Contact your Senators!!!





POPE AND YOUNG CLUB
NEWS

November 20, 2012

THE SPORTSMEN'S HERITAGE ACT OF 2012 READY FOR FLOOR VOTE IN THE SENATE


Next Monday evening, November 26th, the Senate will vote on S.3525, known as the Sportsmen's Heritage Act of 2012. It is important to contact your Senators and ask for their support of this critical piece of legislation.

S.3525 is an historic package of pro-sportsmen bill that will expand, enchance and protect America's hunting, recreational fishing and shooting heritage. It is widely considered the most important bi-partisan, pro-sportsmen legislation in a generation! On November 1st, the Pope and Young Club signed onto a letter, along with 45 other hunting/conservation organizations, expressing our support and appreciation to Senate leadership for moving the bill to a full vote.

S.3525 is actually a compilation of about 20 individual bills, highlighted by the following:


MAKING PUBLIC LANDS PUBLIC - requiring LWCF funds to be used to secure rights-of-way or land acquisitions to enhance access to existing public lands that currently have restricted access to hunting, fishing and other recreational purposes.

TARGET PRACTICE AND MARKSMANSHIP TRAINING SUPPORT ACT - amends P-R to facilitate the creation and maintenance of shooting ranges on public lands.

POLAR BEAR CONSERVATION AND FAIRNESS ACT - allows the Secretary to authorize permits for re-importation of legally harvested polar bears from approved populations in Canada before the 2008 ban.

BOWS TRANSPORTED THROUGH NATIONAL PARKS - clarifies and corrects language from 2007 legislation that allows firearms, but not bows, to be transported across NPS lands to access Forest Service or BLM lands open for hunting. **

HUNTING, FISHING AND RECREATIONAL SHOOTING PROTECTION ACT - excludes ammo and fishing tackle from the Toxic Substances Control Act and prevents the EPA from regulating ammo and tackle.

NORTH AMERICAN WETLANDS CONSERVATION ACT REAUTHORIZATION - reauthorizes the critically important NAWCA program for another five years.


**We'd like to acknowledge and thank the Colorado Bowhunters Association for their diligent work in championing the correction regarding bow transportation across NPS lands.



Most of this legislation has already passed the House, so consolidation in committee should be straight forward. Eventual passage of this unprecedented pro-sportsmen legislation will promote, protect and advance our nation's hunting, shooting and conservation heritage for generations to come.

Please take a couple of minutes right now to contact your U.S. Senators and urge them to support S.3525.

If you need the contact information for your Senators, you could use a handy feature on the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance website:
http://capwiz.com/ussportsmen/home/










Established in 1961, the Pope and Young Club is a non-profit North American conservation and bowhunting organization dedicated to ensuring bowhunting for future generations by preserving and promoting its heritage and values. The Club also maintains the universally recognized repository for the records and statistics on North American big game animals harvested with the bow and arrow.

Pope and Young Club
273 Mill Creek Road - PO Box 548 - Chatfield, MN 55923
Phone: (507) 867-4144 - Fax: (507) 867-4144
Web site: http://www.pope-young.org - Email: [email protected]

Both Blunt and McCaskill are on-board, but calls/letters are still important.

Okay...this thing looks okay on the outside, but why are McCaskill, Obama, and the Dems supporting it? This worries me...and definitely makes me suspicious.

ETA: I read in GD that BHO and the Dems were supporting it, but I haven't seen any proof of this yet...

ETA #2: I still haven't seen the evidence that BHO (openly) supports 3525, but I did find this:

THREAT TO PRIVATE LANDOWNERS

As a landowner myself, I find this latest revelation very troubling.

The ESA of '73 is one of the benchmarks of this bill.  

The potential land seizure for "aquatic protection" is very akin to Missouri's battle against Natural Streams Act of '88-'89. With enough work to get the word out about how devastating the NSA would have been to private landowners rights, it was soundly defeated.

The thing that troubles me about s.3525 is that I'm not sure that we have the time to run a good opposition campaign against it...

Probably not and the rest of the bill is good.