Sponsors (10)
The bill boosts federal funding, research capacity, and climate‑resilience actions for coastal and estuarine areas—especially benefiting Reserves, researchers, and disadvantaged coastal communities—while adding eligibility rules, valuation criteria, and administrative processes that may exclude some small groups, slow project responsiveness, and shift how limited funds are allocated.
State governments, National Estuarine Research Reserves, qualified NGOs, and coastal communities will receive expanded and extended grant authority plus an authorized $47M/year (FY2025–2029) to protect, restore, and acquire coastal and estuarine lands, increasing funding for habitat conservation and local resilience projects.
Coastal communities (including rural and urban shorelines) will get priority support for projects addressing climate-change threats—like carbon storage and storm-surge buffering—improving resilience to sea-level rise and extreme storms.
Low-income, disadvantaged, and underserved communities will be prioritized for restoration, access, and benefit-focused projects, increasing the likelihood that investments reach communities with greater need.
Smaller or unaffiliated nonprofits and some NGO applicants may be excluded or disadvantaged because new rules require state written support, deed transfer provisions, and objective compliance measures, adding application barriers and administrative burdens that could delay or block access to acquisition grants.
Coastal communities and state partners could face slower responses to urgent threats because the bill makes identification of priority projects more discretionary and shifts reviews to once every five years.
National Estuarine Research Reserves and Reserve-focused conservation may lose focus and resources when acquisition funds can be used for non‑Reserve acquisitions if no Reserve benefits exist, potentially diverting limited funds away from Reserve-related conservation.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Expands coastal resilience programs, updates grant priorities and NGO eligibility, requires five new estuarine reserves, and authorizes research/fellowship funding and centralized monitoring.
Introduced April 9, 2025 by Mike Levin · Last progress April 9, 2025
Creates a strengthened Coastal and Estuarine Resilience and Restoration Program and expands the National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) System. It broadens eligible partners (including eligible NGOs and NERRs), updates program priorities to emphasize climate threats, carbon storage, and benefits to disadvantaged communities, requires ecosystem-service valuation in property assessments, and sets objective compliance measures for NGO grantees. Directs NOAA to add at least five new NERR sites (start designations within 5 years, complete within 8), to standardize and centralize long-term monitoring and data across the System, and to fund collaborative research, fellowships, and place-based program elements at reserves with authorized grant funding for 2025–2029.