April 9, 2024.
Testimony to Pennsylvania House Game and Fisheries Committee for Informational Meeting on HB2106, HB2107, HB2108.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Members
My name is Kevin Askew, I am the executive director for Hunters United for Sunday Hunting, the lead organization working to end the archaic blue law prohibiting hunting on Sunday. Our mission: Remove the prohibition of Sunday Hunting in PA Title 34 Game Law through education, and influence legislatures to change the law accordingly. This educational effort has brought us to this meeting today regarding Pennsylvania House Bills 2106, 2107, and 2108; the Steele Deal as it is now being called.
How did we get here? Simple, by Representative Mandy Steele doing her due diligence for eight months listening, learning, and having conversations on how to help grow the booming outdoor industry in PA while also assisting agriculture in its goals. Hunter-conservation identified their number one issue as removing the prohibitive blue law restricting hunting on Sunday. Agriculture identified its number one issue as being economic locally and as a whole through losses associated with crop damage.
As you are aware there is much crossover between the hunter-conservation community and the agriculture community. That is why the inclusiveness of the Steele Deal is a solid piece of legislation.
HB2106 removes the blue law prohibiting hunting on Sunday and provides the Pennsylvania Game Commission with full regulatory authority to set seasons and bag limits seven days a week. HB 2106 also strengthens trespass laws by outlining the requirements and responsibilities for landowners and hunters alike.
HB2107 merely finishes what has been started. It is known the PGC has been working towards a revision and updates to the hunter agriculture crop damage system. Be it that all legalities and mechanics for implementation can be worked out. HB2107 finishes the puzzle of connecting hunters, agriculturalists, and farmers by creating an online network to streamline the process for better interaction and results for those farmers seeking help with crop damage.
HB2108 is a hunter-conservation and agriculture mission multiplier when viewed and interpreted correctly. There are currently two sitting agriculturalists on the PGC Board of Commissioners. HB2108 updates and provides the needed defining criteria for the best selection possible for the most qualified candidate. That applicant will now have to meet the criteria of being knowledgeable in the area of wildlife management as well as actively engaged in a normal agricultural operation as defined in the Right-to-Farm Law.
During my tenure, one of the common suggestions that myself and my team have received from legislators is ‘that the hunter community and the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau need to work together. Bring us a deal that you all can agree to.’ We thank Representative Steele for getting us to this point. Abraham Lincoln said; “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.”
Together the Steele Deal legislative sponsors, hunter-conservation, the Pennsylvania Game Commission, and the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau have risen to the occasion, thought anew, and acted anew. The expectation is that you and your colleagues will do the same. This is not a partisan political issue of Democrat versus Republican. It’s a Commonwealth issue of doing the right thing and ending the 342-year-old blue law and the 50-year benign seven-day-a-week hunting issue.
The Steele Deal is a good deal; it provides for everything needed, not everything wanted. The question is do you have the insight to see this bipartisan issue as it is and get it to the Governor's desk for signature into law? History indicates that you do.
Thank you for your time.
///Kevin B. Askew///
Executive Director, Hunters United for Sunday Hunting
