In The News

Butte Police Officer Nick Butorovich had a good reason to wear his dress blues Friday. He accepted honors from a United States senator. Sen. Steve Daines, in Butte to speak to the Montana Association of Counties at their winter conference, took time immediately afterward to hand Butorovich something the officer will doubtless treasure all his life: A Congressional Record honoring him for pulling an unconscious woman out of a burning car last September, saving her life and burning himself in the process. That night, Butorovich arrived at the scene of an accident to find an SUV rolled over and burning.

MONTANA – U.S. Senators Jon Tester and Steve Daines announced via press release Friday that 68 airports across the state will receive a total of $20,034,965 in grant funding to keep up with costs and continue projects amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The funding was secured as part of the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA) that was signed into law in late December. The grants are provided by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Airport Coronavirus Response Grant Program to provide economic relief to airports across the United States, according to the release. “Communities across Montana rely on airports

HELENA — U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, a member of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, has been named as the top Republican on the panel’s Subcommittee on Health Care. Daines, who was re-elected last year, said this week the appointment will help him address many health issues facing Montana, such as the cost of prescription drugs, methamphetamine addiction in the state and health-care needs in rural areas. The Health Care Subcommittee is one of six within the full committee. Daines is one of 20 members on the panel, which is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans in the current congress. The

Well that didn’t take long. Former President Donald Trump has now been acquitted by the United States Senate….AGAIN. I don’t know about you, but I’m glad we didn’t waste too much of our time on that circus of an impeachment…AGAIN.

Although, I do have to be honest- I kind of hope the Democrat-led US Senate would keep wasting more time on this. Why? What else will they be doing? Raising your taxes? Passing gun control measures? Voting against oil, gas, coal, and agriculture? Better to keep them occupied if you ask me.

Here’s how Montana’s senators reacted to the vote to acquit former President Trump from his second impeachment.

You can read the full statement from Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) by clicking here. Here’s part of his response:

I voted to acquit President Trump of a second impeachment because I believe the trial was unconstitutional. I do not believe the Senate has the authority to remove a former President from office who is no longer in office. Going forward, the focus must be to arrest and prosecute the domestic terrorists who broke into our Capitol, attacked law enforcement officers, sought to cause harm, and tried to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Senator Jon Tester (D-MT), whose own fighting words were featured in the impeachment trial, also released a statement following the vote which can be read here. He said, in part:

Ultimately the House Managers presented a clear, evidence-based case that proved to a majority of my Republican and Democratic colleagues that former President Trump incited a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th that came within a hundred feet of destroying our democracy.

HELENA – On Saturday, Feb. 13, the U.S. Senate voted to acquit Donald Trump of the incitement of insurrection charge in his second impeachment trial.

Senator Steve Daines sent the following statement on the acquittal:

“January 6th will forever be remembered as a very dark day for our country. I’m thankful for the officers who defended our Capitol that day—they are American heroes. I categorically condemn all violence, and I reject extreme rhetoric and radical false conspiracies like QAnon. These values do not represent who we are as Americans.

“I reject the notion that Vice President Pence had the constitutional authority to overturn the election on January 6th. It’s simply not true. Vice President Pence faithfully upheld his oath of office and certified the election.

“I voted to acquit President Trump of a second impeachment because I believe the trial was unconstitutional. I do not believe the Senate has the authority to remove a former President from office who is no longer in office. Going forward, the focus must be to arrest and prosecute the domestic terrorists who broke into our Capitol, attacked law enforcement officers, sought to cause harm, and tried to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Senator Jon Tester sent the following statement on the acquittal:

“I took my duty to serve as an impartial juror seriously and listened to the evidence presented by the prosecution and defense. Ultimately the House Managers presented a clear, evidence-based case that proved to a majority of my Republican and Democratic colleagues that former President Trump incited a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th that came within a hundred feet of destroying our democracy. I joined with this group from both parties to defend our Constitution by holding the former president accountable to the rule of law, and sending a powerful signal that politicians must be held accountable if we want our democracy to survive.”

WASHINGTON— Deb Haaland is poised to make history on two fronts, as both the first Native American cabinet secretary and as the architect of what could be a landmark change in the U.S. government’s relationship with oil.

First, she will need to be confirmed by the Senate as President Biden’s nominee for interior secretary—and Republicans are girding for a fight.

The Democratic congresswoman from New Mexico has joined with pipeline protesters, supported the Green New Deal and opposed fracking on public lands. For a cabinet post that oversees the government’s longstanding, multibillion-dollar partnership with drillers on federal lands, Ms. Haaland’s environmental politics are in contrast to those of her predecessors.

“Fracking is a danger to the air we breathe and water we drink,” she wrote in 2017, the year before she was elected to Congress. “The auctioning off of our land for fracking and drilling serves only to drive profits to the few.”

Fracking has become the source of most oil and gas produced in the U.S., and Ms. Haaland’s history of criticizing it has alarmed leaders from fossil-fuel-producing states. Many come from the West, home to nearly all of the drilling on federal land, and where states benefit from the money.

“To have a nominee who has taken the most radical positions, supports the most radical policies on natural resources is unprecedented,“ Sen. Steve Daines (R., Mont.) said in an interview. “A lot of our Western states…depend on the revenue that comes out of those federal lands to fund governments.”

The Senate Energy committee hasn’t set a date for Ms. Haaland’s confirmation hearing. Mr. Daines said he would seek to use procedural powers to delay the appointment if she can’t satisfactorily address his concerns.

An outright rejection of her nomination isn’t considered likely, but Republicans could seek help from moderate Democrats from fossil-fuel-producing states—including committee chairman Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.). Mr. Manchin hasn’t announced a decision on Ms. Haaland but told the trade publication E&E News he will “be deferential and try to help every one of Joe’s appointees.”

Regardless of who becomes secretary, the oil-and-gas industry is on a collision course with the new administration, often centered on the Interior Department. President Biden has ordered a temporary ban on new oil-and-gas leases on federal land as he seeks to promote conservation and alternate sources of energy to curb greenhouse-gas emissions.

New Mexico has become a drilling hot spot thanks to federal land in the Permian Basin. A sixfold increase over a decade has made it the country’s third-largest oil-producing state.

 “She makes people uncomfortable because she has opinions. And she makes gas and oil uncomfortable because she’s not a cheerleader for them,” said Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D., Ariz.), who worked with Ms. Haaland as chairman of the House committee that oversees the Interior Department.

Ms. Haaland declined interview requests through spokeswomen.

People who have worked with the congresswoman say her environmental views have been shaped by her Native American heritage, especially the experiences of her tribe and others in New Mexico. Ms. Haaland, 60 years old, is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna west of Albuquerque and she spent part of her career as an executive overseeing the tribe’s business enterprises.

Ms. Haaland earned degrees in English and law from the University of New Mexico, started a salsa business and was elected the first chairwoman of the board at Laguna Development Corp., which runs gambling and other tribal businesses.

She often introduces herself as “a 35th generation New Mexican.” In campaigning for environmental initiatives, she tells the stories of tribal communities harmed by the extraction of uranium, oil and gas.

From the 1950s until the 1980s, the agrarian Lagunas began abandoning farming and ranching to rely on work at the mammoth Jackpile-Paguate uranium mine on Indian territory leased through Interior. Now abandoned, the government put Jackpile-Paguate on its Superfund list for cleanups in 2013. Another uranium mine on Pueblo land nearby, run by Homestake Mining Co. , was put on the list in 1983.

Tribal leaders say irradiated runoff still washes from the sites during heavy storms, contaminating their drinking and irrigation water. Pueblo of Acoma Gov. Brian Vallo said cancer, lung disease and suicides are part of the legacy of the mining years for the Pueblo tribes there.

Ms. Haaland often recounts her mother’s tales of how their communities’ fortunes turned with the mines, Mr. Vallo said.

“Even while the mining activity provided employment opportunities…the long-term implications of that industry in our area have been life-threatening,” Mr. Vallo said.

Ms. Haaland’s political career took off in the past decade as environmentalists and Native Americans increasingly found common ground around climate change.

In 2016, Ms. Haaland was among the thousands gathered in North Dakota to support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s effort to block construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Ms. Haaland stayed for four days and cooked a New Mexican dish, green chile stew, to feed protesters from the trunk of her car.

“We need to act fast to counteract climate change and keep fossil fuels in the ground,” Ms. Haaland said on her congressional campaign website. “I pledge to vote against all new fossil fuel infrastructure, and to fight instead for 100% clean energy.”

After taking office in 2019, she was instrumental in getting a moratorium to stop new drilling in areas around New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon that tribes consider sacred. In May 2019, she told the Guardian newspaper that she was “wholeheartedly against fracking and drilling on public lands.”

As interior secretary, Ms. Haaland would oversee the national parks, Endangered Species Act rules and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. She would also oversee the public-lands programs, including drilling and mining interests on leases that cover millions of acres on- and offshore.

These leases generate about $10 billion a year in revenue to the federal government, which shares roughly a third of that money with states and tribes. Even if new leases are banned, the administration says current leases will stand, requiring Ms. Haaland to work with oil companies that she has pledged to work against.

“Her public statements have been fairly antagonistic and hostile. There’s just no two ways around it,” said Ryan Flynn, leader of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, the biggest oil-industry trade group in Ms. Haaland’s home state.

Oil-and-gas development put $2.8 billion of revenue into state coffers last year, roughly a third of the state’s general funds. Of that money, a third to half came from operations on federal land, according to the oil and gas association.

“If the state is…forced to make budget cuts or raise taxes to address deficits, then there will absolutely be a political price,” Mr. Flynn said.

That will put pressure on Ms. Haaland even from allies back home, if she is confirmed. State leaders plan to ask the Interior Department for help if new rules shrink oil development, said Stephanie Garcia Richard, the state public lands commissioner.

“She understands you can’t just be a spigot that turns off. There needs to be a plan,” Mrs. Garcia Richard said. “Native people have been through a lot. They have suffered generations of trauma. So she has an understanding of what the long game is.”

Montana’s U.S. senators split Saturday on acquitting Donald Trump of inciting a riot intended to derail certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat, was among 57 lawmakers finding that Trump did incite the deadly Jan. 6 attack during a rally protesting Congress’ certification of the Biden win. From the night of the election right up to the riot, Trump had insisted the election was stolen and suggested falsely that his vice president, Mike Pence, had the power to give Trump a second term by rejecting the results of the electoral college.

U.S. Sen. Steve Daines was among the 43 Republican senators voting to acquit the former president. Daines had, after the election, solicited donations to help “stop the steal,” Trump’s false rally call to GOP supporters to reject the election outcome and keep him in office. Daines later moderated his remarks, saying he believed election fraud was committed, but not enough to change the election’s outcome.

Saturday’s vote was short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict Trump, who Democrats sought to prevent from again running for president.

After the acquittal, Trump issued a statement, dismissing his second impeachment trial as a witch hunt and stating his “movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun.” The slogan has appeared on Trump campaign merchandise since 2015.

Tester issued the following statement as the acquittal became official: “I took my duty to serve as an impartial juror seriously and listened to the evidence presented by the prosecution and defense. Ultimately the House Managers presented a clear, evidence-based case that proved to a majority of my Republican and Democratic colleagues that former President Trump incited a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6th that came within a hundred feet of destroying our democracy. I joined with this group from both parties to defend our Constitution by holding the former president accountable to the rule of law, and sending a powerful signal that politicians must be held accountable if we want our democracy to survive.”

Daines prefaced his remarks about his vote by first stating he rejected the radical false conspiracies of QAnon, an internet-spread fiction that Trump is battling enemies of a deep state controlled by powerful pedophiles and cannibals leading a sex trafficking ring. Popular with some Republicans, including GOP members of the U.S. House, QAnon was well represented among Trump followers who assaulted Congress to stop election certification.

Daines also rejected Trump’s insistence that Pence, while overseeing the certification of the electoral college outcome, had the power to reject the election results. Trump had falsely told supporters before the rally that Pence could reject the results. Not long after Pence insisted he didn’t have the authority, the mob descended on Congress chanting “hang Mike Pence.”

“I voted to acquit President Trump of a second impeachment because I believe the trial was unconstitutional,” Daines said in a prepared statement. “I do not believe the Senate has the authority to remove a former president from office who is no longer in office. Going forward, the focus must be to arrest and prosecute the domestic terrorists who broke into our Capitol, attacked law enforcement officers, sought to cause harm, and tried to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

The Senate had voted before the trial began that it did have the authority to proceed with the trial, which had started with the House impeachment of Trump, while he was still president. Leading up to the trial, 150 constitutional law scholars had clarified that Trump’s trial post-term was not only allowed, but necessary.

U.S. SENATE – A bipartisan legislation to award Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman—who heroically lured rioters away from the Senate floor during the insurrection attempt on Jan. 6—with the Congressional Gold Medal unanimously passed the U.S. Senate Friday.

“Officer Eugene Goodman put his life on the line to protect Senators and staff from the violent mob of domestic terrorists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th,” Senator Jon Tester said. “He heroically led the insurrectionists away from the Senate chamber, helping to protect our democracy and saving the lives of many of my colleagues as well as the former Vice President. Officer Goodman—and all of the other officers who defended the Capitol that day—should be celebrated for his bravery, and I’m proud to have helped pass legislation bestowing him with the highest honor that Congress can give.”

“Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman is an American hero who courageously defended our Capitol on January 6th. We will forever be thankful for his service and dedication,” Senator Steve Daines said in a statement. “Today, Officer Goodman was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal—an honor he more than deserves.”

On Jan. 6, Officer Goodman was confronted by a mob of insurrectionists shortly after they breached the U.S. Capitol as members of the House of Representatives, Senate and the former Vice President verified results of the 2020 election. Officer Goodman lured the rioters away from the unguarded entrance to the Senate floor, delaying their access to the chamber and protecting the lives of those inside. According to reports, Officer Goodman led the rioters away from the Senate mere moments after the former Vice President was evacuated from the Senate Chamber.

You can read the full text of the legislation here.

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.