Sportsmen's Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Madam Chair, I want to thank my friend from Virginia for yielding and for his leadership in bringing the SHARE Act forward.

I rise in strong support of this legislation that protects the rights of sportsmen and protects the rights of gun owners.

Madam Chair, I am proud to come from Louisiana, which is called the Sportsman's Paradise. We have great traditions of hunting and fishing throughout our State.

If you look at the barrage of regulations that have come out from this administration over the years, it has attacked so many different fundamental aspects of our society, so many things that make our country great. Of course, the right to hunt and fish is something that is not only a fundamental right for people, but it is actually something that brings families together. It is one of the great traditions that we love to share with our children. Our parents brought us hunting and fishing.

Yet if you look at some of the regulations coming out of these Federal agencies today, it is actually undermining those rights. What this bill is targeted at is restoring those rights, to make sure, for example, when you have got agencies like the Corps of Engineers that are trying to arbitrarily shut off lands for the ability of people to go hunt, they shouldn't be able to do that. In fact, under this legislation, they won't be able to continue doing that. No unelected bureaucrat should be able to limit the rights of law-abiding citizens.

Something else we have seen, Madam Chair, is the Environmental Protection Agency, unfortunately an agency we hear a lot about around this town, that is out there threatening jobs, taking away the ability for people to do things that are important to their everyday lives.

The EPA has been threatening to ban lead ammo and tackle. In this bill, we block the EPA from being able to ban lead ammo. Again, this is something that is fundamental to our rights as sportsmen, as hunters and fishermen, to be able to enjoy the fruits of our land.

There are over 50 sports organizations that are supporting this legislation. I just want to read from the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action: ``The SHARE Act would give law- abiding gun owners more access to carry firearms on land managed by the Army Corps of Engineers, protect lead-based ammunition, and promote the construction and maintenance of public target ranges.''

Madam Chair, it is important legislation. I encourage all of our colleagues to support it and pass it over to the Senate.

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