Wildlife Health Coordination and Zoonotic Disease Prevention Act of 2026
Wildlife Health: Tracking Diseases That Spread to Humans
This bill was recently introduced in the Senate and is currently being reviewed by the Committee on Environment and Public Works. It is in the early stages of the lawmaking process and is considered active. There are no upcoming votes scheduled at this time.
Legislative Progress
While there is high interest in preventing the next pandemic, most individual bills like this struggle to pass unless they are added to a much larger spending package.
Key Points
- This bill creates a new program to help federal, state, and tribal agencies work together to track diseases that spread between animals and humans. These types of diseases, like bird flu, make up a majority of new infectious diseases in people.
- The program would hire six specialized coordinators to manage communication between groups like the CDC and local wildlife offices. These experts would help rural and farming communities get the resources they need to handle outbreaks quickly.
- Better tracking could save billions of dollars in economic losses. For example, recent bird flu outbreaks have cost the government over $2.5 billion in payments to farmers for lost livestock.
- If the bill passes, it would provide $900,000 every year starting in 2027 to run the program. This money would pay for the coordinators and help develop better ways to monitor wildlife health across the country.
Impact Analysis
Govbase has not yet run an impact analysis on this legislation.
Milestones
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Sent to a congressional committee for expert review. The committee decides whether this bill moves forward.
Introduced in Senate
The bill was officially filed and given a number. It now enters the legislative queue.
Votes
No votes have been recorded for this legislation yet.
News
No related news coverage found for this legislation yet.
Source Information
Document Type
Congressional Bill
Official Title
Wildlife Health Coordination and Zoonotic Disease Prevention Act of 2026
Data Sources
Sponsor
Analysis generated by AI. Always verify with official sources.