Bills
| 3.23.22

Hunting and Fishing and Dead Polar Bears: Oh My! (S. 659)

Do you support or oppose this bill?

What is S. 659?

(Updated December 14, 2018)

This bill focuses on public land use and conservation, but deals with everything from polar bears to where people are allowed to have guns. There are eight very different provisions, bundled under the title of the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act. 

Here's everything the bill does:

  • Reauthorizes the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, the African Elephant Conservation Act, the Rhinoceros and Tiger Conservation Act of 1994, the Asian Elephant Conservation Act of 1997, the Great Ape Conservation Fund, and the Marine Turtle Conservation Fund through 2020;
  • Amends the Toxic Substances Control Act to exempt firearms, ammunition, and sport fishing equipment from chemical regulations;
  • Amends the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act to include increased funding for public target ranges and extend a requirement that some money from wildlife restoration funds be used for wetlands conservation projects;
  • Requires the Dept. of the Interior to allow hunters to bring polar bear parts into the country if the hunter proves the polar bear was legally killed in Canada before 2008, when the polar became a threatened species;
  • Revises the definition of a baited area with regards to the prohibition on killing migratory game birds;
  • Prevents the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (CoE) from creating or enforcing regulations that ban people from having firearms in water resource development projects;
  • Amends the Great Ape Conservation Act of 2000 to allow the Dept. of the Interior to award a multi-year grant for long term conservation research on great apes and their habitats; and
  • Amends the Marine Turtle Conservation Act of 2004 to allow U.S. territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, etc.) to receive federal funding for marine turtle conservation projects.

Argument in favor

The bill reforms numerous laws surrounding hunting and fishing and increases funding for certain types of conservation while extending the duration of other conservation legislation and providing research grants.

Argument opposed

A Cabela’s ad underwritten by the NRA and presented as legislation. Allows a toxic substance (lead) to be used as ammunition while hunting, increasing the risk of lead poisoning. Diverts money from wildlife conservation funds to build shooting ranges.

Impact

People who use public target ranges; people involved in wetland conservation projects; people trying to bring dead polar bears into the country; hunters of migratory game birds; researchers of great apes and their habitats; firearm and sport fishing equipment manufacturers; the Dept. of the Interior; CoE; U.S. territories seeking funding for marine turtle conservation projects

Cost of S. 659

The CBO estimates that implementing the bill would cost $505 million from 2017-2021 and $95 million to implement after 2021. The CBO also finds that the bill would increase spending by $4 million over a ten year period.

Additional Info

In Depth: Sponsoring Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) explained in a hearing that the bill would aid conservation because it:
"represents the furtherance of the American System of Conservation Funding, which has funded fish and wildlife conservation for the past 76 years. The hunting and fishing licenses purchased by sportsmen, coupled with excise taxes on the equipment sportsmen buy, fund state efforts to manage fish and wildlife that benefit an array of species, and continue to enhance our nation's sporting heritage. There are always going to be those who don't think we should kill animals. But, there is no denying that the greatest source of conservation funding comes from the sporting community themselves."
However, many have argued that the provision of the bill exempting firearm ammunition and fishing equipment from chemical regulations would legalize using lead ammunition. As Bill Snape at the Center for Biological Diversity points out:
"The EPA is currently allowed to regulate or ban any chemical substance for a particular use, including the lead used in shot and bullets. Affordable, effective nontoxic alternatives exist for lead ammunition and lead sinkers for all hunting and fishing activities. There are powerful reasons we banned toxic lead from gasoline, plumbing and paint — lead is a known neurotoxin that endangers the health of hunters and their families and painfully kills bald eagles and other wildlife. There’s no reason to let this absolutely preventable epidemic of lead poisoning to continue.”
Of Note: Sen. Sullivan's bill is actually a combination of many previous bills, with each provision usually representing a previous bill or current one that hasn't succeeded yet. Each individual previous bill can be seen here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Media: