{"id":17517,"date":"2017-05-08T09:09:38","date_gmt":"2017-05-08T15:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=17517"},"modified":"2017-05-08T09:09:38","modified_gmt":"2017-05-08T15:09:38","slug":"gianforte-favors-review-of-upper-missouri-river-breaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/05\/gianforte-favors-review-of-upper-missouri-river-breaks\/","title":{"rendered":"Gianforte favors review of Upper Missouri River Breaks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Greg Gianforte<\/p><\/div>\n

Republican congressional candidate Greg Gianforte on Sunday endorsed the Trump administration\u2019s ordered review of all 100,000-acre-plus national monuments designated since 1996, including Montana\u2019s Upper Missouri River Breaks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of confrontation with local landowners\u201d when the Breaks was protected as a national monument, Gianforte said during a Q&A on Montana Television Network\u2019s \u201cFace the State\u201d program.<\/p>\n

Former President Bill Clinton designated the 495,000-acre Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument in January 2001, three days before the end of his presidency.<\/p>\n

Most of the area was already managed by the federal government. The designation was cheered by conservation, wildlife and sportsmen\u2019s groups, but was panned by others, including some local ranchers.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s executive order reignited those old debates. The order gave Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, formerly Montana\u2019s lone representative in the U.S. House, 120 days to make recommendations to the president on whether each of 24 monuments should be rescinded or downsized.<\/p>\n

Past presidents have \u201cgone too far\u201d in using the 1906 Antiquities Act to unilaterally protect \u201ccultural, historic or natural resources on federal land that is under threat,\u201d said Gianforte, who is campaigning to fill Zinke\u2019s now-vacant House seat.<\/p>\n

Gianforte said national monuments have become \u201clarge land grabs\u201d and were designated without sufficient local input. Some were \u201cvery popular,\u201d he said, citing Pompeys Pillar. Others, not so much.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetter government occurs when decisions are made at the local level,\u201d he said. \u201cThese monuments have been designated from the top down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gianforte exchanged a rapid-fire Q&A on the Sunday morning public affairs program with MTN reporter Mike Dennison and political analyst David Parker.<\/p>\n

Over the course of 30 minutes, they discussed environmental laws, tax policy, the Affordable Care Act, balancing the federal budget, Syria, Medicare, coal and timber production, and North Korea.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Gianforte reiterated his support for repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cObamacare is broken,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to repeal and replace it. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve said repeatedly. But I will not vote for repeal and replace unless it protects people with pre-existing conditions, brings down premiums, and protects rural access to health coverage.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Dennison\u2019s follow-up question, Gianforte said he couldn\u2019t lay out exactly what provisions should be included in the new health care legislation or whether he would have voted for the bill passed last week by the U.S. House.<\/p>\n

(However, a recording given to the New York Times on Friday found Gianforte telling Republican donors that he was happy the GOP-backed American Health Care Act passed.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no silver bullet,\u201d he said on Sunday\u2019s news program. \u201cThere is a series of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Insurance companies should be able to sell policies across state boundaries, he said. Dennison countered, saying insurance companies already can do just that. Gianforte said, though, the companies need \u201cmore flexibility in how it\u2019s structured.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obamacare \u201cdid nothing about the underlying cost of health care, including prescription drugs,\u201d Gianforte continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe single payer (also called universal health care or universal Medicare) is the solution,\u201d he said. \u201cAs a country, we already spend 20 percent of the GDP on health care. Other nations spend 10 percent to 12 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n

This time, Parker countered. \u201cThose other countries have single payer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Although insisting he would not be \u201cin lock step\u201d with the president on every issue, Gianforte also stood with Trump\u2019s handling of recent foreign crises, including the bombing of Syria following a chemical gas attack by President Assad\u2019s forces.<\/p>\n

There was no need for Trump to ask Congress before bombing Syria, he said. \u201cIf there is consistent ongoing action, then yes, Congress should be involved. But not for a single strike.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assad, Gianforte said, is \u201ctesting\u201d the new administration because the Obama administration backed away from its \u201clines in the sand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who has children knows what this is,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are testing the boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

The larger threat to America, though, is North Korea, Gianforte said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a wing nut in charge in North Korea who is actively pursuing intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, and he wants to send them toward America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dennison asked for Gianforte\u2019s thoughts on whether Trump should be professing his admiration for brutal dictators and authoritarian leaders in Turkey, the Philippines and Russia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to take into account it\u2019s a messy world we are living in,\u201d came the candidate\u2019s reply. \u201cThe president is building relationships with all the neighbors and bringing all diplomatic forces to bear to resolve this crisis (in North Korea) \u2013 and that\u2019s the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gianforte touched on several areas of environmental policy. He said that in 18 months of traveling Montana (\u201cover 77,000 miles\u201d), first as the GOP candidate for governor and now as the party\u2019s House candidate, the No. 1 issue has been over-regulation by the federal government, particularly environmental regulations.<\/p>\n

Now, Trump is taking action to address those concerns, according to Gianforte. The new president has ordered a review of the Clean Power Plan, restarted construction of the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines, and wants the largest national monuments studied, rescinded or resized.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do believe we\u2019ve seen overreach with our environmental regulations,\u201d Gianforte said, specifically mentioning protection of the sage grouse. \u201cThere are way too many rules coming out of Washington. I believe many of these violate the 10th Amendment, which is state\u2019s rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Gianforte said he does not support proposals for two gold mines in the Paradise Valley, just north of Yellowstone National Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve met with the local community, and there is near universal opposition to these mines,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I came out against permitting the proposed mines\u201d in Jardine and Emigrant.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy commitment to Montanans is that I\u2019m not going to Washington with any particular ideology. I have principles, but I\u2019ll listen to what they want on the issues,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The special congressional election is May 25. Also on the ballot are Democrat Rob Quist and Libertarian Mark Wicks. Absentee ballots were mailed to voters last week, and are also available at county election offices.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on\u00a0Missoula Current<\/a>, an independent online newspaper. You can reach reporter Sherry Devlin by email at info@missoulacurrent.com. To subscribe to Montana Today, a daily email alert listing top stories on Missoula Current and Last Best News, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican congressional candidate Greg Gianforte on Sunday endorsed the Trump administration\u2019s ordered review of all 100,000-acre-plus national monuments designated since 1996, including Montana\u2019s Upper Missouri River Breaks. \u201cThere was a lot of confrontation with local landowners\u201d when the Breaks was protected as a national monument, Gianforte said during a Q&A on Montana Television Network\u2019s \u201cFace […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":150,"featured_media":17518,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,14],"tags":[1277,335,5827],"class_list":["post-17517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-montana","category-news","tag-bill-clinton","tag-greg-gianforte","tag-upper-missouri-river-breaks-national-monument","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/150"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17517"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17520,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17517\/revisions\/17520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}