“Bottom line: Public lands belong in public hands,” Sheehy said.
That’s not protecting public lands.” Tester was referring to comments Sheehy made to a ranching podcast last October, shortly after launching his Senate bid.
“Public lands belong to the public, that’s you — the people of Montana,” Sheehy said.
“Tim even served on a think tank, on their board of directors, that’s job was to privatize our public lands,” Tester said.
“@SheehyforMT will work to preserve and expand public access to your public lands and he will KEEP PUBLIC LANDS IN PUBLIC HANDS!” the party wrote.
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Montana Democratic Sen. During the entire one-hour debate on Monday night, Jon Tester and his Republican opponent Tim Sheehy sparred about the subject of federal public lands.
Tester has consistently portrayed Sheehy as a danger to Montanans’ way of life and public lands in the United States. Tester is seeking a fourth term in a crucial race that could ultimately determine which party controls the Senate next year.
He made repeated references to the HuffPost articles that first exposed Sheehy’s calls for the “turnover” of federal lands to states or counties; neglected to mention his appointment to the board of the Property and Environment Research Center, a nonprofit organization focused on environmental and property rights research in Bozeman that has a history of pushing for the privatization of federal lands; and seemed to have altered a recent TV commercial so as to remove the PERC logo from the shirt he was wearing.
While continuing a disorganized attempt to rewrite his record on the matter and accusing Tester of attempting to dismantle any organization he has ever been associated with, Sheehy mostly refrained from discussing the details of Tester’s attacks.
The candidates engaged in a lengthy back and forth after Montana PBS journalist John Twiggs questioned them about which organizations are most qualified to oversee Montana’s roughly 27 million acres of federal land while preserving public access.
“In the end, public lands should remain under public ownership,” stated Sheehy.
Examiners should be careful about what people say in back rooms, Tester cautioned, praising Sheehy’s “incredible transformation on this issue.”. “.
“In back rooms, people typically say what they think when they don’t think the camera or recorder is on,” the man stated. And Tim said, ‘We have to give our lands to the county government or his wealthy friends. Public lands are not protected in this way. “.
Tester brought up remarks Sheehy had made to a ranching podcast in October of last year, not long after he announced his Senate candidacy. As originally reported by HuffPost, Sheehy stated on the “Working Ranch Radio Show” that “local control has to be returned, whether that means, you know, turning over some of these public lands to state agencies, or even counties, or whether those decisions are made by a local landlord instead of by, you know, federal fiat, a few thousand miles away.”. “.
Sheehy has spent the last year trying to patch things up, saying he is against the sale or transfer of federal lands despite his own statements to the contrary. However, what he really means when he says “public hands” is the hands of Montanans alone. This is evident from his remarks on Monday.
“The people of Montana, who comprise the public, own the public lands,” Sheehy declared. “People own public lands, especially those who reside nearby.”. And I think Montanans who live next to state trust land, ranchers with grazing leases from the Bureau of Land Management, or anyone else who shares a fence line with National Forest property should have more say over what happens on that land than do bureaucrats 3,000 miles away. “.
Once offering high-end hunting excursions with what it called “private access to over 500,000 acres of National Forest,” Sheehy, a multimillionaire businessman and former Navy SEAL, has a sprawling ranch in Martinsdale, Montana, that shares a fence line with Forest Service land. “.
Sheehy ignores the fact that federal lands in Montana and elsewhere are held in trust for all Americans, regardless of where they live, not just those who happen to live next door. Sheehy believes that federal agencies are bad stewards of the federal estate and that locals know best how to manage federal lands.
Since I think those lands belong to you and not the government, I will unquestionably fight for greater local control over them on a daily basis, Sheehy declared.
Sheehy and many other GOP members are treading carefully in this regard. Republicans in Western states have been trying for decades to take back federal lands from the federal government. The public’s overwhelming support for the preservation of public lands, however, has compelled them to largely renounce calls for their complete transfer and sale and instead support granting states broad management authority. This would ultimately enable them to accomplish many of the same industry-friendly objectives that would result from removing the lands from federal control.
Tester repeatedly returned the discussion to Sheehy’s record.
Tester claimed that Tim had even served on the board of directors of a think tank whose mission it was to privatize public lands. “In Tim’s opinion, Montana should not move in the wrong direction by giving these lands to counties or making them available for purchase by his wealthy friends. “.
Using a fabrication about PERC, Sheehy justified himself by saying, “No one in that organization has ever advocated for selling our public lands—never have, never will.”. “.
In fact, Terry Anderson, the then-director of PERC, and colleagues presented what they called “a blueprint for auctioning off all public lands over 20 to 40 years” in a 1999 policy paper titled “How and Why to Privatize Federal Lands.”. PERC previously stated to HuffPost that the paper “does not accurately reflect PERC’s current perspective. “).
Additionally, Tester said, “you concealed from the public the fact that you were a member of that board when you applied for this job.”. Why not because they were an amazing organization that was doing fantastic things for our public lands? You were a part of that organization, and you didn’t want anyone to know about it, which is why they wanted to get rid of our public lands. “.
Sheehy broke Senate rules by omitting his post on PERC’s board from his Senate financial disclosure, as HuffPost first revealed. Sheehy’s campaign described this as a “oversight.”. Ever since its establishment in 1980, PERC has advocated for the privatization of federal lands, encompassing national parks, and has been a strong opponent of Montana’s distinctive stream access regulations, which grant anglers and outdoor enthusiasts nearly unrestricted access to the state’s rivers and streams, even those that traverse privately owned land.
Sheehy claimed during the debate on Monday that Tester’s criticisms of PERC follow a pattern.
“Just because I was involved with that organization, that’s why Jon Tester has attacked it,” he stated. And throughout the entire campaign, this has been their strategy. Anything Tim Sheehy is associated with should be attacked, dismantled, and tarnished. “.
If anything came out of Monday’s debate, it was that Montana voters who are in favor of preserving and protecting federal public lands have given Sheehy a hard time. However, in contrast to Rep. Matt Rosendale, the Republican from Montana. When running against Tester in 2018, Sheehy claimed that the people had changed his mind about giving federal lands to the states. However, he has not acknowledged why he had to backtrack or hide his opposition to federal land transfers.
If Sheehy is successful in unseating Tester in November, it will be interesting to see if his newly formed opposition to selling off public lands will last for his six-year Senate term.
In order to protect their candidate from Tester’s constant jabs during the debate, the Montana Republican Party took to X, formerly Twitter.
“@SheehyforMT will work to preserve and expand public access to your public lands and he will KEEP PUBLIC LANDS IN PUBLIC HANDS!” the party wrote.
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The Montana GOP, which Sheehy is running for office in, adopted a party platform just three months ago that specifically calls for the “granting of federally managed public lands to the state, and development of a transition plan for the timely and orderly transfer.”. “.
