Bob Marshall expansion? Maybe

Two Montana land bills made it out of a key Senate conference committee last week, opening up the possibility of full Senate vote in the future.

Montana Sen. Jon Tester’s Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Act  passed through the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources.

The Act will add nearly 80,000 acres to the Bob Marshall, Scapegoat, and Mission Mountains Wilderness Areas.

The additions include a big chunk of lands on the southern end of the Swan Front.

The bill also opens 2,013 acres of currently closed land to snowmobiling, and protects 3,835 acres for mountain biking and hiking. It would also require the Forest Service to prioritize its review of future recreational trail proposals from a collaborative group, and to conduct a forest health assessment that will help identify new timber projects on the landscape.

Tester, a Democrat, has been working on the bill since 2017.

Montana Sen. Steve Daines’s “Montana Sportsmen Conservation Act” also passed through the same committee.

Daines bill would release three Wilderness Study Areas in Montana in general land management — the Middle Fork Judith WSA, the Hoodoo Mountain WSA and the Wales Creek WSA.

The areas have been wilderness study areas for 50 years, Daines said.

“My ‘Montana Sportsmen Conservation Act’ will help protect our Montana way of life by promoting public access to public lands, improving the ability to restore wildlife habitat and reducing the risk of wildfire. This is a big win for Montana sportsmen and a big win for conservation, I’m glad to see my bill move one step closer to becoming law,” Daines said in a release.

Tester was equally pleased with his bill getting out of committee.

“Montanans rely on our public lands to make memories with their families and to create good paying jobs that support our $7.1 billion outdoor economy – and passing my Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Act will ensure that we can do both for generations to come,” Tester said. “This made-in-Montana solution is the result of collaboration between ranchers and loggers, hikers and bikers, and conservationists alike, and is widely supported by the majority of Montanans. Today’s news is a great step forward for Montana, and it’s time for my colleagues to quit playing politics so that we can continue creating jobs and protecting our public lands by getting this bill signed into law.”

The last Montana Wilderness bill to pass Congress — The Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act — passed in 2014.

That bill added about 50,401 acres in the Bob Marshall Wilderness and 16,711 acres in the Scapegoat Wilderness along the Rocky Mountain Front.