The term “Secretaries” means the Secretary of Agriculture, acting through the Administrator of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Director of the United States Geological Survey and the Director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, acting jointly.
The Secretaries shall establish within the United States Fish and Wildlife Service a task force, to be known as the “Chronic Wasting Disease Task Force” (referred to in this subsection as the “Task Force”).
The members of the Task Force shall be appointed not later than 90 days after December 23, 2024. The efforts of the Task Force shall not be contingent on the completion of the study required by subsection (c).
On appointment of the members of the Task Force, the Co-Chairs of the Task Force shall notify the Chairs and Ranking Members of the Committees on Environment and Public Works and Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry of the Senate and Natural Resources and Agriculture of the House of Representatives.
Not later than 1 year after the date on which the members of the Task Force are appointed, the Task Force shall submit to the Secretaries, and the heads of the State agencies with jurisdiction over wildlife disease and farmed cervid regulation of each State with a representative on the Task Force, the interstate action plan developed by the Task Force under paragraph (2)(C).
To the maximum extent practicable, the Secretaries, any other applicable Federal agency, and each applicable State may enter into a cooperative agreement to fund necessary actions under the interstate action plan submitted under subparagraph (A).
The Secretaries shall make the best effort of the Secretaries to enter into any cooperative agreement under clause (i) not later than 180 days after the date of submission of the interstate action plan under subparagraph (A).
Subject to clause (ii), for each fiscal year, the Secretaries may provide funds to carry out an interstate action plan through a cooperative agreement under subparagraph (B) in the amount of funds provided by the applicable States.
The Secretaries shall enter into an arrangement with the Academy under which the Academy shall conduct, and submit to the Secretaries a report describing the findings of, a special resource study to identify the predominant pathways and mechanisms of the transmission of chronic wasting disease in wild, captive, and farmed populations of cervids in the United States.
The arrangement under subparagraph (A) shall provide that the actual expenses incurred by the Academy in conducting the study under subparagraph (A) shall be paid by the Secretaries, subject to the availability of appropriations.
The study under paragraph (2) shall be completed not later than 180 days after the date on which funds are first made available for the study.