Sec. 204. Eradication of invasive grasses
871 words·~4 min read·
/bill/118/s/2991/is/section-204A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
In this section: The term action plan means the action plan developed under subsection (b). The term Federal land means— National Forest System land, except— the national grasslands and land utilization projects administered under title III of the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act ( 7 U.S.C. 1010 et seq. ); and National Forest System land east of the 100th meridian; and land under the jurisdiction of the Secretary. The term invasive grass means— cheatgrass; ventenata; medusahead; and any additional invasive, nonnative annual grass species that the Secretaries determine pose a risk by— increasing fire vulnerability and fire spread; and altering fire regimes.
The term target treatment area means a target treatment area described in subsection (b)(2)(D). The Secretaries shall jointly develop and implement an action plan to map, treat, and control invasive grass— to promote the resiliency, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration capacity of forests, rangelands, and grasslands; to minimize risks from wildfire; and to enhance the quality of forage for wildlife and livestock. The action plan shall— consider or incorporate existing efforts; take into account— the latest science; best practices; and available deployment tools; be prepared in coordination with State and local governmental entities and the heads of other Federal agencies, including the Chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, that are engaged in activities to control invasive grass to leverage and maximize funding and resources; identify and depict on a map target treatment areas that focus on— areas with a large quantity of invasive grass where revegetation with native species is most likely to succeed; areas at high risk of wildfire; areas in which invasive grass negatively impacts livestock grazing or other uses; wildlife habitat and forage needs, particularly sagebrush habitat; areas prone to infestations; or areas deemed important by the Secretaries; establish— specific goals; specific implementation actions that the Secretaries and partners of the Secretaries will conduct over a 5-year period; and targets, including acres to be treated annually in the target treatment areas; provide for a combination of treatment methods for the most effective control of an invasive grass, including— mechanical treatment methods; cultural treatment methods; biological treatment methods, which may include livestock grazing; prescribed fire; or chemical treatment methods; identify and implement, to the extent practicable, best practices, such as the use of spray washing stations, to reduce the spreading of invasive grass seed adjacent to infested areas or into noninfested areas; identify methods and tools for the post-treatment monitoring of target treatment areas to determine the effectiveness of a treatment and control efforts; initiate and expedite environmental reviews for treatments, as required by applicable law, including identifying— methods for achieving timely decisions and implementation for treatments, monitoring, and follow-up treatments based on monitoring; and maximizing opportunities to cooperate with other Federal and State agencies in analysis, assessments, and studies; and establish guidelines that— if native, intact grasses are absent within a target treatment area and the target treatment area is prone to high-risk vectors or pathways— identify geographically based desirable, native seed mix and seed reserves; prioritize reseeding the area in the target treatment area; and monitor for the presence of new invasive grass and promptly treat any invasive grass present; and if, after conducting a treatment, desirable native grasses are established and dominant in a target treatment area, provide for the natural restoration of native grasses.
Not later than 270 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretaries shall finalize the action plan. Not later than 60 days after the date on which the action plan is finalized under paragraph (3), the Secretaries shall begin implementing the action plan. In implementing the action plan, the Secretary concerned may enter into a memorandum of understanding or an agreement with non-Federal entities, as appropriate, to carry out activities under the action plan to control the spread of an invasive grass on Federal land or land adjacent to Federal land.
The Secretary concerned shall, to the extent practicable, offer to assist in the preparation of environmental reviews that may be necessary in implementing treatment and control activities on non-Federal land. Not later than 3 years after the date of enactment of this Act, and annually thereafter during the period in which the action plan is being implemented, the Secretaries shall submit to Congress a report assessing the effectiveness of the action plan that includes a description of— the location of the target treatment areas; the number of acres within target treatment areas on which treatments were conducted; the agreements or partnerships entered into under subsection (b)(4)(B) to advance the implementation of the action plan; monitoring information described in subsection (b)(2)(H); and recommendations for studies to explore innovative methods and practices to treat and control invasive grass.
The Secretary concerned may accept non-Federal funds to implement any provision of this section. In addition to any funding received under paragraph (1), the Secretaries may expend to carry out this section up to $30,000,000 of any funding made available to the Secretary concerned for invasive species control, including funding provided under section 40804(b)(6) of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act ( 16 U.S.C. 6592a(b)(6) ). Of the amounts made available to carry out this section, not more than 10 percent shall be used for development of the action plan.
Connectionstraces to 2
Traces to 2 documents
Citation graph
cites case law
Cites 2Cited by 0 across 0 sources