Sponsors (2)
This resolution promotes stronger, culturally informed biodiversity conservation and federal coordination to protect ecosystem services and research capacity, but it may impose land-use limits, compliance costs, and fiscal burdens while requiring careful resourcing to avoid leaving Tribal and low-income communities behind.
Households, farmers, and communities that rely on natural systems would see protection of ecosystem services (pollination, water filtration, soil health), helping preserve agricultural productivity, drinking water quality, and recreation values.
Tribal and Indigenous communities would have their traditional ecological knowledge formally recognized and integrated into conservation actions, supporting culturally appropriate stewardship and decision-making.
State, local, and federal agencies would gain a national coordinating policy to improve collaboration and make conservation and species-protection efforts more effective and efficient on public lands.
Rural communities, landowners, and small businesses could face restrictions on land use (development or resource extraction) that reduce local jobs and incomes in affected areas.
Homeowners and small-business owners could incur higher compliance costs if expanded federal coordination leads to new regulations or program requirements.
Indigenous and low-income communities risk being acknowledged but under-resourced, limiting their ability to fully participate in or benefit from federal conservation initiatives.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Makes formal findings that human-driven biodiversity loss is a global crisis harming U.S. health, security, economy, and disproportionately affecting Indigenous, Tribal, low-income, and communities of color, and calls for coordinated U.S. leadership and action.
Introduced May 22, 2025 by Jeff Merkley · Last progress May 22, 2025
Declares that the world is facing a biodiversity crisis mainly caused by human activities and that this decline harms U.S. health, security, and economy. It notes disproportionate harm to Indigenous peoples, communities of color, low-income and Tribal communities, and lists lost benefits like pollination, water filtration, disease buffering, and recreational and medicinal resources. Finds that the United States is biologically rich but experiencing domestic declines, that federal coordination on conservation is lacking, and that the U.S. should lead internationally and work with states, tribes, local governments, private landowners, and NGOs to improve conservation outcomes based on scientific guidance.