Tag Archives: montana

A Snapshot of Drilling on a Park’s Margins – NYTimes.com

3 Mar

The Anschutz Exploration Corporation has been drilling exploratory wells for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, immediately east of Glacier National Park, for over two years.

Now a subsidiary of the company, Xanterra Parks and Resorts, is bidding on a contract to operate all concessions in Glacier National Park for 16 years.

That Anschutz could gain another foothold in Glacier has rattled environmentalists and concerned tribal groups and citizens, who already worry that the drilling next door could permanently alter the landscape. Glacier is home to three of the nation’s largest watersheds and to endangered species, including grizzly bears.

via A Snapshot of Drilling on a Park’s Margins – NYTimes.com.

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The biggest threat to Citizens United – Campaign Finance – Salon.com

6 Jan

Montana has had on its books since 1912, which was passed by citizens initiative, a law called The Corrupt Practices Act. And what The Corrupt Practices Act did is essentially said that corporations cannot make expenditures or contributions in the political system. And we got there because our history was rooted in corporate domination of elections. It was in 1906 that a paper in Montana said, “the greatest living question of the day is whether corporations shall control the people or the people shall control the corporations.” And at the time the Copper Kings as they were called, those mine (owners) that mined copper in Montana literally owned our legislature, our judges, our local county planning boards. It was all throughout and it was at one point called “the Montana situation.”

So we have a real background in the unfortunate effects of unlimited corporate expenditures in elections and as a result when Citizens United came down dealing with federal law and federal elections it wasn’t something that I wanted to just give up on the last hundred years in Montana. We defended out laws, right before New Year’s Eve the Montana Supreme Court said that our ban on corporate expenditures remains constitutional.

via The biggest threat to Citizens United – Campaign Finance – Salon.com.

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