MONTANA

US plans new forest protections, ID’s old-growth inventory

BILLINGS – The Biden administration has identified more than 175,000 square miles of old growth and mature forests on U.S. government land and plans to craft a new rule to better protect the nation’s woodlands from fires, insects and other side effects of climate change, officials said on April 20.

U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands combined have more than 50,000 square miles of old growth forests and about 125,000 square miles of mature forests, according to the first-ever inventory.

That’s more than half the forested land managed by the two agencies, and it covers an area larger than California. Yet officials say those stands of older trees are under increasing pressure as climate change worsens wildfires, drought, disease and insects – and leaves some forests devastated.

Environmentalists said they hoped the inventory and pending rule will lead to new restrictions on logging. But representatives of the timber industry and some members of Congress have been skeptical about President Joe Biden’s ambitions to protect older forests, which the Democrat unveiled last year on Earth Day.

They’ve urged the administration to instead concentrate on lessening wildfire dangers by thinning stands of trees where decades of fire suppression have allowed undergrowth to flourish, which can be a recipe for disaster when fires ignite.

The age used to determine what counted as old growth varied widely by tree species – from 80 years for gambel oaks, to 300 years for bristlecone pines.

The most extensive old growth forests are dominated by pinyon and juniper trees and cover a combined 14,000 square miles, according to the inventory.

The inventory excluded federal lands in Alaska where an old growth analysis was ongoing.

Legislators shelve GOP proposal to alter US Senate primary

BILLINGS – A proposed change to next year’s Montana U.S. Senate primary that was aimed at undermining Democratic Sen. Jon Tester’s reelection chances is likely dead after a state legislative committee shelved the GOP-backed measure on April 19.

Some Republican lawmakers urged on by a GOP lobbyist wanted to alter Montana’s 2024 Senate primary so that only the top two candidates, no matter their party, would advance to the November election.

That would have effectively blocked out third-party candidates, who Republicans blamed for draining away potential GOP votes during past attempts to unseat Tester.

Control of the Senate will be in play during next year’s election. Tester’s seat is one of several that Democrats are defending in Republican-leaning states.

The race’s national importance helped fuel outrage over the bid to change the primary rules. Critics, including Democratic lawmakers and representatives of the Libertarian party, blasted it as a blatant attempt to rig the election.

After Rep. Gregory Frazer moved to table the bill during a Wednesday meeting of the House State Administration Committee, all but one of the committee’s 12 Republicans joined the panel’s six Democrats to vote to shelve the measure.

Montana Libertarian Party chairman Sid Daoud praised Frazer for looking critically at the bill despite a push by Republican leaders to advance it and said Libertarians would remain on watch for attempts to revive the measure.

ARIZONA

Transgender girls go to court over state’s school sports ban

PHOENIX – The parents of two transgender girls in Arizona filed a lawsuit on April 18 challenging a year-old state law banning trans girls from participating in school sports.

Attorneys for the families, whose names are concealed in court documents out of fear for their childrens’ safety, filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Tucson.

The plaintiffs include an 11-year-old who wants to play girls’ soccer, basketball and cross-country, and a 15-year-old volleyball player. In court filings, they are going by the names Jane Doe and Megan Roe.

“The ban’s exclusion of plaintiffs from participating in school sports because they are transgender denies them equal treatment under the law,” attorneys wrote in the 21-page complaint.

The attorneys also argued the law violates the Equal Protection Clause under the U.S. Constitution and Title IX.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, who is a defendant in the challenge, called the lawsuit’s logic “backwards.” It’s about fairness, he added.

In March 2022, then-Republican Gov. Doug Ducey signed off on limiting trans girls from participating in school sports alongside cisgender girls. The issue became front and center in Republican-led statehouses since Idaho lawmakers passed the nation’s first sports participation law in 2020. Prior to that, no state had ever passed a law regulating gender-designated youth sports.

NEW MEXICO

State office plugs more than 200 abandoned oil, gas wells

ALBUQUERQUE – More than 200 inactive oil and natural gas wells in New Mexico have been plugged as land managers have tried to crack down on producers as part of an accountability and enforcement program in one of the top producing states in the U.S., officials said on April 19.

The State Land Office estimates it has saved taxpayers at least $20 million in cleanup costs over the past few years by having the industry pick up the tab.

The Land Office’s efforts are separate from work elsewhere that’s being funded by the federal government.

Congress in 2021 committed $4.7 billion in infrastructure spending to plug and reclaim orphaned wells and associated sites. The Bureau of Land Management awarded its first contracts last summer for work in Utah and California, while New Mexico and other states were awarded multimillion-dollar grants.

In New Mexico, the State Land Office says its work has resulted in a nearly 20% decrease in the number of abandoned wells on state trust lands, property that was allocated to New Mexico by the federal government more than a century ago so it could be used to raise revenues for public schools, hospitals, colleges and other public institutions.

Several inactive wells dated to the 1980s, including one that hadn’t produced anything since 1982. Another well that went on the inactive list in 2020 had been drilled in 1925.

Plugging and cleanup costs can vary widely, ranging from $40,000 for one site to more than double that depending the depth of a well and contamination levels, according to the State Land Office. Although the number of inactive wells fluctuates, agency officials have identified just over 1,000 chronically inactive wells on state trust land.

McCarthy attends rally in key swing district

LAS CRUCES – Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy attended a rally in southern New Mexico on April 10 for former U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell as the GOP tries to flip a congressional swing seat back to GOP control in 2024.

Herrell lost her 2022 reelection bid to Democratic Congressman Gabe Vasquez in the majority-Hispanic district along the U.S. border with Mexico.

The state’s Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces was the backdrop for Herrell’s announcement that she will seek the Republican nomination again, amid supportive appearances by state legislators.

Republicans have nominated Herrell on three previous occasions to seek the 2nd District seat. She lost an open race in 2016 and returned in 2018 to unseat former Congresswoman Xochitl Torres Small.

Republicans are separately challenging the new outline of the 2nd District in proceedings before the New Mexico Supreme Court.

Herrell last year embraced a conservative platform of strict border security and unfettered support for the oil industry. The district as recently redrawn stretches from the U.S. border with Mexico across desert oilfields and parts of Albuquerque.