[OHIOBWG] Text of the “Recovering America’s Wildlife Act” — H.R. 2773 and S. 2372 — was left out of the $1.7 trillion fiscal 2023 spending bill unveiled late last night.

[Jo Thompson]

Bipartisan wildlife conservation bill left out ofomnibus

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Lawmakers included numerous natural resources bills inthe year-end spending package, but missed their chance this year to pass themost consequential wildlife legislation in half a century.

Text of the “Recovering America’s Wildlife Act” — H.R. 2773 and S. 2372 — was left out of the $1.7 trillion fiscal2023 spending bill unveiled late last night.

Its omission is a blow to a bipartisan group of senatorswho have spent the past several weeks in a flurry of negotiations to preparethe legislation for inclusion in the omnibus. It’s also a major disappointmentfor retiring Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who had sought to make passage of the billa part of his legacy.

“'The Recovering America's Wildlife Act,' which everyconservation group in America is supportive of, maybe we can add that to thelist of things I am going to consider a great accomplishment before we leavehere,” Blunt said in his farewell address to the Senate last week.

A small solace, said people close to the negotiations whowere granted anonymity to speak candidly, is that the stalemate had little todo with the policy contained within the bill. Indeed, that could set themeasure on course for advancement in the next Congress.

Instead, talks broke down over the details of the fundingoffset for the legislation, which would, as currently written, authorize nearly$13 billion over 10 years to go to states, territories and tribes for thepurposes of conserving, restoring and protecting local wildlife and habitat.

The original plan for the pay-for would have applied theso-called wash sale rule to digital assets — including cryptocurrency — butvarious senators negotiating the pay-for started demanding differentapplications of the rule, proposing that certain assets be classifieddifferently and arguing that specific categories should be exempt (E&E Daily, Dec. 1).

The wash sale rule prohibits an individual from sellingan investment for a loss and then replacing it with the same investment 30 daysbefore or after the sale. It's designed to prevent taxpayers from deductinglosses from taxable gains.

“There were a series of good-faith offers on the pay-for,and it just didn’t come together in time,” Collin O’Mara, president and CEO ofthe National Wildlife Federation that lobbied hard for the wildlife bill, toldE&E News last night. “This remains the most important wildlife legislationin 50 years, and we have to get it done one way or another.”

Most of the senators who negotiated "RAWA" willbe returning next year — excluding Blunt — so it’s not clear how thesedisagreements will resolve themselves to pave the way to a deal.

Public lands, conservation easements

Several dozen measures that passed the House NaturalResources Committee, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee andother panels over the past two years were up for inclusion, but the billsselected represent just a small handful.

The package did not include a controversial proposal fromSen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) — S. 2561 — that would free the Forest Service of acourt-imposed requirement to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service oncertain forest management plans when new potential risks to endangered speciesarise.

The omnibus would approve just under a dozen additions tothe National Park System, including an expansion of the Rosie the Riveter WorldWar II Home Front National Historic Park and the mandate that the InteriorDepartment create a Japanese American World War II History Network.

The bill would call for four NPS studies, including oneregarding the sites of historic lynching locations throughout Tennessee.

It would greenlight eight national memorial designations,among them the creation of a “healing garden memorial” at the site of thedeadly 2019 shooting in El Paso, Texas, and the authorization to establishcommemorative works to honor women who worked on the home front during WorldWar II.

The omnibus also included limitations on conservationeasement tax incentives. A bipartisan group of lawmakers has studied the issuefor years and the IRS recently announced rulemaking (Greenwire, Dec. 7).

Bill highlights

Selected measures included are:

·        H.R. 7283 and S. 3957, the "STEAM Act," which would allowstates to set aside 30 percent a year of what they receive from theinfrastructure bill's $11.3 billion coal mine reclamation fund to address acidmine drainage.

·        S. 3141 and H.R. 820, the "New Philadelphia National HistoricalPark," to establish the New Philadelphia National Historical Park inIllinois as a unit of the National Park System.

·        S. 3240 and H.R. 1021, to waive the application fee for special usepermits for veterans’ special events at National Park Service-managed warmemorials. 

·        S. 1222 and H.R. 2551, the "Bonneville Shoreline Trail AdvancementAct," to designate and adjust certain lands in Utah as components of theNational Wilderness Preservation System.

·        H.R. 5001 and S. 3693, the "Upper Colorado and San Juan River BasinsRecovery Act," to continue endangered fish recovery programs.

·        H.R. 9173 and S. 4579, to reauthorize the System Conservation PilotProgram aimed at shoring up water levels in lakes Mead and Powell.


 
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