Pittman-Robertson Grounds Field Trialing
The Issue

The problem in its simplest terms is that PR funded state game lands attract multiple users and uses that occasionally conflict. The question and issue is fundamentally who is best able to resolve those conflicts when they arise or anticipate them, the federal government in Washington or the state wildlife professionals and site managers in the field?

For its first 60 years the program was administered by the states with periodic, non-intrusive green eyeshade bookkeeping reviews. The program’s been extremely successful, employing $5 billion in sportsmen’s excise taxes and license fees for the states’ acquisition of 4+ million acres and the management of another 50+ million acres. Wildlife and the American sportsmen have benefited as intended and there were virtually no serious programmatic disputes or scandals. Until last year, hunting or hunters weren’t even mentioned in the PR law, but were given priority use status in deference to their monetary support.

A decade of increasing USFWS efforts to exert unusual control over state decision making culminated, on May 11, 2001 with the issuance of an “Interim Guideline for Field Trials.” The guideline, effective on signing, sent to all 50 state DNRs and federal field offices, contains very detailed, costly and prescriptive requirements to be met under the threatened loss of a pro-rate share of PR money (the state's "apportionment").

The Executive Director of the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, the state wildlife departments' Washington trade association, argued against this action as unnecessary and inappropriate. Dog-owning sportsmen agree.

The Guidelines need to be recalled for two major policy reasons:
1) They inappropriately and dramatically infringe on the states’ rightful prerogatives to manage their own game lands.
2) They contain material distortions of legislative intent, selectively quoting from last year’s PR Reform Bill, HR3671, while failing to acknowledge Senator Mike Crapo’s clarifying efforts and the House position as stated by its Floor Manager, Chairman Don Young.

The ancillary benefit of such a recall will be that field trialing will continue on Pittman-Robertson funded lands this fall while a thorough, unbiased review is undertaken. This Guidance will force most of the states east of the Mississippi River to cancel or sharply restrict their residents’ hunting dog events. Minnesota and Illinois previously were forced to close their PR areas. Missouri and Ohio have posted closure or pending restriction notices, while Indiana and Michigan DNR appear to have made very significant restrictions in their hunting dog owning residents’ use of PR areas in the mistaken belief that the Congress requires such program changes.

Recent History – Two Parallel Tracks

While the PR program had been largely scandal free before 1999, that changed with the revelations from a USFWS career employee whistleblower of USFWS headquarters’ federal aid office mismanagement and wrong-doing. During 1999, House Resource Committee Chairman Don Young held oversight hearings into serious charges of slush funds, extraordinary foreign travel, over-ups, personnel retributions, and assorted other mischief. The hearings and charges were widely reported by the outdoor press and the NRA.

As a result these investigations, Chairman Young introduced a PR Reform Bill, HR3671, with the support of Congressmen Dingell, Hansen, Tauzin and the Congressional Sportsmens’ Caucus. That bill passed the House on April 5, 2000 by a vote of 432-2. This early version of HR3671 focused on headquarters reforms and was very nearly totally silent on regional user disputes, excepting six report lines(1).

Meanwhile in the Mid-west, a long simmering state-federal issue over a bird watcher-field trialer conflict 75 miles west of Chicago resulted in the closure of a PR area to field trialing by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (DNR), under a USFWS Region 3 threat to withhold its $4-6 million PR apportionment. This January 1999 action closing the Green River area wasn’t provoked by anything more than uncommon rudeness on the part of the dispute’s participants and poor judgement by the local site manager several years earlier. What made the situation unusual was bird watcher had the resources and connections to pursue the grievance, enlisting the aid of attorneys, the Sierra Club, various activists groups and ultimately, the White House.

While the catalyst for this federal action was obvious to most, the charge list developed by Region 3 included a very long litany of items relating to endangered species, environmental damage, failure to comply with established plans, alleged hunter and other user conflicts, improper commercial activities, insufficient USFWS crediting signage, etc, etc.

Emboldened by the success of this effort and headquarters’ approval, Region 3 determined to search out similar unresolved state conflicts before they received complaints. A field trial program review module was added to the DCAA contractor's audit package and sent to Michigan for its first test. In short order, in December 1999 MDNR was notified that Lapeer SGA and three other MI PR sites had “problems.’ MDNR closed the areas to spring 2000 hunting dog events, pending more information.

After HR3671 passed the House the bill went to the Senate where it was referred to Senator Mike Crapo’s Fisheries, Wildlife, and Water Subcommittee of the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW). While that subcommittee reviewed and updated the House’s information, an ad hoc field trialer group, the Pittman-Robertson Working Group (PRWG), filed extensive materials describing the Region 3 attacks on hunting dog events. Sen. Crapo was interested in the problem; more materials were supplied and he indicated a willingness to consider remedial statutory or report language.

As the Congress moved towards adjournment and the presidential election, the USFWS Director’s and the administration’s efforts to mitigate the impacts of the House reforms intensified. The Senate’s unique rules, supportive members and a serious time crunch enabled USFWS staff to substantially influence the modification of HR3671’s reorganization, funding and other reform provisions. Further, near the end of the process, an extremely judgmental field trialing committee report section was also included (2). While the EPW committee may have intended to be very supportive of hunting dog events, it used the same language USFWS had already employed to oust trials from PR supported lands. Two days later, Sen. Crapo attempted to mitigate the report’s impact by engaging EPW Chairman Robert Smith in a floor colloquy (3). The Senate amended HR3671 was delivered back to the House with insufficient time for modification or a House-Senate conference before adjournment and five days after the Crapo/Smith Senate colloquy, Chairman Don Young delivered a blistering floor statement on behalf of field trialers (4).

Summary and Conclusions

The eight states comprising USFWS's Great Lakes-Big Rivers Region 3 don't have incompetent wildlife departments that are insensitive to the law or their duties as professional outdoors managers. Hunting dog owners and field trialers in the Mid-west haven't fewer manners and don't operate under different rules than elsewhere in the country. No DCAA audits outside of Region 3 have reported unusual, serious endemic problems with field trials, or any other user group. This dispute was entirely confined to Region 3 until the nationwide Guideline was issued May 11, 2001. Why is that?

Minneapolis based 3 personnel's antipathy for field trialing predates the incident with the politically connected Chicago birdwatcher. Before that Green River, Illinois confrontation, regional officials had encouraged Minnesota to ban public lands field trialing, withdrew PR money trying to force Illinois trialers from state owned grounds and attempted to install a region-wide field trialer guideline. Minnesota DNR surrendered. The other two mid-1990's extraordinary federal intrusions were deflected by the involved states.

Once the politicians became involved, Region 3's solution in search of a problem moved on to Michigan and Indiana. Perhaps the fact that Illinois and those states have Republican Governors is only a coincidence, but 2000 was an election year.

Under normal circumstances the election of George Bush would have meant a complete turnover in Department of Interior upper management. In fact, the Clinton appointees are gone, but only a single Bush appointee, Secretary Gale Norton, is in place. There is no USFWS Director and the four organizational spots between the Director's office and Secretary Gale Norton remain vacant, pending either Senate confirmation or White House action. It's very unlikely that there will be a new USFWS Director in place before the start of fall field trialing.

The USFWS employee holdovers appear to have taken advantage of the management vacancies at the Department of Interior to issue very restrictive national field trialing guidelines in a manner that suggests a blatant disregard towards the intent of Congress. Both HR3671 and HR701’s CARA Title III Pittman-Robertson amendments encouraged the concept of allowing each state to make their own reasoned assessments and determine their own policies toward balancing conflicts when they occur. Instead of allowing the states to resolve conflicts, the guidelines go out of their way to create them, and then apply a very heavy hand to those who would disagree.

It’s important to recognize that these USFWS attacks cover all hunting dog events and aren’t limited to any one subgroup. In Minnesota, mainly retriever owners were impacted; at Green River, Illinois, only horseback bird dog trialers lost; in Michigan, retriever trialers again were the heaviest hit and, for the first time a flushing dog group was affected. Indiana’s April 25, 2001 released report calls for severe restrictions or bans on both horseback and retriever trials.

Field trialers are not seeking preferential treatment. We are simply seeking to be able to resolve issues, including conflicts, at a state level, without the heavy hand of Washington involved.

ACTION REQUEST
Hunting Dog Owners. Please get involved. Tell your state’s wildlife department that you support their prerogative to decide what’s best for your Pittman-Robertson supported public lands. Tell the President and your Washington representatives, Interior Secretary Norton and the key Congressional outdoor sports' supporters too.

Please recall, for further view, the USFWS “Interim Guideline for Field Trials on Federal Aid Funded Lands.” Such a recall will permit the opportunity for appropriate Interior Department officials and Congressional staff to review the entire legislative intent record on this issue, without seriously and unnecessarily jeopardizing individual states’ rightful ability to manage their citizens’ hunting dog field trials this fall.

Contact information:
President George W. Bush president@whitehouse.gov
Your Washington representatives
Interior Secretary Gale Norton gale_norton@ios.doi.gov 202-208-7351
House Resource Committee Chairman James Hansen (R-UT) (202) 225-0453
House Resource Committee Vice-Chairman Don Young (R-AK) don.young@mail.house.gov (202) 225-5765
Your state’s Wildlife Dept

Your communication may be simple, like the italicized paragraph above or longer, including elements of this issue description.

1/ House Report No. 106-554
Just like wildlife dependent recreation is now a priority public use of National Wildlife Refuge system lands, similar activities including hunting, fishing, field trials with dogs, hunter education, and improvement of hunting skills on lands and interests acquired or administered with wildlife restoration funds are an important beneficial feature of the program. Guidance that sets clear and reasonable standards and recognizes the long and consistent uses of wildlife management areas for activities such as trialing may be useful.

2/ Senate Report No. 106-495
Because wildlife conservation is the primary purpose of the Pittman-Robertson Act, only field trials that do not adversely affect wildlife or wildlife conservation objectives are viewed as an acceptable use of Pittman-Robertson acquired lands. A type of field trial not generally appropriate for lands acquired with Pittman-Robertson funds would be one that requires significant manipulation of terrain, landscape, or vegetation, or intensive site management. Intensive site management in this context would include regular mowing, permanent stables, dog kennels, equipment storage areas or other infrastructure onsite, which would degrade the value of the land as wildlife habitat. Additionally, field trials proposed to be conducted during nesting or breeding seasons of the wildlife species for which the land was acquired would not be appropriate. In contrast, field trials which require minimal manipulation of terrain, vegetation, or habitat would be appropriate if timed to avoid the breeding and nesting seasons of the species for which the land was acquired. Proposals for field trials which fall between these examples, or which would conflict with hunting seasons or other public uses, would require case-by-case evaluations and decisions.

3/ Senate October 12, 2000 Floor Colloquy
DOG FIELD TRIALS
Mr. CRAPO: I would like to engage the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Smith, in a colloquy regarding the Federal Aid bill and concerns that have been raised with respect to the use of Pittman-Robertson Act acquired lands for dog field trials.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire: I am delighted to accommodate my friend from Idaho.

Mr. CRAPO. As the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee knows, there is nothing that precludes the use Pittman-Robertson lands for dog field trials, and, that in fact, this is a legitimate use of these lands, provided that the field trials are consistent with the objectives of the Pittman-Robertson Act.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. I agree that Pittman-Robertson lands can certainly be used for field trials in a way that is consistent with the act.

Mr. CRAPO. Concerns have been raised that Pittman-Robertson lands should not be used for field trials. As the Senator from New Hampshire knows, the sportsmen who pay this excise tax have varied interests--they are hunters, field trialers, and shooting enthusiasts. The primary goal of the Pittman-Robertson Act is wildlife conservation, but it is also important that these lands support multiple uses.

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. I agree with the chairman of the Fisheries, Wildlife, and Water Subcommittee.

Mr. CRAPO. Multiple uses of public lands necessarily require the balancing of occasionally competing interests and objectives. The most appropriate parties to make decisions regarding wildlife habitat development and other uses and activities are state wildlife managers who are most familiar with site specific conditions, habitat needs, and the impact of sporting activities. (emphasis added)

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. I agree wholeheartedly with the Senator from Idaho. It is those closest to the land who can help determine on a case-by-case basis how to balance wildlife needs with users who engage in various sporting activities, while remaining consistent with the objectives of the Pittman-Robertson Act. (emphasis added)

4/ House October 17, 2000 Floor Manager's Statement
Mr. YOUNG: It is important to reiterate that lands acquired with Pittman Robertson funds are used for an array of wildlife dependent recreation activities such as fishing, trapping, and hunting. This use properly includes field trials with dogs. We expect that these activities will continue on acquired lands subject to reasonable restrictions supported by evidence to conserve wildlife and related habitat. Any guidelines issued by the Fish and Wildlife Service regarding such uses must be reasonable, recognize the value of these activities, and be developed cooperatively with the states as well as affected user groups. Some elements within the Service appear to believe that intensive on-the-ground management actions are inconsistent with the purpose of Pittman Robertson Act conservation programs. The Committee strongly disagrees with any such conclusion. We remind the agency that intensive management is often the key to assuring that multiplicity of wildlife dependent recreation activities can coexist on wildlife lands and can occur with conservation objectives and purposes. This is the case with field trials. So I want no one to mistake that field trials are quite compatible on lands acquired using Pittman Robertson funds. The lands are for hunting and field trials facilitate hunting. (emphasis added)

---

HR701 Update

The Conservation and Reinvestment Act Fund (CARA), HR701, continues to slowly build support. The bill currently has 190 cosponsors, ~43% of the U.S. House of Representatives. Continuing USFWS attacks on hunting dog owners’ use of Pittman-Robertson funded state game lands may well jeopardize sportsmen’s support for this wildlife legislation and similar efforts.

---

Contacting the US Congress