CSF Actively Opposing Bill That Would Undermine Nation’s Bedrock Conservation and Access Program

• Recently, Congressman Andrew Clyde (R-GA) introduced H.R. 8167, the RETURN (Repealing Excise Taxes on Unalienable Rights Now) Our Constitutional Rights Act of 2022, a short-sighted bill that would gut the nation’s most successful wildlife conservation funding and hunting and shooting access program known as the Pittman-Robertson Act.
• The Pittman-Robertson Act directs industry and user-supported excise taxes on firearms, ammunition, and archery equipment to provide on-the-ground funding for wildlife conservation, target shooting range construction, efforts to increase public hunting access, hunter education programs, hunter and recreational shooting recruitment efforts, among other staple sporting-conservation programs.
• Since the Pittman-Robertson Act was enacted in 1937, the program has served as the bedrock funding program to increase and promote our hunting and recreational shooting heritage. This legislation jeopardizes the important role maintained by sportsmen and women and threatens their seat at the decision-making table.

Why it matters: To date, the Pittman-Robertson Act has generated over $15 billion in critical funding to conserve wildlife, improve recreational shooting and hunting access, fund hunting education programs, and other programs that are vital to our hunting and recreational shooting heritage. Just last year alone, the Pittman-Robertson Act provided over $1.5 billion in on-the-ground funding for state wildlife agencies to build public target shooting ranges, purchase wildlife management areas to increase public hunting opportunities, conserve game species, and to recruit America’s next generation of sportsmen and women. This legislation threatens to dismantle the current funding structure.

To continue reading, click here.

---