How environmental policy proposals are faring at Legislature’s halfway mark

Lawmakers have been tangling with laws and rules governing wolves, exempt wells, grizzlies, water quality, electric vehicles, conservation easements, coal mining and more.

by Amanda Eggert Montana Free Press

MONTANA — As the 2023 Legislature enters its second half, Montana Free Press is assessing how bills falling under the environmental umbrella — broadly defined — fared during the first 45 days of the session. Here we zero in on proposals to strike, add or amend laws and rules regulating coal mining, solar energy, exempt wells, water quality, net metering, grizzlies, wolves and more.

Natural Resources And Water

Lawmakers are tangling with water quantity and water quality regulations as they look for ways to encourage residential development and weigh industry proposals to facilitate natural resource extraction against environmental protections. The former has been a focus of Gov. Greg Gianforte’s housing task force, which is co-chaired by Montana Department of Environmental Quality Director Chris Dorrington and Montana Chamber of Commerce President Todd O’Hair. The latter is part of a perennial legislative balancing act.

— House Bill 642, a Casey Knudsen, R-Malta, measure seeking to change the Montana code dealing with exempt wells was amended to include a $150 filing fee, thereby kicking it into another category of bills subject to a later transmittal deadline.

HB 642 changes formulas regarding “combined appropriations,” which establishes a set of criteria new wells have to meet in order to stay within a legislatively established permitting loophole. HB 642 is supported by developers and real estate industry representatives seeking to increase housing supply and opposed by agricultural interests and senior water rights holders, who are concerned that expanding groundwater withdrawals will reduce water available to other users, particularly in rapidly growing parts of the state. The DNRC, which oversees water rights, also opposes the bill. It’s awaiting executive action in the House Natural Resources Committee.

— Senate Bill 240, which would exempt subdivisions with fewer than 14 lots and located at least two miles from “high-quality waters” from Montana Environmental Policy Act review, was transmitted to the House and is awaiting a hearing there. It was drafted at the request of DEQ, which argues that the bill will allow the agency to devote its resources to larger, more complicated environmental projects.

— House Bill 576, a proposal by Rep. Rhonda Knudsen, R-Culbertson, that would change water quality rules related to coal mining, passed out of the House largely on party lines. It would direct the DEQ to classify coal mining activities impacting ephemeral and intermittent streams as a “nonsignificant activity” subject to less stringent environmental review. It garnered support from mining companies and NorthWestern Energy. Environmental groups and ranchers seeing geological and water impacts from mining oppose it.

— House Bill 473, a proposal by Rep. Steve Gunderson, R-Libby, seeking to change the state’s water quality rule for selenium in Lake Koocanusa, a waterway that’s affected by coal mining in Canada, was amended in committee. It now specifies that the state will pursue a rule change only if the U.S. Environ- conversations about predator hunting and trapping. mental Protection Agency decides to toss out the standard for waterborne selenium pollution it adopted two years ago. HB 473 passed out of the House.

Rep. Paul Fielder, R-Thompson Falls, proposed three measures building on wolf-trapping and black bear-hunting bills he successfully introduced in 2021. This session, lawmakers balked at codifying hunting regulations in statute (as opposed to allowing the governor-appointed Fish and Wildlife Commission to set them). Democratic and Republican lawmakers said such measures could encourage the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to keep grizzlies on the endangered species list out of concern that Fielder’s proposals would result in unintentional grizzly deaths.

One bill draft that got plenty of ink in local and national outlets early in the session is still just a draft. As of March 9, a Gunderson proposal titled “revise Montana constitutional language regarding clean and healthful environment” is still on hold. A referendum proposal that would require the approval of both twothirds of lawmakers and a majority of voters to go into effect, it’s subject to an April 3 transmittal deadline.

Wildlife

Predator management is emerging as a prominent theme in the House Fish, Wildlife and Parks Committee and Senate Fish and Game Committee again this session. The prospect of the federal government removing endangered species protections from Yellowstone-area and Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem grizzly bears has been a focal point of lawmakers’

— House Bill 627, House Bill 628 and House Bill 630 narrowly passed out of committee before being rejected by House lawmakers. They would have directed the commission to allow wolf trappers to use neck snares and established a wolf trapping season and black bear hound hunting season in state law.

— A couple of wolf advocate-backed measures stalled in committee. House Bill 779, which sought to restore the Fish and Wildlife Commission’s ability to take wolf management units adjacent to national parks off limits to hunters and trappers, was tabled by the House Fish, Wildlife and Parks Committee during the transmittal week crush, as was House Bill 765, which sponsor Rep. Susan Stewart Peregoy, D-Crow Agency, described as an attempt to eliminate what she calls a “bounty” on wolves authorized by the 2021 Legislature.

Two measures seeking to whet the federal governments’ appetite see page 11