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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.

Montana lawmakers are urging the Biden administration to adopt a rule change — filed in the days before the White House changed hands last month — that aims to eliminate a potential hurdle for forest management projects when endangered species might be affected. Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Matt Rosendale, both Republicans, outlined their support in a letter yesterday to top officials at the Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service and the Commerce Department’s NOAA Fisheries. “The proposed rule will allow land managers and wildlife biologists to follow the best-available science for consultation. It will remove an ambiguity in current

News from Senator Daines U.S. SENATE — U.S. Senator Steve Daines today applauded the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on their proposed rule to strike down a burdensome requirement resulting from the Cottonwood decision that yields no conservation benefit and has delayed forest projects while killing Montana timber jobs. The change comes as a result of Daines’ work and efforts.  “This is a great step in reducing unnecessary red tape that has tied the hands of our land managers and diverted resources for a paperwork exercise that has no real conservation benefits,” Daines said. “This change will help improve the

Federal officials on Monday proposed revisions to consultation rules under the Endangered Species Act that could streamline the process for approving timber projects on critical habitat. If enacted, the revisions would allow the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service to circumvent consultation with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials over land management plans when new species are listed as threatened. Land management plans are broad documents that guide agency decisions on public lands. The plans don’t authorize specific projects like timber sales, though such projects must be consistent with the plans’ standards. The Endangered Species Act mandates that

In a political era when Republicans and Democrats rarely agree on anything, the catastrophic wildfire season now raging across the American west could prove compelling enough to rally bipartisan support for legislation to change how forests are managed. That is the hope of Sens. Steve Daines and Dianne Feinstein; one a Montana Republican the other a California Democrat, who on Wednesday spoke in common support of the Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act, a bill that would substantively alter fire suppression practices in the United States. U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont.“We are at a critical time,” Daines said in his