Protecting Access for Hunters and Anglers Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, we are on day 19 of Trump's illegal war of choice with Iran. So far, 13 American servicemembers are dead, and 200 more are wounded. Gas prices have surged 80 cents a gallon just in the last 3 weeks. Grocery bills are climbing. Oil is over $100 a barrel. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed.

Mr. Speaker, what is it, in the face of this chaos and calamity, that the United States House of Representatives has chosen to do this week: debate a bill about lead ammunition in our Nation's wildlife refuges.

Mr. Speaker, we should consider the iconic national symbol of the bald eagle when we talk about this subject. Every year, bald eagles across America die. They drop out of the sky in some cases because they ate carcasses and remains that were laced with lead fragments.

Bald eagles are not alone. Lead poisoning has been documented in over 130 species: the common loon, condors, trumpeter swans, many species of ducks, and even some mammals. For species already struggling on the brink of extinction, each piece of spent ammunition or lost fishing tackle left in the environment is another potential lethal dose of lead.

We banned lead from gasoline. We banned it from paint. We banned it from children's toys. We did that because lead is a known lethal neurotoxin that never breaks down.

That same lead in the form of spent ammunition or lost fishing tackle can kill wildlife, and it does so on our public lands and waters right now, in some cases at levels that are far too high.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans are proposing a bill that would make this a lot worse. H.R. 556 would block Federal land managers from using commonsense, science-based safeguards, when necessary, to protect wildlife from lead poisoning on Federal lands and waters.

The bill does have an exception, at least technically or hypothetically. Agencies can act when a species decline is ``primarily caused'' by lead. That evidentiary requirement and the standard that goes with it, the way this bill is written, is going to be impossible to meet.

The bill demands site-specific field data for each individual unit of land, ignoring decades of peer-reviewed science and imposing costs that most land units, already stretched thin by Trump's budget cuts, simply cannot afford.

States are already moving to protect wildlife in many cases. Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont banned lead tackle to protect loon populations. California banned lead ammunition to protect the California condor. However, this bill creates a very murky legal landscape that would undermine these safeguards, replacing State laws and policies with a Federal mandate written by and for the gun lobby.

Most concerning, this bill claims to protect access for hunters and anglers. Yet, in reality, the bill could result in less access for some of America's biggest conservationists. The legislation conflicts with the Endangered Species Act and with a 2022 settlement governing hunting and fishing in the National Wildlife Refuge System.

Mr. Speaker, even under the Trump administration, the Fish and Wildlife Service issued targeted lead restrictions in eight refuges, specifically to open new hunting and fishing opportunities near sensitive Endangered Species Act-listed wildlife species.

Yet, if this bill is enacted, the Fish and Wildlife Service would have to close those sensitive areas for hunting and fishing entirely to comply with the ESA. That is going to leave hunters and anglers with fewer places to fish and hunt.

Transitioning away from lead is a step toward a more sustainable future for the sport. We saw this in 1991 when the Federal Government phased out lead shot for duck hunting. The gun lobby said at the time all the same things that it is saying now: This will kill the sport. People will be priced out. It will be the end of a way of life.

It was nonsense. It was wrong in every case. Waterfowl populations rebounded, giving duck hunters more opportunities, more birds, and more places to hunt.

Proponents of this bill often claim banning lead will price out hunters and anglers, but the data tells a very different story. An analysis of 86 different bullet calibers and cartridge sizes found no significant price difference between lead-free and lead-core ammunition in popular calibers.

Switching to non-lead tackle can add less than 1 percent to the average angler's total annual cost. In the handful of refuges that do restrict lead to protect endangered species and to make sure that they can continue hunting and fishing, the Fish and Wildlife Service already offers vouchers and programs providing free or low-cost ammunition and tackle to hunters and anglers.

Congress should always remember that our public lands belong to the American people, not to the NRA and the gun lobby. H.R. 556 imposes a Federal mandate to allow the spread of a known lethal toxin across our Nation's wildlife refuges, waterways, and the habitats that our children will inherit.

My colleagues must reject this bill and let public land managers make the tough calls and do their jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of points. First of all, Federal wildlife managers under current law already have to follow the best available science. If they were to issue lead ammunition regulations randomly, arbitrarily, in a way that contravenes science, they would find themselves immediately in court, and those actions would be overturned.

In terms of deference to State law and State wildlife managers, I certainly agree with the gentleman on that. The problem is that many States have actually taken steps to restrict lead ammunition and tackle. This bill is so poorly written that it is not clear whether Federal wildlife managers could continue to comply with those State laws or whether they would have to ignore them and continue to allow lead in those cases.

Those are several reasons why this bill, in addition to the policy problems I have highlighted, is technically not ready for prime time.

Mr. Speaker, at this point, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Dingell).

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Mr. HUFFMAN.

About this best available science, just to be very clear, best available science is what wildlife managers have to do right now. If they don't, any regulation that they promulgate involving lead tackle or lead ammunition restrictions is going to be invalidated and will mean nothing.

What this poorly written legislation would do, though, is substitute a brand-new scientific standard that we have never seen. We have no idea what it really means. It would have a narrow exception to allow restrictions on lead ammunition or tackle on specific units of land if the applicable Secretary determines that: ``A decline in wildlife population at the specific unit of Federal land or water is primarily caused by the use of lead in ammunition or tackle, based on the field data from the specific unit of the Federal land or water.''

These are very new and ambiguous terms. A simple reading would suggest you have to do a complete forensic analysis that would, in the real world, make this standard totally unattainable. It would effectively mean you would never be able to regulate lead ammunition or tackle, even when it was forcing the closure of hunting and fishing in our National Wildlife Refuge System.

As the National Wildlife Refuge Association has pointed out, this is an impossible standard because population monitoring data is not available at the unit scale in most cases.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot today about hunters and anglers, but let's talk about what this bill actually does.

First, it is bad for wildlife. It strips our land managers of the tools they need to limit lead, a known neurotoxin, on our public lands and waters, putting the recovery of species like the bald eagle, our national symbol, and the California condor at great risk of further loss and potentially extinction. We cannot claim to support wildlife while handcuffing the people tasked with managing it.

My colleagues across the aisle talk constantly about States' rights and keeping the Federal Government out of local decisions. Then they bring a bill like this that amounts to a Federal mandate preempting, overriding, State laws on behalf of the gun lobby.

Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and California have already banned lead ammunition or tackle in some cases to limit lead and protect wildlife. This bill would throw all of that into legal limbo. Land managers wouldn't even know whether they can honor these State laws.

This bill also harms the very people it claims to champion: our hunters and anglers. It creates a direct conflict with the Endangered Species Act in ways that would force the Fish and Wildlife Service to close off public lands currently open to fishing and hunting.

It does all of this for a problem that doesn't even exist. Lead-free alternatives are widely available and cost about the same in most cases for the most popular calibers. They have been working since 1991. Fewer places to hunt and fish does not grow the outdoor economy, and the places that have sensibly restricted lead tackle and ammunition have not seen a reduction in hunting and fishing.

The people who actually use these lands--our hunters, anglers, and families--are among the strongest conservationists in this country. We agree on that. The last thing they need is for Congress to do favors for the gun lobby at the expense of these lands and wildlife that they love.

We banned lead from gasoline, from paint, and from children's toys. I don't think anyone in this Chamber would argue for putting lead back in any of those circumstances, but House Republicans are asking us, through this bill, to guarantee the sacred place of lead in our wildlife refuges. The people and the wildlife who depend on healthy public lands would pay the price for that.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to see this bill for what it is, a step backward for our environment and our economy, and vote ``no'' on H.R. 556.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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