The Same Old Stuff

Crooked as a Pan of Guts

I have worn out keypads trying to energize hunters and fishers and trappers
about how the US Fish and Wildlife Service, hunting and fishing equipment
manufacturers (that are supposed to pay the excise taxes that support
hunting and fishing), State fish and wildlife bureaucrats, and conservation
organizations (whom we mistakenly assume are our protectors) are really in
league with environmental and animal rights zealots to quietly abandon
hunting and fishing programs for the promise of Federally funded
environmental and animal protection schemes that are immeasurable and are
touted to pay higher salaries to bureaucrats as they keep getting
politicians reelected ad infinitum.

Wow, an eight-line sentence (97 words!): raise your hand if you are you
still awake.

The USFWS is working with Congress to replace the hunting and fishing
programs at the state level with Federally-funded Native Ecosystem/Invasive
Species/Animal Worship/Nature Cathedrals/et al programs performed by state
employees on marionette strings held by Washington bureaucrats.  The hunting
and fishing manufacturers, importers, and retailers are supposed to be
collecting and the government is supposed to be collecting more than a
half-Billion dollars per year for state hunting and fishing programs but
they are increasingly cheating as lax enforcement enables the state agencies
and the Federal agency to argue for Federal dollars for everything from
"preventing this or that from becoming 'endangered'" to being "responsive to
new constituencies".  "Our" conservation organizations are no more than
career loafing sites as employees look for the next State or Federal job
that pays more, or the next election as they play "footsies under the table"
with the politician they bet will win the next election and all the
patronage that goes with it.  One need look no further that The Rocky
Mountain Elk endorsement of wolves or the Trout Unlimited endorsement of
Federal Invasive Species authority or eradication of rainbow and brown trout
and coho salmon fisheries to see what goes on there.  The environmental
extremists and the animal rights radicals are what they are and their
agendas are as evident as fox tracks in fresh snow on a sunny morning.  The
quality of our politicians regarding our rights is likewise no something to
lean on in most cases.

Now I know I have said all this before.  I know that State and Federal
bureaucrats dismiss me on a personal basis but, so far as I know not on the
merits of what I write.  So let me quickly (I have a "lot on my plate at the
moment" as they say) point out the steady march of what I have been pounding
for years now.

The hunting and fishing excises taxes (referred to as P-R
[Pittman-Robertson] or Wildlife Restoration funding & D-J [Dingell-Johnson]
or Sport Fish Restoration funding) are the backbone of State hunting and
fishing programs.  This is true not only because of the annual amounts (over
a half-billion) but even more importantly because in order to keep
collecting their "share", each state (among many other things) must keep all
the state hunting and fishing money separate from other state funds and not
discriminate regarding access to facilities purchased and maintained by the
nationally-collected excise taxes.

Now to refresh memories: each state must, by law, to be audited every 5
years. In the 1970's and 1980's the audits diminished and all but
disappeared.  In the 1990's the USFWS environmental/animal rights appointees
and managers STOLE $45 to $60 Million in just two years from the excise
taxes and in violation of many laws used the money to introduce wolves into
Yellowstone and open an "Environmental Mouthpiece" Endangered Species Office
in California (after Congress had refused to fund these items) and other
things like bonuses for Federal employees having nothing to do with excise
tax administration.  The amounts were verified by a General Accounting
Office Audit but never replaced (in other words you and I LOST $60+ MILLION
worth of hunting and fishing programs).  The State agencies (who are always
crying poor mouth) NEVER EVEN ASKED FOR THE MONEY TO BE REPLACED because they were already orienting toward a world without hunting and fishing funds
and an "endless stream" of environmental/animal rights funding from the US
Congress (that would be our taxes).

The scandal caused an outcry for renewed auditing.  By the way those that
stole the money and those that let the audits disappear were never
disciplined or admonished nor did they even miss bonuses as they were
considered "outstanding" for kissing "up" so nicely.  Anyway, audits of fish
and wildlife agencies are complex matters.  How many auditors know the
difference between game animal programs and environmental busy work
(ineligible for funding)?  How many auditors know that clam projects are
ineligible for Sport Fish Restoration funding?  How many auditors know it is
illegal to spend P-R or D-J on Park employee salaries or to put vehicles
purchased with P-R or D-J funds in the State motor pool for everyone to use?
Answer: hardly any until they do such audits for awhile.

So the audits conducted in the late 1990's found over $125 Million misused
in the first few states to be audited (the "real" figure would have been
much higher with experienced auditors but God Bless those first guys for
doing what they did).  So they were unceremoniously FIRED (for being a tiny
bit behind "schedule"). The $125 + Million slowly was whittled to nothing
and the USFWS contracted with the Inspector General responsible for AUDITING
USFWS (an illegal and patently improper arrangement) to audit the State
agencies.  Now that Inspector general and his staff are NOT who you want to
rely on for anything but what suits their best interest.  Their subsequent
"audits" have been little more than whitewash for increasingly devious State
agencies and their USFWS puppet masters.  Which brings us to today and the
reason I keep writing "The Same Old Stuff".

Yesterday I purchased my Virginia State Waterfowl Stamp (required) and my US
Forest Hunting Stamp from my local sporting goods store.  As I handed the
clerk, a genuine good-old-boy, my Virginia Lifetime Hunting License he
remarked that I was sure lucky because a new Hunting License fee increase
had gone into effect.  He then looked up and said, "the worst thing is the
increase is going into the State General Fund and not to hunting and fishing
programs".  Then he asked if I wanted my State Waterfowl Stamp sent to my
home?  I said yes but that I had said yes last year too but I never received
it.  He laughed and said a lot of waterfowl hunters had complained about
that too but the State just doesn't care about hunters and fishermen
anymore.  He said we are just like speeders, simply a source of revenue to
be tapped ( Virginia recently stunned the nation by implementing Draconian
driving violation fees for residents only with the sanctimonious attitude of
"they deserve it").

This morning I purchased a South Carolina non-resident Hunting license
online.  As I did so I noticed an interesting quirk.  In order to hunt on
State Wildlife Management Areas (all of which are either purchased with or
maintained by P-R funding) State Residents must purchase a $30.50 license
and a Non-Resident must purchase a $76.00 license.

Let me remind you that unaccountable agencies, just like unaccountable
businesses or children, only grow worse over time.  The decay of State
agency integrity is like any rust, it spreads and eventually disables the
implement.  Hunting and fishing programs are decaying before our eyes and we
still read our NRA and DU magazines that help fund the "Breakfasts" and
"Receptions" by such groups for State and Federal fish and wildlife
employees at meetings.  The same employees we think are working for "us".

Now I am just one hunter (albeit an unusually knowledgeable one) buying two
licenses within a 24-hour period.  What do I find?  A State ( Virginia )
selling a Waterfowl Stamp that is never provided.  A State (Virginia)
"Diverting" Hunting and Fishing License revenue to the General Fund (one of
the first things P-R & D-J were established to stop).  Who tells me?  Not
the overpaid Federal "auditors" or the Federal bureaucrats that are at best
indifferent to hunting and fishing and more commonly anti-hunting and
anti-fishing: no, just some poor guy whose outrage is ignored by government
dismissal of the rules.

Then I apply to South Carolina and find that the excise taxes are being used
to give residents something cheaper than what is charged non-residents.
This has also been a prohibited practice.  Both States are doing thing they
should either be made to stop (and reclaim lost funding) or be denied future
excise taxes.  Care to bet in what will happen?

The bureaucrats will continue to build careers, the organizations will
continue to "play 'footsie'" and slap each other on the back at the
"Receptions" and "Breakfasts" as they applaud "Invasive Species" and "Native
Ecosystem" proposals sure to generate more funding and jobs and pay
increases.  The politicians are sorting through all these "new" proposals
from the self-serving bureaucrats even as you read this.  The upcoming
election promises an orgy of each party promising to outdo the other to
"save" everything from buffalo and "wildlife corridors to State and Federal
bureaucracies faced with "shortages" and "crises".

I apologize for being repetitive but as I seem to say more often of late, "I
told you so".  When there are no audits there is no accountability.  When
there is no accountability there are no rules. When there are no rules,
Power rules.  Power today lies in the hands of those determined to eradicate
hunters and fishermen right along with trappers, grazers, loggers, pet
owners, cock fighters, public land users, rural residents of limited means,
rural economies, fish and wildlife management and an endless array of
assumed freedoms from what we eat to where and how we live and what we will
be allowed to "own".

Does anyone have any suggestions of what to do?

Jim Beers
6 Sep. 2007

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- Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist,
Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow.
He was stationed in North Dakota , Minnesota , Nebraska , New York City , and
Washington DC .  He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western
Pacific and on Adak , Alaska in the Aleutian Islands .  He has worked for the
Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security
Supervisor in Washington , DC .  He testified three times before Congress;
twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60
Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to
expanding Federal Invasive Species authority.  He resides in Centreville ,
Virginia with his wife of many decades.