Sponsors (6)
The bill expands and funds wildlife crossing projects—particularly benefitting tribal communities and improving multi-year project predictability—while increasing federal spending and creating small administrative set-asides and management flexibilities that reduce available construction dollars and long-term fiscal/oversight constraints.
Tribal nations and residents on tribal lands can receive up to 100% federal funding for wildlife crossing projects, removing local cost barriers and making previously unaffordable projects feasible.
Rural communities and local governments gain multi-year, dedicated funding for wildlife crossings (FY2026–2031), improving predictability for planning, design, and construction of projects.
Tribal entities benefit from a set-aside for technical assistance (up to 0.5%), which should increase application success and speed project delivery.
Taxpayers face increased federal spending from multi-year authorizations, which could raise the deficit or displace funding for other priorities if not offset.
Local and state governments (and stakeholders) may come to expect continued federal support after the authorization period, creating ongoing programmatic commitments that could be difficult to sustain.
Taxpayers and congressional oversight could be weakened because unobligated balances are made available until expended, reducing annual Congressional control over outlays.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Makes the wildlife crossings program permanent, authorizes annual funding for FY2026–2031, and adds tribal 100% cost-share and small set-asides for tribal assistance and program administration.
Authorizes annual funding for a federal wildlife road crossings program for fiscal years 2026–2031 (amount shown in text as $00,000,000 per year) and converts the existing pilot into a permanent program. It creates a 100% federal cost share option for eligible tribal applicants, allows small set-asides for tribal technical assistance (up to 0.5% of authorized funds) and for grant administration (up to 0.5%), and makes unobligated balances available until expended while updating related statutory headings and the table of contents.
Introduced November 18, 2025 by Donald Sternoff Beyer · Last progress November 18, 2025