Biden administration is withholding funding from schools with hunting, archery programs

Whether it isn’t banning lead bullets and fishing weights and putting thousands of gun dealers out of business, the Biden administration is pushing hard to eliminate hunting. This is the Biden administration’s interpretation of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA). Forbidding federal funding for schools that have hunting or archery classes will end schools having those classes. It is hard to see how eliminating hunter safety classes will make people safer. Nor is it clear how this will help wildlife. Hunters keep wildlife populations in balance. Hunters also contribute $796 million a year for conservation programs through state licenses and fees. Also how does ending archery classes make communities safer?

According to federal guidance circulated among hunting education groups and shared with Fox News Digital, the Department of Education determined that, under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) passed last year, school hunting and archery classes are precluded from receiving federal funding. The interpretation could impact millions of American children enrolled in such programs.

“It’s a negative for children. As a former educator of 30-plus years, I was always trying to find a way to engage students,” Tommy Floyd, the president of the National Archery in the Schools Program, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “In many communities, it’s a shooting sport, and the skills from shooting sports, that help young people grow to be responsible adults. They also benefit from relationships with role models.”

Thomas Catenacci, “Biden admin withholding key funding for schools with hunting, archery programs,” Fox News, July 28, 2023.

Records of the Senate and House votes are shown here. Fifteen Senate Republicans and Fourteen House Republicans voted for the bill.

The Senate Republicans who voted for this include Blunt (R-MO), Burr (R-NC), Capito (R-WV), Cassidy (R-LA), Collins (R-ME), Cornyn (R-TX), Ernst (R-IA), Graham (R-SC), McConnell (R-KY), Murkowski (R-AK), Portman (R-OH), Romney (R-UT), Tillis (R-NC), Toomey (R-PA), and Young (R-IN). Democrats from states with lots of hunters also voted for the legislation: Tester (D-MT) third highest state in terms of percent of the population with hunters, King (I-ME) comes from Maine that ranks fifth, Manchin (D-WV) from West Virginia that ranks ninth, and Baldwin (D-WI) from Wisconsin that ranks eleventh. Montana schools get 12% of their funding from the Federal government, Maine 6.7%, West Virginia 11.6%, and Wisconsin 6.9%. These are substantial amounts of money that will make it difficult for schools to consider these classes.