Environmental Policy Activities 2020

Article by Carol Foss

Photo: New Hampshire State House by Rebecca Suomala.

NH Audubon’s Environmental Policy Committee got off to a strong start with the Legislature prior to the March shut-downs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Committee members provided testimony on six bills, none of which became law, as detailed in Table 1 (see Table 1 at bottom of page). In addition, we signed in for 22 bills without submitting testimony, listed in Table 2 (see Table 2 at bottom of page). Full text and docket details for these bills are available through the New Hampshire General Court website http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/. The pandemic severely limited the work of the Legislature in this session. A number of bills were passed by the chamber of origin but tabled after crossover as the legislature focused primarily on issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the Federal level, we provided comments on the draft Environmental Impact Statement for regulations governing the take of migratory birds and on a proposed rule regarding listing of threatened and endangered species and designating critical habitat. Environmental Policy Committee member Nisa Marks tackled the extensive proposed changes to regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act, many of which were inconsistent with the stated goals of the rule revision. Her 45 (!) pages of specific comments represent many hours of work! We signed on to letters supporting adoption of Ecological Reference Points for managing Atlantic menhaden (an important prey species for marine birds and mammals), supporting the Migratory Bird Protection Act, supporting funding for recovery of the North Atlantic right whale, opposing the Endangered Species Act Amendments of 2020 and urging withdrawal of two proposed rules related to habitat designation under the Act, each of which would have weakened protections for federally listed threatened and endangered species. We also continued to attend meetings and review documents pertaining to the relicensing of the Errol Dam, which regulates water levels in Lake Umbagog and lower reaches of the Magalloway River.

We have been working to support passage of the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act since its first introduction in 2016. This legislation would make federal funding available for state conservation and restoration programs for fish and wildlife species of greatest conservation concern. The House Natural Resources Committee passed an amended version of H.R.3742, the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act of 2019, out of committee in December 2019. This year, the House adopted the bill as a floor amendment to the Moving Forward Act (the House infrastructure package), which passed the House on July 1. This legislation was received in the Senate on July 20, and awaits action there. The Recovering America’s Wildlife Act would make a huge difference in New Hampshire by supporting efforts to conserve declining species identified in the Wildlife Action Plan for which no funding is currently available.

We gratefully acknowledge financial support of NH Audubon’s policy work from Paul Nickerson, Larry Sunderland, and Margaret Watkins.

Table 1. NH Audubon provided testimony on these bills. “Inexpedient to Legislate” means that the bill was “killed” and went no further in the legislative process; “Interim Study” ended consideration of the bill in the 2020 session. All tabled bills died at the end of the session.

Table 2. NH Audubon registered a position on these bills but did not provide testimony. “Inexpedient to Legislate” means that the bill was “killed” and went no further in the legislative process; “Interim Study” ended consideration of the bill in the 2020 session. All tabled bills died at the end of the session.