Independent Record: OpEd: Release a Bad Bill
There is a draft bill in Congress called the Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act (H.R. 1581), cosponsored by Rep. Denny Rehberg. This bad bill falsely promises to increase sportmen’s access to public lands, but what it really does is open Montana’s 6.4 million acres of national forest roadless areas to industrial interests. The legislation does nothing to increase sportsmen’s access.
I know from my own long hunting and fishing experience that national forest roadless areas provide the habitat security necessary to maintain the state’s five-week general elk hunting season. These roadless lands also provide a cold water refuge and productive spawning habitat for wild trout in streams like Tenderfoot Creek and the Smith River. Fortunately, these areas are conserved very well under the 2001 Roadless Rule, a multiple-use management plan formulated from years of stakeholder development not just in Montana, but throughout the U.S.
