Why It Matters: The committee passage of the EXPLORE Act, the Coastal Habitat Conservation Act, and the Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act marks an important step in the advancement of these priority bills for the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF). These bills seek to improve outdoor recreational access and to enhance fish and wildlife habitat across the nation.
Highlights:
- On Wednesday, January 17, the House Natural Resources Committee passed the Expanding Public Lands Outdoor Recreation Experiences (EXPLORE) Act (R 6492) and the Coastal Habitat Conservation Act (H.R. 2950), two priorities of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation.
- The next day, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed the Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act ( 2781), a long-standing priority for CSF.
Last week, the House Natural Resources Committee passed two priorities of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation including the EXPLORE Act and the Coastal Habitat Conservation Act. The next day, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed the Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act.
The EXPLORE Act, which contains many provisions of importance to sportsmen and women, is led by Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus (CSC) Member Rep. Bruce Westerman. CSF is particularly excited to see language that closely mirrors the Range Access Act (H.R. 1614). This language will require the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to have a minimum of one free and public target shooting range in each of the respective districts. By providing dedicated, established target ranges, this legislation will improve opportunities to recycle spent ammunition and mitigate waste and pollution at non-designated ranges on USFS and BLM lands.
Furthermore, this legislation includes language that will help improve future federal land agency planning decisions and would enhance user planning efforts for the general public. Specifically, the Improved Recreation Visitation Data section directs certain federal land management agencies to capture various recreation visitation data. This section also establishes a real-time data pilot program to make available to the public real-time or predictive visitation data for federal lands, helping sportsmen and women with their trip planning efforts.
The Coastal Habitat Conservation Act of 2023 (H.R. 2950), led by CSC Member Rep. Jared Huffman, would authorize the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Coastal Program and would increase authorized discretionary appropriations from $20 million in Fiscal Year 2024 to $25 million in 2028 for coastal protection, restoration, and enhancement efforts around the nation and in the Great Lakes. This program has proven to be a highly successful public-private partnership for restoring and protecting fish and wildlife habitat on public and privately-owned lands.
The Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act, led by CSC Member Senator Martin Heinrich, seeks to provide liability protections to Good Samaritans who attempt to recover and restore abandoned mines. Under current law, Good Samaritans who attempt to recover and restore abandoned mine sites are legally responsible for the pollution from the mine as soon as they touch it, even if they had no prior association with the mine. This legislation will help remove these unnecessary and prohibitive constraints by ensuring that Good Samaritans who attempt to restore abandoned mines have no legal or financial responsibility for future mine pollution.
CSF would like to thank the House Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee for passing these three important bills.
