This information was provided by the Land Trust Alliance:

Last Thursday, Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) introduced the Rural Heritage Conservation Act, S. 812, a Senate bill to make permanent the enhanced tax deduction for conservation easement donations.

Senators Baucus and Grassley are the Chairman and Ranking Member, respectively, of the Senate Committee on Finance, which handles all tax legislation.  Having these leaders as champions gives this bill a big leg up from the start, but additional Senate co-sponsors are always helpful.  Click here for advice and facts you can use when asking your Senators to become co-sponsors of S. 812.

This new bill is similar to house bill H.R. 1831, which has an amazing 93 representatives as original co-sponsors.

(See more nature preserve news)

A Dozen Ways to Say Thank You

Thanking your elected officials when they do something right is an important step towards building a long-term relationship you can call on time and again.  If your Senators and Representatives are among the sponsors of these two important bills, please find a way to say thank you today!

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President Obama signed legislation today designating 2 million additional acres of public wilderness areas.  The federal “wilderness” designation provides the highest level of government protection from logging, mining and other forms of commercial use and development.

“This legislation guarantees that we will not take our forests, rivers, oceans … monuments, and wilderness areas for granted, but rather we will set them aside and guard their sanctity for everyone to share,” Obama said at a White House signing ceremony.  “That’s something all Americans can support.”

The 2009 Omnibus Public Land Management Act is a compilation of over 160 separate legislative proposals, extends across nine states.  It establishes 10 new National Heritage sites, creates 21 new wilderness areas, expands 19 existing wilderness areas in 10 national forests, and grows several national park boundaries.  One of the largest newly protected wilderness areas is 380,000 acres in the eastern Sierra Nevada and San Gabriel Mountains in California.  (More National Park News)

President Obama’s Speech

Following is President Obama’s speech, as provided by the White House:

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The U.S. House of Representatives rejected an amended omnibus package containing significant conservation projects and advancements.  This represents a major loss to the conservation movement in the United States. 

The bill would have established:

• More than 2 million acres of wilderness in nine states
• Three new national park units
• Three new national conservation areas
• Ten new national heritage areas
• A new national monument
• Four new national trails
• Enlarged boundaries for more than a dozen existing national parks
• More than 1,000 miles of national wild and scenic rivers

“This is the most important piece of conservation legislation we will likely consider this year and possibly in this entire Congress,” House Natural Resources Chairman Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) said on the House floor before the bill was rejected.

As usual, the Republicans were the major obstacle to the land conservation and killed the bill for procedural reasons.  There was also pressure by the National Rifle Association (NRA), which objected to items in the bill that would restrict hunting on some federal land.

Story at New York Times

From a memo by the Land Trust Alliance:

The nearly $800 billion federal stimulus package passed by Congress last month includes over $15 billion for federal natural resource agencies:

• $145 million to the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) for the purchase of easements on and restoration of flood-prone farmland.
• $230 million to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, $1 billion to the Bureau of Reclamation, $5 billion to the Corps of Engineers and another $195 million to NRCS, for watershed restoration, including projects like dam removal, wetlands restoration and fish ladders on private lands.
• $250 million to the U.S. Forest Service for cooperative projects to benefit state and private lands, primarily hazardous fuels reduction and post-fire restoration.
• $290 million to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, $905 million to the National Park Service, $320 million to the Bureau of Land Management and another $950 million to the Forest Service, all nominally for projects on federal lands, but if your organization has properties adjacent to federal lands, there could be opportunities for partnerships on projects like habitat restoration and trail building.
• At least 3% of the $27.5 billion in state transportation funding will go to Transportation Enhancement projects which can include acquisition of scenic or historic easements, trail building and environmental mitigation.
• At least 20% of EPA’s $6 billion in Safe Drinking Water Act funding will be available for unconventional water quality projects which have included land conservation in the past.