Various bills in the 114 th Congress address issues related to hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting on federal and state lands. Hunting and conservation have been linked in federal wildlife legislation since the passage the Lacey Act of 1900 (the first federal wildlife law, making it a federal crime to ship game killed in violation of one state's laws to another state) and then the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 (regulating the killing, hunting, buying, or selling of migratory birds). Currently, hunting and fishing are allowed on the majority of federal lands (as measured in acres). Some believe that federal lands are unnecessarily restricted by protective designations, barriers to physical access, or burdensome agency planning processes. Others question whether opening more lands to hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting is fully consistent with good game management, public safety, other recreational uses, resource management, and the statutory purposes of the lands. Two recent bills, S. 556 and S. 659 , address giving hunting and fishing activities a higher priority in land management. Although both bills address hunting, fishing, and other forms of outdoor recreation, S. 556 is focused on federal lands while S. 659 covers diverse topics such as the regulation of lead shot, imports of polar bear trophies, the funding of land acquisition for recreation, and the reauthorization of certain international wildlife conservation laws. Under current law, federal land managers balance hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting with good game management, public safety, resource management, and the statutory purposes of the lands. The resulting balance point will vary among agencies based on the statutory requirements of the agency, land classification, location, and other factors. The four traditional land management agencies—the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and National Park Service (NPS), all in the Department of the Interior (DOI), and the Forest Service (FS) in the Department of Agriculture—do not maintain data on how many acres of land are currently open to hunting, fishing, and/or recreational shooting. However, BLM "estimates that over 99 percent of BLM-managed public lands are open to hunting, and 99 percent of BLM-managed public lands are open to recreational target shooting." FS estimates that more than 95% of its lands are currently open to these activities. Among the FWS's 594 wildlife refuges and waterfowl production areas, more than 360 are open to some form of hunting, and more than 300 units offer fishing opportunities. As of February 2014, hunting was permitted in 61 of the 401 NPS units, and fishing was permitted in 200 units. Other federal agencies have various policies on the activities covered in these two bills. The Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), for example, allows recreational shooting but actively discourages "repeated recreational target shooting." At the same time, BOR allows hunting, fishing, and trapping on its lands, subject to regulation. Roughly half of the Army Corps of Engineers' (Corps') land is open to hunting. In addition, many military bases offer access to hunters and fishers, including Camp Pendleton, California (hunting and fishing); Camp LeJeune, California (hunting, fishing, and trapping); and Camp Bullis, Texas (hunting, fishing, and target shooting). Various rules may limit participation at these bases to members of the military, veterans, and their families. Lands under the jurisdiction of other federal agencies may be managed for purposes that include the conservation of natural resources, including wildlife, even if conservation is not the primary purpose of these lands. Moreover, multiple executive orders direct all agencies with land to preserve the environment, and these orders apply whether the agency currently offers hunting, fishing, trapping, or even public access. (See " Definition of Federal Public Land ," below.) Examples of agencies that limit access to their lands include the Department of Energy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This report focuses on two bills that have received considerable attention in the 114 th Congress: S. 556 and S. 659 . Both are titled "the Bipartisan Sportsmen's Act of 2015." S. 556 was referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and S. 659 was referred to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. In addition to its provisions affecting federal lands, S. 556 contains a provision amending the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA; 5 U.S.C. §504) and affecting the Judgment Fund in the Department of Justice from which claims against the United States are paid (31 U.S.C. §1304). The two bills contain a number of provisions found in bills in previous Congresses. Both bills use definitions of federal land or similar terms in various sections in a manner that leaves some doubt as to the land under consideration. Table 1 shows the terms used and the land classifications that appear to be included, possibly are included, and explicitly are excluded under the definitions. S. 556 is titled the "Bipartisan Sportsmen's Act of 2015." It was referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, which held hearings on the bill on March 12, 2015. The witnesses were Steve Ellis, Deputy Director for Operations, BLM; Leslie Weldon, Deputy Chief, National Forest System, FS; Jeffrey S. Crane, President, Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation; and Whit Fosburgh, President and CEO, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. Issues raised during the hearing included the availability of hunting, fishing, and shooting opportunities on federal lands, particularly those of BLM and FS; the use of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) to purchase lands to support access for recreation; the appropriate use of funds derived from the sale of federal land; and the effect of the bill on wilderness management, among other matters. Each of these issues is discussed below. Section 101 of S. 556 addresses hunting, trapping, fishing, and recreational shooting on federal land. It would create an "open until closed" management policy for federal lands. It specifies the factors a land management agency would need to consider to justify closing federal lands to hunting, trapping, fishing, or recreational shooting. The steps to do so would include meeting specific criteria for closure determinations, revising planning documents, and filing reports with Congress. Section 101 defines federal public land (FPL) broadly as "any land or water that is ... owned by the United States; and ... managed by a Federal agency (including the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service) for purposes that include the conservation of natural resources." The definition specifically exempts (1) lands or waters held in trust for the benefit of Indian tribes or individual Indians; (2) lands under the jurisdiction of NPS or FWS; (3) fish hatcheries; and (4) conservation easements on private land. (See Table 1 .) While there is no existing statutory definition of FPL, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA; P.L. 94-579 ) defines public lands as BLM lands. The Section 101 definition is broader than the FLPMA definition, and some may interpret it to include all federal lands except those explicitly excluded. As a result, even though most of the bill appears to target only BLM and FS, some provisions could be interpreted to include federal lands under other agencies, such as BOR, the Department of Defense (including the Army Corps of Engineers), the Department of Energy, and the Department of Commerce, all of which count natural resource conservation among their purposes. A similar, inclusive definition of federal lands was used in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 ( P.L. 109-58 ), which referred to a number of departments as being necessary to establish rights-of-way on federal lands: Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, and the Interior. Also, as multiple executive orders direct all agencies with land to preserve the environment, some could argue that any such agency has as one of its purposes the conservation of natural resources and could meet the standard specified in Section 101. Naming specific land management agencies in the Section 101 definition would explicitly limit the federal lands to which this legislation applies. This approach is used in other legislation; the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA; P.L. 108-447 ), for example, defines f ederal land management agency as "the National Park Service, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, or the Forest Service." Section 101(a) defines hunting to mean the "use of a firearm, bow, or other authorized means in the lawful (i) pursuit, shooting, capture, collection, trapping, or killing of wildlife; or (ii) attempt to pursue, shoot, capture, collect, trap, or kill wildlife." The definition includes trapping, an activity that traditionally is not included in the definition of hunting. Trapping currently is allowed under some circumstances on some federal lands, but the use of traps (particularly a design called leghold traps) has been controversial and is less common than traditional hunting on federal lands. Although the definition in Section 101 concerns hunting, the provision addressing licensing in Section 101(b)(9)(B)(i) refers to "fish, hunt, and trap." The reference to trapping may be unnecessary, because the bill defines hunting to include trapping. In addition, Section 101(b)(6) refers to "activities relating to fishing or hunting," potentially expanding the allowed activities. Section 101(a)(4) defines recreational fishing as "an activity for sport or pleasure that involves the lawful ... catching, taking, or harvesting of fish; or ... attempted catching, taking, or harvesting of fish; or ... any other activity for sport or pleasure that can reasonably be expected to result in the lawful catching, taking, or harvesting of fish."