Rosendale cosponsors bill that would harm Montana's wildlife, economy

If there’s one thing that Montanans can agree on, it’s our fondness for wildlife. From eagles and ospreys to bull elk and bighorn sheep, we still have plenty of what so much of the country has lost. These natural riches are partly why we’re known as the Last Best Place. But it wasn’t always this way.

By the early decades of the 20th century, market hunting, poaching and habitat loss had driven many species to the brink of extinction. Then, in 1937, hunters asked the federal government to tax the sales of guns and ammunition and dedicate the money to improving conditions for wildlife and for hunters. It’s called the Pittman Robertson Act. Anglers later stepped up with similar taxes on fishing and boating equipment under the Dingell Johnson Act

Now, U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale is cosponsoring a bill that would eliminate the Pittman Robertson taxes and slash the Dingell Johnson taxes. If HR 8187 passes, Montana’s wildlife, fish, hunters, anglers and outdoor businesses will suffer. And Rosendale has signed off on that.

The bill’s main sponsor, another freshman representative who owns a gun store in Georgia, calls the bill the ”RETURN our Constitutional Rights Act.” He argues that since the Second Amendment protects access to guns and ammunition, people shouldn’t be taxed for constitutionally protected activities.

Think about that for a minute. The First Amendment protects freedom of expression, but if you buy a book or a magazine in most states, you pay sales taxes. If you get your internet or TV news via cable, you pay a fee to the Federal Communications Commission. Your cell phone bill includes taxes.

Rosendale said Tuesday during a telephone town hall meeting that he likes the bill because it will make guns and ammo cheaper. But the taxes certainly haven’t hampered sales.

Between 2010 and 2020, domestic sales by American gunmakers doubled, from 2.25 million guns to 5.5 million, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. And for the last couple of years, ammunition was scarce all over the state. Lots of stores limit how much you can buy.

And these two taxes pay big returns for Montana: $24.4 million in 2021. That money pays game wardens and biologists, protects habitat, restores streams and pays for shooting ranges and hunter safety courses.

Not only hunters and anglers benefit. When you improve duck habitat, you make things better for cranes and warblers and red-winged blackbirds. When you protect winter range for elk, you protect open space. When you build or improve a boat ramp, you make it more enticing for visitors to stay an extra couple of days.

Rosendale also said the bill would divert $800 million a year from another habitat and recreation fund, the Land and Water Conservation Fund. That’s 20 percent less than the hunting and angling taxes distributed nationwide in 2020. Plus, it shrivels by $800 million the amount of LWCF money available for things like parks and land access agreements and walking paths all over the country. It’s like taking a dollar out of one pocket and putting eight dimes in another pocket.

Montana’s wildlife and the thousands of small-town businesses that depend on that wildlife will lose big if Rosendale succeeds. We’ll see fewer access programs, less maintenance of public lands, fewer biologists on the ground. Our economy will take a hard ding. Our natural world will take a bigger one.

At the town hall, Rosendale called it a “win-win” situation.

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Scott McMillion is a lifelong hunter from Livingston and the editor of Montana Quarterly.