Nora Mabie
Missoulian
Rep. Llew Jones on Monday introduced a bill that would change the way applicants draw money from the Blackfeet Tribe Water Rights Compact mitigation account.
Specifically, House Bill 141 would provide a revised statutory appropriation and establish an effective date of July 1, 2023. It has a fiscal note of $2 million and came at the request of the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.
Signed in 2016 by President Barack Obama, the Blackfeet Water Rights Settlement Act allocated $471 million in federal funding for improvements to watersheds and job creation for members of the Blackfeet Nation. The settlement focused on improved water usage on the reservation for supplies, irrigation, fisheries, recreation and other things.
Jones, a Republican representing Conrad, said the original language of the compact did not include certain appropriations. He said the language gaps have affected people and organizations in Pondera County, for example, who looked to the fund to offset impacts of the compact.
Jones explained that the original language did not include the ability to appropriate the corpus, which refers to the body of the investment, but did include the ability to appropriate income and interest to individuals in impacted areas.
“It’s a relatively simple bill,” Jones said at the hearing Monday afternoon before the House Natural Resources Committee. “It simply changes the language such that not only interest and income can be appropriated, but so can the apportions of the corpus as necessary.”
Patrick Yawakie-Peltier, who is representing the Blackfeet Nation during the legislative session, spoke in support of the bill. He said the tribe has discussed the bill with the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and reached an understanding.
No opponents spoke against the bill.
Jones, 60, remarked there are “some advantages to being the old guy in the room.”
“This is much more pleasant than some (discussions) we had back in those days,” he said, alluding to the water compact.
If the bill advances from committee, it will go to the floor for a second reading.
