Your Action Needed For Lacey Act Amendment Vote In Congress

[Duke of Pearl]

Instrument makers, dealers, collectors, music store owners, wood and shell vendors, musicians, and anyone else in the music industry, you need to contact your Congressional reps immediately urging them to vote "YES" on HR 3210, which is designed to fix weaknesses in the Lacey Act (without weakening the Act's proven effectiveness in protecting endangered plants and animals). HR 3210 recently passed out of the Natural Resources Committee and now heads to the House floor for debate and a vote. And we now have to really turn up the volume and advocate for support of this bill. What's immediately needed is direct contact from all of us to any and all members of the US House of Representatives (Congress) and urge that they “vote YES for HR 3210”. Just do it, or quit complaining about government over-regulation...

All instructions for doing this are at: http://www.namm.org/publicaffairs. Here's an example of what the message needs to be:

"I am contacting you to urge your support of H.R. 3210 (RELIEF Act), when it comes to the House floor in mid-July. This bipartisan bill is very important to my business and the jobs we provide because it addresses some unintended consequences of the 2008 amendments to the Lacey Act. H.R. 3210 makes several common sense improvements in the Lacey Act:
1) Grandfathers wood products assembled and processed prior to the 2008 amendment --- makes them legal to possess and sell.
2) Provides businesses whose products are seized for alleged violation of law the opportunity to a day in court to prove they are innocent.
3) Provides more clarity about which foreign laws could trigger a Lacey Act violation.
4) Creates incentives for better compliance and reduces unnecessary burdens on U.S. companies without compromising environmental protection.
5) H.R. 3210 does not undermine enforcement of the Lacey Act, encourage illegal logging, or protect those unscrupulous businesses who violate the law."

Copy this and pass along to anyone you know in the music industry. Thanks!

Emailed my Congressman.

-tommy

[Ben-Had]

Emailed my Congressman.

-tommy

Me too!

[Duke of Pearl]

Many thanks to both of you, it's a beginning and let's hope we get a lot more response from luthiers on this site! Numbers are the main thing that count in Washington, and without them nobody takes things seriously...

[deadedith]

Done.

[JRHall]

I held my nose to do it, (my rep is the one of the worst in congress, Joe Wilson), But I sent the message.

[tippie53]

I had done this the first I saw it. I think we all need to thank Chuck for all his hard work.

[Duke of Pearl]

Thanks, Rick! But let's not forget that none of this progress would be remotely possible without the massive amounts of time, funding, and professional political expertise being spent on this issue by NAMM at their very highest levels. They've really gone to bat for all us smaller music industry folks as much as for the larger corporations, and have made real efforts to include many of us in their top-level discussions in Washington (with Congress and the Senate) and in Arlington (with enforcement agencies) -- and regardless of the fact that many of us aren't even members of NAMM!

In fact, it would be nice if a bunch of us sent short notes of thanks to NAMM's Mary Luehrsen (Director of Public Affairs and Government Relations, and Executive Director, NAMM Foundation): MaryL@namm.org.

[JVan]

Message delivered to Rep. Donnelly! and, Yes, Thanks Chuck!

[Duke of Pearl]

Congressman Jim Cooper's office just called George Gruhn to tell him Republican leadership in the House decided that because they can't get enough support to pass the RELIEF Act it's been pulled. So, sincere thanks again to those of you who did make the effort to contact your reps...but to the vast majority of music industry people who have constantly refused to make their voices heard (and those forums which blocked discussion about this), when your wood or instruments wind up in trouble at the border you'll be getting exactly what you deserve. It's possible that after the elections a new effort for relief can be started again from scratch, but if the overall apathy level doesn't change there's not much point in wasting more time and funding...