Having just returned from SCI Lobby Day in Washington DC, I thought I would share my experience.

The was my second time attending Lobby Day. It was well organized by SCI's DC staff. Unfortunately the House was in recess, the event was planned prior to the House scheduling its time off. We were able to meet with House staff and in ways it is just as good if not better.

Our Louisiana group had the opportunity to go to the SCI office in DC. The staff in DC is relatively small, but seem very competent and dedicated. They said it has been busy lately as we are being attacked on multiple fronts. There were contract lobbyist that attended two meetings with our group. They were both hunters and knew the issues extremely well. They were also able to discuss in great detail the bills, who supported them, and what it would take to have bills passed.

Last year just Chrissie Jackson (John's wife) and I were in attendance from Louisiana. This year Chrissie and John Jackson along with Ron Bartell formed one group. Our Acadiana Chapter President, Greg Elliot, and myself formed another group from Louisiana. We were also joined by the President Elect of SCI, Paul Babaz who now lives in Georgia, but is from the same town that I live in Louisiana.

It appears we will have full support on Second Amendment and Hunting issues from our Senators and Representative that we met from Louisiana. They understand the importance of hunting in our culture.

In my opinion it is worth the effort for me to go. With the challenges we face it is good to see our elected officials (or staff) face to face and express our concerns. It even gives me a platform to voice my concerns over the red snapper recreational fishing debacle in the Gulf of Mexico.

On another note we now have a chapter in South Louisiana. The chapter was officially sanctioned this week and we already have over 130 paid members. Greg and others have done an excellent job getting the chapter started.


Please write your elected officials concerning these issues. I can assure you the rifle export permit issue is not dead but needs to be killed.

SCI urges Congress to:

Make certain that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) maintains its commitment (April 23, 2015) not to enforce its regulation requiring the electronic registration of firearms by hunters who wish to travel abroad with their firearms, at least until CBP improves and/or revises the registration process;
Require the U.S. Department of State to withdraw the regulation (22 C.F.R. §123.17(c)) that requires hunters to electronically register their firearms in order to take those firearms out of the country for international hunting;
Introduce and adopt legislation that prohibits the U.S. Department of State from using regulations to create a de facto firearms registry of hunters who travel internationally.



SCI Supports S. 405, the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act of 2015:

SCI supports the provisions of S. 405 that will, among other things, require
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service (FS) land managers to facilitate the use of federal lands for hunting, fishing and recreational shooting (Section 105);
BLM and FS planning documents to evaluate the effects of land and resource planning on hunting, fishing or recreational shooting opportunities (Section 105);
BLM and FS to report to Congress on significant closures of land to hunting, fishing and recreational shooting (Section 105);
BLM, FS, National Park Service (NPS) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to identify areas that are open to hunting and fishing but for which access is prohibited or restricted (Section 202);
FWS to authorize the importation of polar bear trophies legally hunted in Canada prior to the listing of polar bears as “threatened” in 2008 and for which an import permit application was submitted to the FWS prior to May 15, 2008 (Section 103);
Federal agencies to report to Congress on awards paid by the federal government to litigants pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act. (Section 108)



SCI Supports H.R. 697, the African Elephant Conservation and Legal Ivory Possession Act of 2015 – a Bill That Will Deprive the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of the Authority to Ban the Importation of African Elephants from CITES Appendix II Populations and Will Prohibit Unnecessary Limitations on Ivory Trade
SCI supports the African Elephant Conservation and Legal Ivory Possession Act of 2015, which will:

Prevent the FWS from banning the U.S. importation of legally sport-hunted elephants from populations listed on CITES Appendix II.
Prevent the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) from prohibiting the possession, sale, transfer or receipt of African elephant ivory that has been lawfully imported into the United States



SCI Supports Efforts Aimed at Removing the Wolves of the Western Great Lakes and Wyoming from the Endangered Species List:

SCI asks Congress to support efforts that recognize that the wolves of the Western Great Lakes and Wyoming do not qualify as “endangered” and do not require federal protection.


SCI Supports H.R. 528, the Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act
SCI supports the Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act which will:

Require U.S. Forest Service (FS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) officials to facilitate opportunities and access on their lands for hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting and to evaluate in land and resource planning documents the impacts of proposed actions on such opportunities.
Require managers of federal lands to report to Congress on significant closures of lands to hunting, fishing and/or recreational shooting
Remedy several existing legislative gaps that, in past years, led to lengthy and unnecessary litigation, including –
The decade-long challenge to the National Wildlife Refuge System’s compliance with NEPA regarding the opening of refuge lands to hunting;
The challenge to the FWS’s authorization of water developments for bighorn sheep on Kofa National Wildlife Refuge;
The attack on the National Park Service’s (NPS) use of volunteer agents to assist with management of overpopulations of wildlife on NPS lands.

Well done Mike. Thank you for your dedication and effort.

Thanks for your efforts Mike. I wanted to go but had a conflict.

quote:

Originally posted by nhoro:
Well done Mike. Thank you for your dedication and effort.

Great to hear you are doing this Mike, and thank you for letting us know.

+1

Thanks!

We need to remove polar bear, jaguar, walrus, asian leopard and so forth from the Dummie people's list so we can involve and include local people on the ground

Can someone explain to me... if traveling hunters are not being forced to go through all this registration nonsense... why are F&F providing a service to do this?

Sorry if I have missed something...
Just got this from F&F today.

Matt, its lead time.

Hunting report mentioned this service shortly after it came out the feds were doing this. I think coppersmith was doing it as well.

Given you live on the opposite side of the world, obviously the hard copy stuff is delayed.

The program is in limbo now, hopefully congress has the gumption to put it out of its misery, but its not dead quite yet.

quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
Matt, its lead time.

Hunting report mentioned this service shortly after it came out the feds were doing this. I think coppersmith was doing it as well.

Given you live on the opposite side of the world, obviously the hard copy stuff is delayed.

The program is in limbo now, hopefully congress has the gumption to put it out of its misery, but its not dead quite yet.

Thanks mate - I just thought it odd that I received the marketing email from them today. I just don't know if I should be following this stuff up any more, with my own inbound clients, or not?