encouraged by the inclusion of other active management provisions such as the inclusion of the language that would reverse the crippling 2015 Cottonwood decision. This provision seeks to obviate the need for federal managers to reinitiate consultation at the programmatic level when new critical habitat is designated, a new species is listed, or new information about a listed species comes to light. Plan level consultation is not needed as every major federal action is highly scrutinized at the project level, including consultation with the federal agencies responsible for overseeing the Endangered Species Act, and consultation would still take place when new forest plans are developed.
The America’s Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act now awaits further consideration by the House.
