Fight Senator Daines' move to take lands from Montanans

The Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act is popular and for good reason. Over 70% of Montanans support the bill because they understand that forest lands and headwaters within those lands in particular need protection. In that 30%, however, one is able to find Senator Steven Daines.

Standing against the majority, he, in the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests and Mining offered a somewhat confusing deal: if Tester and company want to add around 80,000 acres to our state’s public lands, specifically the Bob Marshall, then it is contingent on Daines and company getting to remove 300,000 acres or so elsewhere. It is all well-documented in an article from The Missoulian by Rob Chaney.

The fact is that while Daines is framing this as putting the BCSA in a “broader package of legislation,” he is really meaning to say, “I want my own bill passed, even if less than 10% of Montanans support it and this is as much of a compromise as I am willing to accept.”

It is a weird and selfish way of removing protections from land that Montanans want protected. Let’s not allow Daines to swindle us like that; see what he is doing for what it is and fight it.