| I got wind of something last week from a few enviros up in Whitefish and Polebridge, that I think is worth a mention.
It was that Sen. Ryan Zinke, the Republican Senator from Whitefish, is so pissed off that neither Tester, Baucus nor Schweitzer nor Rehberg can get their act together and get a final agreement with British Columbia to prevent coal mining on the North Fork of the Flathead River, that he is planning to introduce a bond measure in the legislature to seal the deal, and take the credit.
The issue with the North Fork is that the coal plots on the Canadian side are worth a bloody fortune, while those on the Montana side are not. So, while BC and Montana have struck a deal on a moratorium, it hinges on finding a way to compensate BC for about $17 million worth of sunken costs on their end. So we need to send over the border some federal or state cash, or perhaps some mineral rights.
The word on the street up in the Whitefish, where this issue looms extremely large, is that Zinke will introduce a bond measure in the state legislature to accomplish this. At the bottom of all of this is the filth and effluent and goo that would run off into the river and into the Montana Flathead valley if the Canadian mining were to go forward. Max has been talking about it for 30 years but has never actually done anything about it. Tester doesn't seem much engaged at all. Schweitzer got an MOU signed, but it's not more than a piece of paper that states desire and intent. The essential thing is money.
This move by Zinke would be brilliant. Zinke is a former special forces commander and otherwise a somewhat moderate Republican, often mentioned as a likely US Senate candidate. If he pulled off a deal with British Columbia where the Big Three Dems could not, he could possibly win the Flathead in a statewide election with 70 percent of the vote (the usual 60 plus a few hard-core conservation voters). That, with a respectable showing in Missoula as well (where the issue is also big), would make him formidable.
And beyond that, he'd be able to talk about how he got something done, something big and good. That's not something you don't often hear from a Republican. |
