This Is Nuts

[Danoinark]

BTW if you get the Arkansas Democrat Gazette there is an article about this in the sports section in today's paper.

This may be the one you are referring to. Dano

ARKANSAS SPORTSMAN : Legislature won't stop until it gets AGFC's money

BRYAN HENDRICKS

Posted on Sunday, March 29, 2009

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission seems to have overreached the state Legislature's tolerance threshold with its gas leases at Gulf Mountain and Petit Jean River wildlife management areas.

For the Legislature, which is eternally at odds with the AGFC over its constitutionally protected autonomy, the multimillion-dollar gas leases at the WMAs were a bridge too far. It's no coincidence that there's a small blizzard of AGFC-related bills floating around at the Capitol this spring, including one (House Bill 1846) that will skim about $1 million from the gas lease money over the next two fiscal years to fund wildlife observation trails. Gov. Mike Beebe also carved off his pound of flesh from the gas lease money to fund two new positions with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality. Then, there's Senate Bill 874 - the Sportsmen's Stimulus Bill - which would reduce the price of all resident licenses to $2. Finally, Senate Joint Resolution 11 seeks to amend Amendment 35 to the Arkansas Constitution in a way that would strip the AGFC of its independence.

The Legislature, with many members believing the gas money belongs in the general fund, is also holding up the AGFC's appropriations for the fiscal year 2009-2010.

And, if that isn't enough, a citizen, James Dockery, has filed a lawsuit against the AGFC to direct gas lease revenues to the general fund.

There are a lot of hornets in that nest, and apparently, the AGFC didn't choose a long enough stick when it decided to poke it. There'll be a lot more, too. If the state's executive and legislative branches can't get that money into the general fund, they'll just nickel and dime the AGFC for the next number of years until they drain every dime of that money, or its equivalent, into other projects. A mil here for a couple of ADEQ inspectors, a couple of mil there for wildlife trails, a couple more mil next year for something else, and it'll go on and on and on until there's nothing left.

I'm amused that whenever somebody irritates the AGFC, the agency makes an issue over whether or not that person holds an Arkansas hunting and fishing license. James Goodhart, the AGFC's legal counsel, noted last week that Dockery apparently has never held a hunting and fishing license. The agency annually tries to discredit Sen. Steve Faris of Malvern - the agency's most persistent adversary - for not having a hunting and fishing license.

That's irrelevant. Scott Henderson, the AGFC's director, often says that the AGFC serves a broader constituency beyond hunters and fishermen by virtue of the statewide one-eighth of 1 percent conservation sales tax. Faris and Dockery are just part of that broader constituency.

Frankly, I dispute the AGFC's "Big Tent" theory. The Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism gets just as much money from the Conservation Sales Tax as the AGFC does. Parks and Tourism serves the state's nonconsumptive clientele, and it evidently has no desire to broaden its tent by allowing controlled hunts on state parks. In fact, Parks and Tourism sometimes sends strong anti-hunting messages, such as closing one of the trails at Lake Catherine State Park last fall with prominent signs warning wayward hikers they might get shot by hunters. The AGFC, on the other hand, tries to be all things to all people, somewhat to the alienation of its primary customers, hunters and fishermen.

Because of that sales tax, however, all Arkansans are stakeholders in WMAs, and thus have a stake in the way the AGFC manages its WMAs. If a taxpayer opposes leasing a WMA to a gas company, his voice, like it or not, has equal standing with that of a hunter, trapper or fisherman.

That's precisely why we need Faris' new incarnation of the Right to Hunt Amendment (SJR3), yet another AGFC-related bill in this year's General Assembly. If a citizen can file suit to dispute gas leases, he can also file suit disputing the use of hunting and fishing as primary management tools on WMAs like anti-hunting groups routinely do in other states.

Faris' Right to Hunt Amendment will yank up that weed by the root.

[Danoinark]

Here's a link to another discussion of this debacle. Dano

http://flyfishingarkansasandmissouri.yuku.com/topic/5065

[Don]

The good news is my mom owns some mineral rights in the section where one of the gas wells is going in...

...so we loaded up the truck and we moved to Beverly.......Hills, that is, swimmin' pools, movie stars.

By the way, I'm up for adoption.

Don

[ozark trout fisher]

The legislature taking part in fish and game. A nightmare if I ever heard of one. Like someone else said, just look at what happened to California!

[taxidermist]

What sucks is the leg and Demcorat new paper owners have bithced for years about the AGFC buying the lands, these were always for the public to use to insure a place to hunt.

Now that the AGFC has invested a lot of money and much of it is FEDERAL Pittman Robertson, Dingell Johnson tax return, which the state leg has tried many times to HIGHJACK. The state thinks the money from gas/oil leases should go into the general funds.

Why, just to they will give it to another crackwhore for another bastard child!!!

The reason the AGFC was formed was to stop the legs. from screwing everything up and now look a bit of greed.

I have called all the local reps and promised to campain hard against them if they continue to try to screw the AFGC over the gas and oil leases money.

[Ham]

I want a $2 lifetime hunting and fishing license PLEASE!

[hoglaw]

No kidding. This is completely rediculous, but if there's a window where I can get my lifetime license for $2.00, I'm sure as hell going to do it.