Montana Editorial Roundup

Great Falls Tribune, Nov. 13, on the Keystone XL Pipeline:

The Obama administration’s decision to deny a permit to the Canadian Keystone XL Pipeline project was wrong.

After all the delays, President Barack Obama said no, through Secretary of State John Kerry, to a pipeline to bring oil from Alberta through a slice of Montana, into other states including Nebraska, and on to Louisiana and Gulf Coast refineries.

The president waited all these years until the conservative Canadian government fell, oil prices dropped precipitously, and he is now a lame-duck president who can do what he wants to do in spite of political fallout. He has appeased environmentalist supporters, but he has also missed an opportunity.

Here is what has been lost in our state by this misguided denial of a permit from the federal government:

-A higher degree of safety for communities. Dangers from oil-car derailments have been well-documented, such as in Quebec in July 2013 when 47 people were killed. Moving oil through the XL pipeline would have been safer than taking Albertan oil by rail or truck.

-Millions of dollars in expected property tax increases in the eastern Montana counties where the pipeline would have been built.

-Confidence the federal government will take an issue, look at it objectively, and render a decision in an appropriate amount of time. Obama spent nearly his entire time in office pondering this issue; that is way out of line.

-Millions of dollars worth of wages that would have been paid in Montana to construction workers hired to take part in the project.

We will concede a few points: first, there wouldn’t be a lot of permanent jobs from the pipeline, which would basically sit there while oil moved inside of it; second, the main purpose of the pipeline would be to send Canadian oil to Gulf Coast refineries to be shipped out of the country to foreign buyers. It’s not really much of a blow to the energy independence of the United States.

That said, what were the reasons to deny the permit? After all, we are friendly with our neighbors in Canada, and one of their companies should expect a fair-minded decision from the United States.

From the editorial board’s perspective, denying the permit will have little if any effect on global warming. The oil sands area of Alberta will continue to be developed, pipeline or not. It’s more of a symbolic move against fossil fuels than a significant move against the worldwide air pollution mess we have gotten ourselves into.

So Obama takes a symbolic but ineffective step, while the safety of our communities plays second fiddle, not to mention the loss of jobs and any property tax boosts in eastern Montana.

The federal government instead should have approved the Keystone XL Pipeline project, with strict regulation so that the pipes would not leak harmful oil onto Montana’s landscape. There would have been jobs, property taxes and a safer way to send oil to be refined.

That would have made sense. This political decision was not a wise one.

Editorial: https://gftrib.com/1j7b7EL

___

Billings Gazette, Nov. 15, on Montana’s school tax credit:

What would you call a school funding program that is first-come, first-served? Does not guarantee equity between public school districts? Offers the same dollar amount of state aid to 7,000 private school students as it does for all 145,000 Montana public school students? Is authorized to grow 10 percent per year in cost? Adds layers of complexity and expense to the Department of Revenue and the Office of Public Instruction?

Lawmakers called it Senate Bill 410.

The bill became law this spring and takes effect on Jan. 1. By that time, the Department of Revenue plans to have a special website set up, just for the tax credits authorized by SB410. According to DOR, people who want to get the tax credit of up to $150 for donating to public or private schools would go to the website and get a tax credit number to include on their state tax return.

Donating is more complicated than writing a check to your favorite school. Instead, the law says the state will reimburse that donation with a tax credit only if the contribution is funneled through the Office of Public Instruction for public schools, or through some sort of scholarship organization for private schools.

The law makes up to $6 million in state funds available to reimburse such donations during 2016: $3 million for public schools, $3 million for private schools. Because there’s a spending cap, those who apply first will get the credit; anyone who applies after the limit has been reached won’t.

If the full $3 million is used one year, the limit will increase by 10 percent for the next year until the law sunsets on Dec. 31, 2021.

The sponsor of SB410, Sen. Llew Jones, R-Conrad, previously worked on good education legislation. He has said his intent with this tax credit is to improve education in Montana. We take him at his word.

But we strongly disagree with this method. At a Senate hearing in March, Jones envisioned local school trustees marshaling supporters to claim tax credits early for their district or region. (Credits don’t go to individual public schools and must be spent on “innovative” programs not already offered.)

On the private side, the law attaches no strings to the use of its scholarships and doesn’t require private schools to be accredited. It does rule out directing tax credit money to “home schools.”

From the beginning, SB410 posed a constitutional conflict. Most private schools in Montana are religious schools. The state constitution prohibits directing state money to religious schools. So the Department of Revenue proposed a rule barring tax credits for contributions channeled to religious schools. Proponents of SB410 - from Montana and out-of-state interest groups - have already threatened to sue if that rule becomes final. The comment period ends Tuesday.

Opponents of SB410 will sue if tax credits are funneled to religious schools. This constitutional question is destined to be settled by the Montana Supreme Court.

Apart from that important question of law, SB410 is poor policy. The legislative majority that approved SB410 appropriated nothing to help public schools maintain or upgrade the facilities that need hundreds of millions of dollars of work statewide. Schools were turned down even in requests for aid to replace leaking roofs and inefficient heating systems.

Montanans who support private, tax-exempt schools can do so without SB410 and receive a tax deduction. By contributing directly to the school, the donor can direct how the money will be used, instead of involving the distribution entity required in SB410. Regular charitable deductions don’t require going to a DOR website to reserve a tax credit number.

“This is a very complicated system for providing public money to public schools,” Madalyn Quinlan, OPI chief of staff, said at the Senate hearing on SB410. “Poorer areas, poor counties are likely to be on the losing end.”

We agree. The law also increases the size of government, necessitating the hiring of two full-time state employees just to implement it. SB410 is neither fair nor efficient - and it’s at odds with the Montana Constitution.

Editorial: https://bit.ly/1NBMfxb

___

The Missoulian, Nov. 15, on protecting sacred land:

In Montana, we talk a lot about our wild places, and the way we talk about them reveals a lot about the strength of our connection to this land, and the value of that connection.

One of Montana’s most sacred places is being threatened by people who do not understand or value that connection.

The Badger-Two Medicine is 130,000 acres of roadless wildlands tucked inside the space created by the boundaries of the Blackfeet Reservation, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex and Glacier National Park, and is home to the same unique wildlife found in those places.

It is sacred land. It is sacred in a figurative sense to the Montanans who treasure its environmental wonders, certainly, but it is literally sacred to the Blackfeet people.

Blackfeet Tribal Business Council Chairman Harry Barnes explained to the Missoulian recently that the Badger-Two Medicine “is the home of our creation story and the Sun Dance, a place that connects us with Creator, our ancestors, and our descendants. It’s where we go to hunt, to participate in vision quests, to gather herbs - to be who we are as people.” And it has been this way, Barnes says, “for over 10,000 years.”

Yet for the past 30 years, the U.S. government has allowed oil development interests to hold drilling leases in this sacred place; leases that never should have been issued in the first place.

Starting in 1982, the Reagan administration sold off nearly four dozen oil and gas leases in the Badger-Two Medicine - for $1 per acre. Needless to say, this happened without the Blackfeet Tribe’s input or participation.

Indeed, the leases were issued with no consideration for any environmental or cultural impacts, eventually leading the Forest Service to prohibit any additional leases and the federal government to suspend the existing ones.

Shamefully, the federal government failed to act on its mistake in the ensuing years. Three decades have passed, and the leases remain suspended.

Meanwhile, thanks to the dedicated efforts of Congress members, conservation groups and the Blackfeet community, many leases have been relinquished voluntarily.

But not all.

And now one lease - held by Sidney Longwell of Louisiana-based Solenex - is the focus of a battle that may determine whether leases covering more than 40,000 acres in the Badger-Two Medicine can be developed.

Solenex holds exploration leases for more than 6,000 acres located near the Two Medicine River. However, 15 of the 18 remaining leases in the Badger-Two Medicine are held by Devon Energy of Oklahoma. The executive vice president and general counsel for Devon, Lyndon Taylor, is a board member of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which is representing Solenex in its lawsuit against the government.

Solenex is arguing that the company has been prevented from using its lease for an unreasonable length of time. Its suit, filed in June 2013, may indeed force the government’s hand. But court battles, like federal action, often take longer than necessary.

The government need not wait another minute to cancel the leases. It has ample evidence to support such a decision, as well as strong encouragement from Montanans.

Recently, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, an independent federal agency that oversees the preservation of historic places on federal lands, issued a finding that the Badger-Two Medicine is essentially “too sacred to drill.” It announced that any oil or gas development would be irreversibly damaging to “the Blackfeet Tribe’s ability to practice their religious and cultural traditions.”

It’s worth noting, too, that the Blackfeet people are not against energy development and have gone out of their way to be accommodating. Oil and gas development is currently taking place on the Blackfeet Reservation, and the tribes offered to find a more suitable place on the reservation for Solenex as well. That generous offer was declined.

Sidney Longwell’s legal argument is correct on one count: The federal government has delayed a decision for far too long. It must act - and act with urgency - to cancel the leases.

We join a long list of individuals and groups in saying so. That list includes six former Glacier National Park superintendents, the National Wildlife Federation, Montana Wildlife Federation, Montana Wilderness Association, CMR Backcountry Horsemen, Missouri Breaks Audubon Society, National Parks Conservation Association, Pikuni Traditionalist Association and Brave Dog Society. And, of course, the Blackfeet Tribe.

That list even includes Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who wrote a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell a few weeks ago recommending that all energy leases in the Badger-Two Medicine Traditional Cultural District be canceled. Interestingly, both the departments of Agriculture and the Interior have been called out in U.S. District Court for taking so long to act on the suspended leases.

Now, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management faces a Nov. 23 deadline to decide whether to initiate the process of lifting the lease suspensions, or canceling them.

The right choice is obvious. The federal government should never have sold off leases on sacred lands in the first place. The only way to make that right is to cancel the leases - all of them - now.

Editorial: https://bit.ly/1MS21Yw