Game and Fisheries Committee Approves Dangerous Measure Allowing Rouge Agency to Run Amok

June 24, 2026

HARRISBURG - The House Game and Fisheries Committee today approved controversial and ill-advised legislation to allow the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) to increase hunting licenses and fees without legislative approval, Rep. David Maloney R-Berks) reported.

"The only purpose of House Bill 2690 is removing the sole tool the General Assembly possesses to hold effective oversight of the PGC," chairman Maloney said. "All we heard today is how well the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) has done with setting its own license fees. The only problem is the PFBC does not have the culture of toxic corruption and legal problems that the PGC has."

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Tom Mehaffie (R-Dauphin), continuously referenced how much restraint and caution the PFBC has shown since the Legislature gave it the ability to set its own license fees, and repeatedly said how much he trusts PGC executive director Steve Smith and his commissioners to behave the same way, but the two situations are not the same.

"When the PFBC staff approached me about setting its own fees because they are financially disadvantage compared to the PGC, I asked them to show me their work," Maloney said. "And they did. They explained the reasoning, their methodology and future plans if they got that ability."

On the other hand, the PGC has a toxic history, as evidenced by Maloney's investigations and resulting news stories, here, here and here. Moreover, the PGC has previously lied about the reasons it gave for asking the Legislature for a license increase back in 2016.

"In 2016, the PGC claimed poverty, announcing it was closing the pheasant farms it owned was 'strictly a financial decision' and quickly closed the remaining farms," Maloney said. "But the fact of the matter is they had hundreds of millions of dollars in Marcellus Gas leases on the way. Now, sitting on roughly a $600 million dollar pile of Marcellus cash, and continuing to seek more, they come to us and say, 'trust us with setting our own fees' when they lied back in 2016?"

These were not just ordinary pheasant farms. In fact, they contained pheasants with Pennsylvania-specific DNA. Pheasants are considered invasive, but these pheasants had been around so long they had adapted to the Pennsylvania forests and food.

"Now, we buy common pheasants from farms, and we are supposed to believe better than having Pennsylvania-specific pheasants," Maloney said. "It also appears the PGC has destroyed all that pheasant research."

"More reasons not to trust the PGC is they have been violating the rules of elk tag lottery drawings, apparently since day one, with PGC employees, their family members and celebrities winning elk tags at a rate that is statistically impossible," Maloney said.

"Pennsylvania sportsmen had a list of three license fees, now they are facing a whole list of new regulations and fees, and they will hate this."

Representative David Maloney
130th District
Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Media Contact: Charles Lardner
717.260.6161
[email protected]
RepMaloney.com