(1) The Secretary is authorized to provide financial assistance to any State, through its respective State agency, which has entered into a cooperative agreement pursuant to subsection (c) of this section to assist in development of programs for the conservation of endangered and threatened species or to assist in monitoring the status of candidate species pursuant to subparagraph (C) of section
1533 (b)(3) of this title and recovered species pursuant to section
1533 (g) of this title. The Secretary shall allocate each annual appropriation made in accordance with the provisions of subsection (i) of this section to such States based on consideration of
(A) the international commitments of the United States to protect endangered species or threatened species;
(B) the readiness of a State to proceed with a conservation program consistent with the objectives and purposes of this chapter;
(C) the number of endangered species and threatened species within a State;
(D) the potential for restoring endangered species and threatened species within a State;
(E) the relative urgency to initiate a program to restore and protect an endangered species or threatened species in terms of survival of the species;
(F) the importance of monitoring the status of candidate species within a State to prevent a significant risk to the well being of any such species; and
(G) the importance of monitoring the status of recovered species within a State to assure that such species do not return to the point at which the measures provided pursuant to this chapter are again necessary.
So much of the annual appropriation made in accordance with provisions of subsection (i) of this section allocated for obligation to any State for any fiscal year as remains unobligated at the close thereof is authorized to be made available to that State until the close of the succeeding fiscal year. Any amount allocated to any State which is unobligated at the end of the period during which it is available for expenditure is authorized to be made available for expenditure by the Secretary in conducting programs under this section.
(2) Such cooperative agreements shall provide for
(A) the actions to be taken by the Secretary and the States;
(B) the benefits that are expected to be derived in connection with the conservation of endangered or threatened species;
(C) the estimated cost of these actions; and
(D) the share of such costs to be borne by the Federal Government and by the States; except that
(i) the Federal share of such program costs shall not exceed 75 percent of the estimated program cost stated in the agreement; and
(ii) the Federal share may be increased to 90 percent whenever two or more States having a common interest in one or more endangered or threatened species, the conservation of which may be enhanced by cooperation of such States, enter jointly into an agreement with the Secretary. The Secretary may, in his discretion, and under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, advance funds to the State for financing the United States pro rata share agreed upon in the cooperative agreement. For the purposes of this section, the non-Federal share may, in the discretion of the Secretary, be in the form of money or real property, the value of which will be determined by the Secretary, whose decision shall be final.