ACCESS Act
Latest action. subcommitteeA smaller panel inside a standing committee with jurisdiction over a slice of its subject matter. Most hearings and the first markup usually happen here.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) Hearings Held.
Authorizing Critical Conservation and Enabling Sportsmen and Sportswomen Act or the ACCESS Act
This bill reauthorizes, authorizes, and establishes entities and activities for the conservation of fish and wildlife and opportunities for hunting and recreational shooting.
The bill
authorizes the U.S. Geological Survey to conduct critical monitoring, scientific assessments, and research in support of the binational fisheries within the Great Lakes Basin between the United States and Canada,
facilitates the construction and expansion of public target ranges, and
requires the Departments of Agriculture and of the Interior to establish a fee schedule for commercial filming and still photography operations on federal land.
The bill reauthorizes through FY2024 the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Chesapeake Bay Program and the Chesapeake Bay Initiative.
The bill establishes the National Fish Habitat Board and the Wildlife and Hunting Heritage Conservation Council Advisory Committee on wildlife and habitat conservation, hunting, and recreational shooting.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service-Wildlife Services shall
allocate funds to support states and tribes in their efforts to implement management strategies to address chronic wasting disease, and
make grants to support the expansion and acceleration of applied research on such disease.
The bill requires a National Academy of Sciences study on the transmission of chronic wasting disease in any species within the family Cervidae (the deer family) in the United States.
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in House" stage on February 22, 2019. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on March 26, 2019: Subcommittee Hearings Held.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the House
- Passage by the Senate
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 116th Congress (2019-20), 344 of the 14,345 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 2.4 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
MIKE THOMPSON (D-CA) introduced it on February 22, 2019, and 3 members have since signed on as cosponsors.
They are 3 Democrats.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on February 22, 2019, 2757 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 2725 days ago, on March 26, 2019.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 116th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2021 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- HouseIn committee, no floor vote yet
- SenateAwaits House passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers