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DECEMBER 24, 2014 | 63 organize the event, and gave credit to
former U.S. Sen. Max Baucus for his ear- ly and lasting involvement in working to protect the North Fork.
“This is a great day for the North Fork, Glacier Park and for the entire Flathead Basin,” she said.
Baucus, whose retirement to become ambassador to China cast doubt on the bill’s future, said the bill’s passage was the culmination of decades of work he and the conservation community began more than 40 years ago.
“I’m proud of the work we did to help draft the North Fork Watershed bill and I’m thrilled that it made it over the fin- ish line,” Baucus stated in an email. “We started working to protect this beautiful landscape back in the ‘70’s. It took a lot of work, but nothing gets accomplished without hard work and compromise. The North Fork is a vital watershed and ensuring clean water preserves the live- lihood in the Flathead valley and be- yond. This bill becoming law will allow Montanans and folks everywhere to en- joy this area and preserve our outdoor heritage for future generations.”
Walsh, who withdrew from a Senate race against Daines amid plagiarism rev- elations, said helping to move the North Fork bill across the finish line would re- main a defining moment in his short ten- ure as a lawmaker.
“This is definitely the most rewarding accomplishment during my time in the U.S. Senate,” he said.
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up to me, we wouldn’t have released [the wilderness study areas] but this is how you come to reach a deal. This is how a de- mocracy is supposed to work. You give a little and you get a lot.”
Added Daines in a statement: “The resources, lands and defense provisions in the NDAA represent years of locally- driven, bipartisan work in Montana – and more importantly, it represents how much we can get done when folks come together and find common ground. This bill ensures that Montana will continue to play a key role in maintaining a strong national defense. It also protects some of our state’s greatest treasures, increases Montanans’ access to our public lands and expands the responsible develop- ment of our energy. I’m glad to see Presi- dent Obama sign this bill into law today.”
The package has garnered a love-hate response from members of the environ- mental community because it releases wilderness study areas for potential oil and gas extraction and extends the life of grazing permits on federal lands.
“This is important legislation. I think it deserved an appropriate public discourse, a debate about what the pros and cons are. Instead this was inserted at the last minute with a lack of trans- parency,” said Arlene Montgomery, pro- gram director of the Friends of the Wild Swan, an environmental organization based in Bigfork.
“That sets a really horrible precedent.”
But Tester noted that the bill, despite overwhelming Congressional support,
had only languished in the Senate, where three conservative Republicans were de- termined to block its passage.
U.S. Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pennsylva- nia, Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, were steadfast in their de- termination to block the bill’s passage.
“People ask why this was attached to the National Defense Authorization Act, and it’s because we had three peo- ple blocking the North Fork bill, three people who have never been to the North Fork and who frankly couldn’t find it on a map,” Tester said. “It was an obstruction of three and they didn’t take their holds off the North Fork, but they couldn’t hold up the Defense Authorization bill. And we were fortunate to get this package at- tached. In the end, we can all celebrate.”
“A lot of the folks who are opposed to this don’t want anything to happen, they are perfectly happy with obstructionism and that’s not how you move a country forward,” he added. “That’s not how you do what’s right for Montana.”
Joe Unterreiner, president of the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce, said maintaining the pristine character of the North Fork of the Flathead River, which tracks along the western edge of Glacier Park, is an economic boon and a draw to the growing tourism industry.
“Researchers tell us that $179 million is what the park adds to our local economy and approximately 2,800 jobs,” he said. “This is a great win for our local economy, and this is a great win for Glacier National Park and the North Fork.”
Chuck Roady, vice president and gen- eral manager of F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Company, said the collaboration of interest groups is the future of manag- ing and protecting public lands.
“We encourage all of our elected of- ficials to continue to seek innovative so- lutions and bipartisan cooperation that invites legislative certainty for both the management and the protection of our public lands and our aural resources,” he said. “It took a broad coalition of people and varied interests who worked hard on this North Fork bill, and in the end we found common ground on a lot of differ- ent public land issues.”
Cartwright said the North Fork Wa- tershed Protection Act reciprocates Brit- ish Columbia’s rejection of mining in the portion of the North Fork north of the border.
In 2010, Montana reached an historic accord with British Columbia’s leader- ship, pledging to together protect the wild and scenic region. The following year, Canadian lawmakers upheld their portion of the agreement by safeguard- ing those lands.
“What British Columbia did in saying no to mining in the North Fork remains a big deal, and so is what’s been accom- plished with passage of the North Fork bill,” Cartwright said. “Beyond the actual mechanics of the North Fork bill is a last- ing statement of commitment to the land- scape that we all love.”
Sarah Lundstrum, of the National Parks Conservation Association, helped
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