Refreshing to hear a voice of reason

The end must be near.

Whitey’s becoming a voice of reason.

With Republican lawmakers in Helena advocating the transfer of federal lands to state control, Rep. Kerry White (R-Bozeman) called the plan “unrealistic.”

He told the Billings Gazette the transfer would be too technically complex.

An incumbent, who has served in the Legislature since 2012, White has been a vocal opponent of the Endangered Species Act and advocated for increased motorized access on national forest land

He sits on the Environmental Quality Council, a subcommittee which has been examining ways to better coordinate state and federal land projects.

No friend of wilderness, wolves, grizzly bears or Obama, White gets low marks on the Project Vote Smart website from Montana Conservation Voters.

So it was a surprise to see White not in lock step with subcommittee leader Sen. Jennifer Fielder (R-Thompson Falls) who told the Missoulian: “Under federal mismanagement our environment, economy and people are suffering.”

She claims transfer of federal lands to Montana control would remedy all that. It’s all part of the GOP’s We’re-smarter-than-them-idiots-in-D.C. mantra.

Fielder (a woman who uses firewood as a verb) says at this point she doesn’t see Washington D. C. as reformable, and apparently thinks it’s time to take over the ship, the fact that she doesn’t know how to sail be damned.

I’d like to think ol’ Whitey is smarter than that, realized the futility of the proposal, and jumped Fielder’s ship of his own accord.

But White, whose family has ranched in Montana since 1864, may have other reasons. Ranchers pay a very low fee to graze cows on that mismanaged federal land. On state land, however, they pay nearly 10 times as much.

A ten-fold increase in grazing fees probably wouldn’t sit well with White’s ranching constituents.

It’s extremely far-fetched to think Montana Republicans will take control of the federal land in the state. More likely the debate will simply eat up time and energy that lawmakers could use elsewhere on more important legislation like Tom Burnett’s (R-Bozeman) bill to sue the federal government over wildfire smoke. Or a bill sponsored by Margie MacDonald (D-Billings) to protect police horses, of which there is one in the state.

With the inmates obviously running the asylum it’s refreshing to hear a voice of reason in Helena. Even if it’s Whitey.

Parker Heinlein is at

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