{"bills":[{"photos":{"featured":"https://assets.causes.com/bill/photo/hr944-114/featured_to-reauthorize-the-national-estuary-program-and-for-other-purposes-1454547713.jpg","featured_large":"https://assets.causes.com/bill/photo/hr944-114/featured_large_to-reauthorize-the-national-estuary-program-and-for-other-purposes-1454547713.jpg","shareable":"https://n.causes.com/share-images/bills/hr944-114.png"},"introduced_on":"2015-02-12","title_override":"Should the Programs That Keep Estuaries Clean be Re-Funded?","summary_override":"

This bill seeks to promote the environmental wellness of estuaries by renewing their federal funding. Recap: estuaries (and nearby wetlands) are the bodies of water where rivers (fresh water) meet the sea (salt water).

First and foremost, this bill reauthorizes the National Estuary Program (NEP). A part of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the NEP is tasked with making sure that estuaries are clean and able to provide a safe environment for wildlife.

That’s not all. This bill also authorizes and encourages the NEP to promote a new grant program. Applicants competing for the grants would have to demonstrate that they’re tackling issues like:

The destruction of seagrass
Algae blooms
High mortality rates for marine mammals
Invasive species
Too many jellyfish
Flooding
Low levels of oxygen in estuary waters

To accomplish all of this, the bill allows the Administrator of the EPA to appropriate a cool $27 million for each year from 2016 to 2020. At least 80 percent of this money would have to go to developing and monitoring the programs for which states and regional governments could receive grant money. At least 15 percent would have to go to making the awards themselves.

","official_title":"To reauthorize the National Estuary Program, and for other purposes.","short_title":null,"popular_title":null,"short_summary":"(This measure has not been amended since it was introduced. The expanded summary of the House reported version is repeated here.)\n\nThis bill amends the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (commonly known as the Clean Water Act) to revise the National Estuary Program by requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to make competitive awards to address urgent and challenging issues that threaten the economic and ecological well-being of coastal areas, including:\n\n extensive seagrass habitat losses resulting in significant impacts on fisheries and water quality, recurring harmful algae blooms, unusual marine mammal mortalities, invasive exotic species that may threaten wastewater systems and cause other damage, jellyfish proliferation limiting community access to water during peak tourism seasons, flooding that may be related to sea level rise or wetland degradation or loss, and low dissolved oxygen conditions in estuarine waters and related nutrient management. The bill reauthorizes thro...","summarized":true,"cost":27000000,"cost_commentary":"This bill appropriates $27 million from 2016 to 2020. The CBO estimates that implementing it would take $116 million over the course of the same period. ","impact":"Estuaries, the flora and fauna that live in them, people that visit estuaries, surrounding bodies of water, the NEP, and the EPA. ","argument_for":"This bill provides critical funding to estuaries. Estuaries are home to a whole cornucopia of diverse flora and fauna. We must protect them. ","argument_against":"There are so many other more critical needs that the U.S. should be funding, before it even thinks about pouring money and resources into estuaries. 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Should the Programs That Keep Estuaries Clean be Re-Funded?