Interior secretary repeals ban on lead bullets

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Good!

One more cheap legislative trick that Barry and Michael tried to pull off has quickly 'bit the dust'. Now America needs to get its production of affordable lead products returned to North America.
 
More fake news. The Obama administration never enacted such a ban. There was nothing to repeal. The outgoing interior secretary on his last day in office signed an order calling for a study to be done to determine if a lead ban should be imposed only on certain federal lands. The study was to be completed by the year 2023.

The current administration may have decided to halt the study, but there was never a ban in place to repeal.
 
Yeah I'm sure they had to repeal the ban because it didn't exist. Wake up, liberalism is anti-Gun.
 
More fake news. The Obama administration never enacted such a ban. There was nothing to repeal. The outgoing interior secretary on his last day in office signed an order calling for a study to be done to determine if a lead ban should be imposed only on certain federal lands. The study was to be completed by the year 2023.

The current administration may have decided to halt the study, but there was never a ban in place to repeal.
Reading the actual order, it appears to be a little more than just a study. In part, it says:

Require the use of nontoxic ammunition and fishing tackle to the fullest extent practicable for all activities on Service lands, waters, and facilities by January 2022, except as needed for law enforcement or health and safety uses, as provided for in policy.

Order #219 (the original order issued by the previous administration) set into motion a process to actually ban the use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle, by implementing policies to require the use of non-toxic equivalents. The original order can be found here:

https://webcache.googleusercontent....v/policy/do219.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
 
More fake news. The Obama administration never enacted such a ban. There was nothing to repeal. The outgoing interior secretary on his last day in office signed an order calling for a study to be done to determine if a lead ban should be imposed only on certain federal lands. The study was to be completed by the year 2023.

The current administration may have decided to halt the study, but there was never a ban in place to repeal.

I'm curious as to how you formed this opinion?
 
More fake news. The Obama administration never enacted such a ban. There was nothing to repeal. The outgoing interior secretary on his last day in office signed an order calling for a study to be done to determine if a lead ban should be imposed only on certain federal lands. The study was to be completed by the year 2023.

The current administration may have decided to halt the study, but there was never a ban in place to repeal.

Correct. The ban would not go into effect for 5 years. That's the date 219 set for the FWS agency to comply. Federal agencies are notoriously slow in implementing policy. Some never totally comply for lots of reasons, funding is the usual road block. Lack of interest by agency employees to enforce policy and follow procedure is another reason these "director's orders" have little effect. I've seen this with BLM employees. Just no interest in following directives and procedures. These employees are closely connected to the local conditions and determine for themselves what needs to be done.

Environmental policy should come from congress or the state, not the federal administration. Mostly the administration doesn't have a clue what the local conditions are. Every state has biologists that are more than capable of deciding what regulations need to be in place. We have non-toxic shot regulations in place in this state for upland birds in some areas. I agree with the state's assessment there. So far there has been no non-toxic regulations for large game animals. The research just doesn't support the need.....yet.

This order was just another example of the federal gov't sticking their nose into the people's business. Surely they have better things to do.
 
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I haven't had a lot of time to get back to this, but something isn't right here. The official document has been taken down. This link is the closest thing I can find showing the actual wording of the document.

http://hog-blog.com/category/lead-ammo-ban/

All the current news stories are claiming that the Obama administration placed a ban on lead effective immediately and the ban has been repealed by the Trump administration. That is simply not true. The original document clearly stated that a study was being conducted in order to justify banning lead by the year 2022. I misquoted the year in my 1st post as 2023. At least part of that is confirmed in the above link. But with the original document removed I cannot confirm any more. The link above is from a pro-hunting website that comes as close to confirming my position as I can provide.

While I'm not in favor of the lead ban and support the Trump administrations willingness to support guns rights it is my strong belief that someone is lying here and trying to claim credit for doing a lot more than they did.
 
I haven't had a lot of time to get back to this, but something isn't right here. The official document has been taken down. This link is the closest thing I can find showing the actual wording of the document.

http://hog-blog.com/category/lead-ammo-ban/

All the current news stories are claiming that the Obama administration placed a ban on lead effective immediately and the ban has been repealed by the Trump administration. That is simply not true. The original document clearly stated that a study was being conducted in order to justify banning lead by the year 2022. I misquoted the year in my 1st post as 2023. At least part of that is confirmed in the above link. But with the original document removed I cannot confirm any more. The link above is from a pro-hunting website that comes as close to confirming my position as I can provide.

While I'm not in favor of the lead ban and support the Trump administrations willingness to support guns rights it is my strong belief that someone is lying here and trying to claim credit for doing a lot more than they did.

So you're saying that Tom488's link to the Director's Order isn't real?

I ask because that link is to an archived copy of the actual post from the FWS.gov site.

Here are a few of the important points that indicate that an expanded ban on lead was being implemented.

"The purpose of this Order is to establish procedures and a timeline for expanding the use of nontoxic ammunition and fishing tackle on Service lands, waters, and facilities and for certain types of hunting and fishing regulated by the Service outside of Service lands, waters, and facilities."

"When is this Order effective? This Order is effective immediately."

"Assistant Director(s), will take steps to expeditiously require the use of nontoxic ammunition or fishing tackle to the fullest extent practical under Service jurisdiction to benefit such species or resources"

"...will establish a process to phase in a requirement for the use of nontoxic ammunition for recreational hunting of mourning doves and other upland game birds."

Nowhere does it state that the order was designed to start a study, it says that it's purpose is to expand the use of nontoxic ammunition and fishing tackle. Notice too that this isn't simply a reiteration of the current regulations for waterfowl hunting, it indicates specifically that upland game bird and mourning dove hunting are targeted. So no, it's not a fake story but I suspect where you saw the information that you're quoting, I've seen it too at another web site for hunters and they have a tendency to muddy the waters when they talk about conservation issues. Their discussion included talk about study but I don't remember any specifics, regardless, they implied that 219 was meaningless - that was the fake news.
 
JMR's right (as usual), there was in fact no actual ban.* But the purpose of the order was to set the ball in motion for such a ban as soon as possible (several years w/o any legislative power at their back is about as fast as possible for an agency), so its repeal is not nothing. Just as Obama was full of it when the order was released as a ban (why do you think every mainstream news agency taking marching orders reported it as one?), Trump is full of it by claiming he's allowed lead back on public lands.

I give the new boss credit though; this is perhaps the very first pro-gun action he's ever taken in his life, that he wasn't put up to by someone else. Unlike the social security fiduciary thing from last week (that I suspect impacts like a dozen people across the entire nation) this one was not put in front of him at the behest of congress (who somehow can't muster the same motivation to assist the millions that stand to benefit from silencers). Whether he did it out of pro-gun sentiment, or merely to spite Obama for leaving a present in his chair on the way out, he deserves some kudos.

Not many kudos, though, since this action is the tiniest of breadcrumbs for the pro-gun cohort. It's nice we don't have a Hillary stacking new wood on the fire, but I doubt that the folks who voted for Trump wanted him to do little to nothing as the alternative. I elected to not vote for him precisely because I concluded he wouldn't do much if anything for us. This is a step in the direction of earning my future (rabid) support, but I ain't there yet.
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TCB

*it's a good thing, too, since there'd have probably been repercussions by now for such overreach
 
I find the actual article interesting in that the antigun people truely believe that because an animal shot with a lead bullet will poison the people consuming the meat. I have eaten meat killed by lead bullets nearly every day and have yet to have any lead uptake. Most everyone I know tend to trim them bullet damaged and bloodshot tissue out of my food source. Most federal one size fits all rules are a horrible mistake. Let the states manage the hometown issues. Maybe the feds would have more time to manage their own business.
 
So you're saying that Tom488's link to the Director's Order isn't real?

I ask because that link is to an archived copy of the actual post from the FWS.gov site.

Here are a few of the important points that indicate that an expanded ban on lead was being implemented.

"The purpose of this Order is to establish procedures and a timeline for expanding the use of nontoxic ammunition and fishing tackle on Service lands, waters, and facilities and for certain types of hunting and fishing regulated by the Service outside of Service lands, waters, and facilities."

"When is this Order effective? This Order is effective immediately."

"Assistant Director(s), will take steps to expeditiously require the use of nontoxic ammunition or fishing tackle to the fullest extent practical under Service jurisdiction to benefit such species or resources"

"...will establish a process to phase in a requirement for the use of nontoxic ammunition for recreational hunting of mourning doves and other upland game birds."

Nowhere does it state that the order was designed to start a study, it says that it's purpose is to expand the use of nontoxic ammunition and fishing tackle. Notice too that this isn't simply a reiteration of the current regulations for waterfowl hunting, it indicates specifically that upland game bird and mourning dove hunting are targeted. So no, it's not a fake story but I suspect where you saw the information that you're quoting, I've seen it too at another web site for hunters and they have a tendency to muddy the waters when they talk about conservation issues. Their discussion included talk about study but I don't remember any specifics, regardless, they implied that 219 was meaningless - that was the fake news.


Oh geez, federal agency hierarchy is a complete joke. I haven't worked with the USFWS but I've worked with the USFS in an official capacity. They aren't as connected to official policy as you think. All you need to do is talk to some of the supervisors. They are underfunded and understaffed. That directive was nothing more than a political whim from the last administration that had absolutely no chance of being implemented even if it had survived. "To the fullest extent practical" is the operative phrase here. Translated, we aren't going to hold anyone accountable. The whole thing was nothing more than political posturing. DOI is about to get its budget cut again. Not much joy at USFWS.
 
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Thanks for finding a link to the original document, I tried and was unsuccessful. It has been taken down from the USFWS web page. This is the quote I was trying to locate. I'll be honest, I've seen so much about this that I was beginning to doubt myself. I was starting to think I had misread, or mis-remembered something. But being to go back and actually re-read the document confirms my thoughts.

"The purpose of this Order is to establish procedures and a timeline for expanding the use of nontoxic ammunition

And

Require the use of nontoxic ammunition and fishing tackle to the fullest extent practicable for all activities on Service lands, waters, and facilities by January 2022,

My use of a study may have been a poor choice of words, but having worked at government jobs " to establish procedures and a timeline" always involves some sort of study.

When the story 1st broke it was reported that the ban on lead bullets took effect immediately. That was simply false, either done due to misunderstanding, but more likely a deliberate attempt to stir up controversy. The truth is that no such ban has ever existed, but a plan was established to attempt a ban in the future.

While I applaud the Trump administration for their guns rights approach, this is simply grandstanding. They are hoping to look good in the eyes of hunters and shooters by not being honest. Read the last line of the order. The Trump administration didn't repeal a bullet ban, they revoked an order that would have expired in July of 2018 anyway.

This Order is effective immediately. It remains in effect until we incorporate it into the Fish and Wildlife Service Manual, or until we amend, supersede, or revoke it, whichever comes first. If we do not amend, supersede, or revoke it, the provisions of this Order will terminate on July 31, 2018.
 
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