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Lead Bill "On the Wall" Cease Fire!

The House General Housing and Military Affairs Committee left this afternoon with no further action being taken on H.352, the lead bill.

When the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs, the NRA-ILA and National Shooting Sports Foundation related the bill had problems, it was YOUR calls, E-mails, mailings and direct legislator contracts that earned the public hearing on Tuesday night and made the legislators aware there were serious problems with this bill.

Tuesday night the General Housing and Military Affairs Committee, chaired by Rep. Helen Head (D) of South Burlington, held a public hearing on H.352, the lead bill.

The hearing took place before a full room of citizens on the floor of the chambers of the Vermont House of Representatives. Hundreds of our folks traveled to the Vermont State House to participate in this public hearing.

The room was full of orange handbills saying: No Lead Bills Hands Off our Ammo! provided by the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs, National Rifle Association-Institute for Legislative Action and the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

At the conclusion of the Tuesday public hearing the Federation, NRA-ILA and NSSF knew the amended bill was inadequate to protect ammunition/shooting, it the representation of our organizations and YOUR continued calls, that had legislators had knowing you would not accept the current form of the bill.

As today is Cross-Over Day, any bill not getting done by the close of business today should not cross over to the other house this year.

The bill is now "on the wall" and even if the committee were to take action on it now, it would probably not make it to the floor this year, as both the house and senate will be working on other legislation.

Again, it was the effort of all of the folks who took the time to be involved that got the attention of the members of the legislature.

Good work.

Vermont Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs, Inc. Testimony on H.352

The Vermont Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs stands in strong opposition to H.352.

Our opposition is because the broad and vague language of an enacted H.352 would:

• Greatly expand the power of the state to regulate, ban and litigate on lead issues.
• Create a tremendously expanded lead abatement industry and serve to craft a lead litigation mill.
• Empower the municipalities with enforcement authority over lead containing materials.
• All of which would allow for the banning or so severely regulating of the types of ammunition commonly used in shooting and hunting, as to either terminate or price shooting and hunting beyond the reach of most citizens.

H.352 emanates from the "Let's Get the Lead Out of Vermont" Report of the Committee on Lead in Consumer Products and Other Exposures available on the Attorney General's web page on lead, and/or at the URL:
http://www.atg.state.vt.us/upload/1170959947_Lead_Consumer_Products.pdf

This report, which addresses ammunition and shooting activities from pages 18 through 20 (being pages 22 to 24 of the pdf document on the AG's web page above ) is rampant with highly questionable science. The report was immediately challenged by the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute and Dr. Richard Peddicord of the National Association of Shooting Ranges. Document available at:
http://wfsa.net/WFSANEWS/2007/February07.htm

This Attorney General's report makes such unsupportable assertions as:

• Lead can be "…absorbed through the skin by normal handling of ammunition in reloading a weapon, home reloading shells or casting lead slugs or balls." Page 18.
• "Areas of concentrated firing of guns such as trap and skeet gun clubs can cause significant environment contamination." Page 19.

This last quote had as its supporting reference, cited by footnote 98, research conducted by the Violence Policy Center in collaboration with The Environmental Working Group. The Violence Policy Center is a gun control organization. A report on metal contamination using research by social policy issue activism organizations is not the type of objective and valid science Vermonters expect their government agencies or legislature to use in establishing sound public policy or state laws.

This report is rife with pseudoscience, and H.352, which would produce its statutory instrument of enforcement, is strongly opposed by the Federation, NRA-ILA and NSSF, and will be until the bill is amended to protect all ammunition and shooting activities.