FREE RANGE REPORT
It was a misguided effort, if not, a “false flag operation.” In other words, it was either a major blunder or an intentional deception aimed at persuading Montanans that their public officials are working for their benefit when they are actually working against them.
Montana’s Politicians Have Been F.O.S. Re National Bison Refuge Transfer to CSKT
By Delbert (Skip) Palmer
Several colorful phrases come to mind when I think about how to describe the uncanny ability of Montana’s public officials, many of whom are politicians, to deceive their constituents about an issue as important as the National Bison Range. The first two that come to mind are “two-faced” and “speaks with forked tongue.” The Collins, Cambridge, and Merriam Webster Dictionaries define these phrases as follows: says one thing and means or does something else; intent to mislead or deceive; hypocritical, false, deceiving, treacherous. The Merriam Webster and MacMillan Dictionaries, meanwhile, define the third phrase – F.O.S. (“full of shit”) – as not telling the truth; lying; not true. I trust that readers can identify which of their Montana federal, state and county public officials fall within one or more of these definitions.
A quick and dirty litmus test for determining the “fake” honesty of these public officials and politicians is to confirm who among them had known, but failed to divulge, that the new Daines-Tester CSKT Water Compact bill (S.3019) would be introduced into the U.S. Senate less than a week after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“USFWS”) had released their long-anticipated Comprehensive Conservation Plan (“CCP”) and Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”) on the National Bison Range (“NBR”) wildlife refuge.
The NBR has long been considered the crowned jewel of the National Wildlife Refuge System. I know because I worked for the USFWS as a member of the NBR maintenance department for 16 years.
Montana’s congressional delegation, and a group of Montana State and County officials have remained conspicuously silent about the USFWS’ longstanding effort to support proposed federal legislation the agency assisted the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (“CSKT”) in drafting, at the Montana congressional delegation’s request, that would direct the USFWS to transfer the NBR to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to hold in trust for the benefit of the CSKT. The Daines-Tester bill, in other words, would remove this unique wildlife refuge from the public trust where it has remained since 1908 to be held permanently for the benefit of ALL Americans, and place it into a tribal trust for the benefit of a single Native American tribe.
Based on the accompanying chronology of events surrounding the proposed NBR transfer to the CSKT, as revealed in the Department of Interior’s responses to several Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) requests, Montanans, and for that matter, ALL Americans across our great Nation, should express outrage and pointedly ask the congressional delegation from Montana and the congressional delegations representing their own States the following questions:
- How could they think, let alone, consider, without the American public’s informed consent and constructive input, giving away the pristine National Bison Range National Wildlife Refuge System lands, wildlife, natural resources and appurtenant water rights which the entire Federal government holds in trust, in perpetuity, for the benefit of ALL current and future generations of Americans, to a single Native American Tribe?
- How could their enactment of S.3019 Section 13 into law without informed public consent and constructive input, notconstitute a breach of the public trust(legal and fiduciary) obligations and duties the Federal government owes to ALL Americans?
- How could they look the other way when USFWS and Montana State and County officials who prepared the Final CCP and Final EIS on the NBR legitimately justify, on uncertainty grounds, their failure to evaluate as a possible “alternative” the more than remotely possible introduction into the U.S. Senate of the CSKT’s draft NBR transfer legislation as part of the newest version of the CSKT Water Compact bill seeking federal ratification of Montana state law version of that bill?
- How could they consider the CSKT’s demonstrated use of the National Bison Range refuge as other than an incompatible non-wildlife-dependent use requiring a careful evaluation of the potential environmental and public safety effects of such a transfer?
In addition, just as Ricky Ricardo would often say to his wife Lucy when her stories were not believable, Montana State and County officials, including Neil Anderson of the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Lake County Commissioners Gale Decker and David Stipe, and Lake County Attorney Walter (Wally) Congdon, “got some ‘splainin’ to do.” They each should be plainly asked at a public meeting the following questions:
- How it is possible that you did notknow anything about the ongoing long-term legislative efforts of the Montana congressional delegation at the time you participated in the USFWS’ development of the Final CCP and EIS as a preparer?
- How is it possible that the public announcement and introduction into the U.S. Senate of the new Daines-Tester CSKT Water Compact bill containing the NBR transfer provision only six days after the USFWS NBR CCP and EIS had been publicly released was merely a coincidence?
- Why, in light of the new NBR transfer legislation recently introduced into the U.S. Senate, should the USFWS’ failure to include the possibility of the NBR’s transfer to the CSKT a possible “alternative” in the agency’s CCP and EIS, notbe considered a breach of the settlement agreementthat PEER had previously reached with Service?
The January 29, 2020 FOIA request the Lake County Commissioners filed with the Offices of U.S. Senator Daines “to get documents related to the senator’s proposed Montana Water Rights Protection Act,” was likely choreographed by Lake County Deputy Attorney, Wally Congdon. It was a misguided effort, if not, a “false flag operation.” In other words, it was either a major blunder or an intentional deception aimed at persuading Montanans that their public officials are working for their benefit when they are actually working against them. Surely, Attorney Congdon knows that because Congress is not subject to FOIA, any FOIA request seeking documents exchanged between a federal agency and a congressional office must be filed with the federal agency!
In addition, there is the more recent April 13, 2020 email dispatched to concerned Montana citizens by Lake County Commissioner Gale Decker, accompanied by a draft letter, dated March 13, 2020, that the Lake County Board of Commissioners had supposedly “sent to each member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee” “to keep pressure on the Senators.” It, too, has the hallmarks of another “false flag” operation likely choreographed by Lake County Deputy Attorney, Wally Congdon. If the County Commissioners had truly wanted to convince voters they were doing something in an effort to stop the CSKT Water Compact and NBR transfer to the Tribes, why wouldn’t they have simply provided a copy of the signed letters they had sent to congressional committee members? Why didn’t the Commissioners also send a letter to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works which has jurisdiction over the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and their stewardship of National Wildlife Refuges such as the NBR? Why, also, would the Lake County Board of Commissioners have sent a letter to Democratic committee members complaining how the availability of taxpayer monies in the Settlement Trust Fund “goes against an important principle of the Republican National Platform for 2020”? Furthermore, why didn’t the Board of Commissioners’ letter request a meeting (physical or virtual) with congressional committee members to further explain their grievances? And, lastly, why did the Lake County Board of Commissioners fail to demand immediate action from Senate Indian Affairs Committee members, rather than merely “urge them to vote ‘no’ on the Montana Water Rights Protection Act?
With advocates like these, who needs enemies? In the end, only the truth can set those public officials who are F.O.S. about the National Bison Range transfer to the CSKT, free!