Post by FWS on Nov 27, 2012 1:53:58 GMT -6
Sportsmen bill falters over duck stamps
By DAVID ROGERS
Politico.com
11/26/12
A major sportsmen bill to improve wildlife habitat and expand access to federal lands for hunting and fishing stumbled badly in the Senate on Monday night — the victim of an obscure budget dispute over how to count a proposed $10 increase in the price of duck stamps to pay for wetlands conservation.
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) let the roll call run for more than an hour but still ended up with just 50 votes — 10 short of the required 60 to waive the budget point of order.
Reid was hurt by Democratic absentees, but the outcome was dictated by Republicans and reflected the continued harsh feelings still in the chamber.
Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, insisted later that he would be open to compromise. But with time already short, the partisan-tinged fight was a stunning setback — and perhaps fatal — for the coalition of gun and conservation forces who have backed the legislation.
“This is not even taxpayer spending,” protested Gary Taylor, legislative director for Ducks Unlimited. “This is waterfowl conservationists and hunters reaching into their pockets to pay for stamps and wetlands.”
No less than the National Rifle Association has been a prime mover behind the bill, and through most of Monday, proponents were already thinking ahead to the next step in the House — not on getting out of the Senate.
“We’re looking for quick action,” James Baker, the NRA’s legislative director, told POLITICO earlier in the day. Indeed, the NRA’s strong ties to the Republican leadership complement the likes of The Wilderness Society and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, which enjoy ties with liberal Democrats.
“It’s time we did something in a bipartisan fashion,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), the lead sponsor on the Senate floor bill. “It’s a bill about habitat, it’s a bill about access, it’s a bill about opportunity for people who enjoy our outdoors in this country.”
But among Senate Republicans, only retiring Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe joined him on the motion to waive the point of order while others who had co-sponsored the package with Tester backed away.
“The fundamentals of this bill are good,” Sessions insisted, but with a new round of budget talks now under way, he said it was no time to condone even small violations of earlier budget agreements.
In this case, the bill ran into trouble because of a proposed increase from $15 to $25 for duck stamps bought by hunters to pay for wetlands conservation. The Interior Department would be given the discretion to make the increase, and the Congressional Budget Office has estimated it would help finance about $132 million to $140 million in new spending over the next 10 years.
There would be no adverse impact on the deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office, but the funding allocation to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee would be breached, as set under the Budget Control Act of 2011. The difference would be about $14 million a year — scarcely a big sum in today’s budget world. But Sessions argued that it was not the first such case that the BCA limits had been challenged, and Congress had to be tougher if it expected taxpayers to believe whatever agreement emerges from the deficit talks now.
The White House had backed the bill, which became an issue for Tester in his recent Senate reelection campaign. In addition to the budget issues, the Humane Society of the U.S. and National Resources Defense Council also complained that key wildlife and environmental priorities were being trampled in the process.
The first major concern was a relaxation of rules to permit the import of 41 polar bear trophies from Canada — most of them killed by American hunters only months before the Bush administration declared the polar bear an endangered species in May 2008. Second was an expanded exclusion affecting the regulation of the lead content and other toxic chemicals in ammunition and fishing tackle.
“They have tried to dress it up with conservation money, but you can’t put lipstick on a pig,” said Mike Markarian, chief program and policy officer for the Humane Society. And in a letter Monday, 10 environmental and science groups, including NRDC, protested the regulatory exclusion as a needless overreach and a “poison bill provision.”
“There is extensive scientific evidence available documenting the harm posed to wildlife and the environment from spent lead in ammunition used for hunting, sport shooting and fishing tackle,” the letter reads. “This provision is also a step backward given the fact that existing alternative non-lead ammunition, fishing tackle, and shot is widely available and equal to or even superior in performance to lead implements.”
By DAVID ROGERS
Politico.com
11/26/12
A major sportsmen bill to improve wildlife habitat and expand access to federal lands for hunting and fishing stumbled badly in the Senate on Monday night — the victim of an obscure budget dispute over how to count a proposed $10 increase in the price of duck stamps to pay for wetlands conservation.
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) let the roll call run for more than an hour but still ended up with just 50 votes — 10 short of the required 60 to waive the budget point of order.
Reid was hurt by Democratic absentees, but the outcome was dictated by Republicans and reflected the continued harsh feelings still in the chamber.
Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, insisted later that he would be open to compromise. But with time already short, the partisan-tinged fight was a stunning setback — and perhaps fatal — for the coalition of gun and conservation forces who have backed the legislation.
“This is not even taxpayer spending,” protested Gary Taylor, legislative director for Ducks Unlimited. “This is waterfowl conservationists and hunters reaching into their pockets to pay for stamps and wetlands.”
No less than the National Rifle Association has been a prime mover behind the bill, and through most of Monday, proponents were already thinking ahead to the next step in the House — not on getting out of the Senate.
“We’re looking for quick action,” James Baker, the NRA’s legislative director, told POLITICO earlier in the day. Indeed, the NRA’s strong ties to the Republican leadership complement the likes of The Wilderness Society and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, which enjoy ties with liberal Democrats.
“It’s time we did something in a bipartisan fashion,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), the lead sponsor on the Senate floor bill. “It’s a bill about habitat, it’s a bill about access, it’s a bill about opportunity for people who enjoy our outdoors in this country.”
But among Senate Republicans, only retiring Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe joined him on the motion to waive the point of order while others who had co-sponsored the package with Tester backed away.
“The fundamentals of this bill are good,” Sessions insisted, but with a new round of budget talks now under way, he said it was no time to condone even small violations of earlier budget agreements.
In this case, the bill ran into trouble because of a proposed increase from $15 to $25 for duck stamps bought by hunters to pay for wetlands conservation. The Interior Department would be given the discretion to make the increase, and the Congressional Budget Office has estimated it would help finance about $132 million to $140 million in new spending over the next 10 years.
There would be no adverse impact on the deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office, but the funding allocation to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee would be breached, as set under the Budget Control Act of 2011. The difference would be about $14 million a year — scarcely a big sum in today’s budget world. But Sessions argued that it was not the first such case that the BCA limits had been challenged, and Congress had to be tougher if it expected taxpayers to believe whatever agreement emerges from the deficit talks now.
The White House had backed the bill, which became an issue for Tester in his recent Senate reelection campaign. In addition to the budget issues, the Humane Society of the U.S. and National Resources Defense Council also complained that key wildlife and environmental priorities were being trampled in the process.
The first major concern was a relaxation of rules to permit the import of 41 polar bear trophies from Canada — most of them killed by American hunters only months before the Bush administration declared the polar bear an endangered species in May 2008. Second was an expanded exclusion affecting the regulation of the lead content and other toxic chemicals in ammunition and fishing tackle.
“They have tried to dress it up with conservation money, but you can’t put lipstick on a pig,” said Mike Markarian, chief program and policy officer for the Humane Society. And in a letter Monday, 10 environmental and science groups, including NRDC, protested the regulatory exclusion as a needless overreach and a “poison bill provision.”
“There is extensive scientific evidence available documenting the harm posed to wildlife and the environment from spent lead in ammunition used for hunting, sport shooting and fishing tackle,” the letter reads. “This provision is also a step backward given the fact that existing alternative non-lead ammunition, fishing tackle, and shot is widely available and equal to or even superior in performance to lead implements.”
