Can you or someone elaborate? I know Daines is still on the fence with LWCF.
rg
A worthwhile history recital of land conservation in the norther Yellowstone ecosystem and evidence of the influence hunters have in these kind of discussions.
Burlington Northern, being originally a railroad company was granted millions of acres of land in the 1800's to put in the railroads. In many places, they were given every other section of land where the railroad was installed.
Roll forward 100 years and B-N formed a subsidiary called Plumb Creek to hold and manage all of its lands. Plumb Creek was charged with managing these lands for profits and to maximize shareholder returns. Hunters loved Plumb Creek, as they allowed free public hunting access.
Along comes a guy called Tim Blixeth and Big Sky Lumber. Yeah, the same Tim Blixeth who founded the billionaire neighborhood called the Yellowstone Club. Blixeth and his company buy most the Plumb Creek lands in the Madison and Gallatin Ranges. If you could have seen a map at the time, the lower elevation of the northern ends of these two mountain ranges were a big checkerboard pattern.
In short order, Mr. Blixeth notifies people that they will start closing these former Plumb Creek lands. That is a lot of land. I think close to 80,000 acres.
Even worse, he is going to close access across those lands that will get us to the public lands in the heart of the hunting grounds. That public land to be closed to access is probably three times the amount of deeded acreage.
Panic time. Blixeth leaves some lands open for a while, but to get the Forest Service and politicians to move, he says he will start closing all lands and access across all lands.
In two phases, we complete the Gallatin Land Exchanges. Baucus uses his position in the Senate to fund the first exchange. That is paid for with LWCF money and some timber receipts. The first exchange, around 1995, takes care of about 100,000 acres of access.
Blixeth is now really putting the pressure on us. He wants the public lands that sit on the SW side of Lone Peak. His plan is an exclusive development/ski area there. Since he holds a lot of access cards, so as part of the Gallatin II exchange in 1997, he gets that land.
In exchange, he gives up most of the rest of his holdings in the Madison Range, most of Swan Creek, and most of Squaw Creek. He also gets some of the Bangtails, as we do not have enough values to balance out the exchange values.
R-Y Timber wants in on the deal to unload some of their landlocked parcels, so they exchange some of their lands for some timber receipts. Yanke of R-Y sees more value in timber than landlocked parcels he will have a difficult time accessing/logging. The big cuts you see in the north Bridgers and the Bangtails are remnants of this deal.
When all is said and done, access in the Gallatin and Madison Ranges are consolidated into public ownership. Hundreds of thousands of acres of land are now kept accessible, even though we had to give up the lands now in the Yellowstone Club and some of the north Bridgers and much of the Bangtails. All in all, a great deal for hunters.
It was all funded with LWCF money, some FWP money, and timber receipts. Many in the environmental community are upset that some of the lands we got had been logged and that some lands would get logged in the future to pay for the balancing of values. The hunters really didn't care about the logging, as we had saved the access for future generations and trees grow back, land doesn't.
Baucus and Senator Conrad Burns, "Mr. No Net Gain," worked together in a way you would never see opposing parties work today, and as a result, they got the LWCF funding for both of these exchanges. Again, without hunters working on this deal and getting face-to-face time with those two senators, I doubt the Gallatin exchanges would have accomplished much, if anything at all.
The hunters were lead by two local rod and gun clubs - Gallatin Wildlife Association and Headwaters Sportsmens Association. RMEF was critical to the effort,using their national presence to speak on our behalf.
After that, the last remaining parcel in the Madison Range was Taylor's Fork, a property held by David Brask. He did not agree to sell/trade until 2004, at which time, the Trust For Public Lands put together an option to by out Brask and his approved subdivision in the middle of Taylor's Fork. TPL and RMEF lead the charge to raise money that could close the deal that was struck with Brask. Again, hunters brought Baucus and Burns, into the mix. Both those guys did great work to get LWCF funding for that deal also.
The two national groups who did the heavy lifting were TPL and RMEF. It was sad to see the environmental groups climbing all over each other to try take credit for the deal and clamoring for a place at the podium when the ceremony for Taylor's Fork was held. None of them would give Burns the slightest bit of credit for the deal, even though he really pushed back on some of his own party critics to make sure that the funding stayed in the USFS budget. I had lunch with him that day and it was one of the most entertaining lunches in a long time. I had drawn a Breaks elk tag and found out the day before, so much of the visit was about my preference for elk and his for beef. You could tell he was truly interested in my passion for hunting, even if it wasn't part of his life experience.
I feel like the old gray-beard telling this story, but it is worthwhile. These two, along with Taylor's Fork, OTO/Dome Mountain, and Royal Teton, were amazing access and habitat projects where hunters made a huge difference. And in all those instances, both MT Senators delivered, caring not about their political divisions, rather wanting to continue the legacy of MT delegates showing national leadership on land conservation issues, the same as did Mansfield, Metcalf, etc.
Summary - Without LWCF and Senators listening to hunters, many of the elk and bears posted on this site would have been off limits without a big checkbook. Which to me, is all good.
Not sure how the people of Montana are at fault here to the tune of loosing 18560 acres (29 sections). 
