The analysis includes a summary of the legislative efforts impacting property rights throughout the session and recognizes those elected officials who went above and beyond in working to protect private property rights.

“Overall it was a positive session for property owners,” remarked UPOM Policy Director, Chuck Denowh. “We saw fewer overall attacks on individual property rights and we were able to successfully kill the bad bills that were introduce. The most significant win this session was the passage of House Joint Resolution 28 asking the BLM to deny the American Prairie Reserve’s application to change the grazing permits on 13 allotments in central Montana.”

HJ 28 was a key piece of legislation that aims to prevent the APR from gaining ground in their pursuit to establish a free-roaming bison herd. HJ 28 has already made a difference and is making waves in D.C. Shortly after the session, HJ 28 sponsors, Rep. Dan Bartel and Sen. Mike Lang were invited to share the resolution, and their concerns about the APR, with Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt. UPOM also hand delivered a copy of the resolution passed by the legislature to the acting Director of the BLM.

“Montana’s land owners, farmers, and ranchers are at a critical juncture,” said Denowh. “APR’s agenda is a direct threat to the future of Montana agriculture and our public lands. They’ve made it clear they want to eliminate entire communities and replace the ag economy with eco-tourism.”

The scorecard also recognizes several “Property Rights Champions” who either sponsored legislation protecting property rights, scored over 100% of the UPOM legislative scorecard, or have proven to be strong advocates for property rights over their tenure in the Montana State Legislature.

This session, UPOM’s Property Rights Champions were Rep. Dan Bartel of Lewistown, Rep. Wylie Galt of Martinsdale, Rep. Alan Redfield of Livingston, Sen. Mike Lang of Malta, Rep. Joshua Kassmier of Fort Benton, and Rep. Bradley Hamlett of Cascade.

The scorecard can be downloaded here.

British newspaper The Telegraph recently published an excellent article about the grassroots opposition putting up a fight against the American Prairie Reserve.  Here’s a few excerpts:

The long-term vision includes establishing a population of 10,000 bison in the hope of restoring a fully functioning ecosystem on the prairies.

However, cowboys in the area say the plans are tantamount to wiping them off the landscape, and will eradicate the cattle-breeding culture of the American west that has been passed down for over a century…

“They took a red marker on a map and drew a red line around our place and said their goal is to own this piece of property,” (rancher KC) Weingart said. “They don’t really want people here. Their long-term goal is to get rid of us and buy land.d…

Mr Weingart is one of dozens of ranchers now fighting back with a “Save the Cowboy” campaign, which has seen hundreds of “stop American Prairie Reserve” signs appearing across the landscape…

“They want us gone,” (Deanna Robbins, one of the architects of the campaign) said, adding the group wants to “wipe clean” any evidence of human habitation over the last 200 years. “That would mean removing all the homes, the fences, the outbuildings. It’s not like they’re ok with us still being here, it’s pretty much a clean sweep.”

You can read the full article online here (behind a registration wall) Cowboys dig in against conservationists in battle for soul of American prairies.  And you can find out more about how to get involved with the Save the Cowboy campaign on our web site, www.upom.org.

Parker Heinlein’s recent column (“Fewer cowboys? Don’t blame the American Prairie Reserve,” Nov. 1) is a perfect example of the derisive attitude that has turned so many Montanans against the American Prairie Reserve (APR).

How could anyone object, Heinlein wonders, to APR creating an “American Serengeti” in north-central Montana? After all, jobs in cattle country are low paying and antiquated, so why won’t these people just step aside and let the APR take over.

Apparently it will come as a surprise to Heinlein, but there are thousands of Montanans who live in the communities the APR wants to wipe off the map, and they don’t want to be displaced.

If Heinlein bothered to spend any time in eastern Montana, he’d find close-knit, thriving communities, with great schools, hard-working people, and an enviable lifestyle. The people who live in APR’s target zone live there by choice, and they don’t want to be forced out.

By Terry Anderson and Roger Meiners

The U.S. Supreme Court shocked property owners in 2005 when it allowed the City of New London, Connecticut, to take the property of Suzette Kelo for a private development project. At least Ms. Kelo received some compensation.

No compensation, however, was required in a new blow to private property. This June, in the case of Wonder Ranch, LLC v. U.S.A., the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the right of the U.S. Forest Service to take a public prescriptive easement across private land to access public land.

Prescriptive easements are nothing new. The common law has long granted a permanent right for a person to cross another’s property if he had occurred for many years without an explicit “neighborly accommodation.”

Click here to read more in the Washington Examiner.

By Toby Dahl

Governor Bullock’s decision to eliminate the State Land Board’s oversight of multi-million dollar state conservation easements is troubling to say the least.

No elected official should have the power to spend taxpayer dollars so casually, without any checks or balances. That type of power breeds corruption. That’s exactly why the Land Board exists in the first place—to ensure that big, expensive land deals are handled properly.

In other words, the Land Board was established in our Constitution to prevent sweetheart deals.

Here are the details of the specific land deal that lead to Bullock’s decision to bypass the Land Board—you be the judge of whether a sweetheart deal occurred.

By Rep. Bill Harris

This past year saw devastating wildfires across Montana—but none was so destructive as the Lodgepole Complex fire in Garfield and Petroleum counties. The Lodgepole fire was the largest in the country, ultimately destroying over 270,000 acres and devastating hundreds of families.

Could that destruction have been prevented? That’s a question that we can never answer fully. But one factor that undeniably made this fire worse was where it started.

The Lodgepole fire was sparked by a lighting strike in Sandage Coulee, in the heart of a Wilderness Study Area (WSA).

Joe Robertson’s story is a cautionary tale. Last year Mr. Robertson, a 77-year-old disabled Navy veteran from Basin, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined hundreds of thousands of dollars. His crime? Digging ponds on his property after getting a state—but not a federal—permit.

It’s cautionary because under the Obama administration’s agenda to control all the water in the United States, the EPA had hoped to make cases like Mr. Robertson’s the new normal. Plans were in the works to expand federal authority to impose heavy punishments on unsuspecting property owners for relatively pedestrian activities, like installing fences or digging ditches.

To get there, the EPA attempted unilaterally to expand their authority under the Clean Water Act. As written, the Clean Water Act applies only to “navigable waters”—those running from state to state. Protection of other surface waters was left to state regulators, which is one reason Montana has some of the toughest water quality standards in the country.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has made an admirable attempt to solicit input from Montanans about how National Monuments have affected our state. It’s unfortunate that effort has been drowned out by fake advertisements aimed at misleading Montanans and funded by out-of-state environmental groups.

Opposition to the Monuments review centers on the ridiculous claim that it will result in the federal government selling federal land to private entities. Not only is that the direct opposite of Secretary Zinke’s stated objective, it’s illegal for the federal government to sell public land.

Yet we hear over and over again that the Trump administration has some secret plan to sell lands currently in National Monuments. It’s a fake narrative designed to avoid having a real conversation about the impact monuments have had in Montana and other states.

One of the red flags that prompted the Monument review by Secretary Zinke was the sheer scope of land that has been encompassed using the Antiquities Act, which has included hundreds of thousands of acres of private land. It’s clear from the language of the Antiquities Acts itself that it was never intended to be the vehicle for a government land grab.

In its August 1 editorial (“Governor’s new office must focus on access“), the Chronicle calls on Governor Bullock to sue private landowners in order to take their property for recreational purposes for the public.  It’s an absurd, undemocratic, illiberal, and ultimately unconstitutional notion.

The Chronicle claims that we are losing public access to landowners “who throw up gates across traditional public access roads and trails.”  That’s not true.  It’s illegal to gate a public road or trail, and gates put up illegally—maliciously, or more likely by mistake—are removed.

What the Chronicle really meant to say in its editorial is that it believes the state should begin confiscating roads and trails that are privately owned but that are desirable in some way.

To take private property by suing landowners isn’t just a dumb and dangerous idea, it’s completely unnecessary.  The Montana legislature has already taken big steps to cooperatively gain more access across private land—providing tax incentives to landowners for access and prioritizing state funding for access easements.

No one likes when landowners slap up “No Trespassing” signs and block access. But with access disputes back in the news, it’s time to confront the possibility that our current strategies to promote public access aren’t solving the problem — they’re making it worse.

Access disputes boil down to a simple fact: Whether over concerns about privacy, liability, or risk of abuse by a few bad actors, landowners are often reluctant to grant strangers open access to their private property.

But when it comes to trying to enhance access, we often go about it the wrong way. Public-access groups pursue confrontational approaches that make enemies out of the very landowners they need to engage most.

Fortunately, there’s a better way. Consider the sharing economy, which is revolutionizing the way people tackle similar problems. With services such as Airbnb and Uber, entrepreneurs find ways to share “access” to underused assets like spare bedrooms or vehicles. They do so by connecting suppliers and demanders and creating trust among both parties.