ACCESS Act

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.