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Well, that didn’t take long.
President-elect Donald Trump won’t even take office for another two weeks, but Montana’s Gov. Greg Gianforte has already filed a lawsuit against the federal Department of Interior and the National Park Service over the newly-revised Interagency Bison Management Plan for Yellowstone National Park.
According to Gianforte, who is listed as a plaintiff, and his attorneys at the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the Department of Livestock, Yellowstone’s managers and the Park Service haven’t addressed the state’s concerns over expanding the bison population from 3,000 as agreed to in the 25-year old management plan to more than 5,000 in the new 2024 version.
Among many other things, Gianforte also threatens to reduce the state’s slightly expanded “tolerance zone” for bison that roam outside Yellowstone’s boundaries in search of food when the snows get too deep in the park.
One of the supreme ironies here is the governor’s claim that a shortened public comment period didn’t give the State sufficient time to respond to the draft management plan. Yet, the governor’s own agencies — and particularly the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks — have cut public review and comment periods down to a mere two weeks for most of their projects and plans.
So seems like it’s OK for Gianforte to exclude Montana’s citizens from timely participation in the decisions of state government, but it’s not OK for the federal government to do that to the state. What’s good for the goose is apparently not good for the gander.
Likewise, although it’s known that the park’s elk carry brucellosis and have transmitted it to cattle, there has never been a documented case of bison infecting cattle. Yet, while the elk have no such restrictions on their range, the bison are slaughtered by the thousands as soon as they step over the park boundary.
But here’s the rub — what Gianforte has filed could be referred to as a form of “friendly” or “collusive” lawsuit in which one party sues not to engage in a court battle as adversaries, but to receive a favorable settlement or decision from the “friendly” defendants, perhaps without even going to trial.
In plain language, Gianforte, the Republican governor of red-state Montana isn’t suing the outgoing Biden Democrat administration, he’s suing the incoming Trump administration with the very viable expectation that they will look favorably on his concerns, dump the new plan, reduce the “carrying capacity” back down to 3,000 bison, and accede to each and every one of his demands, including that park bison be vaccinated against brucellosis.
Moreover, since Cam Sholly, the Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, is specifically named as a Defendant, it’s not a stretch to assume the suit is intended to have the incoming Trump administration decide it’s time for Superintendent Sholly to go.
The outcome will once again prioritize the state’s 2 million cattle over the future of the few thousand remaining wild bison. But what might one expect when Christy Clark, Gianforte’s new Director of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, is a Choteau rancher who was formerly his Director of the Department of Agriculture? Toss in the fact that Lesley Robinson, the new Chairwoman of the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission, is also the President of the Montana Stockgrowers Association — and the future is anything but bright for the buffalo.
Unfortunately, this is unlikely to be that last of the “friendly” lawsuits between GOP-led states and the federal government. With Trump in the White House and his cronies running the Department of Justice and agencies, for red states wanting to gut federal regulations it’ll be like shooting bison wandering out of the park.