Defenders' Experts
Guide to Congress for Transportation and Conservation Planning
Our legislature may seem far removed from habitat or highways, but in fact, they are intimately involved in both. It is here that our lawmakers decide on the level of protection we afford our wildlife, as well as the nation's transportation priorities.
The balance between the two has historically tipped toward transportation. As a result, we have 4 million miles of highway and over 1,200 species on the threatened/endangered list.
The following is a guide to those committees which have jurisdiction over wildlife conservation, transportation, or both.
SENATE
Committee on Environment and Public Works
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
HOUSE
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee on Natural Resources
- Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development
- Subcommittee on Interior and Environment
Committee on Environment and Public Works
JURISDICTION
- Endangered species
- Fish and wildlife refuges and programs
- Development of the Nation's interstate highway system
- Protection of the environment
- Air and water pollution control
- Flood control and navigation projects
- Rural and community economic development
- Relief from natural disasters
- Regulation of nonmilitary nuclear power
- Oversight of new Federal building construction
OVERSIGHT
- Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service
- Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration
- Coast Guard
- Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service
- Environmental Protection Agency
- GSA's Public Buildings Service
- Council on Environmental Quality
- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, civil works program
- Tennessee Valley Authority
- Appalachian Regional Commission, Mississippi River Commission
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission
- Federal Emergency Management Agency
- John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, non-performing functions
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
JURISDICTION
- Coast Guard
- Coastal zone management
- Communications
- Highway safety
- Inland waterways, except construction
- Interstate commerce
- Marine and ocean navigation, safety, and transportation, including navigational aspects of deepwater ports
- Marine fisheries
- Merchant marine and navigation
- Nonmilitary aeronautical and space sciences
- Oceans, weather, and atmospheric activities
- Panama Canal and interoceanic canals generally
- Regulation of consumer products and services, including testing related to toxic substances, other than pesticides, and except for credit, financial services, and housing
- Regulation of interstate common carriers, including railroads, buses, trucks, vessels, pipelines, and civil aviation
- Science, engineering, and technology research and development and policy
- Sports
- Standards and measurement
- Transportation
- Transportation and commerce aspects of Outer Continental Shelf lands
Appropriations
"No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time."
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
JURISDICTION
- Coast Guard
- Federal management of emergencies and natural disasters
- Flood control and improvement of rivers and harbors
- Inland waterways
- Navigation and laws relating thereto, including pilotage
- Registering and licensing of vessels and small boats
- Rules and international arrangements to prevent collisions at sea
- The Capitol Building and the Senate and House Office Buildings
- Construction or maintenance of roads and post roads
- Maintenance of the Botanic Garden, Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution
- Merchant marine, vessels
- Purchase, construction of Government buildings within the District of Columbia
- Pollution of navigable waters, including inland, coastal, and ocean waters
- Public buildings and occupied or improved grounds of the United States generally.
- Public works for the benefit of navigation, including bridges and dams
- Related transportation regulatory agencies
- Roads and the safety thereof
- Transportation, including civil aviation, railroads, water transportation, transportation safety (except automobile safety), transportation infrastructure, transportation labor, and railroad retirement and unemployment
- Water power
Committee on Natural Resources
JURISDICTION
- Fisheries and wildlife, including research, restoration, refuges, and conservation
- Forest reserves and national parks
- Forfeiture of land grants and alien ownership
- International fishing agreements
- Interstate compacts relating to apportionment of waters for irrigation purposes
- Irrigation and reclamation
- Insular possessions of the United States
- Military parks and battlefields, national cemeteries administered by the Secretary of the Interior, parks within the District of Columbia, and the erection of monuments to the memory of individuals
- Mineral resources, claims, laws
- Mining interests, schools and experimental stations
- Marine affairs, including coastal zone management
- Oceanography
- Petroleum conservation on public lands and conservation of the radium supply in the United States
- Preservation of prehistoric ruins and objects of interest on the public domain
- Public lands generally, including entry, easements, and grazing thereon
- Relations of the United States with Native Americans and Native American tribes
- Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline
- Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development
- Subcommittee on Interior and Environment
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