Campaign for Sportsmen’s Act Underway in New Congress

The Boone and Crockett Club applauds the introduction in the U.S. Senate of the Sportsmen’s Act of 2015 – a bipartisan proposal representing years of focus on pressing issues in conservation. The measure promotes conservation, hunting, angling, sport shooting and traditional outdoor lifestyles.

The bill’s lead sponsors are Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), and the Senate leadership of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus:  U.S. Senators Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb).

The Club supports the senators’ focus on access to public lands as the driving issue for the bill, which is a package of several bipartisan measures to enhance access and habitat management for the benefit of hunters, anglers, and outdoor recreation enthusiasts.  The package bill also reauthorizes key conservation programs, improves access to public lands, and helps boost the outdoor recreation economy.

“The successful negotiations that produced this bill are a testament of the strength and unity of the sportsmen’s community in Washington D.C. We would not be able to do this without the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus and the American Wildlife Conservation Partners,” said Bob Model, chairman of the Boone and Crockett Club Policy Committee.

This year’s Sportsmen Act is built upon previous versions in the last two Congressional sessions.

“The new bill will differ from last year only in dropping a couple provisions that have been enacted separately, and in adding a couple issues that have ripened in the past year,” said Morrie Stevens Sr., president of the Club.

At the top of the “ripened” list is a Boone and Crockett priority measure, the Open Book on Equal Access to Justice Act. This bill passed the House last year with no dissent. It was then added as an amendment to the Sportsmen’s Act. The measure would create an online public database of info on court cases against the U.S. government.

Federal agencies do not keep usable data on cases brought against them, according to investigations by the Government Accounting Office.

Stevens explained, “We’re concerned that litigation too often needlessly impedes the work of conservation agencies. After all, litigation is now a regular feature of environmental policy. Therefore, in the public interest, the full impacts of litigation must be transparent and understood and guided – as all public policy should be.”

Numerous sporting conservation groups have worked together to make this bill possible and that have banded together to support its passage and enactment.