Recovering America’s Wildlife Act passes the U.S. House

[Laura Bies]

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The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to pass the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, a landmark piece of legislation that would provide permanent, reliable funding to states and tribes to assist in their efforts to conserve, restore, and protect wildlife and habitat.

RAWA would amend the Pittman-Robertson Act and provide an additional $1.3 billion per year for states and territories and $97.5 million per year for tribes, allowing them to implement state and tribal wildlife action plans which designed to conserve over 12,000 species of the greatest conservation need.  Currently, Pittman-Robertson program collects about $1 billion a year from excise taxes on sporting goods and related products and distributes it to states. That funding mechanism would remain unchanged by RAWA.

A companion bill, which differs somewhat in the funding mechanism, was moved forward by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in April and now awaits a vote on the Senate floor.

If passed into law, the Recovering America's Wildlife Act would provide permanent, dedicated funding to state and tribal agencies to proactively conserve at-risk species for the first time in U.S. history. Learn more about RAWA from The Wildlife Society or the National Wildlife Federation. 

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