APR sues MTDNRC over bison grazing stall

[Forkyfinder]

American Prairie sues Montana DNRC for bison grazing permits • Daily Montanan

American Prairie says that the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation is illegally blocking grazing permits for its bison.

dailymontanan.com

"In court documents, American Prairie said that it submitted a completed application to the DNRC in 2019, requesting approval for bison grazing on state trust lands. DNRC requires a review under MEPA laws, but the conservation group argues that state law sets out a specific timeline. It argues that the DNRC must complete a public scoping within 60 days of a completed application, and an environmental review with in 90.

According to court documents, neither action has happened — something the agency doesn’t appear to dispute.

However, American Prairie officials say that despite communication to DNRC Director Amanda Kaster and though department officials recommended approving the lease, the agency has not yet acted on the six-year-old application."

 

[R.K.]

So this has been going on since the previous governor was in office.

I wonder who has been dragging their feet on this, and why. I know why the current admin is doing it, but this problem started before that.

 

[COEngineer]

So this has been going on since the previous governor was in office.

I wonder who has been dragging their feet on this, and why. I know why the current admin is doing it, but this problem started before that.

I'm not up to speed. Why is the current admin (I assume you mean the governor's office) dragging their feet?

 

[Wind Gypsy]

I'm not up to speed. Why is the current admin (I assume you mean the governor's office) dragging their feet?

Much of the ranching community (working ranch and mega rich investment/playground) is anti APR and influential with Governor.

 

[R.K.]

I'm not up to speed. Why is the current admin (I assume you mean the governor's office) dragging their feet?

Correct. They are beholden to the cattle/ranching lobby, and have been adversarial to anything involving bison or conservation, going so far as to petition their friend and fellow adversary to conservation (current head of the BLM) to deny grazing permits for state-designated livestock on federal grazing leases. The blatant hypocrisy to illegally target APR and deny a legally required review to deny issuing legally required permits is rather infuriating, from my outside perspective.

 

[Forkyfinder]

Its a strange paradox to me that bison are livestock (by state legislation) but they aren't able to graze state land. Are there any other aninals that are considered livestock that arent able to graze state land?

Further - if the idea is to "protect" the cattle business and manage resources for ag production - why are horses allowed to graze? I would think more state AUMs would be consumed by horses than bison by a sizeable margin.

 

[Laszlo Cravensworth]

Its a strange paradox to me that bison are livestock (by state legislation) but they aren't able to graze state land. Are there any other aninals that are considered livestock that arent able to graze state land?

Further - if the idea is to "protect" the cattle business and manage resources for ag production - why are horses allowed to graze? I would think more state AUMs would be consumed by horses than bison by a sizeable margin.

Cool it with the logic. It's not supposed to make sense.

 

[MTGomer]

APR is being pedantic. (Heavy sarcasm from another thread)

 

[Forkyfinder]

Cool it with the logic.

Some of the stooges i voted for slow walking things like conservation easements (and this) behind a curtain is certainly void of logic.

It's more unacceptable to me to do "nothing" so things don't progress than it would have been to just deny the grazing permit. Hiding behind a "no decision" delay is a chickenshit move only MTs GOP could do.