Weekly Legislative Activities Report

The Office of Legislative and Congressional Affairs puts out weekly reports on hearings, new legislation and other activities on the Hill. The following is the March 20th summary.  

In order to obtain the full text of any of the bills that appear below, click on the following link: http://thomas.loc.gov/ . That will take you to Thomas, the Library of Congress legislative tracking system. Enter the bill number in the “Search Bill Text” block, being sure to also click on the “Bill Number” option below the block.

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New Public Laws

No new laws.

Floor Action

On March 19th, the Senate passed H.R. 146 (Holt), the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Battlefield Protection Act, with an amendment that substituted the text of S. 22, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, as amended.   Several amendments offered by Sen. Coburn (R-OK) were defeated, but an amendment to protect scientists and visitors to public lands from forfeiture penalties for casual collecting was adopted.  The bill passed by a vote of 77 – 20.  It will go back to the House for further consideration.

Hearings

On March 18th, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee (Bingaman) approved the nomination of David Hayes to be Deputy Secretary of the Interior.

On March 19th, the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands (Grijalva) held an oversight hearing on “Restoring the Federal Public Lands Workforce”.  The witness for the Department was Daniel N. Wenk, Acting Director, NPS.

New Bills Introduced

The following seven bills of interest to the NPS were introduced:

• H.R. 1520 (Kind, D-WI) - To improve Federal land management, resource conservation, environmental protection, and use of Federal real property, by requiring the Secretary of the Interior to develop a multipurpose cadastre of Federal real property and identifying inaccurate, duplicate, and out-of-date Federal land inventories.
• H.R. 1559 (Diaz-Balart, R-FL) -To provide for the resolution of several land ownership and related issues with respect to parcels of land located within the Everglades National Park.
• H.R. 1574 (Visclosky, D-IN) -To amend the Act titled "An Act to provide for the establishment of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, and for other purposes" to allow the acquisition of lands by payment of delinquent taxes.
• S. 625 (Cornyn, R-TX) - A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to establish the Waco Mammoth National Monument in the State of Texas.
• S. 626 (Landrieu, D-LA) - A bill to direct the Secretary of the Interior to study the suitability and feasibility of designating sites in the Lower Mississippi River Area in the State of Louisiana as a unit of the National Park System.
• H.R. 1612 (Grijalva, D-AZ) - To amend the Public Lands Corps Act of 1993 to expand the authorization of the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Interior to provide service-learning opportunities on public lands, help restore the nation's natural, cultural, historic, archaeological, recreational, and scenic resources, train a new generation of public land managers and enthusiasts, and promote the value of public service.
• H.R. 1641 (Inslee, D-WA) - To amend the National Trails System Act to provide for a study of the Cascadia Marine Trail.