S. 843, Sea Turtle Rescue Assistance and Rehabilitation Act of 2025

S. 843 would authorize the appropriation of $5 million annually for fiscal years 2025 through 2030 for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for grants to rescue and rehabilitate stranded marine turtles. Those grants would support marine turtle rescue and recovery, data collection, research, and the operating costs for research and rehabilitation facilities. In 2024, NOAA allocated $3 million for those activities.

S. 843 also would authorize the appropriation of $500,000 annually for fiscal years 2025 through 2030 for each of two trust funds that are credited with interest on unspent balances. Under current law, the Joseph R. Geraci Marine Mammal Rescue and Rapid Response Fund is authorized to be appropriated $500,000 annually through 2028. Therefore, CBO estimates the bill would authorize the appropriation of a total of $4 million over the 2025-2030 period for the two funds.

The costs of the legislation, detailed in Table 1, fall within budget function 300 (natural resources and environment).

CBO assumes that S. 843 will be enacted in fiscal year 2025 and that the authorized amounts will be available in each year. Using historical spending patterns, CBO estimates that implementing S. 843 would cost $31 million over the 2025-2030 period and $3 million after 2030, assuming appropriation of the authorized amounts.

Enacting the bill would increase direct spending because any interest credited to the trust funds would be available without further appropriation. Based on the projection of interest rates that underlie CBO’s baseline, CBO estimates that the amount of interest credited to the funds and subsequently spent would be less than $500,000 in every year and over the 2025-2035 period.

The CBO staff contacts for this estimate are Johnny Willing and Aurora Swanson. The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, Deputy Director of Budget Analysis.