Daines Hides. We Show Up.

While Daines is busy protecting pedophiles in D.C., I spent the last month traveling to Troy, Eureka, Libby, Thompson Falls, and spending time in the quiet shadow of the Yaak.

All of these places in Montana sit within one of the most ecologically rich and economically strained regions in the state. Families here are doing their best with limited opportunity.

Montanans are resilient but they're not indestructible.

Tourism from Canada has dried up and with it much of the seasonal income in the communities near the border. A legacy of promises broken by mining companies lays heavy like the residue of pollution from generations of industry.

Today, people are just holding on.

In Troy, I was invited to tour a grizzly bear habitat restoration project being executed through Hecla mine. The project connects public and private land so bears can move safely in one of the most biologically significant areas of the state.

This conservation effort is partly the result of a legal requirement tied to hardrock mining. In 2018, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service required Hecla Mining Company to mitigate the previous impacts of previous mining in the region which spanned occupied grizzly bear habitat.

Under the Endangered Species Act, Hecla was obligated to secure and protect habitat elsewhere to offset the fragmentation that previous mine operations affected and any fragmentation that future potential exploration operations may cause.

As part of this mitigation, the grizzly protection non-profit Vital Ground Foundation and regional partners stepped in to help acquire and conserve private land parcels critical to wildlife movement.

One of the advocates of this work has been Chas Vincent, a former Republican State Senator from Libby, and his father Bruce, a longtime logger and land steward.

The effort secured and selected land in the corridor and the Vincent's logging company started work to create habitat by thinning forest overgrowth. The Vincents also maintain trail cams and monitor wildlife.

Both father and son told me plainly on a recent tour of their forest work: without the Rocky Mountain Research Station, their work gets harder and the forest loses its memory.

Founded in 1935, the Western Montana-based Rocky Mountain Research Station has historically led wildfire and forest health research across 12 states. It's now being dismantled. The president's budget cuts have ended funding for the entire Forest and Rangeland Research program.

As layoffs are underway, Montana’s capacity for wildfire planning and ecological monitoring is vanishing.

Without research station staff, those working on the restoration project say forest work to rebuild and conserve habitat lacks data and continuity.

Though Hecla has applied for permits to further explore potential viability of mining in the region, the new exploratory projects in the area are not planned to offer permanent employment.

At a recent meeting on mine property, I told company executives in Troy that communities need more than minimal compliance if exploration projects proceed. If Hecla wants to operate here, they must invest in local schools, health care, and long-term resilience.

Northwest Montana is not asking for handouts. They're asking for fairness. I will fight for both: real science on the ground and a fair deal for every town along the Kootenai.

While mining companies may not be legally required to support the communities where they profit, the grizzly conservation project shows why moral responsibility must go beyond what the law demands.