Georgia Congressman Introduces Bill to Repeal Pittman-Robertson Act Excise Taxes
By: PHIL BOURJAILY
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Currently, 11 percent of the wholesale price of long guns goes to conservation. Alex Walker / Getty Images
For 85 years, the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, also known as the Pittman-Robertson Act, has raised billions of dollars for wildlife research and habitat acquisition. The bill, which is funded by a 10 to 11 percent excise tax on hunting and fishing gear, including firearms, is arguably the most important source of conservation funding in the United States. With H.R. 8167, Representative Andrew Clyde of Georgia has taken aim at Pittman-Robertson's current funding in the name of Second Amendment rights. The bill is named the "RETURN (Repealing Excise Tax on Unalienable Rights Now) our Constitutional Rights Act of 2022" It would eliminate the excise tax on guns, ammunition, and archery tackle that fund Pittman-Robertson. He introduced the bill on June 22, 2022, with the support of 53 co-sponsors.
"In case my Democrat colleagues forgot, the Bill of Rights enumerates rights to which the government cannot infringe. Unquestionably, infringement exists when the government taxes those rights to limit the people's ability to exercise them," Clyde, a freshman representative and gun shop owner, said in a press release. "As assaults against Americans' Second Amendment freedoms continue to emerge, so do treacherous threats that seek to weaponize taxation in order to price this constitutional right out of the reach of average Americans. I firmly believe that no American should be taxed on their enumerated rights, which is why I intend to stop the Left's tyranny in its tracks by eliminating the federal excise tax on firearms and ammunition."
Clyde also wants to repeal the $200 tax on Class III guns and believes any state and local sales taxes on guns are illegal. In addition to eliminating the excise tax on guns and ammunition, Clyde's bill also would remove taxes on fishing rods and limit taxes on outboard motors and tackle boxes to a 3 percent rate. He proposes to use "unallocated funds" from leases from on- and offshore energy exploitation on federal lands. Those funds are collected by the Department of the Interior and total between $6 and nearly $12 billion a year depending on the level of leasing. The energy lease revenues, which tend to fluctuate widely, are already divided among other competing needs, including the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Last year, Pittman-Robertson and the Sportfish Restoration Act, known as Dingell-Johnson, combined to bring in $1.5 billion for conservation. Currently, those funds go into a USFWS account called the Wildlife Restoration Trust Fund. Some of the money is earmarked for Hunter Education, target range construction, and projects that require cooperation among several states. The bulk of the money is divided among the 50 states based on each state's land area and the number of paid hunting and fishing license holders.
Gutting Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson would deprive states of desperately needed funds to pay for conservation. Hunters and anglers have long been proud of the fact that our dollars pay for conservation, and a great deal of that funding comes from the excise taxes we have willingly paid since 1937.
(Correction: We updated the title of this story reflect that H.R. 8167 would specifically repeal Pittman-Robertson's excise taxes on guns and ammo, as well as some other hunting equipment.)
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So basically fuck conservation and drill more...
I thought at least one person would comment on this.
Guess not.
Field and Stream thought it important! Haha
Ah Andrew Clyde of "you would think they were just tourists" fame.
It will never pass in this Congress and even if the Republicans gain control of both House and Senate in November I can see it only passing (big maybe) in the House but not the Senate.
IMO this is just a stupid bill that is basically a stick in the eye of anybody to pushes gun control, the other side of the coin if it were. He's in his first term, has now sponsored 8 bills which have only ben introduced. Very few bills that he's co-sponsored have passed the House. So I suspect he's trying to do this to raise his name for the upcoming election.
As far as your initial comment of 'fuck conservation and drill more', there are a lot of bullshit bills that get introduced into Congress every year and the majority of them just languish and die on someone's desk. This will be like so many of the others.
I would hope so. This is something I hope I can see republicans being against as well.
The 53 cosponsors worried me.
It more saddens me that there are 53 Congresscritters who would sign on to co-sponsor something so stupid. But then all sorts of stupid people get elected to Congress each election cycle. Have to be honest, Congress does not draw in the best and brightest people but usually the most fucked up and greedy. It's regularly said that while we vote for them, these are not people we would willingly invite into our homes.
I have a rather hard time seeing anybody who is an avid hunter as being for this bill. Every hunter I know willingly pays their hunting license knowing that a portion of the fees goes to wildlife conservation, and they are proud that the money is being used for a good cause and to improve the sport for future hunters and fishermen.