Coastal Habitat Conservation Act of 2023

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York and thank my colleagues for understanding the importance of the Fish and Wildlife Service's Coastal Program and for supporting this legislation to, for the first time, authorize it in statute.

Coastal conservation is not just about protecting our environment. It is about supporting a thriving economy. However, we do face serious threats--climate change, pollution, unsustainable development, and other threats--to our coastal habitats, causing rapid deterioration of these critical resources.

I want to be very clear: This is not a local issue. Over 53 percent of the United States population lives near coastal watersheds. These areas are home to 45 percent of federally listed threatened and endangered species. Over 60 million American jobs depend on the health of our coasts.

These coastal habitats are complex, dynamic, and they don't always fit neatly within the boundaries that often guide our conservation work. The Service's Coastal Program recognizes this, and it allows for management flexibility by providing technical and financial assistance for coastal land acquisitions. This helps the Service strategically conserve coastal habitat beyond the confines of the National Wildlife Refuge System.

The Coastal Program has a great record of success. Since its inception in Chesapeake Bay in 1985, the program has expanded to 23 other priority coastal areas along the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and in the Gulf of Mexico, Great Lakes, and the Caribbean, including wetlands, estuaries, beaches, and mangrove forests.

Within these areas, the Service facilitates a voluntary, partnership- based relationship with coastal communities to conserve and restore coastal ecosystems and benefit fish, wildlife, and people alike.

While the Coastal Program is designed to help conserve and recover priority habitat in coastal areas, it can only be effective with adequate resources. That is why the Coastal Habitat Conservation Act of 2023 provides statutory authority to the program by authorizing $16.9 million annually over the next 5 fiscal years.

I am pleased that we are here supporting efforts to bring together people and private partners to voluntarily protect and improve coastal habitats. This is an approach that helps strike a balance between working landscapes and habitat conservation in our coastal communities.

With this bipartisan bill, we can ensure that this great program will continue to drive locally led conservation projects across coastal States and territories, preserving the health and resilience of coastal habitats to benefit the wildlife communities and economies that depend on them for generations to come.

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