This subchapter shall be known by the short title of “Migratory Bird Conservation Act.”

A commission to be known as the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission, consisting of the Secretary of the Interior, as chairman, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Secretary of Agriculture and two Members of the Senate, to be selected by the President of the Senate, and two Members of the House of Representatives to be selected by the Speaker, is created and authorized to consider and pass upon any area of land, water, or land and water that may be recommended by the Secretary of the Interior for purchase or rental under this subchapter, and to fix the price or prices at which such area may be purchased or rented; and no purchase or rental shall be made of any such area until it has been duly approved for purchase or rental by said commission. Any Member of the House of Representatives who is a member of the commission, if reelected to the succeeding Congress, may serve on the commission notwithstanding the expiration of a Congress. Any vacancy on the commission shall be filled in the same manner as the original appointment. The ranking officer of the branch or department of a State to which is committed the administration of its game laws, or his authorized representative, and in a State having no such branch or department, the governor thereof, or his authorized representative, shall be a member ex officio of said commission for the purpose of considering and voting on all questions relating to the acquisition, under this subchapter, of areas in his State. For purposes of this subchapter, the purchase or rental of any area of land, water, or land and water includes the purchase or rental of any interest in any such area of land, water, or land and water.

The commission created by section 715a of this title shall, through its chairman, annually report in detail to Congress, not later than the first Monday in December, the operations of the commission during the preceding fiscal year.

The Secretary of the Interior may do all things and make all expenditures necessary to secure the safe title in the United States to the areas which may be acquired under this subchapter, but no payment shall be made for any such areas until the title thereto shall be satisfactory to the Attorney General or his designee, but the acquisition of such areas by the United States shall in no case be defeated because of rights-of-way, easements, and reservations which from their nature will in the opinion of the Secretary of the Interior in no manner interfere with the use of the areas so encumbered for the purposes of this subchapter, but such rights-of-way, easements, and reservations retained by the grantor or lessor from whom the United States receives title under this subchapter or any other Act for the acquisition by the Secretary of the Interior of areas for wildlife refuges shall be subject to rules and regulations prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior for the occupation, use, operation, protection, and administration of such areas as inviolate sanctuaries for migratory birds or as refuges for wildlife; and it shall be expressed in the deed or lease that the use, occupation, and operation of such rights-of-way, easements, and reservations shall be subordinate to and subject to such rules and regulations as are set out in such deed or lease or, if deemed necessary by the Secretary of the Interior, to such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by him from time to time.

No deed or instrument of conveyance in fee shall be accepted by the Secretary of the Interior under this subchapter unless the State in which the area lies shall have consented by law to the acquisition by the United States of lands in that State.

The jurisdiction of the State, both civil and criminal, over persons upon areas acquired under this subchapter shall not be affected or changed by reason of their acquisition and administration by the United States as migratory-bird reservations, except so far as the punishment of offenses against the United States is concerned.

Nothing in this subchapter is intended to interfere with the operation of the game laws of the several States applying to migratory game birds insofar as they do not permit what is forbidden by Federal law.

For the purposes of this subchapter and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (16 U.S.C. 703 et seq.), migratory birds are those defined as such by the treaty between the United States and Great Britain for the protection of migratory birds concluded August 16, 1916 (39 Stat. 1702), the treaty between the United States and the United Mexican States for the protection of migratory birds and game mammals concluded February 7, 1936 (50 Stat. 1311), the Convention between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Japan for the Protection of Migratory Birds and Birds in Danger of Extinction, and their Environment concluded March 4, 1972, and the Convention between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for the Conservation of Migratory Birds and their Environment concluded November 19, 1976.

For the acquisition, including the location, examination, and survey, of suitable areas of land, water, or land and water, for use as migratory bird reservations, and necessary expenses incident thereto, and for the administration, maintenance, and development of such areas and other preserves, reservations, or breeding grounds frequented by migratory birds and under the administration of the Secretary of the Interior, including the construction of dams, dikes, ditches, flumes, spillways, buildings, and other necessary improvements, and for the elimination of the loss of migratory birds from alkali poisoning, oil pollution of waters, or other causes, for cooperation with local authorities in wildlife conservation, for investigations and publications relating to North American birds, for personal services, printing, engraving, and issuance of circulars, posters, and other necessary matter and for the enforcement of the provisions of this subchapter, there are hereby authorized to be appropriated, in addition to all other amounts authorized by law to be appropriated, $200,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1940, and for each fiscal year thereafter. No part of any appropriation authorized by this section shall be used for payment of the salary, compensation, or expenses of any United States protector, except reservation protectors for the administration, maintenance and protection of such reservations and the birds thereon: Provided, That reservation protectors appointed under the provisions of this subchapter, shall be selected, when practicable, from qualified citizens of the State in which they are to be employed. The Secretary of the Interior is authorized and directed to make such expenditures and to employ such means, including personal services in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, as may be necessary to carry out the foregoing objects.

In the execution of this Act, the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to make such expenditures for personal services in the District of Columbia and elsewhere as he shall deem necessary.

In order to promote the conservation of migratory waterfowl and to offset or prevent the serious loss of important wetlands and other waterfowl habitat essential to the preservation of such waterfowl, there is authorized to be appropriated for the period beginning on July 1, 1961, and ending when all amounts authorized to be appropriated have been expended, not to exceed $200,000,000.

Funds appropriated each fiscal year pursuant to sections 715k–3 to 715k–5 of this title shall be accounted for, added to, and used for purposes of the migratory bird conservation fund 1

No land shall be acquired with moneys from the migratory bird conservation fund 1

For the purposes of this subchapter the word “take” shall be construed to mean pursue, hunt, shoot, capture, collect, kill, or attempt to pursue, hunt, shoot, capture, collect, or kill, unless the context otherwise requires.

Nothing in this subchapter shall be construed as authorizing or empowering the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission herein created, the Secretary of the Interior, or any other board, commission, or officer, to declare, withdraw, or determine, except heretofore designated, any part of any national forest or power site, a migratory bird reservation under any of the provisions of this subchapter, except by and with the consent of the legislature of the State wherein such forest or power site is located.

When any State shall, by suitable legislation, make provision adequately to enforce the provisions of this subchapter and all regulations promulgated thereunder, the Secretary of the Interior may so certify, and then and thereafter said State may cooperate with the Secretary of the Interior in the enforcement of this subchapter and the regulations thereunder.

A sum sufficient to pay the necessary expenses of the commission and its members, not to exceed an annual expenditure of $7,500, is authorized to be appropriated out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated. Said appropriation shall be paid out on the audit and order of the chairman of said commission, which audit and order shall be conclusive and binding upon the Government Accountability Office as to the correctness of the accounts of said commission.

If any provision of this subchapter or the application thereof to any person or circumstance is held invalid the validity of the remainder of this subchapter and of the application of such provision to other persons and circumstances shall not be affected thereby.