Republican candidate for governor Greg Gianforte encouraged voters on Thursday to cast ballots for the top five state government officials with the fate of the Montana Land Board in mind.

Gianforte made his comments at a lunch in Kalispell hosted by the Glacier Country Pachyderm Club.

One of the state’s powerful committees, the Montana Land Board oversees the management of the state’s 5.2 million acres of school trust lands. The board consists of the governor, attorney general, commissioner of securities and insurance, secretary of state and superintendent of public instruction.

Gianforte touted his business background during the meeting. He is the founder of RightNow technologies, which was sold to Oracle Corporation for $1.5 billion in 2011. Gianforte said in his campaign across Montana, he’s encountered many business owners, especially those in the natural resources sector, who complain that government regulation is holding back progress.

“One of the first things that I need to do if I’m elected, is that we need to appoint new agency heads, across the board,” Gianforte said. “We have a DEQ where ‘maybe’ has become the new ‘no.’ Think about the Hecla mine over in Sanders County. It’s been 18 years we’ve been waiting on a permit approval. That’s just flat out wrong.”

Gianforte’s suggested shakeup of state government extended beyond just the Department of Environmental Quality.

“We need a landowner in charge of DNRC (Department of Natural Resources and Conservation),” Gianforte said. “We need somebody at FWP (Fish, Widlife and Parks) that can actually bridge the gap between sportsmen and landowners, and we need somebody at the Department of Labor that’s actually had an employee before. This is just common sense.”

In the meeting Gianforte said he supports exporting Montana coal to other countries like Taiwan that want to buy it, and increased state involvement in management of federal lands.

“I also believe our federal forest management has not been working well,” Gianforte said.

He told those in attendance about a proposed federal bill that would allow for pilot projects in which state government helps manage federal lands, though the federal government retains ownership of the land itself.

Gianforte said projects like that might be the way “we can start to demonstrate that we don’t have to burn our forests, we can start to manage them for the benefit of all Montanans.”

Gianforte was accompanied by Matt Rosendale and Elsie Arntzen, Republican candidates for commissioner of securities and insurance and superintendent for public instruction. The trio acknowledged that the last time there was an all-Republican Montana Land Board was 1897, but they also all gave reasons they believe they have a good chance of winning the election.

Rosendale said he thinks people will vote Republican in Montana for the commissioner of securities and insurance because they are fed up with the rising rates of Democrat-backed Obamacare.

“The state auditor who is currently serving is having her legal counsel run,” Rosendale said. “They are the ones that ushered in and lobbied for Obamacare in 2011 when it was first introduced in the state. We stood there and fought against it. We said it’s going to drive up folk’s insurance. It’s going to increase their deductibles. It’s going to limit their options. Each and every one of these things has taken place.”

Clarice Ryan, of Bigfork, told Gianforte that the attention to public land issues was important, especially in what she sees as overreach of the federal government.

“We’ll be taking a close look for all of you to stand up to Washington, D.C.,” Ryan said.

Reporter Megan Strickland can be reached at 758-4459 or mstrickland@dailyinterlake.com.