Sponsors
Introduced June 18, 2025 by Jeff Merkley · Last progress June 18, 2025
The resolution raises awareness of pollinator declines and supports actions that can protect crops, biodiversity, and public health, but doing so could impose costs on some farmers and landowners and shift limited conservation funding away from other priorities.
Farmers and consumers benefit because recognizing pollinators' role supports actions to protect pollination services that sustain crops generating about $18 billion annually, helping reduce crop losses and stabilize farm incomes and food supplies.
Rural communities and local ecosystems benefit because protecting pollinators helps preserve biodiversity and key ecosystem services (clean air, water, soil) that support public health and long-term environmental quality.
State and local governments, and agricultural stakeholders, may gain from increased attention leading to more conservation research and targeted funding to restore pollinator populations and pollination services.
Homeowners and some landowners could face new limits on development or agricultural practices if findings spur land-use restrictions to protect pollinator habitat, constraining property use.
Farmers and small agricultural businesses may incur higher compliance costs if conservation measures inspired by the findings lead to new regulations or required practices.
State or federal conservation funding could be reallocated toward pollinator programs, potentially diverting limited resources from other local or regional priorities.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Recognizes that native pollinators — including bees, butterflies and moths, birds, bats, and beetles — are essential to U.S. agriculture, biodiversity, and ecosystem health and records widespread and severe population declines that threaten crop production and ecological systems. The resolution lists economic estimates and species-specific decline data (including large declines in monarch butterflies and bumble bees) as the factual basis for expressing concern and drawing attention to the issue. This is a non-binding, declarative resolution that states findings about pollinator importance and declines; it does not create new programs, funding, or regulatory requirements but may guide awareness, policy discussions, and future legislative or agency actions.