[Paddlewise] Kayak Registration: the Wallop-Breaux act

Do a Google search on the Wallop-Breaux act, and read between the lines
to see how it relates to kayak registration.

Most of the fund is funded by taxation on motorboat fuel.  The money is
doled out to the states based on numbers of registered boats.

http://www.wallop-breaux.org/

The Coast Guard has a lot of say in the spending of some of these
monies, and the ACA and other organizations have received grants funded
by Wallop-Breaux.

The Biaggi Act returns a portion of the fuel taxes paid by boaters to
boating safety, and ensures those benefiting from the program would
also help pay the costs – “user pays, user benefits.”  From this logic,
it could be argued that paddlers should have to help pay for
Wallop-Breaux, since some of the programs are "helping paddlers".

We need to think on this act...is it helping us, if so, we'll be
expected to pay...how?  If it isn't helping us, how do we fight to
insure that we're exempted from its rules and regulations.

Since a lot of the funding is through boat fuel taxes, maybe we involve
the motorboat lobby, and say, "Hey, this is your money; your fund.  We
don't buy boat gas, we don't pay into the fund.  They're trying to
register kayaks and canoes so they can spend your money on our safety".
 Would this argument work, or will they try to find a way to rewrite
Wallop-Breaux to tax us some other way?!

Shawn

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