HELENA – Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen and a coalition of 23 other state attorneys general called on Congress to protect funding for school archery, hunting, and firearm safety courses by enacting the Protecting Hunting Heritage and Education Act.

In a letter to Congressional leadership, the states ask Congress to listen to growing bipartisan concern about the Biden administration’s stance and solve this problem through enacting commonsense legislation, rather than forcing the states to stop the overreach through litigation.

The letter comes as the Biden administration’s Department of Education is threatening the complete loss of Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) funding for schools that offer such educational opportunities, claiming that the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) prohibits it. ESEA is the primary source of federal aid for elementary and secondary education.

As the attorneys general state in the letter, the National Archery in the Schools Program serves 1.3 million students in nearly 9,000 schools across 49 States, including students at 70 schools in Montana. The International Hunter Education Association reports that hunter education courses train and certify more than 500,000 students annually.

Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming also joined the letter which was led by Tennessee.

Read the letter here.