Fishing legislation to House floor

[newsman]

Legislation to make it easier to allow fishing in federal areas has been readied for a House vote. See http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquer...@1%28hr337%29:

[AndyS]

H.R. 1825, the Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act, clarifies federal authorities and policies for the management of hunting and fishing on public lands. It provides additional protections for continued public access to public land for the purpose of recreational fishing, hunting, and shooting sports on U.S. Forest Service (FS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands. The provisions of H.R. 1825 require federal land managers to support and facilitate public use and access for hunting, fishing and recreational shooting and create an `open until closed' management regime for these activities on FS and BLM land, but does not give these uses priority over other multiple uses. It requires an evaluation of the impact on hunting, fishing and recreational shooting in land and resource planning and eliminates redundancies in environmental review of hunting, fishing and recreational shooting opportunities. The bill restates, in unambiguous language, Congress' consistent position that BLM and FS lands designated as wilderness, wilderness eligible, or suitable and primitive or semi-primitive areas are open to all legal forms of hunting, fishing and recreational shooting unless there are good reasons to close such areas. It also forecloses opportunities for continued nuisance lawsuits by classifying hunting, fishing and recreational shooting as `necessary' to meet the minimum requirements for the administration of wilderness.

WOW........my eyes go blurry after a while but it's all good stuff.