How did Sport Fish Restoration get started?
The Sport Fish Restoration Program was created in 1950, when Congress enacted the Sport Fish Restoration Act. U.S. Representative John Dingell, Sr., of Michigan and Senator Edwin Johnson of Colorado, sponsored the act. The law, known as the “Dingell–Johnson Act,” applied a 10-percent manufacturer’s excise tax on fishing rods, creels, lures, and flies. Tax revenues are transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which in turn distributes them to the states for recreational sport fishing projects. In 1984, Senator Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming and Representative John Breaux of Louisiana sponsored the Wallop–Breaux Amendment to the SFR Act, extending the tax to tackle boxes, sonar fish finders, motorboat fuels, electric motors, and other equipment not included in earlier laws. The Wallop–Breaux Amendment requires spending 15 percent of all restoration money on boating access to public waters and requires Florida and other coastal states to fund marine recreational fisheries projects pr
