HELENA, Mont. – Groups in Montana and nationwide are urging Congress to reauthorize and fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund as the lame-duck session ticks down.

The fund, which provides access to public lands, expired in September. Montana has received nearly $600 million since the fund was created more than 50 years ago.

Tom Healy, a board member for the Montana chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, said the program opened up 13,000 acres to the public last year in northwestern Montana. A similar project adjacent to Lost Trail National Wildlife Refuge is slated for 2020, but Healy said it won't happen without LWCF reauthorization.

"This is hunting grounds that families in the Flathead Valley have been using for a couple generations," he said, "and unless LWCF can fund an opportunity like this, that'll go away, and those lands will be sold into the private sector."

The program has provided funds to open nearly 70 percent of public fishing access sites in Montana and also funds facilities such as playgrounds, swimming pools and urban bike paths. LWCF dollars are from royalties paid by energy companies drilling offshore, meaning it doesn't rely on taxpayer dollars.

Groups such as Trout Unlimited, the Montana Sportsmen Alliance and Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership also are pushing for reauthorization.

Rick Potts, interim executive director of Montana Conservation Voters, said the program has bipartisan support and that its fate is, in part, in the hands of U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who sits on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Daines has issued a letter supporting it, but Potts said congressional efforts are stalled at the moment.

"It's discouraging, actually, to watch it languish and die, and expire in Congress when really, there was no need for that to happen," Potts said. "There's no need for the LWCF to be used as a political football."

Still, Potts said he is optimistic the program will gain approval. Along with supporting the state's booming recreation industry, which generates more than $7 billion in consumer spending a year, Potts said the LWCF has been integral to Montanans' way of life.

"Every county has benefited to one degree or another from LWCF dollars," he said. "We absolutely would not be able to enjoy the breadth and depth of amenities and quality of life that we enjoy as Montanans were it not for LWCF."


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Months after the nation's highest court declined to hear a Utah case about ownership of public lands, a Montana House committee will debate whether to support it.

The Committee on Energy, Technology and Federal Relations is scheduled to hear a resolution today about "supporting Utah" in its 2024 lawsuit against the United States.

Utah claimed it's been deprived of "sovereign powers" because of the federal government's "indefinite retention of unappropriated public lands" there.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in January, but the suit could be refiled.

Kearstyn Cook - program director with of Montana Conservation Voters - said that could set what she calls a "dangerous precedent."

"The State of Montana showing support for such a motion," said Cook, "is just a blatant slap in the face to public land owners and lovers."

The federal government owns nearly 70% of the land within Utah's borders, and 30% in Montana's.

Still, 68% of Montana voters have said they oppose giving states control over national public lands, according to the latest poll.

Montana Conservation Voters collected over 1,000 signatures asking state lawmakers to denounce Utah's efforts. Cook said people want to make their voices heard.

"People who use our public lands," said Cook, "for recreation, hunting, fishing, hiking, for agriculture, for ranching - this in some way, shape or form would impact a majority of Montanans."

The same committee on Tuesday will hear Senate Joint Resolution 14, which would release federal Wilderness Study Areas from their protected status - across more than 1 million acres of Montana public lands - opening them to "multiple uses" including agriculture, timber and mining.

For decades to come, South Dakotans can make use of an expanded wilderness in the southeastern part of the state, as a new land deal will keep hundreds of acres off limits to developers at a time when resource protections are challenged.

The forest land in question sits next to Newton Hills State Park, south of Sioux Falls. The Conservation Fund helped facilitate a deal involving state and federal agencies, where the organization first purchased and secured more than 200 acres of a former Boy Scout campground site. Through the collaboration, those acres were eventually put under the state's control.

Clint Miller, vice president of the central Midwest region for The Conservation Fund, said it means the section of wilderness is no longer at risk of turning into something which does not align with enjoying nature.

"What this prevented is conversion to some other use," Miller explained. "The most likely use that this property may have been converted to would be rural residential homes, multimillion-dollar rural residential homes."

Instead, Newton Hills will take on another 36 acres for things like hiking, and another 176 is set aside for wildlife protection and hunting. For federal public lands, there is new concern about spending cuts under the Trump administration affecting national parks. There is also political pressure to sell off public lands for fossil fuel-related production, with Republicans arguing America needs to reassert its energy independence.

Miller noted a donation and a federal grant from last year helped push the deal across the finish line, key steps since the state lacked funds to cover all the costs. Beyond recreation, he added there is an ecological benefit, describing the unique piece of land as a "forested island" along the Big Sioux River.

"When you look at it from above, you can see this ribbon of green, usually inside of a big land of cropland of corn and beans," Miller observed. "The migratory pathways for the birds, for other animals to move along there is absolutely essential."

Polling has indicated most Americans, no matter their political beliefs, prefer to conserve public lands, not develop them. In a new poll from Colorado College, which reached out to voters in eight Western states, 72% of those surveyed preferred conservation.

Two new national monuments in California are in jeopardy after the White House announced a plan to revoke them and then appeared to retreat.

On Saturday, the White House told the Washington Post President Donald Trump planned to rescind President Joe Biden's order creating the Chuckwalla National Monument near Palm Springs and the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument in Northern California. Then language about the moves disappeared from a White House fact sheet with no explanation.

Janessa Goldbeck, CEO of the Vet Voice Foundation, which advocated for the creation of the two new monuments, said the move was not unexpected.

"This administration has been pretty clear that they want to utilize federal public lands as a giveaway to corporate polluters and private developers," Goldbeck noted. "We are anticipating, whether it's these two monuments or others, that there will be some attempts to reverse federally protected public lands."

Trump claimed the monuments "lock up vast amounts of land from economic development and energy production." But Goldbeck pointed out Chuckwalla has not been targeted for oil and gas drilling or mining but rather is most valuable for outdoor recreation and wildlife habitat. The White House has yet to take concrete steps to rescind the monument designations.

Brandy McDaniels, national monument lead for the Pit River Nation, said the tribe has been fighting off geothermal development and other industrial uses for decades.

"This is not a Biden vs. Trump situation. It is a tribally led initiative that's been going on for a very long time," McDaniels explained. "This is a sacred landscape for our people. It is the actual place of the creation narrative of our people."

Sáttítla, also known as the Medicine Lake Highlands, is also home to the headwaters providing much of California's drinking water.


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