Montana Governor Fields Questions from Across Montana
Tax Relief, tripling the treated acres of forests, and more- that's just some of the topics Montana's Governor tackled on Wednesday morning.
Governor Greg Gianforte (R-MT) stopped by our radio studios Wednesday morning and fielded phone calls from listeners all across Montana. Several callers were asking about legislation being discussed in the state legislature.
One caller asked about potential increased lodging taxes on vacation rentals like VRBO or Airbnb. Another called asked about the "Defend the Guard Act", which is opposed by veterans groups like the American Legion.
We also talked about forest health, timber jobs, and the threat of wildfires.
Gov. Gianforte: The year before I came into office we managed about 11,000 acres in the state. This past year- we just got the numbers- 31,000 acres treated. But it's still just a down payment. We have 4 million acres that are in urgent need of management. This is why I've put $10 million a year into our budget for enhanced forest management.
The governor also sat down with the head of the Forest Service in Washington, D.C. recently. He talked to the Chief about the need for more "Good Neighbor Authority" agreements between the federal government and the State of Montana.
Gov. Gianforte: A Good neighbor Authority project, if you're not familiar, gives the state the ability to manage federal forests. We just did a 100,000 acre project up on the Kootenai. I asked Chief Moore to work with us to identify 10 more projects of at least 100,000 acres. That would put a million acres under management, and that'd be a big down payment on these 4 million acres.
Click here to read more on the tax relief plans that the Governor hopes to sign very soon.
Full audio of our chat with the governor:
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