Not sure if this is true or not.....but if it is it's fairly alarming.
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Subject: USFWS misuse of sportsmens conservation funds
The U.S. Senate will soon begin to work on S.2609, The Wildlife and Sport
Fish Restoration Programs Improvement Act of 2000. This piece of legislation
was crafted to stop the USFWS from using funds from the Pittman-Robertson
Wildlife Restoration Act, instituted in 1937 as an excise tax on firearms,
and related shooting equipment, and the Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish
Restoration Act of 1950 which taxed fishing related items. The USFWS was
supposed to keep a small amount of these funds for administrative costs but
the bulk of the funds were designed to be returned to state wildlife
management agencies to increase sport fish, sport wildlife, and expand
habitat for these critters. The funds generated by these taxes now equal
1/3
of the USFWS total budget and they have been using them illegally.
Investigators from the GAO, FBI, and a congressional committee have looked
at
several areas of abuse. Funds designed to benefit fish & game agencies were
used to:
The GAO found Illegal charges for liquor, limos, and lavish meals.
USFWS employees made 107 trips to Venezuela, Mexico, Japan, Italy, France,
the Netherlands, Brazil, New Zealand, Russia and England.
One USFWS official made 17 trips to Puerto Rico in 18 months.
Puerto Rico, and Atlantic City were popular spots to hold USFWS meetings.
One USFWS official stated these funds were used as his personal slush fund.
79 trips were made to Canada for gray wolf reintroduction.
The FBI investigated a complicated land deal that USFWS bankrolled to help
the Florida State Democratic Party.
The FBI wanted e-mails that discussed the land deal and a USFWS official
signed an affadavit that these e-mails were only kept for 3 months. Later,
they found they were actually kept for 18 months but a deposition shows
another USFWS official ordered the e-mails magnetically erased to keep them
from the FBI.
On April 5, the House of Representatives voted 423 to 2 to pass this bill to
the Senate. The Director of the USFWS, Ms. Jamie Rappaport Clark, claimed
the
vote was strictly partisian.
If you would like to see these funds used to actually benefit fish & game
agencies then I suggest you send an e-mail to Sen. Patty Murray at:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Let her know how you feel about S.2609. Remember, our own WDFW is strapped
for funds and could use some of 15-45 million that has been determined
missing each year since 1996, the year the investigation started.
