Bipartisan bill could provide money to help imperiled wildlife

Sen. Heinrich, who is championing the measure, says it would hopefully prevent species from becoming endangered

The lesser prairie chicken could be put on the threatened list for the second time in eight years, and a U.S. senator from New Mexico thinks the bird is a prime example of a species whose severe decline could’ve been avoided if there had been money to intervene sooner.

Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich believes a bipartisan bill he and Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., are co-sponsoring would help a broad array of imperiled wildlife rebound before they approach the brink of extinction, when it becomes more costly and arduous to save them.

Earlier this year, the senators introduced the bill, Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, that each year would funnel $1.3 billion to states and $97.5 million to tribes for that purpose.

New Mexico would get $28 million yearly, which the state Game and Fish Department would administer for projects to aid the 235 species it determined have “the greatest conservation need.” Many are not yet listed as endangered or threatened by the federal government but are at risk of requiring federal protection. Heinrich described the bill as a preventive measure. “This is funding you can use to get wildlife on a positive track and head off an endangered species listing,” Heinrich said in an interview last week. “Because by the time you get to being listed as threatened or endangered, oftentimes you’re so far down the track that it’s hard to get those species back to really robust numbers.”

More broadly, the bill would fund recovery efforts for 12,000 types of wildlife and plants deemed to have the greatest conservation need across the country, as well as 1,600 already listed as threatened or endangered.

This would be the largest federal funding for species recovery in a generation and maybe a half a century, Heinrich said.

It would be a hefty gain for New Mexico, which now receives only about 5 percent of the money needed to carry out its wildlife action plan, he said.

The money would come from environmental fees and penalties. States would be required to chip in 25 percent in matching funds.

Heinrich said the bill stands a good chance of passing in 2022, an election year, because it’s the kind of conservation measure that draws bipartisan support, similar to the Great American Outdoors Act in 2020.

Including Blunt, the bill has gained 32 co-sponsors,