1. United States
2. Mont.
3. Letter

Block the River Runs Through It Act. Rep. Zinke's bill would open 330,000 acres of National Forest land to commercial logging, new roads, and motorized recreation — including a 70-mile motorized loop through sensitive wildlife habitat. That's not conservation. It would degrade the primary elk migration corridor between the Bob Marshall Wilderness and winter range, and open roadless areas like Lincoln Gulch, Crater Mountain, and Wales Creek Wilderness Study Area to development. New roads mean sediment pollution choking the waterways that bull trout and cutthroat trout depend on. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has made clear that any decrease in conservation threatens grizzly bear survival and recovery. This bill makes exactly that trade-off. The Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act offers a fundamentally better approach — one that prioritizes habitat connectivity and wildlife protection over motorized recreation. That's the standard worth fighting for, not a bill that opens more roadless acres than it protects.