U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro, has introduced legislation to direct the U.S. Postal Service to issue a stamp to raise awareness of invasive species and raise funds for eradication and management efforts.

The stamp, modeled after the breast cancer awareness stamp, which sells for 60 cents, would sell at a yet-to-be-determined premium price, with net proceeds going to fund federal Department of Agriculture and Department of Interior grant programs.

Stefanik said the concept came from an invasive species summit she held in February.

“Fred Monroe (executive director of the Adirondack Local Government Review Board) suggested this concept and some of the other participants agreed. And we’ve been working with them since the roundtable to craft the language,” Stefanik said in a telephone interview on Thursday.

“Actually, it was both Eric Siy from the Fund for Lake George and I that suggested it,” Monroe said later Thursday.

Monroe said Stefanik adapted their original suggestion for an invasive species program based on the U.S. Department of Interior duck stamp.

Purchase of the $25 annual stamp allows purchasers to hunt ducks and provides free admission to federal wildlife preserves, with funds going to preserve habitat.

Many people interested in conservation purchase the stamp, even though they do not hunt, Monroe said.

“That’s what we were originally thinking of, and the congresswoman came up with the theory of the semi-postal stamp,” he said.

Fifteen original co-sponsors — nine Republicans and six Democrats — joined Stefanik in sponsoring the legislation, which does not yet have a Senate companion sponsor.

Seven of the original co-sponsors are from New York. Others are from Arizona, Guam, Minnesota, California, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

“I was proud to introduce it with such significant New York support and such bipartisan support,” she said.

The U.S. Postal Service will design the stamp, with input from House members on what invasive species might be featured in the design.

Stefanik said she does not yet have a preference.

“I will be working with my original co-sponsors to come up with some suggested invasive species,” she said.

Stefanik also introduced a separate resolution expressing it is “the sense of Congress” that invasive species control is important.

“It’s about awareness. That’s why I introduced two bills,” she said.

Awareness is equally important as funding, said Walter Lender, executive director of Lake George Association.

“Any time that you have an opportunity to talk about invasive species and the damage that they can cause in water and watersheds is great. So if this stamp is going to start new conversations, that is great,” he said.

Lender said invasive species is an issue that crosses geographic and partisan lines.

“Invasive species, on many different levels, is a national issue,” he said.

Stefanik is running for re-election in November against Democrat Mike Derrick, a retired Army colonel from Peru, in Clinton County, and Green Party candidate Matt Funiciello, a bread company owner and political activist who lives in Hudson Falls.