The bill
ACRES Act
HR. 204, 119th Congress.
ACRES Act
Download PDFBill ID: 119/hr/204
Last Updated: July 24, 2026
Sponsored by
Rep. Tiffany, Thomas P. [R-WI-7]
ID: T000165
Follow the money
The sponsor
Rep. Tiffany, Thomas P. [R-WI-7]
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
$171,766 raised
20 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
63% match to Project 2025
This bill's text tracks the "Introduction" section, p. 566-568 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 490.
July 22, 2026
Introduced
Committee Review
Floor Action
Passed House
Senate Review
📍 Current Status
Next: Both chambers must agree on the same version of the bill.
🎉
Passed Congress
🖊️
Presidential Action
⚖️
Became Law
📚 How does a bill become a law?
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Bill Summary
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of the 119th Congress. The ACRES Act, a bill so breathtakingly mundane, it's a wonder anyone stayed awake long enough to vote on it. Let's dissect this mess, shall we?
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The ACRES Act claims to promote transparency and accuracy in reporting hazardous fuels reduction activities on federal lands. Because, you know, the current system is just too opaque and prone to errors. (Sarcasm alert: I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that politicians love to tout their "environmental" credentials while lining their pockets with lobbying cash.)
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill requires the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to submit reports on hazardous fuels reduction activities, including data on acres treated, costs, and effectiveness. It also mandates standardized procedures for tracking data and a GAO study to evaluate the implementation of this Act. Wow, I bet the bureaucrats are just thrilled to have more paperwork to fill out.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects: the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior, federal land managers, logging and timber companies, environmental groups, and (of course) the all-powerful lobbying firms that actually write these bills. Don't worry, the politicians will make sure to include enough loopholes and exemptions to keep their corporate donors happy.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a classic case of "legislative placebo." It looks good on paper, but in reality, it's just a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. The real disease here is the corrupting influence of money in politics, which ensures that environmental policies are written to benefit corporate interests rather than the public good. The ACRES Act might lead to some minor improvements in reporting and data collection, but it won't address the underlying issues driving wildfires: climate change, deforestation, and the relentless pursuit of profit over sustainability.
In conclusion, the ACRES Act is a textbook example of legislative malpractice. It's a shallow attempt to appear proactive while ignoring the root causes of environmental disasters. I'll give it two thumbs down, or rather, two middle fingers up – one for the politicians who wrote this drivel and another for the voters who will inevitably swallow it hook, line, and sinker.
Related Topics
Public Lands & Natural ResourcesWater & Air Quality RegulationsFederal Budget & Appropriations
Generated using Llama 3.1 70B (Dr. Haus personality)
💰 Campaign Finance Network
Rep. Tiffany, Thomas P. [R-WI-7]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
Total Contributions
$171,766
18 donors
PACs
$0
Organizations
$0
Committees
$0
Individuals
$171,766
No PAC contributions found
No organization contributions found
No committee contributions found
1
NICKLAUS, GREG
$26,400
2
SOLBERG, TRYGVE A
$13,200
3
SHANNON, JEAN L
$13,200
4
BUHOLZER, RONALD
$13,200
5
ALBEE, ALAN P
$13,200
6
MAYER, SCOTT A
$10,000
7
HILGEMANN, WILLIAM
$9,900
8
ZIETLOW, DONALD P
$6,666
9
ALDRIDGE, KENNETH
$6,600
10
WELTER, KATHLEEN M
$6,600
11
TOLL, NANCY A.
$6,600
12
MCCOY, DOUG M.
$6,600
13
FROMAN, SANDRA S.
$6,600
14
UIHLEIN, ELIZABETH A.
$6,600
15
LINK, TROY
$6,600
16
GARDNER, WAYNE R
$6,600
17
KOSER, DIANNE M W
$6,600
18
HENDRICKS, DIANE M
$6,600
Donor Network - Rep. Tiffany, Thomas P. [R-WI-7]
PACs
Organizations
Individuals
Politicians
Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
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Showing 24 nodes and 20 connections (25 secondary connections hidden)
Total contributions: $171,766
Top Donors - Rep. Tiffany, Thomas P. [R-WI-7]
Showing top 18 donors by contribution amount
18 Individuals
Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.
Introduction
Moderate62.6%
Pages: 566-568
— 533 — Department of the Interior order to fulfill the yet-unaltered congressional mandate contained in federal law, to provide for jobs and well-paying employment opportunities in rural Oregon, and to ameliorate the effects of wildfires, the new Administration must immedi- ately fulfill its responsibilities and manage the O&C lands for “permanent forest production” to ensure that the timber is “sold, cut, and removed.”79 NEPA Reforms. Congress never intended for the National Environmental Policy Act to grow into the tree-killing, project-dooming, decade-spanning mon- strosity that it has become. Instead, in 1970, Congress intended a short, succinct, timely presentation of information regarding major federal action that signifi- cantly affects the quality of the human environment so that decisionmakers can make informed decisions to benefit the American people. The Trump Administration adopted common-sense NEPA reform that must be restored immediately. Meanwhile, DOI should reinstate the secretarial orders adopted by the Trump Administration, such as placing time and page limits on NEPA documents and setting forth—on page one—the costs of the document itself. Meanwhile, the new Administration should call upon Congress to reform NEPA to meet its original goal. Consideration should be given, for example, to eliminat- ing judicial review of the adequacy of NEPA documents or the rectitude of NEPA decisions. This would allow Congress to engage in effective oversight of federal agencies when prudent. Settlement Transparency. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt required DOI to prominently display and provide open access to any and all litigation settlements into which DOI or its agencies entered, and any attorneys’ fees paid for ending the litigation.80 Biden’s DOI, aware that the settlements into which it planned to enter and the attorneys’ fees it was likely to pay would cause controversy, ended this policy.81 A new Administration should reinstate it. The Endangered Species Act. The Endangered Species Act was intended to bring endangered and threatened species back from the brink of extinction and, when appropriate, to restore real habitat critical to the survival of the spe- cies. The act’s success rate, however, is dismal. Its greatest deficiency, according to one renowned expert, is “conflict of interest.”82 Specifically, the work of the Fish and Wildlife Service is the product of “species cartels” afflicted with group- think, confirmation bias, and a common desire to preserve the prestige, power, and appropriations of the agency that pays or employs them. For example, in one highly influential sage-grouse monograph, 41 percent of the authors were federal workers. The editor, a federal bureaucrat, had authored one-third of the paper.83 Meaningful reform of the Endangered Species Act requires that Congress take action to restore its original purpose and end its use to seize private prop- erty, prevent economic development, and interfere with the rights of states over their wildlife populations. In the meantime, a new Administration should take the following immediate action: — 534 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Delist the grizzly bear in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide Ecosystems and defend to the Supreme Court of the United States the agency’s fact-based decision to do so.84 l Delist the gray wolf in the lower 48 states in light of its full recovery under the ESA.85 l Cede to western states jurisdiction over the greater sage-grouse, recognizing the on-the-ground expertise of states and preventing use of the sage-grouse to interfere with public access to public land and economic activity. l Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to end its abuse of Section 10(j) of the ESA by re-introducing so-called “experiment species” populations into areas that no longer qualify as habitat and lie outside the historic ranges of those species, which brings with it the full weight of the ESA in areas previously without federal government oversight.86 l Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to design and implement an impartial conservation triage program by prioritizing the allocation of limited resources to maximize conservation returns, relative to the conservation goals, under a constrained budget.87 l Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to make all data used in ESA decisions available to the public, with limited or no exceptions, to fulfill the public’s right to know and to prevent the agency’s previous opaque decision-making. l Abolish the Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey and obtain necessary scientific research about species of concern from universities via competitive requests for proposals. l Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to: (1) design and implement an Endangered Species Act program that ensures independent decision- making by ending reliance on so-called species specialists who have obvious self-interest, ideological bias, and land-use agendas; and (2) ensure conformity with the Information Quality Act.88 Office of Surface Mining. The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) was created by the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA)89 to administer programs for controlling the impacts of surface coal mining operations. Although the coal industry is contracting, coal constitutes
Introduction
Moderate62.6%
Pages: 566-568
— 533 — Department of the Interior order to fulfill the yet-unaltered congressional mandate contained in federal law, to provide for jobs and well-paying employment opportunities in rural Oregon, and to ameliorate the effects of wildfires, the new Administration must immedi- ately fulfill its responsibilities and manage the O&C lands for “permanent forest production” to ensure that the timber is “sold, cut, and removed.”79 NEPA Reforms. Congress never intended for the National Environmental Policy Act to grow into the tree-killing, project-dooming, decade-spanning mon- strosity that it has become. Instead, in 1970, Congress intended a short, succinct, timely presentation of information regarding major federal action that signifi- cantly affects the quality of the human environment so that decisionmakers can make informed decisions to benefit the American people. The Trump Administration adopted common-sense NEPA reform that must be restored immediately. Meanwhile, DOI should reinstate the secretarial orders adopted by the Trump Administration, such as placing time and page limits on NEPA documents and setting forth—on page one—the costs of the document itself. Meanwhile, the new Administration should call upon Congress to reform NEPA to meet its original goal. Consideration should be given, for example, to eliminat- ing judicial review of the adequacy of NEPA documents or the rectitude of NEPA decisions. This would allow Congress to engage in effective oversight of federal agencies when prudent. Settlement Transparency. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt required DOI to prominently display and provide open access to any and all litigation settlements into which DOI or its agencies entered, and any attorneys’ fees paid for ending the litigation.80 Biden’s DOI, aware that the settlements into which it planned to enter and the attorneys’ fees it was likely to pay would cause controversy, ended this policy.81 A new Administration should reinstate it. The Endangered Species Act. The Endangered Species Act was intended to bring endangered and threatened species back from the brink of extinction and, when appropriate, to restore real habitat critical to the survival of the spe- cies. The act’s success rate, however, is dismal. Its greatest deficiency, according to one renowned expert, is “conflict of interest.”82 Specifically, the work of the Fish and Wildlife Service is the product of “species cartels” afflicted with group- think, confirmation bias, and a common desire to preserve the prestige, power, and appropriations of the agency that pays or employs them. For example, in one highly influential sage-grouse monograph, 41 percent of the authors were federal workers. The editor, a federal bureaucrat, had authored one-third of the paper.83 Meaningful reform of the Endangered Species Act requires that Congress take action to restore its original purpose and end its use to seize private prop- erty, prevent economic development, and interfere with the rights of states over their wildlife populations. In the meantime, a new Administration should take the following immediate action:
Introduction
Moderate61.3%
Pages: 554-556
— 521 — Department of the Interior declining. Additionally, 42 percent of coal production takes place on federal lands in 11 states.12 DOI manages a subsurface mineral estate of 700 million acres onshore and 1.76 billion acres offshore, for a total of 2.46 billion acres. The total land area of the U.S. is 2.263 billion acres. Private and state lands, at 1.563 billion acres, make up only 39 percent of the total onshore and offshore subsurface area of the United States. Oil, natural gas, coal, and other minerals on federal lands and waters are managed by the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement; these agencies’ responsibilities frequently overlap with resource management by the U.S. Forest Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, state governments, and private property owners. Biden is “aligning the management of…public lands and waters…to support robust climate action,” as envisioned in Executive Orders 14008 and 13990.13 One of his first actions was to ban federal coal, oil, and natural gas leasing on federal lands and waters to fulfill his campaign promise of “no federal oil,” followed by actions from Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to rescind the Trump Administration’s Energy Dominance Agenda. To this end, DOI unilaterally overhauled resource management plans, lease sales, fees, rents, royalty rates, bonding requirements, and permitting processes to prevent new production of coal, oil, and natural gas on federal lands and waters; to dramatically increase production of solar and wind energy; and to accomplish its “30 by 30,” “America the Beautiful” agenda to remove federal lands from “multiple”—that is, productive—use. DOI is abusing National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)14 processes, the Antiquities Act,15 and bureaucratic procedures to advance a radical climate agenda, ostensibly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, for which DOI has no statutory responsibility or authority.16 The Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OSCLA), General Mining Law,17 and other congressional acts clearly set forth multiple-use principles and processes that include production of coal, oil, natural gas, and other minerals, as legitimate activities consistent with the welfare of all Americans and of environmental stewardship. Biden’s DOI is hoarding supplies of energy and keeping them from Americans whose lives could be improved with cheaper and more abundant energy while making the economy stronger and providing job opportunities for Americans. DOI is a bad manager of the public trust and has operated lawlessly in defiance of congressional statute and federal court orders. ADMINISTRATION PRIORITIES Rollbacks. A new Administration must immediately roll back Biden’s orders, reinstate the Trump-era Energy Dominance Agenda, rescind Secretarial Order (SO) 3398, and review all regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
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Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.
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