Montana Forrest Lands and Management

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State Senate President Matt Regier Thursday, July 24th, 2025  10:21am  

Now that wildfire season is here, the elk rut is only two months away and the Big Beautiful Bill has been signed into law by President Trump without any public land sales. What needs to happen with our federal public lands in Montana is active management. 

Unmanaged, dying, and fire-prone forests create multiple problems for everyone. Timber mills continue to close along with the high-paying, blue-collar rural jobs and a substantial amount of property tax revenue they provide. Overgrown habitat drives elk onto private land and reduces elk numbers, frustrating hunters and landowners alike. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF) is raising awareness about the need to manage forests for these reasons. Montana FWP has likewise highlighted the need to restore quality elk habitat in places like my home in Northwestern Montana.

In addition to providing poor wildlife habitat, unhealthy forests have minimal scenic or recreational value, do not generate forest jobs or tax revenue, and fuel high intensity fires, destroying our air quality, making home insurance more expensive, and filling our cherished clear water trout streams with sediment. These intensifying negative consequences result from mandated idle Montana Federal lands. 

The following highlight efforts already done to address these problems. 

The 2025 Legislature passed a series of wildfire bills, including requiring insurance companies to transparently disclose what factors make up their wildfire risk scores (HB 533), requiring energy companies to follow wildfire mitigation plans while providing liability protections (HB 490),  and improving policies surrounding prescribed fires (HB 84). The 2023 Legislature also passed SB 3 reducing timber production taxes, making them more equitable. 

Governor Greg Gianforte recently signed a major agreement with the Forest Service significantly increasing the state role in actively managing hundreds of thousands more acres of national forests with the federal government. 

Insurance Commissioner James Brown issued a memo reminding insurance companies that it is not legal to cancel homeowner insurance policies without justifying explicit wildfire risk.

In Congress, Senator Steve Daines has championed reforms on mandatory timber sales, reining in frivolous litigation, increasing pay for wildland  firefighters, reducing bureaucratic red tape and more. Senator Tim Sheehy is supporting Daines in these efforts  while utilizing his unique experience as an aerial wild land firefighter to improve federal wildfire policy.  

Despite these efforts from Montana Republicans at every level of government, lawsuits from radical environmentalists and a stifling mountain of federal bureaucratic regulations are two of the biggest remaining obstacles to restoring healthy, productive forests. 

It’s time for everyone—hunters, recreationists, conservationists, homeowners, tradesmen, and the forest industry—to unite and continue pushing for reforms that get forests back working for us instead of against us. Now is the time with a motivated federal administration to make a positive change.  Students at Libby High School have for generations been known as the “Libby Loggers.” Only an extreme minority would rather they be called the “Libby Lawyers.”

Properly managed public lands are a win for everyone - humans, wildlife, business, recreation, the list goes on. Let’s restore healthy, managed Montana federal forests.