Vertebrate Fossils in the U.S.

All:

I am a member of the Association of Applied Paleontological Sciences, and I am hoping to find support amoung the readers of this blog for help in defeating or removing a provision that was wedged into the recent Omnibus Land Management Act of 2009 in front of Congress. Please read on:

As you may have heard, the Omnibus Land Management Act 2009 was defeated in the House on Wednesday. This act is not part of the stimulus program, nor is it a spending bill. It will adversely affect those of us who hunt, collect, trade and sell vertebrate fossils outside of an academic setting. Just because the House of Representatives defeated it for now, our work is far from over. It will be presented again, as early as next week, and it is imperative that we contact those Representatives that voted Yes and inform them of the big problems with the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act (PRPA), a very small part of this 1000+ page bill. I'm pretty confident that most of the folks in Congress have not read this entire bill and are voting based on the small part of it they want to see passed. That's no excuse and we need to help them be responsible stewards of our country. Tracie Bennitt of Triebold Paleontology, Inc. was personally able to change the vote of her representative in Colorado, Doug Lamborn, by showing him the problems with this bill. Please take action NOW and contact your representative. Here are some talking points for your call, fax, email or letter.

S22 Subtitle D (page 495 of 1248) PRPA Highlights:
The bill requires a federal permit for fossil collecting on federal lands; there is NO exception for casual collectors and permit is still required, and without one a casual collector will be subject to the penalties outlined below:
It requires that ALL vertebrate fossils found on federal lands are the property of the U.S. Government.
Establishes civil and criminal penalties for some fossil activities that are quite commonplace. Local boy scouts and college students could be arrested.
The criminal penalties are felonies in some situations. Child abusers and rapists get off easier than this! And for picking up a fossil?
The federal government is given the powers of asset forfeiture for vehicles, equipment, and fossils collected in violations of these new restrictions.
The bill also contains a provision to condemn private land with funds seized under this act. Your personal property could be taken if the government thinks it's in their best interest! (See United States Code Chapter 44 Title 18) This is in the gray area and we all know how the government can operate in the gray.
Locality data will not be released. This is against all scientific principles of sharing knowledge.
There are still no provisions for the sale of fossils by commercial dealers. You can grind them up into gravel, but not collect and sell them. There has never been an opportunity for commercial collectors to come to the table to present reasonable alternatives for collecting, although the Secretary of the Interior instructed all interested parties, academic, amateur, professional and government to sit down and map this out.
The direct effect of PRPA will be to exclude the majority of those who are currently collecting fossils on federal lands from being able to do so. This will reduce the fossils available for museums and classrooms. The vast majority of amateurs are not operating for profit. Those of us that are will continue to be unable to collect on federal lands. You can get a permit for just about anything else, forest products, wildlife, gas and oil, timber harvest, mining etc. but not to collect fossils. One can even get a permit to go onto federal lands (= public lands) to dig up rocks and crush them into gravel for profit The academic community cannot collect them all and would rather see them turn to dust than show up in a private collection or pay fair market value for someone else collecting it.

So, I urge you to act today. We did make a difference on this vote, but next time round they only need half to pass. Please help.
Now is the time to write your local federal representatives, and let them know where you stand on the bill. Most congressmen have a toll free number listed in your phone book, and on their web sites.

If your not sure how to contact you representative, follow this link; http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102503382295&e=001HBcfHdc5woMJC96tz0phuMrwo1i697R4fr2gdWWL0Iv3oOoDx68_zOwjOfCp5FfCV0v_69WEhdQRNnnz4mhaKuc7vIxNvkv7t_LdVdGdFZ17NNLdp64C6OYGepj-uMPT
Senate votes - see Colorado
http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102503382295&e=001HBcfHdc5woPfNrjV_dHCvM_TFmyvYcNqohFBNeVwDV4s2Gl6TpsTsat3gTGcC301hxBByqVi49KBTSVdkNrApm4NBQ9qF11x_zDMuYHI9B3rZNMRWVHrbMOaU7sKzc67Dy7lA-Z2I8ym_ZbdBJ0k5bmOceoxYs4G
House Votes -- by member names: Lamborn, Coffman, Markey, Salazar, Polis, DeGette, Perlmutter
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll117.xml

Thanks to Tracie Bennitt of Triebold Paleontology, Inc. for preparring the bulk of this posting. I hope you will help in this endeavour and contact your representatives. If you do so by e-mail please c.c. (or b.c.) me at jfk@hms-beagle.com.

==JFK==

member AAPS