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Montana's Congressman, Denny Rehberg, today announced that legislation introduced by Rep. Rob Bishop (UT-01) would be on the House Floor this week.  H.R. 1505, the National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act would clean up a reckless Senate action and end a bureaucratic turf-war that has prevented U.S. Customs and Border Protection from accessing the physical border on federal lands.  Rehberg is one of 59 other co-sponsors of the legislation, which is endorsed by Borderland Ranchers, the National Border Patrol Council and the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers.

“It’s not acceptable for Montana families to be at risk because federal bureaucrats can’t get along.  Federal land managers are preventing federal border patrol agents from accessing the border on federal lands.  It’s like a bad movie and it’s a sequel.  Back in 2009, the Senate unanimously passed an Amendment to try and address this problem.  It broadly empowered Homeland Security to do just about anything it wanted.  It was too much.  I’ve worked to craft a bill that’s much more measured and reasonable than what our Senators supported in 2009.  We’ve built in protection for legal land use like hunting, fishing and grazing and for Indian tribes.  Those protections were missing from what the Senate-passed.  We’ve limited what Border Patrol is allowed to do, and only let them do it if it helps secure our border.  And we’ve built in a 5-year sunset so if the law gets abused, it goes away.  There’s no good reason for any Senator who supported Senate Amendment 2523 to oppose H.R. 1505.  This bill is much better than what they passed in 2009 despite dishonest political attacks funded by radical interest groups.”