With the shut of the 119th Congress simply across the nook, our elected leaders nonetheless have time to ship vital conservation funding and coverage earlier than the time period ends. At the start of this 12 months, we highlighted a flight path for progress for birds and other people, together with alternatives to strengthen conservation on working lands, help regionally led habitat initiatives, and restore rivers and wetlands.
Since then, new home windows of alternative have emerged which are consequential in scope, specifically the newly launched bipartisan allowing reform invoice: the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026.
The stakes for the upcoming lame-duck session lengthen properly past birds. Wholesome lands and waters help communities, native companies, working lands, and outside recreation throughout the nation. Complete reforms are essential to get clear power onto a modernized grid in the present day. And demanding funding is required to implement confirmed options on the bottom to revive and keep our nation’s pure assets and wildlife habitat.
Whereas Congress has made vital progress on a number of of those priorities, bipartisan proposals are nonetheless shifting, giving Congress a possibility to construct on that progress and end the work earlier than the session ends and lawmakers depart city for the winter holidays.
FINISH what Congress has began
The Farm Bill is the nation’s largest funding in voluntary conservation on non-public working lands. Throughout this Congress, Audubon labored to make sure that vital components have been included in each the Home and Senate variations of the invoice, together with help for voluntary applications that assist farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners enhance wildlife habitat whereas supporting soil well being, water high quality, and productive working lands.
Within the subsequent couple of months, as negotiations proceed, Congress has a possibility to strengthen Farm Invoice applications such because the Conservation Reserve Program and supply better help for personal forest house owners by means of everlasting authorization of the Forest Landowner Assist Program.
Launched within the first half of the 119th Congress, the bipartisan Local Communities and Bird Habitat Stewardship Act was overwhelmingly handed by the Home in September however now must cross the Senate. This laws would supply communities with assets to revive inexperienced areas and wetlands, cut back hazards to birds, and have interaction residents in conservation and group science.
Congress additionally has a possibility to finish work on the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), persevering with a protracted bipartisan custom of investing in wholesome rivers, wetlands, and watersheds. WRDA authorizes initiatives and applications for the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers and performs a pivotal position in enhancing water infrastructure and addressing shifting climate and local weather patterns. The Home and Senate have separate WRDA payments that may must be reconciled. Audubon helps nature-based options and ecosystem restoration in key watersheds, together with the Everglades, Nice Lakes, Rio Grande, Mississippi River, and Nice Salt Lake.
BUILD on bipartisan momentum
On public lands, bipartisan leaders in each chambers have superior proposals to proceed investments made by means of the Nice American Open air Act. The America the Lovely Act within the Senate and the Home Great American Outdoors Act 250 would lengthen funding for upkeep backlogs and restoration initiatives on nationwide parks, wildlife refuges, forests, and different public lands.
There may be additionally bipartisan momentum round America’s grasslands, with the Rebuilding America’s National Cow Herd (RANCH) Act launched in August. The bipartisan invoice, which builds on the mannequin established by Audubon’s Conservation Forage Program in North Dakota, would supply voluntary technical and monetary help to farmers and ranchers who convert marginal cropland into native grasses and different perennial forage. Grassland birds have skilled steeper declines than another group of birds, and well-managed grasslands can present each the habitat they want and productive forage for livestock.
Moreover, it’s critically vital for Congress to finish reauthorization of federal applications that help community-based restoration and conservation. These embody the Nice Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI), the Delaware River Basin Restoration Program (DRBRP), and the Cooperative Watershed Administration Program (CWMP). The applications help community-based watershed restoration throughout the nation. Restoring and defending watersheds issues not just for birds and different wildlife, but in addition for the communities, industries, and regional economies that rely on wholesome water programs.
PROTECT the locations birds and other people rely on
From investing in sustainable land administration practices to supporting communities in enhancing inexperienced area and native habitat, these efforts acknowledge that conservation relies on related, wholesome habitats. From rural communities to city facilities, these aren’t separate conservation challenges. Birds transfer throughout a related community of farms, forests, grasslands, rivers, and cities. And we all know that defending these locations advantages communities and economies alongside the way in which.
The just lately launched bipartisan Senate allowing reform invoice is each an thrilling and complex legislative alternative. It establishes clear guidelines for allowing, helps the accountable and well timed deployment of transmission and grid infrastructure, advances clear power, and will increase transparency and accountability across the speedy progress of knowledge facilities. All of those are vitally vital to serving to get good issues constructed quicker: pure infrastructure and restoration initiatives, transmission traces, and utility-scale renewable power; to not point out housing, speedy transit, and different belongings communities want.
Alongside these provisions are adjustments to legal guidelines vital to defending wildlife, communities, and the surroundings. We’re dedicated to working with lawmakers and stakeholders to advance reforms whereas defending habitat and America’s treasured pure heritage. Audubon is aware of that we will modernize the foundations of the highway for federal allowing whereas nonetheless defending the longer term for birds, communities, the local weather, and our surroundings.
Within the remaining months of this Congress, lawmakers from each events have a possibility to construct on the widespread floor we’ve already seen: end work already underway, maintain investments that communities rely on, and switch that bipartisan momentum into lasting progress for birds and other people.
