The following OpEd by ConservAmerica Fellow Rob Sisson appeared in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle on January 11, 2025:
In the spring of 2019, one of my last acts as president of ConservAmerica, the national organization dedicated to conservative, common-sense conservation solutions, was to help launch the Roosevelt Conservation Caucus (RCC).
The RCC is a bicameral caucus of conservative lawmakers who approach environmental and conservation issues with the same frame of reference. One of the founding members and current Co-Chair of the RCC is our own Sen. Steve Daines.
During the first Trump Administration, Sen. Daines partnered with Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to push the landmark Great America Outdoors Act through Congress and to the president’s desk.
In the 60-year history of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), it had only been funded to its statutorily approved level of $900 million per year two times. It was typically funded at less than $300 million per year. The Great America Outdoors Act accomplished something the conservation community had attempted for six decades — that is, full funding for LWCF.
And it took a Republican senator from Montana to get it done.
Just in the past year, Sen. Daines authored two conservation bills signed into law: The Gateway Communities and Recreation Act, which helps address infrastructure and housing challenges in communities located near national parks and public land recreation sites, and the Direct Hire to Fight Fires Act, which streamlined staffing practices to combat wildfires.
Sen. Daines was also the leading Republican sponsor for the Stop the Spread of Invasive Mussels Act, the Forest Service Flexible Housing Partnerships Act, the More Parking, More Hiking Act, and the Simplifying Outdoor Access for Recreation (SOAR) Act, which were signed into law during 2024.
As a former Trump-nominated Commissioner to the International Joint Commission (IJC), which oversees water shared by the United States and Canada, I am so thankful for Sen. Daines’ leadership in appropriating $46 million to repair the St. Mary-Milk River canal project included in the recent end-of-year spending package. The St. Mary-Milk River canal is the lifeblood of the Hi Line, providing irrigation to ranchers, water to communities for municipal, sanitary, and fire-fighting purposes, and for wildlife habitat.
Sen. Daines was also key in obtaining funding for the ongoing IJC study to determine future appropriations of water between U.S. and Canadian interests (appropriation of water from this system was one of the reasons the two nations signed the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909).
Already in 2025, Sen. Daines has introduced the America the Beautiful Act to reauthorize the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund that was created in his historic Great America Outdoors Act. Enacting this legislation is vital to all of us who recreate on public lands and for our communities where parks and public lands are vital economic engines.
Sen. Daines is one of the great conservation champions in Congress today. With the immense pressure of increasing visitation to our parks, lands, and gateway communities, the continuing threat of wildfires, and vast potential for community-building forest-based economies, I’m thrilled Sen. Daines is our senator and a nationally recognized leader on conservation issues.
Reference link: https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/opinions/guest_columnists/rob-sisson-sen-steve-daines-is-our-common-sense-conservationist/article_6019561a-ceba-11ef-ba65-23e3508cbaa8.html