Daines Attacks Wilderness Study Areas … Again

Well, he did it again.

The “he” in this case is Sen. Steve Daines. The “it” is introducing an unpopular top-down bill to strip protections from over 100,000 acres of some of Montana’s finest public lands and waters.

Just like last time, Daines’ bill targets three wilderness study areas: the Middle Fork Judith WSA in the Little Belt Mountains south of Great Falls, Hoodoo Mountain WSA southwest of Lincoln, and Wales Creek WSA south of Ovando. These are some of western and central Montana’s best elk habitat, home to rare and threatened native populations of westslope cutthroat trout, and other species of critical concern.

And just like last time, Daines has gone over the public’s head and introduced this bill without any meaningful input, preferring to hear only from his handpicked supporters.

If this all feels familiar, it’s because it is.

Back in 2017, Daines introduced a sweeping bill that sought to slash protections from more than half a million acres. Thet bill was defeated when Montanans overwhelmingly spoke out against it, making it crystal clear that they have no patience for politicians who attack our public lands. But Daines didn’t get the message, and in 2022 he introduced a similar but scaled-down bill, which was also resoundingly unpopular and opposed by the vast majority of Montanans, quickly went nowhere.

The newest piece of legislation is a carbon copy of the 2022 bill. Just like that bill, it aims to take away protections from some of Montana’s finest wild country. Just like that bill, it was introduced without any real opportunity for the public to provide input. Just like that bill, it ignores the three-quarters of Montanans who have made it abundantly clear that they want nothing to do with the anti-public lands legislation Daines is trying to force feed us.

And just like we did with that bill, we’re going to do everything we can to make sure it goes nowhere fast.

The best thing you can do right now is to contact Senator Daines and tell him exactly why you oppose his attempt to strip protections from Montana’s public lands and waters.

Click or tap the button below and we’ll help you connect to Daines’ Washington D.C. office, where you can leave a message letting the senator know why its time for him to start listening to Montanans and stop threatening public lands.

Tell Daines to Stop Attacking Wilderness Study Areas

While Daines is pushing one-size-fits-all legislation, he’s ignoring actual on-the-ground efforts to determine the future of wilderness study areas. In places like the Middle Fork Judith, local community members have been rolling up their sleeves and working hard to plot a course for the future of their backyard WSAs. Daines, who likes to pay lip service to the importance of locally driven solution, has ignored these groups’ hard work, preferring to listen to a small collection of special interest groups rather than regular Montanans.

He’s also ignoring that the Montana State Legislature has already officially recognized the power of local collaborative efforts to secure sustainable and community-supported futures for wilderness study areas.

In the wake of Daines’ failed 2017 bill, the Legislature’s Environmental Quality Council spent over a year exploring the best path forward for Montana’s WSAs. During the process, the EQC invited significant public testimony from recreationists, timber industry representatives, conservationists, and other stakeholders, the vast majority of whom supported collaboration. During the process, council members repeatedly expressed a desire for Montana’s congressional delegation to support a collaborative approach to determining the future of WSAs.

After this process, the senator was perfectly teed up to support community-driven processes to shape the future of WSAs, many of which were already established…and then he kept on introducing rounds of top-down legislation that cuts out existing collaborative efforts and slashes protections for over 100,000 acres of public lands.

Enough of the nonsense. Locals have already done a lot of the hard work of hashing out a future for wilderness study areas. It’s time for Daines to respect them.