Contact SD Senators about Recovering America’s Wildlife Act

Recovering America’s wildlife Act would appropriate  almost 1.4 billion per year to states and tribes to spend on “at risk wildlife and plants”.

There are senate (S 2372) and house (HR 2773) bills that have both passed out of committee in 2022.  It passed the House. We don’t know when Senate floor votes will happen. The senate goes into recess  August 8th-Sept 6th.

This press release says RAWA passed House on June 14th, 2022 – https://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/wwf-statement-on-the-recovering-america-s-wildlife-act

As of 5/20/22 SD Representative Dusty Johnson was not committed to oppose or support.   – Dusty’s phone: 202-225-2801.  He voted against it. There were some republicans who supported the bill, but more republicans opposed it. Only 2 democrats (both from Connecticut) voted against it.

We have no suggested schedule yet for senate action, but our Senators (as of late May) had not committed to support or oppose, just express concerns about funding sources.  Rounds – he wanted a sunset clause. Senators:  Thune (202) 224-2321, Rounds (202) 224-5842

Here is a National Wildlife Federation Alert on this matter: https://affiliates.nwf.org/resources/recovering-toolkit/

Here is the National Audubon Society (NAS) on the matter: https://www.audubon.org/news/audubon-supports-us-house-bill-fund-wildlife-recovery

NAS’s on-line (pre-fab) comment letter on RAWA – https://act.audubon.org/a/rawa

The need for this bill was discussed at our 2022 Endangered Species Day Celebration by Eileen Dowd Stukel of SDGFP: https://vimeo.com/712389823    Her discussion starts at about 6:15 and runs for 55 minutes.

SDGFP Budget Information

https://gfp.sd.gov/budget/

Link to SD GFP Wildlife Action Plan (See appendix C for profiles of Species of Greatest Conservation Need):

https://gfp.sd.gov/wildlife-action-plan/

Link to SDGFP list of Threatened and Endangered Species

https://gfp.sd.gov/threatened-endangered/