501(c)(3)’s can’t donate to political parties, campaigns or politicians in general that’s illegal.
Only 501C4’s or pacs can do that. A C4 can’t donate directly to politicians. They can only make political expenditures, so taking out advertisements like TV ads things like that.
Brock you are correct. And 501(C)4's can lobby Congress while personnel from government agencies cannot wear their uniform and lobby Congress for more and more deficit spending.
BHA is a member of Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.
https://www.fishwildlife.org/landing/membership/member-list
The Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies is not an agency, it is a 501(C)6 non-profit NGO.
ND is in the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. A 501(C)4 non-profit corporation.
As a 501(C)4 non-profit corporation WAFWA has its affiliates or orgs like BHA testify before Congress to beggar for more deficit spending.
WAFWA has committees or boiler rooms of ideas.
https://wafwa.org/committees-groups/
WAFWA has a Health Committee. They wrote the Best Management Practices, 111 pages in 2017 and the 1st Supplement, 22 pages in 2019 to include taxidermy, meat processing and disposal into their orbit of influence. All supporting data no science. The wildlife health committee is a panel of 28. They are not scientists, academic researchers or experts. Everyone needs to open the link below and have a peek.
https://westernafwa.sharepoint.com/...oster for website - do not delete&p=true&ga=1
AFWA and BHA and others lobbied Congress for the CWD Research and Management Act. $420 of deficit spending. There is no mechanism to pay for it. Borrowed money. Placed into the Omnibus Spending Bill December 23, 2022 it passed. To date it has not been funded. I talked to Nick Pinizotto, chairman of National Deer Association a couple days ago in Harrisburg Pennsylvania and he said they have gotten $17.5 million. Divided equally between research and these surveillance and monitoring efforts.
National Deer Association is a member of AFWA and Nick did in fact testify before Congress CWD is very scary and we need money. Watching that was crazy, legislators kept confusing CWD with EHD.
The $420 million will go to USDA and be given out in the form of grants. So, what is the criteria to get a grant? There is a great inertia behind the best management practices and it somehow became included in USDA program. Page 6
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/sites/de...rvid-cwd-funding-opportunity-announcement.pdf
I know, weird huh? These guys are good. They are writing their own criteria to receive the grants. Remember, the WAFWA is a non-profit corporation. Had private industry pulled this off they would have been accused of corporate capture. And regulatory capture.
They wrote the Bill, they lobbied for the Bill, they wrote the criteria to receive the money, but they do not have a lock on that money coming back to themselves. If another came in and grant wrote a better plan or if someone wrote it's a bacterium not a prion and convinced USDA to divert their money, they could watch their best laid plans evaporate.
What does the CWD Research and Management Act say?
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/4111/text
$70 million per year divided equally between research and surveillance and monitoring. We all get that. However, read the last sentence:
(3) SET-ASIDE FOR WILDLIFE AGENCIES.—Of the funds used to carry out subsection (c), not less than 75 percent shall be used to provide direct financial assistance to eligible entities described in subsection (a)(3)(B).
It's written in government speak and reads like an equation. Does it say the state wildlife agencies are guaranteed 75%? Maybe 75% of the $35 million? Is that like an earmark?
Hey DOGE, there is a big fat rock here that you need to look under.