Help Fight Unreasonable Bans on Fishing Tackle
Send a letter to your Senators urging them to support
S. 3850
On Wednesday, September 28, Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) introduced S.3850,which seeks to prevent an overarching federal ban on lead in recreational fishing tackle. If enacted, this ban will have a significant economic impact on anglers and the recreational fishing industry.
How You Can Help
To ensure support for this crucial legislation, please contact your Senators urging them to co-sponsor Senator Lincoln’s bill. Please click here to contact your Senators.
The Situation
On August 23, 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was petitioned by the Center for Biological Diversity and four other organizations to ban all lead in fishing tackle and ammunition under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). On August 27, the EPA denied the petition for ammunition because it is exempted from EPA regulation under TSCA, but has not acted on the petition to ban lead in fishing tackle. If accepted as presented, this would result in a ban on all lead in all fishing tackle, including sinkers, jigs, weighted fly line, lead core lines and components that contain lead such as brass and ballast in a wide variety of lures, including spinner baits, stick baits and more.
A less restrictive ban was proposed in 1992, but the EPA later abandoned it after finding that there was no significant impact of lead on waterbird populations; that the economic impact would be significant; and that the proposed rule was socially unacceptable. This issue keeps being raised but the facts do not change. A national ban on fishing tackle is unwarranted.
The Solution
Senator Lincoln introduced legislation that will help to ensure that future regulations on fishing tackle are established based on scientific data instead of unjustified petitions. This bill will amend TSCA so that fishing tackle will be exempt from EPA regulations, the same as ammunition used in hunting and the shooting sports.
The reasons to support this legislation are:
* The data does not support a federal ban on lead sinkers used for fishing. In general, bird populations, including loons and other waterfowl species, are subject to many more substantial threats such as habitat loss through shoreline development. Any lead restrictions on fishing tackle need to be based on sound science that supports the appropriate action for a particular water body or species.
* A federal ban of the use of lead in fishing tackle will have a significant negative impact on recreational anglers and fisheries resources, but a negligible impact on waterfowl populations.
* Depending on the alternative metal and current prevailing raw material costs, non-lead fishing tackle products can cost from ten to twenty times more than lead products. Non-lead products may not be as available and most do not perform as well. Mandatory transitioning to non-lead fishing tackle would require significant and costly changes from both the industry and anglers.
* America’s 60 million anglers generate over $45 billion in retail sales with a $125 billion impact on the nation’s economy, creating employment for over one million people.
Please click here to be directed to a letter that you can send to your Senators asking them to support S.3850.
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