NPCC News: Botany Bill reintroduced for current congress
March 19, 2019
On March 6th, 2019 Representative Quigley (D-IL) and co-sponsor Representative Rooney (R-FL) reintroduced the “Botany Bill” in the House of Representatives (full name: The Botanical Sciences and Native Plant Materials Research, Restoration, and Promotion Act). The bill is H.R. 1572. The bill currently has 26 co-sponsors.
The bill is similar to the version from the 115th Congress. It supports:
- plant research
- the placement of botanists in the land management agencies, the plant conservation programs, the plant conservation alliance, and NFWF grants for plant-related projects.
Note: The creation of a native plant “preference policy” for federal land restoration has been slightly modified from the previous version of the bill -- under the new bill, the Departments of Interior and Agriculture will create a policy and disseminate it to other agencies. This modification dramatically cuts the number of committees required to review the bill and improves chances for action.
The Botany Bill needs your help!
We need to get as many members of the House as possible to cosponsor this bill. You can help by reaching out to your representatives and letting them know that you support the bill and ask them to cosponsor (sign on) to the bill. You can do this by emailing or calling your representative (check their official website for contact information) although an in-person visit to their local or DC office would be even better. There are many resources to help you navigate this process on the the website: botanybill.weebly.com.
We need as many NPCC affiliate organizations as possible from around the country to endorse the bill. Currently, numerous plant societies, public gardens, conservation groups and associations are formally endorsing. Please pursue this inside your organization and let us know if your name can be added as an endorsing organization.
**If your organization endorsed the previous Botany Bill (H.R. 1054; S.3240), let us know if you are no longer interested in endorsing the current version. If we don’t hear from you, we’ll assume you wish to remain an endorser.**
We need to grow the network of individuals who know about and will push for this legislation. Please take a minute to forward this email to like-minded friends, colleagues and professional acquaintances and visit the Botany Bill website for more information & helpful resources!!
