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On June 15, Dr. Elizabeth Grey, CEO of the Nationwide Audubon Society, testified earlier than the U.S. Senate Committee on Surroundings and Public Works. The committee sought enter from stakeholders on 4 vital items of laws:
- The Coastal Habitat Conservation Act of 2021, which might authorize technical help for grant applications focused to habitat conservation to enhance coastal neighborhood and ecosystem safety;
- The Nice Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Reauthorization Act, which authorizes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to proceed to work with states and different businesses to develop and execute proposals to preserve, restore, and handle fish and wildlife populations and their habitats;
- The Delaware River Basin Conservation Reauthorization Act, which might reauthorize important conservation applications all through the Delaware River Watershed and enhance the equitably of federal funding supplied via the Act; and
- The Strengthening Coastal Communities Act of 2022, which might broaden the bipartisan Coastal Barrier Sources Act and its system of protected areas, defending important coastal ecosystems whereas saving federal tax {dollars}.
Within the listening to, Elizabeth Grey conveyed Audubon’s help for all 4 payments, with explicit emphasis on the Strengthening Coastal Communities Act, not but launched in Congress. This draft invoice would add over 277,000 acres of protected areas to the Coastal Barrier Sources System as beneficial by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in response to the harm brought on by Hurricane Sandy practically 10 years in the past. It will additionally broaden the definition of a “coastal barrier” to incorporate extra undeveloped areas like these on the Pacific Coast within the System sooner or later, and authorize a pilot venture so as to add marsh migration corridors to the System in order that wetlands can naturally “migrate” inland to maintain up with sea-level rise.
Dr. Grey instructed the committee:
“Coastal sources, reminiscent of wetlands, seashores, and barrier islands, present important companies. They function leisure areas, improve our resilience to local weather threats like floods and hurricanes, and supply habitat for birds and different wildlife. But local weather change and growth have diminished chicken habitats. The U.S. has misplaced 3 billion birds because the Seventies, with a 70-percent decline in sea- and shorebird populations over the past 50 years.
“Growing storms and hurricanes additionally threaten coastal communities. Hurricanes have killed practically 6,700 folks and triggered greater than $1.1 trillion in damages from 1980 to 2021. Nevertheless, the burdens of local weather change don’t have an effect on all communities equally. These on the frontlines of local weather change—primarily lower-income communities, communities of shade, and Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities—are being hit first and worst by its impacts.”
You’ll be able to learn Elizabeth Grey’s full testimony right here.
You’ll be able to watch your complete listening to, together with Elizabeth Grey’s testimony, beneath:
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