In The News

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M) reintroduced Wedensday the bipartisan Safeguard Tribal Objects of Patrimony (STOP) Act, a bill to prohibit the exporting of sacred Native American items and increase penalties for stealing and illegally trafficking tribal cultural patrimony.    U.S. Senators Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) are cosponsors of the bill.   To announce the legislation, Heinrich hosted a meeting with students from the Santa Fe Indian School Leadership Institute’s Summer Policy Academy (SPA) in his office in Washington, D.C. The students

State and national leaders continue to weigh timber restrictions alongside the future of communities in Northwest Montana. Reporter Nicole Miller learned more about some efforts that are underway to make good on past promises while President Trump’s recently released budget threatens funding for conservation and public lands in Montana and across the country. During Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s first hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) spoke with him about the lack of revenue in economically pressed timber-rich counties due to the restrictions on the timber industry on federally owned lands. “We have counties in Montana that have over 90% owned by the federal government and of course there is no tax base there because the federal

U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., will decide whether to support his party’s health care bill after hearing from Montanans next week, the lawmaker said Friday. The senator said he will spend the weekend reading the 142-page bill and then hear from Montanans at Wednesday’s telephone town hall meeting. Daines expects 30,000 people to participate in Wednesday’s call, based on the 28,000 people who participated in a call a couple of weeks ago. “What Montanans have told me they want to see, first and foremost, is a reduction in premiums, the affordability question,” Daines said. “Number two, taking care of those

Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner are embracing more visible roles in the White House policy process, taking high-profile meetings with foreign leaders, prominent lawmakers and top business executives while garnering media attention. Over the last week, Kushner, who more often is seen at the president’s side but not heard, delivered his first public remarks during a summit with technology executives. He then jetted off to the Middle East for attention-getting meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority. Meanwhile, Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter who often accompanies her father on

Montana’s Republican U.S. senator, Steve Daines, says he’ll decide whether to support his party’s health care bill after hearing from constituents. The Billings Gazette reported Saturday (http://bit.ly/2s37iKl ) that Daines will host a telephone town hall next Wednesday on the Senate Republican proposal. At least five GOP senators have declared their opposition to the party’s legislation to undo much of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul — more than enough to defeat the measure. Daines criticized the U.S. House GOP’s health care proposal after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported that 14 million Americans would lose their coverage next year

Women’s rights activists Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Asra Nomani have accused four female Democratic senators of ignoring them during a committee hearing last week, complaining the lawmakers did not ask them a single question.   “This wasn’t a case of benign neglect,” Ali and Nomani wrote, in a New York Times op-ed published Thursday. “What happened that day was emblematic of a deeply troubling trend among progressives when it comes to confronting the brutal reality of Islamist extremism and what it means for women” in Muslim communities.    The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing was titled, “Understanding

U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, fresh out of the first briefing on Senate Republicans’ bill to repeal “Obamacare” and overhaul national health-care policy, said Thursday he wants to scrutinize the measure before deciding whether to support it – and wants to hear what Montanans think, too. “I think there is a lot of work to do on this bill,” he told MTN News. “It’s still very much in a draft form.” A small group of Senate Republicans have been working in secret to craft their version of a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the signature health-reform bill passed by

The Trump administration is removing Endangered Species Act protections for Yellowstone grizzly bears, after they spent more than four decades on the threatened list. The Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service announced the delisting decision Thursday, which immediately drew rebukes from conservationists and Democrats. Officials said that conservation efforts for the bear, a more than fourfold increase in its population and state policies designed to protect the bears show that the delisting is warranted. The Yellowstone grizzly bear lives in and around Yellowstone National Park in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. “This achievement stands as one of America’s great conservation successes;

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Tuesday defended the $1.6 billion in funding cuts that President Trump has proposed for his department, telling a Senate hearing that “this is what a balanced budget looks like.” But Democrats on the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources took issue with the $400 million that the national parks would lose in fiscal 2018, which they said would trigger staff reductions at 90 percent of them. They also questioned the $370 million in cuts the Bureau of Indian Affairs would face, including for education and assistance programs, and $163 million in cuts to the U.S. Geological Survey.