I
103D CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 1815
To protect individuals engaged in a lawful hunt on Federal lands, to establish
an administrative civil penalty for persons who intentionally obstruct,
impede, or interfere with the conduct of a lawful hunt, and for other
purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
APRIL 22, 1993
Mr. BREWSTER (for himself, Mr. YOUNG of Alaska, Mr. ORTON, Mr.
HASTERT, Mr. GILLMOR, Mr. SARPALIUS, Mr. MCHUGH, Mr. BARCIA,
Mrs. VUCANOVICH, Mr. OXLEY, Mr. LAROCCO, Mr. CUNNINGHAM, Mr.
HUNTER, Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota, Mr. DINGELL, Mr. EMERSON,
Mr. ZIMMER, Mr. SMITH of Oregon, Mr. PETE GEREN of Texas, Mr.
BAKER of Louisiana, Mr. ROTH, Mr. SUNDQUIST, Mr. HANSEN, Mr.
BONILLA, Mr. BOEHLERT, Mr. TANNER, Mr. SAXTON, Mr. DELAY, Mr.
HOBSON, and Mr. MCINNIS) introduced the following bill; which was re-
ferred jointly to the Committees on Natural Resources, Merchant Marine
and Fisheries, and Agriculture
A BILL
To protect individuals engaged in a lawful hunt on Federal
lands, to establish an administrative civil penalty for
persons who intentionally obstruct, impede, or interfere
with the conduct of a lawful hunt, and for other pur-
poses.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Recreational Hunting
Safety and Preservation Act of 1993’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds that—
(1) recreational hunting, when carried out pur-
suant to law (as implemented by the regulations of
Federal and State wildlife management agencies) is
a necessary and beneficial element in the proper con-
servation and management of healthy, abundant,
and biologically diverse wildlife resources;
(2) recreational hunters (because of a generally
demonstrated concern with the conservation of wild-
life resources and preservation of habitat necessary
for the breeding and maintenance of healthy wildlife
populations, and through a familiarity with the re-
sources gained from experience in the field) are a
valuable asset in ensuring enlightened public input
into decisions regarding management and mainte-
nance programs for wildlife resources and habitat;
(3)(A) recreational hunting supports industries
highly significant to the national economy through
sales in interstate commerce of sporting goods; and
(B) the Federal excise taxes imposed on the
sales provide a major source of funding for vital pro-
grams of wildlife conservation and management;
(4) various persons are engaging in (and have
announced an intent to continue to engage in) a va-
riety of disruptive activities with the premeditated
purpose of preventing and interfering with the con-
duct of lawful recreational hunting on Federal lands,
which activities—
(A) place both recreational hunters and the
disruptive persons in imminent jeopardy of
grave physical injury or death;
(B) disrupt the peaceful, lawful, and pru-
dent conduct of wildlife population and habitat
management programs by Federal and State
wildlife management agencies; and
(C) ultimately may alter the planned pro-
gram objectives, resulting in—
(i) undesirable patterns of activity
within populations of wildlife;
(ii) the endangerment of the future vi-
ability of wildlife species; and
(iii) damage to habitat values;
(5) Federal lands comprise important wildlife
habitat resources that—
(A) support many large, diverse, and vital
populations of wildlife; and