MONTANA FIRST STATE TO BAN FEDERAL AGENCY LAND PURCHASES

HELENA- Montana became the first state in the nation to prohibit the sale of state owned land to the federal government.

“This is an accomplishment I am very very proud of,” said Representative Rick Maedje (R) – Fortine about his amendment to House Bill 223.

House Bill 223 authorizes the state land board to sell school trust lands that are not producing income from grazing, timber, mining, or oil and gas. The measure was dubbed “the state land banking bill” and it also allows the land board to purchase more productive lands in its place.

“I don’t disagree with the underlying purpose of the bill at all. It’s entirely appropriate for the State Land Board to look for better timber, mining, and grazing lands for the schools,” said Maedje, “but there was a serious unintended consequence- the present state lands could wind up in the hands of the federal government, and that is entirely inappropriate in Montana.”

There are approximately six million acres of school trust lands in Montana. These lands were originally granted to the state by the federal government when Montana agreed to statehood. Congress mandated the lands be used solely for generating income for schools.

In the hearing on HB 223 before the House Natural Resources Committee, Bud Clinch, Director of the DNRC, said, “It is my fiduciary responsibility to generate income for our schools from these lands.” Director Clinch added, “This bill allows the Department the flexibility to increase income for the schools.”

Representative Maedje, who sits on the House Natural Resources Committee said during executive session deliberations on the bill, “I am not prepared in any way, shape, or form to see a single acre of state land wind up in the federal government’s hands. Not only does the federal government fail to pay taxes on land it holds, but even the PILT payments (Payments in Lieu of Taxes) it promises us never come through. Worse yet, Montana has had nothing but serious problems in the last 30 years with virtually every acre the federal government claims to have jurisdiction over in this state. Selling the feds our state land is like rubbing salt in a wound.”

Representative Maedje, an outspoken opponent of federal land ownership in Montana, believes the federal government has overstepped its Constitutional authority in the last 30 years, and offered his amendment as a means to reign in federal agencies in Montana.

“House Bill 223 came through the Natural Resources Committee, and I saw the real opportunity to add a friendly amendment to the bill to begin to stop federal land acquisitions in our state,” said Maedje.

Maedje referred to Article I, Section 8 of the federal Constitution, which restricts Congress: “to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards and other needful Buildings.”

Maedje’s amendment to HB 223 amends Montana Code Annotated 77-2-306 to read: “State land may not be sold to the federal government or to any agency of the federal government, except for the purpose of building federal facilities and structures.”

The bill made it to the Governor’s desk with Maedje’s amendment intact, but not without a fight.

Representative Chris Harris (D) – Bozeman, blasted Maedje’s amendment on the floor of the House arguing that “Iraq could buy this land. North Korea could buy this land, but our own red white and blue federal government can’t buy this land. This is wrong.”

“Frankly,” Maedje said afterwards about Rep. Harris’s comments in the floor debate, “...and I say this within the tangible and real context of unabashedly asinine decisions made by federal agencies which unnecessarily hurt rural natural resource dependent communities-- Representative Harris might have been unintentionally right. I indeed wonder if the constitutional rights of Montanans could be any more abused by a North Korean dictator than they are by our own federal agencies. That may sound stunning to those who haven’t suffered because of federal land policies, but it is closer to the truth than one might want to contemplate.”

Maedje offered the following remarks after Governor Martz signed HB 223 into law:

“The Constitution never intended the federal government to increase its land holdings or jurisdictional influence without the consent of the people of a state. Regrettably, over the last 30 years the federal government has overstepped its authority, and its abuse of that authority directly conflicts with the economic vitality, character, and traditions of the people of Montana. Montanans have been patient. We have tried to work with federal agencies, but we have intelligently arrived at the conclusion that federal agencies have little or no incentive to abide by the federal Constitution.So, we're now going to help them get back on track.”

“This amendment to HB 223 is the first step in a calculated effort not only to put the brakes on federal land acquisitions, but in future legislative sessions, we will take intelligent, lawful steps such as this to roll back federal land holdings and jurisdictional authority,” Maedje said.

“Montana is the first state in the nation to prohibit the federal government from purchasing state lands. This is an historic step for any state to take, and federal agencies should be well aware that Montana will continue to assert our rights as a state, and we take this issue very very seriously.” Maedje added.

Lastly, the terms of the Supremacy clause alone would void any state statute prohibiting sale to the US.

Hey Bird Brain Chancellor-- a seller, in this case, the State of Montana, has the ultimate right to REFUSE to sell to anyone, including the Feds.

The supremecy clause isn't functional in any way shape or form in this case- that's the beuaty of this ENACTED LAW.

I'm guessing you're pissed because a state has exercised its Constitutional rights under its statehood Enabling Act and Compact provisions which Montanans take seriously.

This is probably, and I say this with guarded optimism, the most significant inroad to quashing one of the legal toys the enviro-whacks thought they had under their shorts.

Deal with it nutzo... It's the LAW in Montana... The federal Government is PROHIBITED from buying state land in Montana. Seller's rights... He/she who owns can refuse ANY offer for any reason... and that is EXACTLY what the people of Montana have decided to do.

So I can assume that all those constamatooshinalista revolutionaries that are the constituents of this moron will be sending back all their agricultural subsidy checks from such an eeeeevil and repressive government, will start paying a real market rate for water which gets to them as the result of Federal projects as well as for grazing rights on Federal land, and will be rejecting Federal road money in the future.

Or do you really just want to be the parasites you are, content to sucking at the benefits of the nation while badmouthing it at the same time?

Constimatooshinalista revolutionaries are pretty nauseating - perhaps you need to take a trip to North Korea just so you can see firsthand what real repression is all about.

I'm sure that they'd love to refuse the federal "help" except that with the crushing income tax that people pay, they are glad to get some of it back.

Where does the money for the so-called "Federal road money" come from. It comes from the people with an outrageous income tax. The congress is only allowed to tax what is reasonable and necessary to fill it's limited constitiutional role. Not to mug the people for as much money as it can get away with and dole it back to the states with strings attached. Most people feel taxes are excessive but pay anyway because if you don't--some booted thugs show up lock & stock to take your house away.

If it's all the same to you, you can keep your road money thanks you, and I'll keep my income.

As for the water and benefits of federal projects. These are just social relief programs for out-of staters. The government built the dams as a welfare program to provide jobs to unemployed drifters. The federal agencies have never charged enough for the electricity to pay for the dams. That thought doesn't enter their mind because they are not businessmen but socialist bureaucrats.

Yes, please shut the dams down, turn them over to the private sector or at least charge enough for the power--and in return, I'll keep my income thank you.

Just think, all those bloated federal agencies, road money and all comes from looting the coffers of the people. The socialist bureaucrats in the federal government don't make any money--they may redistribute wealth but they don't create it, just take it. So who really is the parasite here?

Yes, in North Korea, they have hard fascism. They have no pretext about just shooting people who disagree with the government. In America, we have soft fascism that slides toward the hard end more and more every year. First they send somebody in a well dressed suit to threaten you, then they surround you and keep you cornered to harass you. Then as soon as they can have plausable denability about the murder they will shoot you and cover it up. Waco, Ruby Ridge, ect.

Some people are just offended at soft fascism as they are hard fascism. It's very well they should be, as soft fascist societies tend to slide to the hard.

Just because there are worse tyrants doesn't make the opression the American people suffer any lighter.

If it's all the same to you, you can keep your road money thanks you, and I'll keep my income.

This is my favorite part about your bleat. You people have a vision for America that basically would have it look like Mississippi in 1930 - poor and ramshackle - essentially the freedom of absolute poverty with a crumbling third world infrastructure. Like parasites, you look around, see the good things that have been built as the result of ingenuity and society, then suddenly claim "we kin do better on our own, only after we steal it from the people who paid for it. Of course, we won't maintain it".

Sorry, I'm not buying, because I don't want to live in a nation which would look like Afghanistan under the Taliban in 8 years time.

My scorn is for those earnest Constamatooshunalists who think that if they go around bleating the words "liberty", "true conservative" and "patriot" enough while complaining that their government is engaged in "fascist repression" that somehow people will take them seriously.

I do not share their paranoia, their psychoses, their obsessions, their crankiness, their hopelessness or their abject failure to appreciate life in this marvelous country - and see that their ignorant and shallow (albeit arrogantly stated) vision of the Constitution is a poor example of a polity worth respect and emulation.

In other words, when an idiot starts making comparisons between the US and North Korea, he makes me see his complaints and agenda in an entirely new light, and cannot redeem himself in my eyes.

Your ad-hominem and childish taunting make me see your complaints and agenda in a new light as well. The Constitution and liberty and patriotism are important concepts. Fascism and repression are very real and very dangerous things that a rational man will oppose, wherever they arise. Indeed this is a marvelous country, and for that reason it is imperative that we recognize the reality of what politicians and bureaucrats have done to it and plan to do to it. You can play the part of name-calling ninny if that's all you're intellectually capable of, but don't expect anything but revulsion in return.

There are people who pay taxes, and there are people who live off of them. Those in the latter group have overwhelming disdain for those of us in the first. They ridicule and belittle us. They call us greedy for wanting to keep that which we have earned, while they live as leeches and looters on the proceeds from armed robbery. They are beyond pathetic. They are scared to death of what life would be like without the federal nanny to provide for their every need.

My point was not that money should not be spend on roads but that it is not the Federal government's job to decide this issue. The constitution gives the Federal government specific jobs and gives the rest to the states. There is no mention in the consitution of taxing more than the Federal government needs to do its enumerated jobs to control the states by offering it with strings attached. For example, the consitiution doesn't say that the Federal government can tax more than it needs then give it back as road money but only if your state has it's speed limits set at a certain speed and only if your state has it's BAC arrest level at a certain level and only if your state has marijuana posession a criminal offense and only ifs ad infinitum.

My point was that when the people have kept their income, then the states are free to raise taxes. People don't vote for higher taxes now because the overall level is too high. When the Federal Government taxes too much, it robs the states of the money the people of those states would have been willing to give to the state to pay for things like roads.

The states should then fund their roads on a way that the people of the states consent to, be it income tax, a gas tax, car tabs, toll roads or whatnot. Or even be free not to fund the roads they want to! Now you are not free to not fund the road because if the state choses not to go along with the FedGov's program then the money doesn't get returned to the people it gets doled out to another state. It is the job of the state not the feds to decide such matters, after all respecting the meaning of the constitution requires this.

...will start paying a real market rate for water which gets to them as the result of Federal projects as well as for grazing rights on Federal land, and will be rejecting Federal road money in the future.

Actually, Palpatine, you're more uninformed than I assumed-- you'll have nightmares over this one- the state of Montana ALSO rejected federal road money in order to keep intact the PEOPLES' wish to be allowed to have open containers in their automobiles.

Next, Montana has the RIGHT, under its state compact and enabling act to grazing and watering of stock ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE we want on federal land. Worse yet, (for you at least), there's not a dam thing you can do about it.

Occassionally, I have the ultimate and absolutely exquisite pleasure of notifying enviro-nazis like yourself of the brick wall of reality, and having the even more satisfying pleasure of watching your 'theorhetic' world of socialist green nazi utopia utterly blindsided by the reality that while Democracy may be slow to work, as it should be, the will of the people, utlimately, swings in the voters' direction, and if the recent Montana, Texas, and New Mexico legislative sessions are any indication, your silly ideas which you and other whack cases would like to impose on the rest of us, are being lawfully determined to be not only antiquated and not based on the real world, but voters are rejecting your idiocy in droves.

If you want to throw yourself off the backside of a dam- now is probably your best chance... The dams aren't going anywhere, so you'll have a number of years to contemplate that...

Generally, whack cases like yourself dine on pig sh-t and call it baloney. What you describe your thoughts as, one can only imagine...

lol

Roads - according to your Governor as quoted in the ,a href="http://www.montanaforum.com/rednews/2002/12/16/build/economy/slumpmartz.php?nnn=5">Billings Gazette, the reason why Montana isn't paying its share for the Federal matching grant is because it is an economic basket case, and the money isn't there to start with. You hysterical shriekers of the words "freedom" and "liberty" who don't understand the Constitution that you claim you do often have more in common with the unabomber than with your fellow Americans - and frequently misrepresent situations, like you did with your post.

Open Grazing - I've never seen a more irresponsible group of cattlemen in my entire life as were embodied in this article in 2001:

Forcing ranchers to contain their cows is not only a potentially "devastating economic proposition," according to Steve Pilcher, vice president of the Montana Stockgrower's Association, but the barbed-wire barriers also pose a disruption to livestock management.

Mr. Pilcher says most urban transplants who want livestock tightly controlled fail to understand how much acreage is needed to fatten a cow for market. The drier the landscape, the more ground is needed to raise a calf to adulthood. Historically, open-range laws have given animals plenty of latitude to move between grasslands and water sources, often through areas bisected by roads.

Guess they don't have that unfettered right anymore - too bad, so sad. Throughout the rest of the country, people have managed to figure out how to control their own herds, to keep them on lands they either own or lease, and don't insist on a "right" to allow their property to destroy property of others or endanger the lives of travelers - it sounds as if Montana is finally joining it - and if it breaks the feudal power of the cattle barons, so much the better.

Follow the $$$ - especially if the state is generally poor, and some pissant legislator is making hyperbolic appeals designed to appeal to a disaffected lower class, all while supporting a feudal oligarchy on top.

Wow, you are incredibly uninformed. Montana not only has free range resources galore, but we also have fencing laws- meaning, if you don't want the deer, moose, cows, or elk on your place- fence them out.

Next, Montana has the 3rd fastest growing personal income rate in the nation as of this date, largely because the state has re-invograted its natural resource economy- meaning timber, mining, ranching, farming, and oil and gas and the laws governing such things have been streamlined.

As an enviro whack, Chancellor, you have a ridiculous point of view not based in reality... "cattle barons" and "feudal peons"... laughable stuff. No wonder you buy the enviro whack baloney hook, line, and sinker...

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Montana First State to Ban Federal Government Land Purchases