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Week Ending December 16, 2005
S.1238 A bill to amend the Public Lands Corps Act of 1993 to provide for the conduct of projects that protect forests, and for other purposes.
BRIEF
The bill authorizes the Secretary of Interior to prioritize forest related projects and see them carried out by youth or conservation corps in the immediate region. The youth corps would have to have a substantial number of members who are economically, physically or educationally disadvantaged.
The corps would take on projects as simple as gathering scrub to prevent forest fires to communities to protecting water supplies and Federal land, and to protect watersheds and forest rangeland. Other projects might be to deal with impacts of insect or disease infestations and to promote recovery of threatened and endangered species to improve biological diversity or to enhance productivity and carbon sequestration.
Participating Corps members could use time served on the projects towards Federal hiring and non-competitive hiring if pursued within 120 days of completing service in the Corps.
Sponsor: Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
Vote: passed Senate by Unanimous Consent November 16, 2005. Passed House by voice vote December 19, 2005
Cost to the taxpayers: $15 million yearly is authorized. “CBO estimates that implementing the bill would cost $5 million in 2006 and $60 million over the 2006-2010 period.”
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MORE INFORMATION
The Public Lands Corps were established in 1993 (Pub. L. 103-82) to carry out a wide range of projects on public lands, including `any project for the conservation, restoration, construction or rehabilitation of natural cultural, historic, archaeological, recreational, or scenic resources' on public, Indian, or Hawaiian home lands. 16 U.S.C. Sec. 1722. With the exception of the National Park Service--which has used a portion of its fee-demonstration program revenues to support a wide-range of Public Lands Corps projects since 1998--no other Federal public land management agency has used the Public Lands Corps program. Other agencies have supported the Public Lands Corps program in concept, but defended their failures to implement the program by contending that they have insufficient financial resources to support Public Lands Corps projects.
With a focus on forest and watershed health and wildfire activity, there is interest in expanding the role that the Public Lands Corps play in public lands restoration particularly in the context of furthering the purposes of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003 (16 U.S.C. 6501 note). Experience also has demonstrated a need to make a number of technical and conforming improvements to the 1993 law. S. 1238 provides for a focus on these types of projects and would include a number of technical and clarifying improvements to the Public Lands Corps Act.
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