[Congressional Bills 114th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 5650 Introduced in House (IH)]

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114th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 5650

 To amend the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act to make funds 
   available for management of fish and wildlife species of greatest 
  conservation need as determined by State fish and wildlife agencies.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              July 6, 2016

   Mr. Young of Alaska (for himself and Mrs. Dingell) introduced the 
    following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Natural 
                               Resources

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To amend the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act to make funds 
   available for management of fish and wildlife species of greatest 
  conservation need as determined by State fish and wildlife agencies.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Recovering America's Wildlife Act of 
2016''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.

    (a) Findings.--Congress finds that--
            (1) a diverse array of species of fish and wildlife is of 
        significant value to the United States for many reasons, 
        including aesthetic, ecological, educational, cultural, 
        recreational, economic, and scientific reasons;
            (2) more than 90 million citizens of the United States 
        participate in outdoor recreation through hunting, fishing, 
        birding, and other wildlife-dependent recreation, all of which 
        have significant value to the citizens who engage in those 
        activities and provide economic benefits to local communities;
            (3) it is in the interest of the United States--
                    (A) to retain for present and future generations 
                the opportunity to hunt, fish, observe, understand, and 
                appreciate a wide variety of fish and wildlife;
                    (B) to recover species of fish and wildlife listed 
                under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (16 U.S.C. 
                1531 et seq.) requiring Federal protection, and to 
                prevent fish and wildlife species from declining to the 
                point of requiring Federal protection under that Act, 
                by conserving species in greatest conservation need; 
                and
                    (C) to support collaborative and proactive 
                conservation that will sustain America's diverse fish 
                and wildlife populations;
            (4) hunters and anglers, including future President 
        Theodore Roosevelt and naturalist George Bird Grinnell, were 
        alarmed in the 1880-90s that game and sportfish could not 
        sustain unregulated harvest, and that avifauna needed 
        protection from commercial take, and thus founded the first 
        nongovernmental conservation organizations to instill fish and 
        wildlife conservation values in hunters, anglers, bird 
        watchers, and all citizens;
            (5) at the turn of the 20th century, the States realized 
        the need to regulate harvest of game and sportfish for 
        sustainable use, and required hunting and angling licenses of 
        users, and established seasons, bag and creel limits, and legal 
        means of take for game and sportfish, using license dollars 
        largely for enforcement of those regulations;
            (6) in 1937, an alliance between hunters and conservation 
        organizations, the State governments, the Federal Government, 
        and the shooting sports industry convinced Congress to transfer 
        receipts from an existing Federal excise tax on sporting arms 
        and ammunition to the States, matched by State hunting license 
        dollars, for the management of wildlife and conservation of 
        habitat under the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act 
        (16 U.S.C. 669 et seq.), which greatly enhanced the States 
        ability to move from largely the enforcement of game seasons 
        and bag limits into science-based research and management of 
        all wildlife;
            (7) similarly, in 1951, an alliance between anglers and 
        conservation organizations, the State governments, the Federal 
        Government, and the sport-fishing industry, convinced Congress 
        to impose a Federal excise tax on fishing equipment under the 
        Dingell-Johnson Sportfish Restoration Act (16 U.S.C. 777 et 
        seq.), and to transfer receipts to the States, matched by State 
        fishing license revenues, to manage sport fish and conserve 
        aquatic habitats, further enhancing the maturation of the State 
        fish and wildlife agencies into science-based management of all 
        fish species;
            (8) this user-pay, public-benefits means of funding fish 
        and wildlife conservation is unique in the world, having been 
        brought to the Federal Government by sportsmen and sportswomen 
        who were willing to pay these fees to ensure dedicated funds to 
        fish and wildlife conservation delivered by the States;
            (9) these user-pay funds (licenses and excise taxes)--
                    (A) have benefited not just hunters and anglers but 
                all Americans in providing abundant fish and wildlife 
                (game and nongame species both), clean water, outdoor 
                recreation, healthy activities, and quality of life; 
                and
                    (B) provide, and will continue to provide, a 
                majority of the funds that are available to State fish 
                and wildlife agencies for science-based management of 
                fish and wildlife for their citizens;
            (10) State fish and wildlife agencies are responsible for 
        all fish and wildlife, but are grossly underfunded to fulfill 
        these responsibilities because there are few funds available at 
        the State level for fish and wildlife conservation except those 
        driven by hunting and fishing license revenues, and Federal 
        excise tax revenues;
            (11) Congress enacted the Wildlife Conservation and 
        Restoration Account under section 3(a)(2) of the Pittman-
        Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act (16 U.S.C. 669b(a)(2)) to 
        extend support for the full array of fish and wildlife 
        conservation needs, including species that are not hunted or 
        fished, but only authorized appropriations for the Account for 
        one year;
            (12) while appropriated funds have been made available 
        through the State Wildlife Grants program of the United States 
        Fish and Wildlife Service, the lack of assured and sufficient 
        dedicated funds for the Wildlife Conservation and Restoration 
        Account has left unrealized the goals of the Account, thereby 
        allowing fish and wildlife to continue to decline across the 
        United States and resulting in hundreds of species being listed 
        under the Endangered Species Act of 1973;
            (13) partly as a requirement of the unfunded Wildlife 
        Conservation and Restoration Account, each State and territory 
        is required to seek public input and produce a comprehensive 
        fish and wildlife conservation strategy, called a State 
        Wildlife Action Plan, to guide the conservation of the full 
        array of fish, wildlife and their habitats in each State and 
        territory;
            (14) providing assured and sufficient dedicated funding to 
        the Wildlife Conservation and Restoration Account will advance 
        the national interest in assuring sustainable populations of 
        all fish and wildlife species for the use and enjoyment of our 
        citizens, through implementing the comprehensive fish and 
        wildlife conservation strategies of the States;
            (15) as funds become available through enactment of this 
        Act, States should secure the needed non-Federal match from 
        sources other than revenue generated by sportsmen and 
        sportswomen through the sale of State hunting and fishing 
        licenses, which is the historic, and sometimes only, source of 
        matching funds for the excise tax revenue generated through the 
        Federal wildlife and sport fish restoration accounts; and
            (16) Federal wildlife and sport fish restoration accounts 
        support activities that include, but are not limited to, fish 
        and wildlife restoration projects for game species that also 
        benefit an array of other game and nongame species, hunter 
        education, and range development efforts.
    (b) Purposes.--The purposes of this Act are--
            (1) to provide dedicated and assured funding to advance the 
        national interest in keeping fish and wildlife from becoming 
        threatened or endangered with extinction, by supporting 
        programs in each State and territory to address the 
        conservation needs of the full diverse array of declining fish 
        and wildlife species, including both game and nongame species;
            (2) to provide from the Wildlife Conservation and 
        Restoration Account the Federal share of the support needed to 
        implement the comprehensive fish and wildlife conservation 
        strategies developed by each State and territory in order to 
        address the needs of those species identified by each State and 
        territory as species of greatest conservation need; and
            (3) to carry out collaborative and proactive conservation 
        actions with the goal of precluding the need for listing of 
        species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (16 U.S.C. 
        1531), as well as enhancing the ability of the States to 
        recover species listed under that Act and remove them from the 
        protection of the Act.

SEC. 3. WILDLIFE CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION SUBACCOUNT.

    Section 3(a) of the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act (16 
U.S.C. 669b(a)) is amended by striking paragraph (2) and inserting the 
following:
            ``(2) Wildlife conservation and restoration subaccount.--
                    ``(A) Establishment.--There is established in the 
                Federal Aid to Wildlife Restoration Fund a subaccount 
                to be known as the `Wildlife Conservation and 
                Restoration Subaccount' (referred to in this paragraph 
                as the `Subaccount').
                    ``(B) Use.--Amounts in the Subaccount shall be 
                available without further appropriation, for each 
                fiscal year, for apportionment in accordance with this 
                Act to carry out State Wildlife Conservation and 
                Restoration programs in order to manage fish and 
                wildlife species of greatest conservation need as 
                determined by a State fish and wildlife agency.
                    ``(C) Deposits.--Starting in fiscal year 2016, the 
                Secretary of the Treasury shall transfer to the fund 
                for deposit in the Subaccount the following:
                            ``(i) Outer continental shelf revenues.--
                        From amounts deposited in the Treasury under 
                        section 9 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands 
                        Act (43 U.S.C. 1338), $650,000,000.
                            ``(ii) Mining revenues.--From amounts 
                        deposited in the Treasury under section 35 of 
                        the Mineral Leasing Act (30 U.S.C. 191), after 
                        the withdrawal of funds to the States under 
                        subsection (a) of that section, 
                        $650,000,000.''.
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