Senator Daines on Montana Morning to Talk Griz-Cats and Politics

With only a few precious minutes on his morning schedule, Montana Senator Steve Daines called in to the Montana Morning news show to talk Griz-Cat (or as Daines would say) Cat-Griz, along with other issues.

Daines said he grew up in a divided house where his dad was a Bobcat and his mother was a Griz, and he is now solidly in the Bobcat camp.

Aside from the good-natured sports talk, Daines got down to business by relating the outcome of a meeting on Tuesday over the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

“70 percent of the fishing access sites in Montana were funded through the Land and water Conservation Fund,” said Daines. “It doesn’t cost the taxpayer anything because these are revenues that come from off shore drilling. These revenues are them set aside in the LWCF. It also helps us consolidate the checkerboard nature of lands in Montana. Take a look at a map, and I always use the Onx maps from that great company in Missoula when I’m out hunting because it always shows whether it’s a BLM section, a state section, or private land. Sometimes that checkerboard nature of land ownership, it blocks access to public lands, and we’ve used the LWCF to consolidate some of these lands to enhance public access.”

Various groups have criticized Daines recently over his unwillingness to fight for ‘full funding’ of the LWCF at $900 million a year.

“We passed a very important bill out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee which I serve on,” he said. “This is permanent re-authorization at the $900 million a year funding level which will be very important to Montana, as well as the rest of the country.”

Daines also addressed the fact that politics is holding up a major trade agreement that is still waiting for authorization by Congress.

“We want to get that Mexico-Canada trade agreement passed,” he said. “Nancy Pelosi is holding that up right now in the House. The President signed it over a year ago and now Congress needs to ratify it, but unfortunately the politics of the impeachment obsession are getting in the way. This place has gone crazy with what’s going on right now with this impeachment nonsense.”

Daines did say that progress is being made that will help change the landscape of the judiciary in America.

“We’re moving judges through the United States Senate,” he said. “We are changing the make-up of the judiciary of this country in a very positive way. That’s not getting a lot of attention or a lot of press, but I’ll tell you what, that’s very important for our kids and grand kids because those are lifetime appointments.”

KGVO ended the call with a ‘Go Griz’ with Daines responding with a ‘Go Cats’.