Zinke launches last-minute wilderness and recreation bill

In the waning days of his Montana congressional career, Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke has picked up a wilderness and recreation proposal that has eluded Democrats for more than two decades.

Zinke announced his A River Runs Through It Act, named after the timeless Montana novella, on Wednesday at a crowded gathering in the Missoula barn of outfitter Smoke Elser, who was instrumental in Montana’s early wilderness legislative campaigns. The audience included leaders of snowmobile and motorbike clubs, wilderness advocacy organizations and other groups representing the Seeley Lake and Lincoln communities that have been pushing the project since at least 2006. Zinke, who served as Interior secretary during President Donald Trump’s first administration, was joined at the meeting by Tracy Stone-Manning, who held the same post during President Joe Biden’s administration. 

“Among Montanans, we can meet at the fenceline and we can work things out,” Zinke told the gathering. “Let’s not be distracted by national vindictiveness or one side or the other. It makes a difference when we work together.”

Zinke plans to introduce the bill next week, and will have roughly 40 working days before the House of Representatives adjourns its 2026 session. That leaves little time for committee hearings or Senate review. And since he announced in March that he is not seeking reelection, someone else would have to carry the bill next session if it doesn’t pass in this one. Nevertheless,  Zinke said he expects to have a chance to attach it to an end-of-year legislative push.

“There is a lands bill shaping up,” said Zinke, referring to a potential public lands omnibus bill that occasionally packages together numerous congressional proposals at the end of a session. He cited some popular bills, including the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the Great American Outdoors Act, which need reauthorization and could end up carrying his bill as a last-minute amendment.

“This is the most successful collaboration I’ve been involved with,” said Russ Ehnes, president of the Montana Trail Vehicle Riders Association and part of the community steering committee backing the bill. He was echoed by outfitter Jack Rich, who noted he represented the Montana Wilderness Association, Montana Snowmobile Association and Montana Outfitters and Guides at one time or another during the debates. John Maclean, son of  “A River Runs Through It” author Norman Maclean, sent a note approving of the bill’s title and mission on the 50th anniversary of the famous novella.

The River Runs Through It bill designates about 130,000 acres of new wilderness, mostly along the southwest fringe of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex between Seeley Lake and Lincoln. It also includes a relatively new wilderness proposal for 30,000 acres around Nevada Mountain south of Lincoln.

The bill releases the Hoodoo Mountain and Wales Creek Wilderness Study Areas south of Lincoln, returning those landscapes to regular Bureau of Land Management forest status. Those WSAs were also targeted for release in bills brought by Montana Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Troy Downing. And it redesignates 181,000 acres of inventoried roadless area between Seeley Lake and Lincoln as forest restoration areas where logging and other commercial activity can occur.

In a call back to former Sen. Max Baucus’s Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act of 2013, Zinke’s bill adds about 60,000 acres of Conservation Management Areas north and east of Lincoln. CMAs are not as protective as wilderness designations, but emphasize public access, grazing and wildlife conservation. Baucus’ bill was the last wilderness addition in Montana to clear Congress and become law.

Another 60,000 acres would be designated for recreation, especially snowmobiling, mountain biking and off-road vehicle use. Those areas are on the southern edge of the Mission Mountain Wilderness west of Seeley Lake, and along the western faces of the Swan Mountains between Seeley Lake and Ovando.

The bill expands on a 20-plus-year collaboration which former Montana Sen. Jon Tester pushed throughout his three terms, first as the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act and later as the Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Act. Those bills cleared committee hearings in various forms, but never made it to congressional passage.

Zinke’s bill expands on Tester’s Blackfoot-Clearwater community focus by adding proposals from the Lincoln Prosperity Proposal, a similar collaboration of wilderness and recreation groups in the Lincoln vicinity. 

“I’m pretty confident that the Montana senators and congressmen will all get on board and push it through,” Zinke said at the gathering. “We have a bill that’s largely supported across different parties.”

Zinke declined to name any potential cosponsors of the bill on Wednesday, but added he thought he could get his Montana Republican colleagues on board.

“I’m not going to speak for him, but I know Daines hunts, and (Sen. Tim) Sheehy hunts, and so does Troy,” Zinke said. “And they recreate. So I would venture to say they’re going to be supportive.”