H.R. 2560 would direct the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to award grants to rescue and rehabilitate stranded marine turtles. Under the bill, entities could receive up to $150,000 per grant to support marine turtle rescue and recovery, data collection, and research; as well as operating costs for facilities devoted to the research and rehabilitation of marine turtles. H.R. 2560 also would require NOAA to designate regions where turtle strandings tend to occur and equitably distribute grants across those regions. In 2023, NOAA allocated about $1 million for sea turtle stranding response and rehabilitation activities.
Using information from the agency, CBO expects that NOAA would need one full-time employee to administer the program at a cost of about $100,000 and would begin awarding grants in 2025. Additionally, CBO expects that each year about 50 organizations would receive grants of about $100,000, on average, under the program. On that basis and accounting for anticipated inflation, CBO estimates that NOAA would need about $5 million a year to administer the program over the 2024-2028 period, though outlays each year would be less than that amount because it would take time to disburse all of the grants.
