Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is calling for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to release all of its documentation related to its attempts to draw a circle around nearly six million acres of land in Montana that the agency intends to make into a conservation area and postpone any further action.
The attorney general is concerned about how the land was marked for conservation, as the USFWS made no prior announcements regarding its planning to set aside the land, how it was chosen and that it was hidden from public scrutiny.
Knudsen recently released a statement "demanding the Biden administration’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) provide full transparency and obey the law following the administration’s recent proposal to declare nearly six million acres within Montana – an area larger than nine different states – as a conservation area."
Knudsen specifically noted in his statement that "the proposed conservation area spans five counties in southwestern Montana. However, prior to Sept. 20, nothing about the MHCA appeared on the USFWS website. Additionally, the proposed area contains approximately 500,0000 acres controlled by the State of Montana, but USFWS did not consult Montana state officials on the project."
On Sept. 21, Knudsen sent a letter to USFWS Director Martha Williams pointing out the peculiar nature of how this land was chosen.
He stated it was "most troubling and that "Montanans deserve better than covert deals between federal bureaucrats and conservation oligarchs."
Knudsen's letter goes on to urge the USFWS to release all documents pertaining to the Missouri Headwater Conservation Area and to halt any additional steps until full compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) is achieved.
Knudson further noted in his letter that "the public deserves—and the law requires—a meaningful opportunity to scrutinize a project of this magnitude, especially one that has been orchestrated surreptitiously with special interests.”
In a recent interview with Federal Newswire, Kerry White of Citizens for Balanced Use and a former Republican member of the Montana House of Representatives called conservation easements "the biggest scam that's perpetrated on property owners across the nation."
When asked how a conservation easement could impact the individual property rights of landowners, White said, "You become subservient to the land trust that then holds the development right and other rights depending on the contract. In most cases, they are in perpetuity."
White went on to describe that the details of a contract might limit the number of structures you can build on a property or even take away mineral or water rights.
