California coastal monument to pass House Monday

July 22, 2013

The GOP-controlled House is expected to pass without controversy (on suspension) the California Coastal National Monument Expansion Act of 2013, a Democratic bill to add 1,255 acres near Mendocino to the marine monument. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, introduced the bill in the last Congress and it became the first bill introduced by his successor in the redrawn district, Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael.

The area is known as the Point Arena – Stornetta public lands, and will constitute the first addition of land to the marine monument, designated by former President Clinton in 2000, that runs the entire length of the California coast.

Huffman, Thompson and California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein in February had asked President Obama to use his authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act to add the area to the monument. The Senate has not yet acted but House passage should speed action there.

On Tuesday, the a panel of the House Committee on Natural Resources will hold a hearing on the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Conservation Area Act, H.R. 1025, introduced by Thompson in March. It would designate the 350,000 acre Berryessa Snow Mountain region as a National Conservation Area, creating permanent protection and unifying management.

Thompson is teaming with Pennsylvania Republican Jim Gerlach Tuesday to call for renewal of a tax deduction for landowners who agree not to develop their land. The two claim that the deduction boosted conserved acres by a third, to over a million acres a year, since 2006. The tax credit is scheduled to expire at the end of the year. The pair will introduce the Conservation Easement Incentive Act as part of an effort to overhaul the tax code now under way in the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees. A similar bill S. 526, has been introduced in the Senate. Neither Boxer nor Feinstein has signed on yet.

 

 


Source: By Carolyn Lochhead