Steve Daines

My bill, the Montana Land Sovereignty Act, insists that our State and our local communities must be part of this discussion.

Today, on the other side of the Capitol, our friends in the Senate are considering a number of proposals that hold serious threats to our Second Amendment rights. I agree that we need to have a serious conversation about how to reduce…

Last week, I was home in Montana to highlight the important role that natural resources play in our State's economy. In fact, I put 3,000 miles in traveling around our great State. One question I was asked repeatedly was: When will the…

Chairman Hastings, thanks to you and to Mr. Tipton for the opportunity to speak in support of H.R. 678 today. This bill reflects an issue that is of true importance to my home State of Montana. You know, when most people think of our…

Yet loggers are struggling to find work.

We are running out of logs. Last Friday I was at a saw mill. The only logs they had left they were cutting at this mill were burned logs from a forest fire last summer.

I have packed a lot of 2 by 4s and 2 by 6s over my lifetime.

My dad is calling me up--he is still building at 74 years old--saying, 'Steve, lumber prices are at an 8-year high. What is going on?'

So again, I don't know what is going to happen, realistically. This is trying to expose to the American public just how bad the government is managing these natural resources on public lands under the guise of protecting the environment.

Either give the land back to the States, all of it, as they were promised at one time, or give the communities the right to manage the timber around those communities that make a sound investment and keep those communities alive.

Litigation. The Forest Service is afraid to make a move to do anything for fear of litigation.

And most professionals I talk to, including the Chief, they just want to do their job, do what is right for the forest, and do what is right for the rural communities.

91 percent of our harvest comes from private land, just 6 percent from State and tribal lands, 2 percent from Federal lands.

litigation from extreme environmental groups that are shutting down timber harvests.

Would a short-term moratorium on lawsuits for high-risk timber or insect-infested timber--and, by the way, 'insect-infested timber' is D.C.-speak for dead trees.

I am encouraged with your statement that you think there is hope in terms of some efforts to address what has been going on.

Montana is well known for its millions of acres of forestland. As a result, acreage that would normally be privately owned and generating tax revenue to help fund local services is instead locked away by the Federal Government. In 1908…

I arrived here in Washington, D.C., to serve the people of Montana and my country with a bit of a different resume than many folks have here in Washington. You see, I've spent the past 28 years in the private sector working to grow…

One of the best parts of my job is hearing from the people I serve in the great State of Montana. And while 1 million Montanans offer a lot of different ideas and a lot of different perspectives, there is one concern I hear about every…

1,636; that's how many days it has been since the application to build the Keystone XL pipeline was filed. It took Canada just 7 months to approve the pipeline. President Obama has taken 4\1/2\ years. Study after study has shown that not…

We must enact cost-saving reforms to these programs to preserve them for future generations without weakening the critical services.

Balancing the budget, demanding accountability, demanding results, promoting efficiency. These principles are at the core of the success in the private sector.

I believe we need to take this principle one step further by tying it to a balanced budget.

In the private sector, if you do not produce results, you do not get paid.

Our Federal budget has been balanced just five times in the past 50 years. This practice has resulted in our present $16 trillion-plus debt and it is simply unsustainable.