Let’s get a win for clean water and healthy trout and salmon populations
This month in Congress, we have a remarkable opportunity that doesn’t come along very often—a chance to advance a handful of issues that Trout Unlimited has worked on for more than a decade. Passing these priorities would put Americans back to work while also promising cleaner water, healthier rivers and rebounding trout and salmon fisheries.
Act Now: Contact Congress and Urge Passage of H.R.2What is it?
Taking a quick, but momentary step back: The Moving Forward Act, H.R. 2, which conveniently packaged all of these issues, recently cleared the House by a vote of 233-188. We have saved you the tedious work of reading its 2,309 pages about highways and rail systems and water projects and can tell you instead that there’s a lot of goodness for trout, salmon and those who love them.
TU is enthusiastically supported that important legislation, as Chris Wood outlined in his letter to House leaders.
However, while the bill passed the House, it is almost certainly dead-on-arrival in the Senate.
It passed the House with no chance in the Senate. What now?
While passing the package as a whole may not be feasible, continuing to pursue important pieces of it such as the Public Lands Renewable Energy Development Act or Good Samaritan Legislation is still within reach.
These pieces are critical to the work Trout Unlimited does on a daily basis and would go a long way in protecting, reconnecting and restoring rivers and streams you call home.
Passing even a handful of these would help our field crews continue their watershed-scale projects to restore streams and reconnect habitat. It would help our Western water policy team keep water in the streams when trout and salmon need it. It would bolster TU’s long and successful partnership with the Forest Service, and support our abandoned mine work from Colorado to Pennsylvania.
Which is why we need you: Fire up your computer and put on your advocacy hat. There’s work to do.
What we like in this bill:
1. Cleaner streams and better fish habitat, thanks to Clean Water Act programs, sport fisheries restoration, and Chesapeake and Great Lakes conservation, all of which see continued and increasing levels of funding.
2. Smarter drought policy the West, through new initiatives and investments in water infrastructure, water supply security, and watershed resiliency.
3. Healthier public lands, courtesy of the bipartisan Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act, which balances the protection of fish and wildlife habitat with the need for new energy sources; and the U.S. Forest Service Legacy Roads and Trails program, which helps maintain roads and reconnect streams on national forest lands.
4. New life for waters polluted by historic mining, with a 15-year extension of funding for abandoned mine cleanup work and new rules to make it simpler for “Good Samaritan” groups take on this work and make streams healthier and fishing better.
5. More connected rivers and streams, via financing to address flood and wildfire risks before the next natural disaster.
We won’t get something this rare and ambitious through Congress without your help, so please reach out to your Senators today and explain why the provisions in H.R. 2 matter to anglers and conservationists like you.
Act Now: Contact Congress and Urge Passage of H.R.2Resources
- Want to do more? Reach out to Kate Miller, TU’s Director of Government Affairs, at kate.miller@tu.org.
- See how TU gets its work done on the ground.