Earl Hilliard on Environment Former Democratic Representative (AL-7)

Establish a grassland reserve program to conserve grassland.

Establishes a grassland reserve program for land that is or has historically been natural grass or shrubland and has significant potential for animal or plant restoration. Sets forth provisions respecting landowner easement payments and permitted and prohibited practices.

Congress finds the following:
1. Vast grassland once provided critical habitat for complex plant and animal communities throughout much of North America.
2. Today, grassland areas have been largely converted to other uses, threatening and eliminating plant and animal communities unique to North America.
3. A significant portion of the remaining grassland is on working ranches.
4. Ranchers have an economic interest in preserving the remaining grassland as forage for their livestock.
5. Many ranchers are also concerned about losing the open spaces and 'big sky' central to the ranching way of life.
6. Apart from the loss of grassland, ranches themselves have steadily disappeared through the years and are likely to disappear at a faster rate in the immediate decade as a generation of ranchers reach retirement age.
7. Ranch land provides important open-space buffers for animal and plant habitat.
8. Ranching forms the economic backbone for much of the rural area of the western United States.
9. Currently, there are no Federal programs that conserve grassland, ranch land, or other land with comparable high resource value, other than wetland, on a national scale.
10. A grassland reserve program would provide important economic assistance to ranchers and other agricultural producers who may be struggling financially and who may voluntarily decide that participating in the program would be to their advantage.