If you haven’t yet, listen to our Podcast and Blast episode titled “BHA 2023 Policy Roundup with BHA Government Relations Manager Kaden McArthur,” where I sit down with Hal Herring to discuss some of the conservation wins from last year that BHA played a role in achieving. You can also follow along our conversation with this blog as we discuss it.
Senate Introduces Legislation to Reauthorize Conservation Programs
Last Friday, Chairman Tom Carper (D-DE) and Ranking Member Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee introduced the America’s Conservation Enhancement (ACE) Reauthorization Act (S. 3791). BHA applauded this legislation that would renew the following conservation programs through the end of the decade.
- The North American Wetlands Conservation Act, increasing authorized funding by $5 million annually.
- The Chronic Wasting Disease Task Force.
- The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
- The Chesapeake Bay Program, Chesapeake Bay Initiative Act, and the Chesapeake WILD grant program.
- The National Fish Habitat Conservation Through Partnerships Initiative, which would receive substantive amendments to improve its conservation impact.
Read BHA’s press release here.
DOI Highlights Sagebrush Ecosystem Restoration
Last Thursday, the Department of the Interior announced an investment of $7 million for the Sagebrush Keystones Initiative. This will leverage funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Funding will be strategically directed to identified Sagebrush Collaborative Restoration Landscapes, 12 projects spread across 175 million acres in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, Utah and Colorado, which accounts for about one-third of all the remaining sagebrush core habitat in the United States.
About Kaden McArthur
A western hunter and angler, my passion for wild places and wildlife brought me to Washington, DC to work on conservation policy.