Daines calls for protecting North Fork

Montana’s Republican Congressman Steve Daines threw his support behind the North Fork Watershed Protection Act last week. The move signaled a political shift in Montana — his support marks the first bipartisan land-use bill in Congress for more than 30 years.

The Act was first introduced by Democratic Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester in 2010, but it never went anywhere in Congress, as former Republican Congressman Denny Rehberg routinely rejected many bills supported by his fellow Montana Democrats. Baucus re-introduced the bill in February.

“As a fifth generation Montanan, I know the importance of our state’s rivers and mountains to Montanans’ outdoors heritage because they’re part of my way of life, too,” Daines said during a press conference at the Belton Chalet on March 28. “The North Fork watershed is of critical value to our state’s outdoors heritage and the tourism economy in the Flathead Valley, and it’s important that we work together to protect this valuable resource.”

The Act calls for withdrawing about 300,000 acres of national forest lands in the North and Middle forks of the Flathead River from “location, entry and patent under the mining laws and disposition under the mineral and geothermal leasing laws.”

It has received broad support locally — even from energy companies, many of which had voluntarily relinquished leases they previously held on the federal lands. The Congressional Budget Office reported the bill would have no fiscal impact.

Daines said his staff has already started working on the bill and he would join that effort when he returns to Washington later this month. While there are philosophical differences between Democrats and Republicans, Daines noted that some issues are simply Montanan grown and bridge party lines.

“This is the type of agreement that is locally grown,” he said.

Glacier National Park acting superintendent Kym Hall said she supported the bill.

“It’s a good bill for Glacier and a good bill for the North Fork,” she said.

The legislation is designed to complement a 2010 agreement between British Columbia and Montana calling for a ban to mining and energy exploration in the drainage. British Columbia has already passed a mining and energy exploration ban on provincial lands north of the border.

For the full text of the North Fork Watershed Protection Act of 2013 supported by Sens. Baucus and Tester, visit online at www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s255/text.