U.S. Representative (and NRA Board Member) Don Young (R-Alaska) has introduced H.R. 3671, the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Programs Improvement Act of 2000, a bill supported by NRA that seeks to protect the interests of sportsmen by ending the abuse and mismanagement of money used to administer the Pittman-Robertson (P-R) Trust Fund. Since 1937, the P-R Trust Fund has imposed excise taxes on firearms and ammunition, and the revenue collected is made available to state wildlife agencies for wildlife restoration projects, hunter safety training, and range construction -- all projects which benefit sportsmen who bear the brunt of the tax. More than $3.5 billion have been collected and disbursed by P-R to state agencies for wildlife restoration projects. In 1999, at Representative Young's request, the General Accounting Office (GAO) audited the P-R administrative fund and uncovered waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement involving tens of millions of sportsmen's tax dollars. Instances include expensive foreign travel junkets and large bonuses for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USF&WS) employees. One career USF&WS employee testified before the House Resources Committee that he was pressured to approve hand-outs of P-R money to an "animal rights" group that aggressively works to destroy hunting. Even worse, another USF&WS employee testified that she was directed by high-level Clinton-Gore bureaucrats to destroy computer records that could have shed light on these abuses and on those responsible. "The administrative abuses uncovered by Representative Young constitute a fundamental breach of trust between America's sportsmen and their government, if not outright illegality," said ILA's Baker. "I want to thank him for introducing this important legislation and for his diligence on this issue....The P-R Trust Fund deserves much of the credit for hunting's continued popularity, because it has brought back numerous game animals from the brink of extinction. I am looking forward to working with Congress to get H.R. 3671 passed into law." Contact your U.S. Representative and urge him to co-sponsor or support H.R. 3671. You can contact your U.S. Representative by calling (202) 225-3121, or use the "Write Your Reps" tool on the NRA-ILA website (http://www.nraila.org).
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