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Montana U.S. Senators Jon Tester and Steve Daines recently received new key committee assignments.

Tester, a Democrat, is now chair of the Senate Veteran Affairs Committee, which is significant for Montana’s nearly 90,000 military veterans. The state ranks third nationally for veterans per capita. Tester has served on the committee since 2007, but until now didn’t have the seniority to be chairman while Democrats have the majority.

Additionally, Tester was appointed chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, a key committee for Malmstrom Air Force Base and all military spending. Through the end of 2020, both Tester and Daines served on the subcommittee.

Daines’ presence on Appropriations was an exception to a rule that lawmakers not serve on both Appropriations and Senate Finance. Serving on both required a waiver from Senate leadership.

The current arrangement leaves Montana with seats on three primary money committees. Tester on Appropriations, Daines on Senate Finance and both lawmakers on Senate Banking.

Daines was reassigned to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which is not only key for banking, but also veteran housing. The committee deals with some trade issues, insurance and financial markets. Banking Committee members are also some of the largest recipients of campaign donations from the banking and finance industry. It’s also a committee on which Tester has served since his first year in office.

Both senators also serve on the Indian Affairs Committee, which is key for Montana’s seven American Indian reservations and the significant social issues like the missing and murdered Indigenous persons crisis. Education, health care, trust lands and other federal obligations secured under treaty with sovereign tribal nations are issues covered by the Indian Affairs Committee.

Additionally, Daines serves on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which deals with everything from oil and gas leasing on federal public lands to national parks.

Tester is also a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. The committee is key to addressing the “digital divide” between urban and rural areas, improving broadband in rural communities for business, education and telehealth.

In the House of Representatives, as previously reported, Rep. Matt Rosendale serves on Natural Resources and Veterans affairs, appointments that align with the senators’ committee assignments.

Sen. John Barrasso said President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the U.S. Department of the Interior has espoused anti-fossil fuel views and he and another Senator will oppose her confirmation unless they receive favorable answers to their questions. Barrasso said Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M, espouses “radical views” contrary to responsible energy development, he told E&E News in a prepared statement on Monday. “Her vocal opposition to oil and gas production on federal lands will only encourage President Biden along the illegal and reckless path that he has begun,” Barrasso said. “Representative Haaland must demonstrate that she will follow the law,

The U.S. Department of the Interior has rescinded an order issued in the final months of the Trump administration that critics say undermined the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a centerpiece of legislation that Montana’s senators helped shepherd through Congress last year. Then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt issued the order in November, requiring private landowners to get approval from their state’s governor and their county government in order to sell land to the Interior Department. The order also constrained all federal land purchases to the current boundaries of national parks, forests, wildlife refuges and conservation areas, and it put the Bureau

Republican members of Montana’s congressional delegation on Wednesday sent a letter to federal officials in support of changes to the Endangered Species Act meant to speed timber work on critical habitat. The state’s Democratic senator said he also supports the changes. The proposed amendments to interagency consultation regulations would reverse precedent set in a 2015 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision over critical Canada lynx habitat. Judges on the case determined that when “new information” indicates a land management plan’s direction might harm a federally-protected species, the Bureau of Land Management or the Forest Service must consult with the U.S.

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A Senator from North Dakota wants the Biden administration to withdraw a final rule on the importation of sheep and goats. Republican Kevin Cramer made the request in a letter to the Department of Agriculture this week, asking the rule be withdrawn until its impact on current market conditions can be fully evaluated. The rule, finalized on January 14, would remove brain disorder-related import restrictions on sheep, goats, and most of their products. Cramer says the existing import restrictions function as a necessary protection against the introduction of other brain disorders, such as scrapie or mad cow disease. Republican Senators