[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 10786-10787]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         HELP FOR WILDLIFE ACT

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, a few weeks ago, I joined Senators 
Barrasso, Capito, Klobuchar, Boozman, and Baldwin in introducing S. 
1514, the Hunting Heritage and Environmental Legacy Preservation--
HELP--for Wildlife Act.
  This bill represents a more than $100 million annual Federal 
investment in the protecting the bay. The bill has several provisions, 
one of which reauthorizes the programs at the heart of restoring and 
maintaining the health of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. S. 1514 
reauthorizes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's, EPA, 
Chesapeake Bay Program through 2022 at $90 million per year, which is 
more than the program has ever been funded in its history. This unique 
regional partnership, managed by EPA through the Chesapeake Bay Program 
office in Annapolis, helps program partners collaborate to achieve the 
goals of the voluntary, bipartisan Chesapeake Bay agreement. Because 
this program expired in 2005, reauthorizing the program is critical to 
secure necessary appropriations and reject the Trump administration's 
proposal to eliminate the program.
  S. 1514 also reauthorizes the Chesapeake Bay gateways and watertrails 
network and the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Grants Assistance Program, 
which provides $6 million per year throughout the watershed in 
technical and financial assistance to State, community, and 
nongovernmental partners to increase access to the Chesapeake Bay and 
its tributaries. The bill also reauthorizes the National Fish and 
Wildlife Foundation, NFWF, until 2023. As the Nation's largest 
conservation grant-maker, NFWF has been instrumental in completing 
conservation projects in Maryland and around the Chesapeake Bay. In 
2016, the State received nearly $5 million in funding for projects 
protecting and restoring habitat for fish and wildlife.
  S. 1514 also reauthorizes the North American Wetlands Conservation 
Act, NAWCA, which provides grants to increase and protect wetlands 
which not only provide habitat for wildlife, but also reduce the 
severity of flooding and coastal erosion, and improve water quality. In 
the 2014 to 2015 grant period alone, Maryland received $1 million from 
the NAWCA program, which was leveraged with nearly $3 million in 
additional contributions by outside partners to protect 1,600 acres of 
wetlands in the State.
  The bill reauthorizes the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act 
for another 5 years and authorizes $6.5 million to be spent each year 
on conservation projects that protect more than 350 different species 
of birds which summer in the United States and winter in the tropical 
regions. Twenty-one different State birds are neotropical migrants, 
including Maryland's famous and beloved Baltimore Oriole.
  S. 1514 codifies the National Fish Habitat Partnership, a 
collaboration between public agencies, private citizens, and nonprofits 
for promoting fish conservation. America is home to more than 3,000 
species of fish, and 22 percent of the stream miles in this country are 
at high or very high risk of current habitat degradation. Over the past 
few years, $175,000 in funds from this program were used in Maryland to 
rehabilitate three different streams, funding which was 27 matched by 
$843,000 from private investors. The partnership estimates that the 
improved habitat in the three streams for brook trout provided a total 
socio/economic impact of $9.2 million.
  I am proud that S. 1514 contains so many provisions to help the 
Chesapeake Bay and the State of Maryland.
  I would like to speak for a minute about the importance of 
reauthorizing these programs and the ``power of the purse.'' As my 
colleagues in the Senate well know, the ``power of the purse'' is the 
two-step process of authorizing and appropriating. Authorizing 
legislation can establish, continue, or change programs and activities, 
and it signals to the appropriators that they should fund these 
programs. The budget process is not complete until the appropriations 
process provides the actual funding for the activities and programs 
established through the authorization process.
  Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney has said that 
President Donald Trump is sending a deliberate message to Congress 
about spending money on unauthorized programs. With the President 
putting an emphasis on boosting defense spending without adding to the 
deficit, administration officials are looking closely at expired 
authorizations. By reauthorizing these programs, we are sending our own 
clear message back: these programs matter to our constituents and to 
us.
  Mr. Mulvaney said lawmakers too often ignore the ``regular order'' 
process of approving a budget, authorizing specific programs, and then 
appropriating the money for those programs. ``We actually spend a lot 
of money in the federal government on programs that aren't authorized 
at all,'' he said. ``Either they used to be authorized and they lapsed, 
or they were never authorized in the first place. They simply were 
appropriated without any authorization. It's the wrong way to do it.'' 
Because of President Trump and Director Mulvaney's position, it is more 
important than ever that the essential programs contained in S. 1514 be 
reauthorized.
  None of these reauthorizations are more important to Maryland than 
EPA's Chesapeake Bay Program. In 1987, Congress ratified the Chesapeake 
Bay Program, a voluntary partnership among the watershed States and the 
EPA, under the Clean Water Act. The 1987 legislation supported cleanup 
efforts with a program of grants and scientific research. In 2000, 
Congress directed the EPA to ``ensure that management plans are 
developed and implementation is begun'' to meet the goals of the 
Chesapeake Bay Agreement. In June 2014, the Governors of the six States 
in the watershed signed a new voluntary Chesapeake Bay watershed 
agreement to work in partnership with the Federal Government through 
the Chesapeake Bay Program. The watershed agreement has ten goals to 
improve water quality in local rivers and streams and the Chesapeake 
Bay by 2025.
  The program office is housed within the EPA, which provides staff and 
funding. Primary funding for the program comes from State governments. 
Federal funding was first authorized at $40 million annually from 
fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2005 to fund environmental studies and 
grants that support restoration activities in the Chesapeake Bay. 
Congress has appropriated funds for the Program since the authorization 
for appropriations expired in fiscal year 2005. In fiscal year 2017, 
for instance, Congress appropriated $73 million for the program. The 
President's fiscal year 2018 budget eliminates funding for the program 
and cuts other programs that also benefit the bay across several 
Federal agency partners' budgets.
  A healthy bay means a healthy economy, and this recovery cannot be 
accomplished without a strong Federal commitment. At a time when we 
have seen nutrient levels dropping and water quality improving, I am 
deeply disappointed President Trump is intent on turning the clock back 
to a time when a swath of the Chesapeake Bay in mid-summer was a 
hypoxic low-oxygen zone or ``dead zone''.
  The most recent State of the Bay report, issued biannually by the 
Chesapeake Bay Foundation, evaluates the progressing and overall health 
of the Bay for 2014 to 2016. The Chesapeake Bay's health was given a 
grade of C-minus, a slight improvement from the previous State of the 
Bay report in 2014. This progress is due largely to the continued 
implementation of the

[[Page 10787]]

Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint. This improvement, though modest, was 
hard-won. It is the result of countless hours of grueling work by State 
and Federal public servants and nonprofit workers, as well as citizens' 
actions across the watershed. A grade of C-minus is hardly an 
acceptable endpoint. To reach an A, which would represent a saved and 
comprehensively healthy Bay, we will need redouble and accelerate our 
efforts. I am determined to pass on a vibrant and healthy Chesapeake 
Bay to the next generation, for the sake of public health and the local 
economies that depend on a clean and bountiful bay. This is all the 
more reason that we need to reauthorize the Chesapeake Bay Program and 
make sure that it is fully funded in this year's appropriations bill.
  Many Marylanders and national wildlife organizations are happy about 
the HELP for Wildlife Act. The Choose Clean Water Coalition and Blue 
Water Baltimore have issued statements of support. The Chesapeake Bay 
Foundation will testify in support of this bill next week in a 
legislative hearing the Environment and Public Works Committee is 
holding. The National Wildlife Federation's Collin O'Mara said the bill 
``represents a great bipartisan effort to conserve America's outdoor 
heritage for hunters, anglers, campers, hikers, and wildlife 
enthusiasts, while helping to restore America's wildlife populations.'' 
The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership said the bill is ``the 
strongest legislative package of sportsmen's priorities in years.''
  As S. 1514 moves out of the Environment and Public Works Committee 
and to the Senate floor in the coming weeks, I urge my colleagues to 
support this bill that is critical not only to the Chesapeake Bay and 
the State of Maryland, but to conservation efforts in every State 
across the Nation.

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