"We have just scratched the surface of these abuses — abuses that total millions of dollars over the years. "We learned of at least two, and possibly three, slush funds — a Director's Conservation Fund, an Administrative Grant Fund, and a Mystery Grant Program — none of which are authorized by the law. There are minimal or no controls and no accounting for these funds" he added.

The non-partisan General Accounting Office (GAO), a federal "whistleblower," a former Interior Department official and Republican and Democrat Congressmen recently expressed outrage and concern regarding the wasteful, irresponsible and illegal use of federal funds by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with money designated for State fish and wildlife conservation projects.

Bipartisan criticism was expressed about irresponsible spending of conservation funds by a federal agency mandated by federal law and the U.S. Congress to manage Federal Aid dollars generated from excise taxes paid on fishing, hunting, and boating products.

The Congressional oversight hearing by the U.S. House Committee on Resources focused on how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through its Division of Federal Aid has misused funds meant for administration and execution of the Pittman-Robertson (P-R) Act and Dingell-Johnson (D-J) Acts.

These excise tax dollars have been diverted to possibly illegal grants by the Service director, or have disappeared, GAO investigators stated.

The Committee also heard that Clinton Administration officials sought to use money from sportsmen to fund an animal rights organization and that FWS officials were in collusion with animal rights groups to attempt to scuttle U.S. negotiations with Europe affecting the American trapping industry.

At issue are programs conducted under two laws, one for wildlife, the other for sportfishing. They are the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, also known as Pittman-Robertson, or PR. The second is the Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Act, Dingell-Johnson, or D-J.

These Acts collect funds through federal excise taxes on guns, ammo, fishing equipment and similar sporting goods and the Division of Federal Aid is supposed to reallocate those funds to the individual States for fish and wildlife conservation projects.

According to the press release received from the U.S. House of Representatives "The agency created "Slush" funds and misspent millions in conservation funds."

Young accused the agency of outright theft of sportsmen's tax dollars when he said, "We found Regional Office slush accounts, travel abuses, relocation expense abuses, no internal audits, past recommendations by GAO ignored, and a ream of other improper, imprudent, irresponsible expenditures. Instead of conservation dollars being spent through the states on useful wildlife projects as Congress mandated in law, they are being stolen — stolen — for other purposes," Young said.

In a bipartisan fashion the Democrats called the actions of the agency and their administration "a public embarrassment." U.S. Rep. Owen Pickett (D-VA) said that the GAO findings about the misuse of conservation funds by the Fish and Wildlife Service to be a public embarrassment and stated that he intended to work with the Committee to correct the problem.

General Accounting Office Uncovers Numerous Problems

Barry Hill, Associate Director for the General Accounting Office, testified about a number of areas of concern the GAO uncovered in the Fish and Wildlife Service's handling of administrative funds. Some of the GAO findings include:

• Controls over expenditures and revenues are inadequate.

• Controls over grant funds used by the Director of the Service are inadequate.

• Controls over the management and oversight of administrative grants are inadequate.

• How regional offices use administrative funds is inconsistent.

• No routine audit program exists for reviewing the use of administrative funds.

"In each area where administrative funds are used, there are problems, "Hill testified. "These include ineffective management oversight, inadequate internal controls, and inadequate policies and procedures for reviewing and approving administrative expenses. Collectively, these conditions have spawned a culture of permissive spending. This situation raises questions about whether the Office of Federal Aid is meeting its management responsibilities."

"We found that the Office of Federal Aid is not adequately managing program funds — for either grants or administration," Hill said. "As a result, it has been unable to track millions of dollars in program funds."

The audit, initiated in 1996 at the request of the U.S. Congress, is ongoing and Hill concluded, "When our work on this project is completed, we will provide recommendations on what we believe needs to be done to correct the problems identified here."

Defending FWS, Acting Director John Rogers told the committee that in its investigation GAO did not find "that funds are being improperly allocated to the states, or that the states are not using the funds for their intended purposes, or that the programs are not benefiting fish and wildlife resources or their use by America’s hunters and anglers." He did not address the specific allegations of other witnesses.