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whitefish timber sale

Before their informal tournament in the Stillwater State Forest, a dozen disc golfers gathered among the massive pines to discuss their sport – and the potential impact on it of a logging project proposed by the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.

“Depending on what trees are removed here, the course would be worthless,” said Ken Deeds, the unofficial organizer of the weekly tournaments.

In addition to the area encompassing the disc golf course near Smith Lake, the DNRC proposes thinning on areas near Skyles Lake and Beaver Lake as part of Montana’s State trust land program. [more]

Montana Legislature

While Montana’s 60th Legislature was an unmitigated disaster at reaching compromise on the session’s biggest issues, many bills were successfully passed that could change how Montanans live in ways small and large. What follows is a breakdown of the bills I covered throughout this session, many of which have been signed by Gov. Brian Schweitzer, or will be in coming days. [more]

Montana Legislature

The House and Senate adjourned Montana’s 60th Legislature Friday, and by late afternoon nearly all 150 state lawmakers had left the capitol, dumping their desks into cardboard boxes that they stuffed into their cars and drove away.

They leave knowing they’ll be back in a few days or a few weeks to do what they could not in their 90 days here: craft a state budget with a one billion dollar surplus and agree on some form of tax relief.

A special session called for no other reason than a sheer inability to negotiate a state budget – the only Constitutional requirement legislators have – is unprecedented. [more]

Montana Legislature

UPDATE: Just before noon on the session's 90th day, the Senate voted, 26 to 24, to adjourn Montana's 60th Legislative session with the remaining state budget bills stalled in the House.

Republicans are angry and Democrats are resigned. [more]

Montana Legislature

With the threat of a special session looming over a Legislature on Day 88 that has ground to a screeching halt on Montana’s biggest issues, Majority Leader Mike Lange of Billings tore into Gov. Brian Schweitzer at Wednesday’s House Republican Caucus meeting.

“I will never let this guy (Schweitzer) or anybody else cross the line that we set on Day One,” Lange said. “So my message to the governor is ‘Stick it up your ass!’ That’s my message to him. Stick it up your ass!” [more]

Montana Legislature

A Republican Senator says House Speaker Scott Sales, R-Bozeman, is taking advantage of his leadership position to avoid hearing a bill that would encourage responsible growth planning.

“This is an abuse of power,” said Sen. Rick Laible, R-Darby. “He has the ability to do this, but it doesn’t make it right.”

Laible said Sales is putting off scheduling the bill for a full House debate because of Laible’s failure to toe the party line. The House Speaker decides when to schedule bills for debate.

“I don’t want to raise the ire of the Speaker, I just want the bill to be heard,” Laible added. “There shouldn’t be a litmus test on the voting record of the legislator whose bill this is.” [more]

Legislature

The Montana Senate on Tuesday passed, 39 to 11, a bill setting forth guidelines for the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation to issue permits for groundwater development in closed basins.

After months of complicated hearings involving highly-technical testimony by water law attorneys, hydrologists, irrigators, Realtors and others, the Senate debate was simple and straightforward in contrast.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Walter McNutt, R-Sidney, is the Legislature’s response to the April 2006 “Trout Unlimited” Supreme Court decision, which established that surface water and groundwater are connected. By establishing that new wells could siphon water from rivers and harm senior surface water rights holder, the TU decision effectively ceased the DNRC from issuing any new groundwater permits in Montana’s five “closed” basins, so-called because all the surface water rights in those valleys had been claimed.

The impact of this bill could profoundly affect Montana’s growth; you can’t build a subdivision, nor expand an agricultural operation, without a well to service it. [more]

Montana Legislature

Right: Gov. Brian Schweitzer signs Montana's formal rejection of the federal Real ID Act into law. Photo by Dan Testa

"The best way for Montana to deal with the federal government on this issue and many others is to say 'No. Nope. No way and hell no,'" Schweitzer said.

Montana is among a number of state legislatures throughout the country rejecting Real ID, which seeks to crack down on illegal immigration by requiring proof of residency as a minimum standard for states to issue drivers' licenses.

"We expect other states to follow suit here and we're going to open up a national conversation on Real ID," said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Brady Wiseman, D-Bozeman.

Montana Legislature

With the governor wading into the issue, the introduction of a new Republican bill to set up a two-year study, and a boisterous rally by Democrats and sportsmen Thursday, the stream access issue in the Montana Legislature has grown into a three-front war in the session’s final weeks.

But it is the nature of the Legislature that the more politicized and emotionally-charged an issue becomes, the less likely a solution will result, regardless of the problem’s simplicity.

You can practically see the marks in the hearing room carpet where lawmakers on either side of the issue are digging in their heels.

What this boils down to is fences.

And after months of study, amendments, hearings, meetings, debates, arguments, rallies and discreet hallway discussion, no one can agree on how to describe a fence that would allow fishermen to get through while keeping in cattle. [more]

Montana Legislature

Nothing is dead in the Montana Legislature, least of all the stream access issue.

One week after an unsuccessful move to “blast” onto the House floor a bill clarifying public access to Montana’s rivers and streams, Gov. Brian Schweitzer Wednesday resurrected the issue by tacking it onto a seemingly unrelated bill with an amendatory veto.

Democrats also announced plans to hold a rally Thursday demanding another vote on Senate Bill 78.

The original bill Schweitzer changed lifts a $500,000 cap on counties’ capital improvement fund for roads and bridges. It sailed through the Legislature with little opposition.

Schweitzer’s amendment would prohibit counties from spending any state money to improve bridges that do not provide access to rivers and streams. [more]

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