THE GREAT RAID OF THE PENNSYLVANIA GAME COMMISSION GAME FUND

 

Hunters United For Sunday Hunting  

huntersforsundayhunting@gmail.com

717-350-6741

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Hunters United for Sunday Hunting opposes any further action and is highly disappointed with the provision in  Pennsylvania House Bill 1300, Session 2023 that would loot the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s Game Fund of over $150 million and negate nearly $40 million of Pittman and Robertson yearly funding; as well as the taxation of PGC real property estimated at $10 million per year.   There is nothing to be gained and much to be lost with this unprecedented transfer of funds.

HB1300 immediately steals $150 million from conservation, loads over $10 million of taxes on the backs of PA’s hunters and fishermen in the form of a per acre tax on our public lands, and takes Pennsylvania’s eligibility of nearly $40 million for federal Pittman and Robertson funding away.

As currently written, HB1300 would transfer $150 million from the PA Game Fund to the Clean Streams Fund, a complete misnomer at best.  The PA Clean Streams Fund was formed to assist agriculture and has nothing to do with hunter-conservation.  Pennsylvania's Clean Streams Fund was created with $220 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act, and funds conservation programs including ACAP, designed to share the costs to farmers for farm management practices that reduce sediment in waterways, keeping the nutrients out of waterways, and on the farm to build soil health.  This transfer of monies in HB1300 is substantial with long-standing detriment to hunter-conservation with less funding immediately available and putting Pittman and Robertson funding at risk and loss. All to provide another free money stream to an already heavily subsidized agriculture industry.

Pennsylvania received more than $38 million from federal Pittman and Robertson funding in 2022.  A state's Game Fund is the only designated account to receive the annual federal disbursement.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has set a rule that does not allow any diversion of license funds.  The $150 million transfer to the Clean Streams Fund will violate the USFW rules and immediately exempt PA from receiving the annual allocation from P&R.

HB1300 also dictates that the PGC pay taxes on real property to counties, townships, and school districts.  That tax assessment is over $10 million per year.  The PGC is exempt from paying taxes on this type of property.

As stated earlier, there is nothing to be gained and much to be lost with this unprecedented transfer of funds.  The hunter-conservation community will not be able to absorb or compensate for this immediate loss of $200 million and any future deficit created by this legislation.

The PGC is funded primarily by hunting and furtaker license sales; State Game Lands timber, mineral, and oil/gas revenues; and a federal excise tax on sporting arms and ammunition; the PGC is almost entirely supported by hunters and trappers, or assets that have been procured with license dollars. The PGC does not receive state General Fund appropriations.

The PA Game Fund is designed to be used in support of the PGC mission to manage and protect wildlife and their habitats while promoting hunting and trapping for current and future generations. Citizens of the Commonwealth have the expectation and understanding that the PGC will do as sanctioned and that these funds are to support things such as habitat improvement, wildlife enhancement, and all other conservation efforts for the 480 species of wildlife in the state from the biggest bear or elk to the smallest pollinators.

To the entire Pennsylvania Legislature:  It has been reported that Pennsylvania has a surplus of $13 billion in its budget.  With that amount of money immediately available; why set the PGC on a path for which they may not recover?  Why place an unneeded and unnecessary tax burden on the PGC and hunter-conservationists? Why make the calculated and conscience decision to exclude Pennsylvania from future federal Pittman and Robertson funding?

If the answer is to support the Clean Streams Fund, which as stated and published is to assist in farm productivity with such things as ‘concrete barnyards, heavy use area protection, manure storage, agronomic or ecological practices like cover crops, planted streamside buffers, stream-bank fencing, and grazing systems to conserve water and soil resources and farm productivity.  That answer is not good enough.  We as hunter-conservationists pay our way.  We expect our hunting monies to be used for the specified purposes, not to build concrete barnyards or purchase cover crops for a farmer to plant.

If the goal of HB1300 and the transfer of this money is to change hunter-conservation in PA, it will definitely do that. Just not for the better. 

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For more information about this topic, please contact Hunters United for Sunday Hunting 

Executive Director Kevin Askew at 717-350-6741 or email at huntersforsundayhunting@gmail.com 

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