On the recordApril 17, 2012
I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today to support my amendment, which strikes a bailout that was slipped into this bill for 41 wealthy sport hunters who want to import polar bear trophies taken during hunts in Canada. Polar bears were listed as threatened in May of 2008 by the Bush administration's Fish and Wildlife Service, which prohibited their importation as trophies. This protection was not implemented overnight. Trophy hunters were warned. They were warned by Federal agencies and hunting associations for more than a year that the final listing would cut off imports immediately. The Hunting Report told its readers in 2007: The bottom line is, no American hunter should be putting hard, non- returnable money down on a polar bear hunt at this point. These individuals knowingly assumed the risk that their trophies might not be approved for importation, and they decided to hunt and to kill these beautiful, threatened creatures anyway. While it is too late to save these bears, passing this bill creates a perverse incentive for trophy hunters to rush to hunt any species soon to be protected under the Endangered Species Act because their friends in Congress will simply bail them out after the fact. We cannot allow that, and that's why I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.
