To direct the Secretary of the Interior to establish the Cooperative Landscape Conservation Program.

February 12, 2003

Mr. UDALL of Colorado introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Resources

To direct the Secretary of the Interior to establish the Cooperative Landscape Conservation Program.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Cooperative Landscape Conservation Act'.

SEC. 2. PURPOSE.

The purpose of this Act is to establish a program administered by the Secretary of the Interior to provide matching grants to certain eligible entities to facilitate the acquisition of permanent conservation easements on lands in order to conserve wildlife, fisheries, public recreation, open space, and other important conservation values where consistent with the continuation of traditional uses of those lands by private landowners.

SEC. 3. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COOPERATIVE LANDSCAPE PROTECTION PROGRAM.

(a) ESTABLISHMENT- The Secretary of the Interior shall establish and carry out a program, to be known as the Cooperative Landscape Conservation Program, under which the Secretary, subject to the availability of appropriations, shall provide grants to eligible entities to provide the Federal share of the cost of acquiring permanent conservation easements on private lands that provide important wildlife, fisheries, public recreation, open space, or other conservation benefits to the public, for the purpose of preventing the loss of those benefits due to development that is inconsistent with the traditional uses of the land.

(b) APPLICATION FOR EASEMENTS- To request a grant under this section, an eligible entity shall submit an application that--

(1) describes the property that will be subject to the easement and the conservation benefits that will result from acquiring the easement; and

(2) demonstrates how the traditional use of the property will be maintained.

(c) PRIORITY- In providing grants under this section, the Secretary shall give priority to grants to acquire easements that--

(1) are in areas where rapid population growth and increasing land values are creating development pressures that threaten traditional use of land and the ability to maintain open space; and

(2) in comparison to other easements for which grant applications are submitted under this section in the same year, will provide the greatest conservation benefit for wildlife, fish, natural resources, or open space while maintaining the traditional use of land.

(d) COST SHARING-

(1) FEDERAL SHARE- The Federal share of the cost of acquiring a conservation easement with a grant under this section may not exceed 50 percent of the total cost of acquiring the easement.

(2) IN-KIND CONTRIBUTIONS- Subject to such reasonable conditions as the Secretary may establish, the Secretary shall apply to the non-Federal share of the cost of such acquisition the value of any land, interest in land, good, or service applied to that acquisition.

(e) TITLE; ENFORCEMENT- Title to a conservation easement acquired with a grant under this section may be held and enforced only by an eligible entity.

(f) STATE CERTIFICATION- As a condition of the receipt by an eligible entity of a grant under subsection (a), the attorney general of the State in which the conservation easement is to be acquired using the grant funds must certify that the conservation easement to be acquired is in a form that is sufficient, under the laws of the State, to achieve the conservation purposes of the easement and the terms and conditions of the grant.

(g) TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE- The Secretary may not use more than 10 percent of the amount that is available for any fiscal year to carry out this Act to provide technical assistance to carry out this section.

(h) DEFINITIONS- In this section:

(1) ELIGIBLE ENTITY- The term `eligible entity' means--

(A) an agency of a State or local government;

(B) a federally recognized Indian tribe; or

(C) any organization that is organized for, and at all times since its formation has been operated principally for, one or more of the conservation purposes specified in clause (i), (ii), or (iii) of section 170(h)(4)(A) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 and--

(i) is described in section 501(c)(3) of the Code;

(ii) is exempt from taxation under section 501(a) of the Code; and

(iii)(I) is described in paragraph (2) of section 509(a) of the Code; or

(II) is described in paragraph (3) of such section, but is controlled by an organization described in paragraph (2) of such section.

(2) TRADITIONAL USE- The term `traditional use' means the uses of land that are in practice at the time of the submission of an application for a grant under this section.

SEC. 4. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

There is authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary of the Interior to carry out this Act $100,000,000 for each of the fiscal years 2004 through 2009.

END