EPA denies bid to ban lead in hunting ammunition

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency has denied a petition by five environmental groups to ban lead in hunting ammunition.

The agency said Friday that it did not have the authority to enact the ban under the Toxic Substances Control Act, as the groups had requested.

But the EPA says it's still reviewing another part of the petition, to ban lead fishing sinkers.

Click here or anywhere in this post to read the entire article at Yahoo news.

EPA Considering Ban on Traditional Ammunition

— Take Action Now

All Gun Owners, Hunters and Shooters:

With the fall hunting season fast approaching, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Lisa Jackson, who was responsible for banning bear hunting in New Jersey, is now considering a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) – a leading anti-hunting organization – to ban all traditional ammunition under the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976, a law in which Congress expressly exempted ammunition. If the EPA approves the petition, the result will be a total ban on all ammunition containing lead-core components, including hunting and target-shooting rounds. The EPA must decide to accept or reject this petition by November 1, 2010, the day before the midterm elections.

Today, the EPA has opened to public comment the CBD petition. The comment period ends on October 31, 2010.

The EPA has published the petition and relevant supplemental information as Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OPPT-2010-0681. If you would like to read the original petition and see the contents of this docket folder, please click here. In order to go directly to the ‘submit a comment’ page for this docket number, please click here.

NSSF urges you to stress the following in your opposition:

* There is no scientific evidence that the use of traditional ammunition is having an adverse impact on wildlife populations.

* Wildlife management is the proper jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the 50 state wildlife agencies.

* A 2008 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on blood lead levels of North Dakota hunters confirmed that consuming game harvested with traditional ammunition does not pose a human health risk.

* A ban on traditional ammunition would have a negative impact on wildlife conservation. The federal excise tax that manufacturers pay on the sale of the ammunition (11 percent) is a primary source of wildlife conservation funding. The bald eagle’s recovery, considered to be a great conservation success story, was made possible and funded by hunters using traditional ammunition – the very ammunition organizations like the CBD are now demonizing.

* Recent statistics from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service show that from 1981 to 2006 the number of breeding pairs of bald eagles in the United States increased 724 percent. And much like the bald eagle, raptor populations throughout the United States are soaring.

To see the entire article at "National Shooting Sports Foundation" web page, click on the first paragraph. or HERE