Sponsors (7)
The bill provides targeted, more generous and better‑tailored financial relief to ranchers harmed by Mexican gray wolves — improving short‑term economic stability and reporting — at the cost of higher taxpayer expenses, potential reduced incentives for preventive practices, and equity/timeliness risks for some producers.
Ranchers and livestock producers receive direct financial relief: full-market-value compensation for animals killed by Mexican gray wolves plus annual emergency payments to offset depredation, higher management costs, and lost productivity.
Payments are tailored to herd size, depredation rates, increased management costs, and birth-rate impacts, and the formula explicitly rewards reported prevention efforts—making relief more closely aligned with actual losses.
Requires annual reporting to House and Senate Agriculture Committees on amounts distributed and producers served, improving transparency and congressional oversight of relief spending.
Taxpayers face higher federal costs and potential budgetary trade-offs because payments can rise to 100% of market value and emergency relief may divert funds from other programs or increase overall spending.
By fully compensating losses, the program may reduce producers' incentives to adopt non‑lethal deterrence or preventive measures (moral hazard), undermining long‑term conflict reduction between livestock and wolves.
Tying payments to documented prevention practices risks penalizing small or resource‑limited producers who lack the capacity or knowledge to implement or document those measures, creating equity concerns.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Mandates 100% market-value indemnity for livestock killed by Mexican gray wolves and requires USDA to provide annual emergency relief under a new formula and reporting rules.
Introduced March 18, 2025 by Greg Stanton · Last progress March 18, 2025
Provides higher and faster financial relief for livestock producers harmed by Mexican gray wolf depredation. It requires indemnity payments for wolf attacks to be paid at 100% of the Secretary-determined market value and directs the Department of Agriculture to use available funds each year to make emergency relief payments under a new formula that the Secretary must create and report on.