U.S. Rep. Steve Daines just introduced a U.S. House version of the North Fork Watershed Protection Act that is currently slogging its way through the Senate . . .
U.S. Rep. Steve Daines, R-Mont., on Wednesday formally introduced legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that would block mining and energy development in the North Fork Flathead River drainage on the western boundary of Glacier National Park.
The bill, H.R. 2259, is nearly identical, both in name and content, to its companion bill in the Senate, the North Fork Watershed Protect Act, which Democratic U.S. Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester introduced in February.
The public lands bills seek to furnish permanent protections on more than 400,000 acres of U.S. Forest Service parcels, placing them off limits to hard-rock mining, mountaintop-removal coal mining, and oil and gas development.