By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Legislation which would prohibit the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) from banning the use of lead ammunition or tackle on public lands “unless such action is supported by the best available science,” has been introduced by U.S. Senator Steve Daines (R-MT).
The bill, S. 537, is known as the Protecting Access for Hunters and Anglers Act.
Daines is joined by 29 co-sponsors, all Republicans. They are Senators John Thune (R-S.D.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), Mike Rounds (R- S.D.), Katie Britt (R-Ala.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Jim Justice (R-W.V.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), according to a press release from Daines’ office.
“The great outdoors is a staple of our Montana way of life. Montana hunters and anglers play an important role in wildlife management, and a ban on lead ammo and tackle would be unfair to our sportsmen. I’ll keep fighting with my colleagues to make sure decisions impacting outdoor recreation are guided by commonsense science, not anti-hunting groups,” Daines said in a prepared statement.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) issued a statement praising Daines and his colleagues.
“This legislation is tremendously important to protect the primary funding for wildlife conservation in America,” said NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence G. Keane. “Firearm and ammunition manufacturers have paid over $29 billion, when adjusted for inflation, since 1937 and that has been the leading funding source of wildlife and habitat conservation in America. Efforts by bureaucrats to limit or eliminate the use of traditional lead ammunition and fishing tackle without scientific evidence puts those conservation funds at serious risk by increasing costs and creating barriers to participation in outdoor recreation.”
The ban dates back to 2022, during the second year of the Biden administration. At the time, according to Daines’ news release, the USFWS “entered into settlement negotiations with activist organizations over a lawsuit regarding the use of traditional ammunition and tackle on over three million acres of federal land.”
In a letter dated May 9, 2022, Daines and other lawmakers urged then-USFWS Director Martha Williams, a Joe Biden appointee who stepped down this year with a change of administrations, observed, “Policies or actions that reduce or limit sportsmen activities necessarily implicate wildlife conservation programs by affecting state agencies’ revenue. Such policies or actions also handcuff wildlife managers by removing a critical conservation tool while needlessly alienating one of our original conservationists, sportsmen. Phasing-out lead ammo and tackle on wildlife refuges would disproportionately affect lower-income households and those that depend on hunting and fishing for their subsistence as lead alternatives are often more expensive. The impact of such a policy would be devastating to the sportsmen heritage in our states.”
This week, Daines, fellow Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy and two members of the House, Troy Downing and Ryan Zinke, sent a letter on a recently released U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service draft Comprehensive Conservation Plan and Environmental Assessment for the Charles M. Russell Wetland Management District that includes an alternative that would ban lead ammunition and tackle across the District. In their letter, the four Montana lawmakers expressed their preference for an alternative which expands access to the Russell management district.
“Hunting and fishing are integral in the conservation and management of wildlife and are consistent with the mission of the National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS),” they stated.
In their announcement, the NSSF recalled its rejection of the USFWS Final Rule, which was published in 2023 that offered sportsmen and women what the organization called “a ‘bait-and-switch’ deal to open hunting and fishing opportunities on eight National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs), but banned the use of traditional lead ammunition and fishing tackle.
“The Final Rule offered no scientific evidence of detrimental population impacts to support banning the use of traditional ammunition, despite promises by the Biden administration to ‘follow the science,’” NSSF said.
According to NSSF, “firearm and ammunition manufacturers pay a 10 and 11 percent excise tax to the Wildlife Restoration Trust Fund, commonly referred to as the ‘Pittman-Robertson excise tax.’ The firearm and ammunition industry was directly responsible for $886.5 million Pittman-Robertson taxes of the $1.3 billion apportioned to the states through the USFWS for state conservation and education programs in 2024 alone. Since 1937, the firearm and ammunition industry has paid over $29 billion into the fund since its inception in 1937, when adjusted for inflation.”
